In the core rules it states any new PC can have no greater than
Skill (specialization) 4 (5).
In the core rules, it also states that a skill rarely goes to 6.
I have seen in the errata on this site, or at least linked from this site, where it was stated that skills rarely can go to 6.
This "Rarely" is still kind of fuzzy to me. Are we talking NPCs only "The Best of the Best" can have skill 6?
And my other question about it was is it
Skill (spec) 5 (6)
or
Skill (spec) 6 (6)?
and then it's just topped from there...
I'm not looking for any PC or NPC to have 6 (7), because it is more or less going to mess up the curve on difficulty level calculation.
But I thought, hey, if any one group of people have the answer, it might be here.
I have crew members/cast that are ranked at LCDR and above, just because that was how it was in my FASA game, for the most part, before converting to LUG rules.
So, I figure I am looking for someone who had a hand in writing LUG, or knows any of those guys, that can give me sometihng more solid than "Do whatever you want, it's your game." Because the "Rarely 6" rule is there for a reason, I just wish it had been better defined in any of the core rule books. (If it is, I missed it.)
I think you are mixing up the character cration rules with the skill maximums.
No character can start the game with a skill higher than 4 (5).
After character generation, skills levels range from 1-5; in rare cirumstances the can rise above 5. This is usualy taken to mean that skill level of 5 (6) and 6 (6) are possible and represent the best f the best. Looking through the writeups for the character from TNG, I see a few characters with specialties of 6 (perhaps a few too many), but only one 6(6) and that was for Data.
That's kind of what I thought, because I figured with
Starship Tactics (Starfleet) 5 (6)
They are among the best tacticians in the Federation's tactics, but with 6 (6), they are well rounded enough to know the tactics of Every Race, and/or natural skill, then after that, getting better is not so much a matter of knowledge of tactics, as it is in commanding your crew efficiently, utilizing resources, and making the right decisions in a crisis, since there is no skill 7 to be had.
I allow senior PC's such as CDRs or Captains to start the game with skills at 5 (6), typically a very experienced Commander (usually tactics, strategy, or command skills, from many hostile frontier tours), or a well-experienced Captain...Either from many, many tours around the fleet, or other well-rounded experience.
Most junior officers won't ever approach anything near that, in any series that I run, since I have it as a requirment that any skills gained by XP require it to "have been used in the scenario", unless the character pays for the skill via XP and "Goes off to school" and thus they switch out a character for 2 or 3 sessions, and characters only get to go to one "school" a year (if that).
And I was more or less asking about both rules...character generation (Which I understood to the letter of the rule for new characters to be 4 (5), and maximum skill, which I was not sure if it was 5 (6) or 6 (6).
Just that the whole "skills rarely rise to skill level 6" to me is like saying "A little bit pregnant."
I wouldn't let them start with 5(6). Not becuase they couldn't have it, but more becuase it gives them no room for growth and to show how they have gotten better as the campaign has progressed. Besides, a 3 or 4 with a few (5) specialties gives a better character-at least desciptively.
In my last ICON campaign, most of the players were so busy trying to get more pluses for thier main skills (think D&Ders hunting for another +1), that it ended up backfiring. For most taskes a 4 is more than sufficient, and a 4 backed up with an advantage was fantastic. Since dice don't add, after 4 or so, you hit a point of diminishing returns.
My group paid for thier shortsightedness, by lacking in depth and personality. After learning that they had enough skill to do thier jobs well, they started to spend XP to round out their characters and take skills that they needed but didn't have becuase they were outside the narrow focus of thier original concepts.
For example, no one took First Aid, except for the Doctor. In one of their early adventures, guess who got hurt?
I'd suggest insteading of letting your players take 5(6) skills, have them buy some hobby or trivia skills. I managed to get two adventures and 3 running subplots out of the fact that the ship's doctor opted to take "Traditional Klingon Weapons (Bat'leth)1 (2)".
Only one player has that 5 (6), in my tabletop group.
The Captain, (actually just promoted to Commodre) who has been "in the fleet" for 20 years, and has played in my group for 12 years, starting with FASA skill of 80 tactics, working it up to 95, over 8 years of playing FASA off and on, now converting the whole FASA campaign to LUG.
That level of skill, to me justifies the assignment to the new size 7 ship, just out of drydock at Utopia Planetia, the setting for the reworked campaign.
He started off as a CDR in charge of a Baker class, supervised its conversion to a Miranda class Cruiser, as Captain, and after many, many years, got his Flag, and is now a middle-aged plus Commodore, with the ship as his flagship.
So, giving that character a reduction in skill to 4 (5) seems inappropriate, bowing to the rules for new characters, when it really is a character conversion.
Thus my initial question regarding max of 5 (6) or 6 (6). He is not well rounded enough to have 6 (6), but 5 (6) I can see.
I don't have min/maxers in my tabletop group. We took our cues from West End Star Wars d6, and went for character development many years ago.
But your point in not allowing new players to LUG / new gamers to min max is well taken.
Oh, converting characters is a different situation. I thought you were writting up new characters. There is nothing wrong having established characters keep their high skill levels when being converted.
I'd save the 6 skills for the people with the 96+ ratings ("ackowledged leaders in the field" per FASA Trek). I'd probably try to give some specialties out based on past campaign events and character personality. Same for advatages and flaws.
Here's my conversion notes - bear in mind there's no real hard'n'fast one-to-one correlation between most systems, so it's a fuzzy process to begin with:
As with anything, common sense (note: it's common in that it's "of the ordinary kind" as opposed to frequently encountered) when converting a character. The "look and feel" and an equivalency of effect is more important than a strict mathematical correspondance.
Look at the ship deckplans. The Mission, Chameleon, and Tavares-class ships from FASA were some of the most useful designs as far as a ship for a group of PCs or merchants to handle. The shuttle an runabout plans are great for running battles. I used the runabout deckplan so much in my last capaign that some of the players got quite attached to their runabout.
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