Combining Specializations & Advanced Skills

[CRMcNeill]

Just spit-balling here, but another possible approach to Advanced Skills would be to combine them with Specializations. What I'm picturing is this:

1) Revert to the 1E / D6 Space skill system, with all the original WEG advanced skills folded back into their prerequisites (First Aid into the more general Medicine Skill, all the Engineering Skills into the Repair skills, etc).

2). If a character wants to specialize in something, he pays the Advanced Skill CP cost to earn the specialty at 1D.

3). So, a character can still use the more general skill like normal, but if he uses his Specialization, he stacks his 1D in that Specialization with the base skill.


So, say a character has 5D in Space Transports, but chooses to specialize in YT-1300's, and spends the CP to buy Space Transports: YT-1300 at 1D, he rolls 6D when he's flying a YT-1300, and 5D when flying everything else.

CP costs would stay the same for purchasing pips & dice, but training time would be the same as skills, with the option of improving via in-game use.

This also ties in with a suggestion I made elsewhere as to GMs offering bonus CP to characters who specialize in a specific weapon or type of spacecraft. Han Solo, for example, might get an extra 1D of free Specialization in DL-44 Heavy Blaster and Millennium Falcon
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Naaman]

It seems logical at first glance.

In reality, a lot of the most "advanced" skills are very specific specialties or areas of study.

It's reasonable that advanced skills could/should also be based on narrow fields of study.

As for ground combat skills (and I presume this would carry over into other areas of combat), it seems that specialization in a particular weapon may be a little bit too niche. Personal weapons serve various purposes, and it seems more likely that a character would specialize in whatever form of combat is most suited to his favorite weapon (or, more appropriately, he chooses the weapon most appropriate to his needs/skill set/preferences).

For example, give a SWAT guy a Glock or a CZ P-10 and you'll get the same results either way.

Then, you could do model-specific specializations (such as DL-44), but could also allow for specializations in specific individual weapons or (as you mentioned, spacecraft, such as THE Millennium Falcon) assuming that the individual piece of equipment has been customized at least a little bit to suit the user's personal preferences.

Give the SWAT guy HIS Glock (with custom frame cuts and tuned buffer spring) or some other guy's Glock (all stock, or, even worse, having different modifications), you still get good shooting, but not that razor's edge of performance.

[CRMcNeill]

I could see it going either way, with both broad- and narrow-focus Specializations. If I understand you correctly, a character might specialize in Blasters: Blaster Pistols, but then get an additional specialization on top of that for his particular Blaster Pistol. So a narrow focus specialization would provide high dice levels in a highly specific task, but be useless if the character is unable to use that specific task (doesn't have "their" blaster pistol / lightsaber / starfighter, etc.)

Of course, there would need to be a cap on how many Specializations a character could stack (I'm thinking 1 Broad + 1 Narrow) to keep it from getting out of hand. A rules lawyer could easily take an open-ended version of this rule and stack half a dozen specializations: Blaster: Blaster Pistols + Blaster: Heavy Blaster Pistols + Blaster: Blastech Heavy Blaster Pistols + Blaster: Blastech DL-44 Blaster Pistols + Blaster: [Character]'s Personal DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Naaman]

I was more referring to something like CQB (a potentially "advanced skill") being converted into a specialization and pistol specialization being an extension of that. So, a guy who is skilled in CQB would have a preference for pistols over various other types of weapon covered by the blaster skill.

Then, you could apply a bonus (perhaps just a customization bonus instead of a specialization) for specific individual weapons (such as MY personal pistol with thus and so upgrades).

So basically, if two people both specialize in heavy blaster pistol, with one being a SWAT cop and the other being a hog hunter, they will have very different philosophies on how to get the most out of the same weapon, but specializing in a specific weapon would not allow those philosophies to manifest mechanically. Though that may be immaterial for your purposes.

[CRMcNeill]

So, more like parallel Specializations instead of compounding? Say, for instance, a character could Specialize in CQB, so he can apply his CQB dice only to combat within 10-20 meters, and can also Specialize in Blaster Pistols, so he can use both if using a Blaster Pistol against targets within the range limit of CQB?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Naaman]

Yes. At least, that is what I think could be a way to express what you're getting at with this thread topic?

[CRMcNeill]

[Telsij]

Really like the way this is developing. Specializations by RAW are wildly inconsistent in scope, breath, application, etc. Whereas this house rule is still in keeping with the spirit of WEG.

The "Classic Adventures" 1E-centric project incorporated a take on specializations that was similar, and I think they granted a +2D to a specific make/model of ship or weapon.

Not that this is something I would do per se, but would you allow the particualr ship specialization to apply to repairs to it as well, or would Han also have had to buy Millennium Falcon's Advanced Skill / Specialization under repair as well?

And generally speaking, how would you address the exploitation of the overlap? Allow only one or the other? Allow only spec in Heavy Blaster Pistol but not in DL-44? Or maybe vice versa? If you take the narrower specialization you get a "bonus" die but cannot get the larger specialization? Or that if you can do both, you can only use one or the other bonus at a given time? (Only spitballing here.)

[CRMcNeill]