Skill Specialisation

Please note - this page is off-topic, submitted here because I had an idea while I was out and didn't want to forget it. Please ignore this, unless you are capable of understanding a random chunk of rules without knowing which system it belongs to

A skill covers a general area of expertise. A specialisation allows you to further refine a character's abilities, focusing on a more specific area of study.

For example, the skill 'Surgery' could have specialisations such as 'cardiac' or 'neurosurgery'. The skill list will include a sample set of specialisations, but you should feel free to choose any suitable specialisation for your characters.

Choosing specialisations

A character who has any skill at level 3 or better gets a free specialisation in that skill. If the rise to level 3 occurs in game, the specialisation must be relevant to the practise or study which allowed you to raise the skill.

In addition, you can buy a specialisation for any skill you have. Specialisations cost 1 character point each, and do not have levels. You may only buy the same specialisation more than once (a superspecialisation, for double the bonus) if you have the relevant skill at level 5 or better, and you have no other specialisations in that skill.

If you are playing an exceptional campaign, you may buy the same specialisation multiple times without restriction once you have the relevant skill at level 8 or better.

General Skill Rolls

A suitable specialisation can make it easier to do well on any skill roll. When making a skill check for any task to which a specialisation applies, you may reroll all successful dice once, and add on any further successes. If you have more than one specialisation which applies, any dice which come up successful again grant you an additional reroll.

Example

Mac Regis is competing in a 200m race at the Carter Olympics. This year, the race is being held on a high-gravity world, so he'll really be pushing his body to the limits. He has the skill Athletics 5, so he rolls 5 dice. He gets 2+7+5+9+0, 4 successes. However, he has the specialisation "Althletics: 200m", which allows him to reroll the 7, 9 and 0. He rolls these 3 dice again and gets 2+9+4, one more success for a total of 5. He completes the race in an amazing time. If Mac had another specialisation which would apply in this race, such as "Running under high gravity", he could choose to reroll the 9 in the hope of getting yet another success.

Specialisation Rolls

Some tasks are so focused that someone without a relevant specialisation would not even attempt it in the course of their normal duties. In these cases, a character with the appropriate specialisation should make a normal skill roll, without a reroll. Any other relevant specialisations still apply as normal. If the character does not have the required specialisation, however, they may only make a last chance roll on the relevant skill.

Example

Leroi Stolz is testing a new cybernetic implant which is supposed to improve memory. To fit the implant, the surgeon must make a 'Surgery: Neurosurgery' roll. The surgeon has Surgery 3, so he rolls 3 dice and gets 1+3+8: a marginal success. If he also had the specialisation 'Biology: cybernetics', he could reroll the 8 and maybe get another success.

If for some reason the hospital had selected a general surgeon who did not have the neurosurgery specialisation, the operation would have been much less of a success. He would have made a last chance roll against his surgery skill. In this case, 1+3+8 would have been a mishap, a '1' and no successes, leaving poor Leroi with an implant misconnected and giving him regular seizures and blackouts.

Note that even if the unspecialised surgeon had 'Biology: cybernetics' or similar, this would not have helped in this case. The extra specialisation would have allowed him to reroll any '0's on the last chance roll, and maybe get more successes, but because Neurosurgery is the required specialisation here, you would still only count '0's as successes.