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I think it might be that you're French and I'm Texan, but I'm not quite following what you're trying to say here. (Or it could just be that I haven't slept well in a week and my brain isn't at full capacity; I leave which it is as an exercise for the reader.)Quote:
Originally posted by Calcoran
I knew someone would say something like this! ;)
It is true, isn't it? ... but it still bugs me.
I think it's beacuse you are trying to make much more sense of my post than I put there in the first place ;).
I was just trying to say that I knew that someone would say "but Calcoran, you still have access to the skill, only not at the professional skill rate" ... and that I'm not sure really like it this way ... well, I'll just have to call house-rule-man to the rescue I guess.
/me sneaks to the nearest public phone ... then swears when he notices there are no more public phones because of all those darned mobile phones.
Personally, I would allow a basic profession and up to two elite professions, for advancement purposes. As the basic represents the core of any character's education, those skills and abilities should always be available to him or her as professional skills.
Useful house rule to consider, at least...
I can understand this, but I'm hung up on the "only one base profession ever" rule. Is there some reason behind that?Quote:
Originally posted by Doug Burke
Okay, as I understood it, Dan was right as far as the intent was you could advance in one basic profession and a maximum of two elite professions. I believe the word "elite" was erroneously dropped from the line on pg. 155 of the PG.
It seems to me that it would be more realistic if you allowed the characters to spend some number of picks to switch professions. To use the Rogue example, perhaps I want to simulate a criminal type who, after spending X years being a scoundrel, wants to reform his life and become say, a merchant? How the heck would I handle that?
CorpBoy does have a point: there is a certain lack of flexibility in the current character creation rules which do not allow one to design characters who are a trifle outside the mold. Also, starship officer is singularly the best basic profession to choose, as its core professional ability, Starship Duty (which cannot be obtained via the Innovative edge by other professions), provides the character access to a free elite profession. This restricts its other professional abilities, save for Rounded, from being acquired via Innovative as well, since Intrepid require Starship Duty and Capable requires Intrepid.
One solution is to make Starship Duty an automatic first professional ability for characters entering an elite Starship Officer profession, rather than one of its existing professional abilities. Another is to just scrap the erratum restricting Starship Duty from being purchased via Innovative. Why make exceptions?
Just my .02 bars of gold-pressed latinum...
FWIW my campaign (starts tomorrow) has dropped Professions and dropped Experience Points.
Instead I am issuing pick-points as rewards. There will be restrictions ("No, sorry, no teacher for that skill around" and the like) placed on picks at given points, but generally there will be free reign.
Yes, this gets rid of professional v. non-professional skills, but I'm not convinced that is a big issue. Now instead people have the chance to develop the character they want.
The professions and 1000-xp=5-picks still feels too much like "classes and levels" for my tastes. Then again, these are house rules, not meant to be imposed on others. If you like the notions, feel free to borrow them; if not, feel free to ignore them :)
Apologies for the snippage, Ramage... just wanted to keep the salient points.Quote:
Originally posted by Ramage
My campaign has dropped Professions and dropped Experience Points. Instead I am issuing pick-points as rewards. There will be restrictions placed on picks at given points, but generally there will be free reign. Now instead people have the chance to develop the character they want.
Many people may end up going this route, just for the ease and flexibility. What, though, to do with professional abilities? Mixing and matching them ad nausem removes part of the game's distinctiveness, which I think is a mistake. The professions provide structure which takes some burden off the narrator.
Thus far, my fellow players are pretty stunned by my Chief Engineer's "Miracle Worker" and "System Overhaul" abilities. They skimped on professional abilities during character creation (everyone got several advances to start), and now want to know where they can get *their* "crunchy bits".
I do think you have a sound idea, I'm just curious how you plan to fit professional abilities into the mix...
This was a tricky bit, I must agree, but we finally agreed on a tack for it.
To take a Professional ability still takes 5 picks. A player may not take a Level 2 ability without already having taken the requisites for it, which means taking a Level 1 ability from the same track. We have not decided about the Elite Profession abilities (outside of Starship Officer) yet, but as all of our characters will be Starfleet Officers, this has not caused any problems yet.
I have found that my players more or less know what sort of "track" they want their characters to follow anyway, so there is not too much problem here. I suppose in a totally "wide open" campaign (you are allowed to be any race, any background, any profession) there might be more problems, but as the parameters of our campaign limited matters to Starfleet personnel, we have yet to run into any hinks.
More details as the campaign progresses...
The martial arts chains from Feng Shui (or the charm progressions from Exalted have similar organizations, but it might be interesting to tweak the Star Trek professional ability roster to allow pathways which are customizable to a greater degree.
Just a thought, and probably too much work... would require a massive rethink of professional abilities and the progression from one tier to the next. Far, far easier to just keep things simple.
By the way, Ramage, professional abilities require three picks, not five. Changing professions costs five, although I can see the utility in your system for increasing the cost.