Improving single skills in skill groups Options

[Nerhesi]

Can you improve single skills during character creation after you buy a skill group that includes one of these skills.

If so.. how?

Example:

Purchase Sorcery Group at level 4.

Now I wish to put Counterspelling and Spellcasting at 5.

How much BP do I need to spend?

Sam W.

[Cweord]

the cost to take the single skill from 4 to 5

[Kerris]

GMs have differing opinions on this. I'd suggest asking your GM before doing this.

I, for one, don't mind if players do this... they just can't advance that group as a group anymore. And, as Cweord said, it's exactly the same as raising the skill from 4 to 5 (during character creation, that would be 4BP)

[Malachi]

My rule is that individual skills within a Group cannot be improved during character creation. After Character Creation you can improve an individual skill, at which time the skill group is "broken" and all skill within the group are now considered individual and must be improved individually, forever.

[Cweord]

I don't mind breaking skill groups in character creation, but once a group is broken it's broken (or if you choose to improve it, the higher skills don't go up until it has caught up)

[Tarantula]

I agree with Malachi on this one.

[Moon-Hawk]

During character creation I allow people to break skill groups. I usually encourage players to take a group at a low level and then take the skills they really want at higher levels, to avoid situations where you're unstoppable with an assault rifle but don't know how to fire a sniper rifle.
In play, I allow groups to be re-formed if all the skills in the group are brought to the same level and have no specializations. Heck, if there's a group with skills A, B, C, and D, and they have A, B, and C at rating 2 and D at 4, I'd even let them take A, B, and C to 3 at the regular cost for raising the group, but D isn't changing until the group catches up. I haven't actually seen anyone do this, but if they wanted to I'd allow it.

In theory, groups and specializations are 100% incompatible. However, if you were to house-rule and allow the skills within a group to be specialized and yet still raise the group at the regular cost and keeping the specializations, your books would probably not catch on fire. However, it also means that you'll probably never see an unspecialized skill again, so I'm not advocating it either.

[Tarantula]

Just a note, by RAW players can aquire skills or skill groups during creation. Not a group and then raise the skill. Also, by RAW, once a skill group is broken by one skill being raised individually, its gone for good.

[eidolon]

[Ol' Scratch]

That's not what your quote says at all. While I normally loathe the FAQs, they do touch on this topic already.

When can you break up a skill group into its component skills? Can you break it up during character creation? Can I break apart a skill group in order to buy a specialization for one of the skills?

"You can break apart a skill group whenever you want--as long as the GM allows it. We advise against breaking apart skill groups during character creation in order to keep it simple and counter min-maxing. Any time you improve a single skill within a skill group or add a specialization to one of those skills, that skill group no longer exists."

Source: Official FAQs

[eidolon]

The quote is completely separate from what follows it.

One addresses that once you change a skill within the group, the group is broken. The other addresses that you can't take skills at different ratings and still have it be a skill group.

And actually, rereading that bit of the FAQ that you posted, it doesn't say anything that isn't either directly addressed in the rules already, or that isn't from Roleplaying 101 (ask your GM).

[Ol' Scratch]

Nothing in the rules says you cannot break up a Skill Group during character creation; only a GM's individual ruling. Even the FAQ says as much. By the rules if you have Automatics 4, Longarms 4, and Pistols (Heavy Pistols) 4(+2), you could have simply purchased the Firearms Skill Group at 4 then specialized in Pistols for only 2 Build Points (for a grand total of 42 Build Points instead of 62 if you had raised all three separately) at which point the group is split.

Considering that's exactly how it works both during and after character creation (for even the exact same cost in Karma no less), there's nothing at all wrong with handling it that way thematically. Only an individual GM's view of game balance interfers; a bizarre view shared by far too many (including the FAQ author). The latter in particular focuses too much on the little things that are anything but broken while ignoring the huge loopholes that are. It'd be almost fascinating if it wasn't so sad a fact.

[Tarantula]

[Cweord]

All of this still falls under the first rule of GMing

"If you don't like it change it"


Cweord

[Tarantula]

[Adarael]

Well, that's Tarantula's theory, anyway. It's hardly a board rule, and many people don't follow it.

[toturi]

[Glyph]

I would disallow it based more on the first reason from the FAQ, to keep character creation straightforward. I also agree with Tarantula that if it were allowed, it would be explicitly stated as such.

I wouldn't have a problem implementing it as a house rule though, if the players really wanted it, and if they could show me their BP expenditure breakdowns for it.

[Ol' Scratch]

I personally hate rules that are drastically different for character creation than for character advancement. Limits are one thing (how many skills you can have, how high they can be, etc.), but completely different rules are something else entirely.

Skill Groups represent a certain level of cross-training. There's no reason it should cost so much more to train in Automatics 4, Longarms 4, and Pistols 4 simply because you want to have a specialization in Heavy Pistols (62 Build Points) versus having Firearms 4 and then taking the same specialization (40 Build Points +2 BPs/Karma). It's just plain silly. That specialization just cost you 20 BPs.

[Fortune]

I have no problem allowing either the breaking of Skill Groups or Specialization of Skills inside of Groups in my games. I actually like it when people do this type of thing, and really, I don't have a problem working out the math retroactively even if I didn't have very hands-on chargen methods.

[Tarantula]

Honestly Funk, I completely understand the disabling of it during character creation. Its the start of the character. If they want to later emphasize that they've focused their training via karma, they can. Or they can continue a broad scale approach and keep raising the group.