Is there a skill maximum?, how high can you go... Options

[Lord Ver'an]

Is there a maximum rating for skills? Specializations? Checked the main book but either its not there or I missed it somewhere.

[A Clockwork Lime]

Nope. They can go as high as you like as long as you pay the Karma for it (which is pretty expensive once you surpass twice your Attribute rating).

[Kanada Ten]

And Specializations are limited by the Primary skill, are they not?

Something like 1.5 times or plus 3?

[TinkerGnome]

Specializations are capped at base skill x 2 (or 3, for base skill 1).

[Fresno Bob]

I like to max knowledge skills out at 10. Because the way the book describes it, having skill 8 in a knowledge skill seems like you're a foremost expert on the topic.

[KosherPickle]

[A Clockwork Lime]

I have, quite a few times in fact. They're pretty cheap to improve, and I'm a huge fan of Knowledge Skills (they're the best thing SR3 introduced in my opinion) so maybe that had something to do with it. :)

[Tal]

My last caracter had an absolutely obscene number of knowledge skills... But she *was* an info-broker, so I guess it made snese to have close to 20 of the suckers...

[Dashifen]

I often raise the knowledge skills of things that I find usefull or things that I didn't have for a run but would have liked. I've also been known to have as many as 8 slots filled with know-, lingua-, or data- softs slotted at any one time using multiple 4 slot chipjacks. Save karma and spends money, but it depends on what type of game you're playing.

[Cain]

[cutter07]

It used to be your skill can't be higher then twice its base attribute but its been awhile.

[Nath]

[TimeKeeper]

Personally, I always maxed skills out at 12.
After that, there's just too many dice to roll.

[3Threes]

if you use the training rules in sr comp then you start to get really long training times as you get higher skills - i did a calc once while bored taking a test and figured that the highest skill a being could get that was awake in 5,000 year stints was somewhere in the 30's.

[snowRaven]

Thanx 3Threes - that info could become useful someday =)

[Dweller on the T...]

How did you get that calculation? Following the rules for Training Times in the Shadowrun Companion, improving an Active Skill from 29 to 30 takes a base time of (75 Karma times 7) days, or 525 days which is just a year and a half. Since the target number for trying to reduce that time is unlikely to happen (target number 60), you can just skip it and increase the time by 50%. That means the final amount of time is just over two years. Reading the rules for instructors, it doesn't seem dependant on your own success at the training time test; every success the instructor makes on an Instruction(4) test counts as one success regardless of how many you achieved. So even just two successes on that test will cut the time in half.

Each skill point below that takes progressively less time. Elves in particular aren't going to have much trouble hitting 30 while they're still relatively young, and even an ork has a shot of hitting it before they're out of middle age.

But within the span of a character's life in the shadows, it is indeed very unprobable.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Checking the math, advancing an active skill from 238 to 239 takes almost 5000 years. Advancing an active skill from nothing up to 50 takes less than 78 years (time based on assuming it was in the max karma cost from the beginning, so the actual time is less).

[Caine Hazen]

Herald...did you take instructers into account :twirl: lol

You have too much time on your hands

[Herald of Verjig...]

It's only a minute or so with the book and a spreadsheet. No I did not add in the difficulty of finding an instructor or the slight penalty for "going alone" that I am not in the mood to look up.

[Frag-o Delux]

Did you count training time form rating 1 to 2 then 3 then 4 and on and on, you know you can't skip levels right. So from rating 1 to 30's may take 5000 years. :) It don't really matter though does it?

[Joker9125]

you people have WAY to much free time.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Great thing about a spreadsheet is you can define a formula in one cell, copy it along to match a change in one of the inputs, and then look at the fun list of output. Skill level 50 takes less than 78 years total so 30 will not take 5000.

[Frag-o Delux]

[Herald of Verjig...]

Once you get up to the $4,000 per day range, you are probably better just taking the extra time to learn it unaided. Assuming no aid, the time for a skill from 0 to 50 will be about 113 years.

[Dweller on the T...]

EDIT: Sorry I misread something.