Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24302820-20160501212833

I'm thinking about tweaking the guidelines for specialisation a bit.

Specialisation in a proficiency (discounting skills that require specialisation, like religion or the weapon skills) means that you add +3 to the skill level in the area in which you are specialised, but -3 to the general skill level. Currently, this means that the general skill has a floor of one point. That is, you don't really lose anything if you only put one point into the skill. As it stands now, this is a cheap way to beef up your character (or a class) as you aren't actually sacrificing anything except the most minor effort of keeping things straight. I'm not sure we need to keep doing things this way.

The way we're handling specialised basic skills is that you don't really know anything beyond your area of expertise. For example, master chefs don't know anything about etiquette beyond food prep. I'm wondering if we should make proficiencies work more like basic skills when it comes to specialties.

Specialised apprenticeships move the area of expertise up one level, while dropping the general skill one level, but this could, and should, be changed to match any general case guideline for proficiencies. I'd also like to have some way for a master craftsman to gain specialties without dropping their general skill level down to journeyman. For apprenticeships, it works well as a cheap increase for apprentices, but I'd prefer if things didn't get wonky for those of a higher level of skill. Not only do we only have three levels to play with, but it is those who already have a master level of that skill who are the ones most likely to increase their talents further (and differentiate themselves from the competition) with master-level specialties. For example, Salvador Dali didn't just have painting at master level, or even master+, but he had painting master+ (weird shit). He was the absolute pinnacle of talent there, and our game system should allow for things like this.

There are a few ways we can do this.

The first is that the specialisation works as it always has, but there's no floor. That is, if you put a single point into a skill at character creation, and then specialise in order to effectively bump it up, then your capability in other aspects of that skill drop to zero. This would only apply for skill levels of III and below. In other words, putting four points into this skill (if you are stacking, or have the experienced background) you would still have a point in the general skill, and you've increased the specialty to VII. With this first option, if you increase the specialty high enough, it will drag the general skill up to a full point. That is, if you increase your skill level through game play up to level VII, you automatically have a point in the general skill. This option involves the least changes to the game system, but involves the most work, however minor.

The second way is similar, but the general and specialty skills would be divorced. That is, specialising in any proficiency lower than IV would mean that you are completely unskilled in that general skill. No matter how high you later increase your area of expertise, you'll never get better at the general skill without separate study and practice. The only way to have any knowledge of the general skill would be to specialise only if the skill is at IV before you started making changes.

The third way is a variation once again, but here specialisation means that you have no talent in the general skill at all. No mater what the scores were before specialising, the general skill drops to zero, and stays that way, unless you study it separately. This is how specialisation with basic skills currently work.

The fourth option is rather different. This method would be for skill slots put into the skill to count double. The trade-off would be that you aren't getting anything for the general level of skill. This would allow someone to, for example, devote four skills to carpentry and gain carpentry apprentice (cabinetmaking master) instead of journeyman level of the general skill. If you put three points (the maximum for most starting characters) into melee (mass [hammer]) you'd swing your sledge with an skill of VI, but still be utter rubbish with axes.

Opinions? What do you think? Which of these options is appealing, if any? Should we not change anything at all? How about how apprenticeships fit into this? 