Play Balance

The way I see it (and, mind you, I'm still digesting the PG after a week with it) Starship Officer PCs with a Starship Officer Elite Profession (example, Lt. Quince, Starship Science Officer) essentially start the game with an advancement up (since entering an Elite Profession costs a full five picks from your next advancement) on any PCs that choose to be Merchants, Rogues or what have you. This is fine, if all the PCs are Starship Officers.

But the problem comes with mixed Crews. Example, the Security Officer that has been assigned to the Diplomatic Corps economic mission with the Diplomat, the Merchant and the spy (Rogue), Johnny Redshirt, starts play with a free Advancement.

The way I see it, I'd just give the other PCs an Advancement to compensate. Does anybody disagree with this? Would you rather those Starship Officers be over-powered right out of the box? Or maybe you'd force those Starship Officers to go without their EP?

Talk about it.

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Originally posted by EliasVaughn
The way I see it (and, mind you, I'm still digesting the PG after a week with it) Starship Officer PCs with a Starship Officer Elite Profession (example, Lt. Quince, Starship Science Officer) essentially start the game with an advancement up (since entering an Elite Profession costs a full five picks from your next advancement) on any PCs that choose to be Merchants, Rogues or what have you.

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I'd have to disagree, EV. Mainly because the Starship Officer profession, as a basic profession, is notably weaker than the other basic professions.

[list=1][*]Starship Officer has only 6 prfessional skills, when the other basic professions have 11-14 each.[*]Starship Officer has only two each of Tier 1 and Tier 2 professional abilities and NO Tier 3 Abilities. Compare this to 4/3/1 for each of the other professions.[*]Instead of being allowed to choose what Tier 1 ability you get, a Starship Officer HAS to take Starship Duty. (Not that Rounded is much of a choice compared to Starship Duty...)[/list=1]

So, in comparison to the other basic professions, a Starship Officer WITH one of the Starship Officer elite professions is about equal. :)

Yeah, and since the Starship Officer Tier 1 ability, Statship Duty, is what allows Starfleet character's thier elite profession, they have basically traded off a profesional ability for thier elite profession.

Seems like Starship Officer and the Elite profession combined are equivalent to a standard profession.

About 12-14 skills
1 Tier 1 ability that does something
About the same number of total abilities as a standard profession.

I suppose this is true (the equation of SO+SOEP to the other Professions). Should have done the math. It just struck me as a little funny upon first inspection. Although, if the SOEPs had been placed with the other EP, it would have been even more confusing; the organization is very good the way it is.

Don't feel bad. There are a lot of thing about CODA that won't be apprant until people get a chance to play it awhile. There are probably all sorts of things that no one's picked up on yet becuase we haven't done and advancements.