How exactly do skill specialties work?

[Chris Jones]

Could someone explain exactly how they work. I have been treating each specialty as a separate skill.

ex..

System Operation (Flight Control) +3
System Operation (Tactical +2

Is this right? I am unsure since the rules were sorta vague. Never played LUGTrek.

Thanks,

Chris Jones

[Sea Tyger]

Specialties are not separate skills (and, thusly, do not have separate ranks). They are part of the main skill, and provide a +2 to the character's roll for tests involving the specialty.

Using your example above, the character has two ranks of Systems Operation (Tactical) and three ranks of Systems Operation (Flight Control). This means that, in Coda, the character has five ranks of Systems Opertaion, with specialties in flight control and tactical.

Ignoring attribute bonuses, the character would receive a +5 to his 2d6 test roll for general systems operation tasks. For tasks dealing specifically with flight control and tactical systems, the character would receive a +7 to the test roll.

[Don Mappin]

What do you mean vague? It's covered in detail on pages 98-99.

[Tval]

Hello.

I had the same question, so, what i understand is that you only modify the main skill (system operations) and then the specialty (tactical) automatically goes up.

Intresting...

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by Tval
I had the same question, so, what i understand is that you only modify the main skill (system operations) and then the specialty (tactical) automatically goes up.

Actually, Tval, the point is that you are NOT raising the specialty. You are raising the Skill.

You would not have System Operation (Tactical) 2 and System Operation (Flight Control) 2 (for example). You would have System Operation (Flight Control, Tactical) 2.

This means that you have the System Operation skill at 2 and Have Flight Control and Tactical as Specialties. Any time you make a test that is in either Specialty's area, you add a +2 to your test result. So, if you were scanning for life forms, your skill modifier would be 2. If you were turning the ship or firing phasers, it would be 4.

As Don pointed out, this was explained at length on pages 98-99 of the Player's Guide.

[Azar Kel]

THERE ARE NO LEVELS FOR SPECIALIZATIONS!!!


Well at least now I know that my players aren't the only ones with this question....

[METH]

I like the new standard for Specializations. In LUG, I always thought Specialty levels were redundant, especially if you could lose them by advancing the Base Skill. Hence, I would only buy the initial specialization(s) and only promote the base skill vs specialitions, which works well in the new conversions, though we lose half our specialties. (bummer). It seems to make more sense in the new Coda standard. I like this change.