I know this ground has been covered before (and most of what gets said is "this is how I do it; but it's your game so...") but after reading through character creation in my newly aquired Dune RPG (which also uses the ICON system) I was considering the whole fiasco again. I see specs being the one flaw of the ICON system, not because it uses specs but because of the whole "what happens when the stat is more than a spec" deal. This cam up a couple of times in my reading when Dune skills would end up being 2 (1) or something like that.
So hows about this. What if when you're getting specializations you only notate the amount they are greater than the base skill (i.e. Athletics (Climbing) 1 (1) would mean a Climbing Spec of 2). The only real problem I see with this system is that most would want to raise base skills only because their specs would always be higher.
Anyway, this would probably change DP and Exp costs in some way or another, but do ya'll think it could work? I know there are various ways to handle Specs but I was hoping on some comment on this idea (or discussion of similar ideas to "fix" the bug).
Cheers in advance,
Pope.