Few questions for any CODA gurus

Heya folks.
Knowing my luck, I probably missed the answer to these questions elsewhere, but.. I have a few questions for you all, all involving elite professions.
1) Skill prerequisites - are these based on 'total modifiers' (IE: Including any attribute and miscellaneous modifiers) or the number of levels you've put into the skill? I'm leaning towards the former, but I'd just to double-check.

2) On page 155 (under the 'Restrctions on multiple professions' section) it states that the character may only make profession skill and ability picks from two professions (both base and elite) during an advancement. The example given, however, seems to indicate otherwise, in that it counts the Starship Officer and Starship Science Officer as one profession, whereas to my (arguably limited) understanding, the base 'Starship Officer' profession would count as one and the elite profession 'Starship Science Officer' would count as a second, requiring 'Sechok' to give up advancement from two of his elite professions, instead of simply one as in the example. Is my logic here sound, or am I missing something?

Thank you in advance,
-Tor

1) it is your skill level purchased which is the number of the requisite, since your intelligence could theoretically change but your skill won't. It's usually this in most games :)

2) Hmm I struggled to read that passage but it is implicit in that you cannot have more than 2 professions going at any one time. What it doesn't say is if you, for example, leave a Starship officer career, you therefore stop being a starship officer; though, from the choices the character is taking I would say yes, that's exactly what's happening (since he was becoming an Explorer and Envoy), and in a game context this could simply be that an officer is taking a leave of absence, to be reinstated either as he wishes, or for other reasons (such as a war). I guess it would be down to the narrator if leaving your Starship officer meant you were no longer one, but nothing in the rules states that. An Example I imagine would be McCoy, or Spock who left the service, to pursue their own agendas and then were pressed back into service due to dire emergencies :)

2) It is a little more complicated.

WHile a character cannot only advance in two professions at once, that doesn't not mean that the character actually leaves or looses a profession, merely what skills are considered professional skills and what professional abilities are available for the character to buy with picks.

For example a Vulcan Science Officer could buy the Mystic and Envoy elite professions and still be in Starfleet (like Spock in ST:VI, only Spock probably has the Command Officer Eleite profession, too), but only two of those professions would be considered "active" for the purposes of character improvement.

THe rules is desgined not so much as a "profession" restriction, but more along the lines of granting a discount towards skill advancedment due to focusing on imrpoving certain related skills and abilties. For instance, a character whio has Envoy as a "active" profession is assumed to be geting practice in diplomacy, etiqutte, interstellar law and such in the day to day performace of the job; devoting spare time in studing diplomaticic skills and abilties; maybe even taking some courses and getting actual instruction, etc. Using Spock as an example, he could easily have Mystic and Envoy professions active, and just fall back on his already formidable science skills to do his jobs as Chief Science Officer. He still is Chief Science Offcier (as well as First Officer), but he has been focusing on diplomatic activities rather than scienfici ones.


So theroetically, nearly any combination of professions is possible, although some might be more likely than others (you will see more Starfleet Command Officers picking up the Envoy profession than the Assassin profession).

THe restirction is just there to keep someone from buying three or four professions and then being able to buy all skills at the reduced cost for professional skills, or have access to most of the abilties in the game. THat would give such a character an unrealistic edge over characters that actually prusue a career.

1) It refers to the levels in the skill, not the total.

2) Starship Officers are the exception to this rule, since they get one elite profession for free. This "free pass" only appliews to the first elite profession selected through the Starship Duty professional ability.

Further to what Doug said, there will be an update to the FAQ in the not-too-distant future dealing with this and the changes to the rules allowing characters to have more than one base profession. I'll be dealing with this soon, in my copious unstructured free time.

Alright. That clears that up. Thank you all for helping me out.

-Tor