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tetsuoh
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Joined: 21 Jul 2010
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 Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 7:35 pm Post subject: Specializations and their unequality. |
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So have any of you guys had a character that toke a specific model of something as their specialization?
I almost never see it - and I understand why, since really it just plan limits you so much more severely than specializing in a type.
On that note - many skills have resoundingly few specializations - if any compared to others.
Has this even been an issue in anyone's games? I must admit it hasnt been in mine but I can see it becoming one between players.
Henry chooses Blaster: Blaster rifles
Adam chooses Blasters: Imperial Arms RX-9 Holdout
Adam loses his holdout during a search when the group gets boarded by imperials and contained.
Henry then proceeds to pick up any generic rifle and carry on happily...
Adam should have known I guess - which is why I wonder how you all handle it......
Since it some skills seem to require in depth selections more akin to forcing players to choosing models than types, I'm wondering if forcing to choose by model would be appropriate. |
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cynanbloodbane
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Joined: 05 Dec 2014
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Location: Cleveland, Go Tribe!
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| Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Only if you force them to take a minimum in the standard skill prior to taking a specialization. IMHO. If you can fly a YT-1300 at 6D even tough you only have a 2D Mech. then you should be able to fly a YT-2000 better than the Ground pounding gun nut with a 2D in Mech. You are a trained freaking pilot for the Force sake!
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tetsuoh
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| Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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We don't allow you to be specialized in something and have more than 3x the Dice Pool that you have in the base skill. - But that's besides the points I was making and asking about.
On that note making them specific only alongside our house rule might be too much. |
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Pel
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Joined: 10 May 2006
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Location: Texas
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| Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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Agreed. A narrowly defined specialization just isn't worth it. "Blaster Pistols" and even "YT-1300 Operation" spring to mind in our group. On the latter, I allowed the full dice roll when flying a YT-2400, but upped the difficulty a bit to reflect the inherent differences. Now for something completely different like an Imperial shuttle, that's just straight "Space Transports", and woe be the player who neglects the base skill and sinks everything into specialization. Makes for a more well-rounded and practical character, IMO.
We also had a player years ago who sunk tons of CPs into "Medium Repeater" and pretty much only used that as his signature weapon. Wookiee character so weight wasn't an issue. All well and good until some situations prohibited use of the street howitzer. We all got a good laugh out of him staring longingly at the 7D he'd dropped into the repeater skill, and then end up rolling 2D+2 for his backup bowcaster. Needless to say, the Wook dodged a lot in that fight, but afterwards the player started diversifying.
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CRMcNeill
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Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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I've got a method I have yet to playtest, but for which I have high hopes. First, I would suggest to the PCs that, if they do take specializations, they make them as broad as possible (within reason. No, you may not specialize in Blaster: Blasters). Secondly, hand out free specialization dice for a piece of equipment the character uses on a regular basis. Han might get Blaster: DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol and Space Transports: Millennium Falcon; Luke would get Starfighter Piloting: X-Wing, and so on and so forth. In addition to keeping your players happy by bribing them with bonus dice, it would also have the effect of cutting back on weapon upgrading by looting. Yes, that light repeating blaster is much more powerful than your trusty heavy blaster pistol, but if you switch to it, you lose that 3D familiarity bonus...
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10406
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:21 am Post subject: Re: Specializations and their unequality. |
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| Pel wrote: | A narrowly defined specialization just isn't worth it. ...woe be the player who neglects the base skill and sinks everything into specialization. Makes for a more well-rounded and practical character, IMO.
We also had a player years ago who sunk tons of CPs into "Medium Repeater" and pretty much only used that as his signature weapon. ...afterwards the player started diversifying. |
| tetsuoh wrote: | So have any of you guys had a character that toke a specific model of something as their specialization?
I almost never see it - and I understand why, since really it just plan limits you so much more severely than specializing in a type.
On that note - many skills have resoundingly few specializations - if any compared to others.
Has this even been an issue in anyone's games? |
No, it has never been an issue in my game. I strongly discourage my players from having their PCs specialize. For one, it just doesn't make sense to the math nerd in me from an economical sense. At one-half the CP cost, you get less than one-half the possible uses of the skill. Even at character creation, it is a slightly better rate of one-third the skill die cost, but most skills are still going to have more than three possible specializations. And then, it is even worse when you later decide that you need to have a higher base skill, because raising the base skill after specializing means the price paid to gain/raise the specialization begins to become lost to the character. I strongly encourage players to not bother with specializations at all until they are absolutely sure they will never want to further raise the base skill. Players in my game learn it is advantageous for PCs to fairly well-rounded.
| cynanbloodbane wrote: | | Only if you force them to take a minimum in the standard skill prior to taking a specialization. IMHO. If you can fly a YT-1300 at 6D even tough you only have a 2D Mech. then you should be able to fly a YT-2000 better than the Ground pounding gun nut with a 2D in Mech. You are a trained freaking pilot for the Force sake! |
| tetsuoh wrote: | | We don't allow you to be specialized in something and have more than 3x the Dice Pool that you have in the base skill. |
I completely agree with these sentiments, but I haven't had to institute a hard rule about the relationship between values of the specializations to the base skills (and attributes) because drastic differences have never occurred. The specialization being allowed to be 3x the base skill still allows the 6D specialization of a 2D base skill. That seems pretty ridiculous to me. 9D spec of a 3D skill? Absurd. I've honestly never even considered NPCs possibly having skill discrepancies like these before reading this thread. If I had to institute a rule, I would probably do a flat difference maximum of 2D.
| cynanbloodbane wrote: | | I require a minimum of one pip allocated in the base skill to be able to have a specialization. My thinking was that a minimum of basic training would be required just to gain a specialization in the first place. |
That's reasonable. I may also even consider that the base skill should be a certain minimum value before it can have any specializations, like maybe 4D.
And I do already flat-out disallow any specializations of Dodge, which I view as a partially instinctive skill.
| crmcneill wrote: | | I've got a method I have yet to playtest, but for which I have high hopes. First, I would suggest to the PCs that, if they do take specializations, they make them as broad as possible (within reason. No, you may not specialize in Blaster: Blasters). Secondly, hand out free specialization dice for a piece of equipment the character uses on a regular basis. Han might get Blaster: DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol and Space Transports: Millennium Falcon; Luke would get Starfighter Piloting: X-Wing, and so on and so forth. In addition to keeping your players happy by bribing them with bonus dice, it would also have the effect of cutting back on weapon upgrading by looting. Yes, that light repeating blaster is much more powerful than your trusty heavy blaster pistol, but if you switch to it, you lose that 3D familiarity bonus... |
Looting has never been a problem in my game. It is completely within the realm of reason that resource-deprived Rebels or smugglers trying to make their way to the next loan shark payment would loot. But looting goes both ways. Outside of PC ships, droids and lightsabers, no technology is really ever any special sort of consideration in my game, so my players learn to not get too attached to that blaster or speeder bike. Vehicles, weapons and other equipment are gained and lost all the time, so it is better to be more generally skilled than overly familiar with specific models. Now I have used the idea of familiarity to slide difficulties down to the bottom of the difficulty ranges for skill attempts, even in cases like Luke being at ease with the cockpit and controls of Incom starfighters based on his familiarity with flying Incom airspeeders.
| tetsuoh wrote: | | Since it some skills seem to require in depth selections more akin to forcing players to choosing models than types, I'm wondering if forcing to choose by model would be appropriate. |
To address the original concern, I don't feel that how general or specialized the specializations are should be up to each player. Each skill should have its own predefined set of specializations, meaning the technological skill specializations may or not be specific models depending on each skill, as predetermined by the GM. Then how general specializations are is not determined by the players and no character has a better advantage than any other.
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Last edited by Whill on Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:50 am; edited 2 times in total |
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:38 am Post subject: |
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For me, i have also not noticed much of an issue, as other than one PC who DID specialize in a specific weapon (xerrol night stinger rifle), everyone else i have seen for blasters/weapon went generic with spec pistol or rifle.
A while back i suggested a possibility of having a specialty OF a specialty for that Blaster - (s) pistols - (SS) DL-44.. Sort of like shadowrun you have base weapon type (longarm, pistols, automatics) then a specialty (rifles, or SMGs for example) then a 'focus" for the specific (like say a H&K MP5)..
On the max value, i have seen some DMs ran it where your spec could not be more than double the base skill, just to keep things getting out of hand.. So a bounty hunter (4d dex, +2d starting into blaster) could not have a spec of say blaster pistol of more than 12d). BUT even that is imo a little much... |
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Naaman
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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One solution might be to make specializations a fixed bonus that you pay for once, and then just raise the base skill and have the specialization bonus added on top of that. For example, if the specialization were in blaster pistols, the character could specialize for, say 5 cp and get a +1D bonus on blaster rolls any time he uses a pistol.
Another option in tue same spirit might be to allow specializations to be purchased on a pip by pip basis, maxing out at, say, 1D+2 (like modifying a weapon) over the base skill. Each pip should, of course be cheaper than raising the base skill, and have a time requirement.
What I can tell you from personal experience is in shooting is that practicing the fundamentals with any weapon will enhance your skill with all weapons. While pistols do have particulars that dont apply to rifles and vice versa (the grip, the application, the sights, the manipulations, etc), the principles are the same (recoil management, good sigjt picture, stable stance, etc).
This also applies to art: practicing one medium will enhance your skill in another medium provided you are workinf in the same style (photo realism, or action comics or whatever). The ability to translate what you see or imagin into a two dimentional image is at the foundation of drawing/painting be it with pastels, pencils, paint, color or grayscale, etc. Each artist has his specialty and preferred medium, but all other things being equal, the better artist will be more successful when he switches mediums than a worse one. |
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tetsuoh
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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hmmm allow the normal specializations at the beginning but all they ever do is add 2D to using that specialization and specialization increases with increases in base skill - just always a 2D bonus.
Allow new specializations to be bought not by increasing skill but for a fixed cost... I like it...
What do all of you think?
If you guys were to use this idea what bonus would you set it at? (1D, 2D etc)
And how much would you have new specializations cost after character creation? (5cp, 10cp?)
we're getting a bit off topic on things though because originally the thought is about the unequality in the choices - I think if I go with this I dont see an issue in everything being kind of general in choice. more type than model. |
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Whill
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | One solution might be to make specializations a fixed bonus that you pay for once, and then just raise the base skill and have the specialization bonus added on top of that. For example, if the specialization were in blaster pistols, the character could specialize for, say 5 cp and get a +1D bonus on blaster rolls any time he uses a pistol.
Another option in tue same spirit might be to allow specializations to be purchased on a pip by pip basis, maxing out at, say, 1D+2 (like modifying a weapon) over the base skill. Each pip should, of course be cheaper than raising the base skill, and have a time requirement. |
| tetsuoh wrote: | hmmm allow the normal specializations at the beginning but all they ever do is add 2D to using that specialization and specialization increases with increases in base skill - just always a 2D bonus.
Allow new specializations to be bought not by increasing skill but for a fixed cost... I like it...
What do all of you think? |
Since the normal cost for raising skills and skill specializations is based on the die value of the skill, if you have a flat cost for a flat specialization bonus, then you have the issue of the a variably valuable bonus as the base skill changes. How would you even price that? If you have a variable cost for a flat bonus, then you have an incentive for PCs to specialize early when its cheap and reap a larger and larger award as the base skill raises. Also, if a character has a flat specialization bonus in blaster rifle but raises his base blaster skill through experience gained from using a hold-out blaster, how do you explain the rifle blaster bonus increasing accordingly? It makes more sense in RAW where raising a base skill does not raise the specialization. IMO, neither one of these flat bonus options are better at handling specializations than RAW, but to each his own.
I feel PCs should be more well-rounded and shouldn't be incented to over-focus, especially early on. Regardless of species, all PCs in my game have exactly 18D in attributes. PCs cannot have less than 2D in any attribute, even if the species minimum is less. PCs cannot have more than one attribute at 4D or higher. Although not a hard rule, I've never had a PC with more than 8D in any skill, and I've never had a PC with more than two 8D skills. Once PCs advance to the point of have one or two signature skills at that level, they heed my advice and spread the CPs around to other skills. And it is very real-world practical too. Inevitable, player group attrition occurs due to schedule or other life changes and you lose PCs from the campaign. The more well-rounded the remaining PCs are, the less lacking the group is in skill set. I've had 8 PCs reduce to 4 PCs over the course of a campaign but the 4 had advanced to cover just about every skill the 8 had had. This can't be done well with a lot of specializing. But I have liked skill specializations being there as options to fine-tune a character concept if really needed.
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tetsuoh
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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In terms of the variable factor and the over specializing at start its simply - make the cost to specialize after creation be an ever increasing cost dependent on the base skill's die code. and since it would affect only one set of the options within that skill - it makes sense. still more worth it to increase the skill from a mathematical point of view.
as for over specializing at start - don't allow it. 1D = three specializations or 1pip = 1specialization. Limit the number any starting character can have to either 2 or 3. |
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Naaman
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| Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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Regarding the increasing value of specializing as skills increase, I see that as a moot point: a character who only ever uses a blaster pistol (without taking a specialization, using only the base skill) will use the same skill to fire any blaster he picks up, such as an EWHB.
Further, the specialization would be limited to a fixed bonus, so it ought to be a fixed cost. Once spent, those cps dont come back, and only function in a specific circumstance. How useful specialization is depends on a lot of factors including character concept, character resources, the campaign setting and, of course, the GM's style of play. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 12:23 am Post subject: |
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| tetsuoh wrote: | hmmm allow the normal specializations at the beginning but all they ever do is add 2D to using that specialization and specialization increases with increases in base skill - just always a 2D bonus.
Allow new specializations to be bought not by increasing skill but for a fixed cost... I like it...
What do all of you think?
If you guys were to use this idea what bonus would you set it at? (1D, 2D etc)
And how much would you have new specializations cost after character creation? (5cp, 10cp?)
we're getting a bit off topic on things though because originally the thought is about the unequality in the choices - I think if I go with this I dont see an issue in everything being kind of general in choice. more type than model. |
If i went with this option, it would be a flat +1d. Same as what you get for Character creation.
As to how much they would cost, i would say the same as raising the base skill 1 pip, +1cp for the first spec you purchase. +2 for the 2nd, and so on.
So if you already had 2 specialties starting out, then the first one in game you acquire would be your third, so it would be 3cp base + what it would have taken to raise that skill itself, one pip.
And i would make it so where you can not gain a specialty in something you do NOT own/have not used, or for the knowledge/perception skills, you don't have access to..
So if you don't say, have access to sith alchemical gear/sith literature, you can't gain the specialty in Scholar :Sith lore.
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tetsuoh
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| Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 12:55 am Post subject: |
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WOW - I don't know why but when I wrote that I was thinking you get 2D... now I wonder why I did that because I know better........*shrugs*
I ment the normal +1D that you get.
*sighs* I blame my recent migraines. |
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Bobmalooga
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| Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:38 am Post subject: |
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The only time that it ever really comes up in any of my games, it had to do with piloting or gun use. I did have a brash pilot that came into the game with X-Wing piloting at 8D and assumed he would be in charge of Rogue Squadron. His personality kept getting in the way...
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