The question has arisen on these forums before of if Artisan is considered a separate skill for each aspect; Artisan (Singing) being a different skill from Artisan (Sculpting).

The answer, by RAW, is no. From a gameplay perspective, this is the correct way to do it. It is rather absurd to be paying separately for each individual aspect of the skill, as it really has very minor benefit & would cost a huge amount to do.

On the other hand, it does not make any sense that a highly talented singer is also highly talented at sculpting, pottery, drawing, weaving, or any other artistry.

The desire to keep this skill playable, as well as make it believable, has led me to a new potential house rule. Similar to how Social skills work in conjunction with Language skills, your rank of Artisan cannot exceed the associated Knowledge skill rating.

Example:
You have Artisan at 5, as well as Sculpting Knowledge 2, Singing 3, & Painting 5.
While painting, you use your full Artisan rank 5 skill, but while singing, your Artisan is effectively rank 3, & rank 2 for sculpting.



Opinions/suggestions?
How can I 'polish' this rule, & what changes to streamline it?

Simple solution is to do what almost every other RPG does...
...Not have Artisan cover such a collection of different skills - treat each separate "specialisation" as a separate skill.

The way the skill is defined indicates it's not meant to be used in any meaningful way in SR v4...
...Wheras a skill group such as Athletics is broken into separate skills - running, climbing, swimming, gymnastics.


After thinking about it, maybe Artisan should be re-defined as a skill group ??

That is exactly what I am trying to avoid, as I [think] clearly said in my original post. As it is, Artisan is far from a priority skill. Making it a separate skill for each specialization makes it unusable.

On the Athletics example - note I am also removing the Athletics skill group entirely, & replacing it with Athletics (running, climbing, swimming, flying [if applicable]) & Gymnastics skills. As it is, it is nearly worthless to take the group above rating 1, & then only to avoid defaulting (Gymnastics is usually raised separately). This tells me the Gymnastics skill is fine, but the rest are crap; solution - merge them.

My recommendation is to just get rid of Artisan as an active skill altogether and instead have seperate knowledge skills.

hi hi

Artisan really has so many uses, and really, what skills aren't considered an art? I'm pretty sure artisan doesn't cover martial arts. In reality, such forms of art probably require just as much if not more skill then the various differences between long-arms and automatics, but as far as viability is concerned I might house rule that every point in the skill allows the character to use another type of artisan ability. (though there's clearly no precident for such a rule in the RAW) For example, if you've got artisan 2, you could have painting and singing, and when you improve to artisan 3, you could pick up dancing as well.

I can't help but think, every time I hear that a skill is useless, that the most strident claims in that regard come from those who haven't had the chance or allowed the chance to try the infinite variety of Shadowrun.

Yeah, that sounded pompous to me, too. But I challenge anyone to pick a skill I can't find someplace in the whole wide Shadow world where it is critical. Sure, the 'standard' run doesn't use many of the skills in the book, but who made that the standard?

why don't you just talk to the player/GM and see what they want to do with it. If they/you want to take the artisan skill because they want to have a hobby of painting and are just fleshing out the character than it shouldn't be a problem. If they want to be some type of painting, singing, dancing James Bond renaissance man (dancing at the Ball to seduce a VP and get her commcode, for example) treat it as a skill group. It seems easiest to just compromise on a case by case basis rather than making a rule that would apply to all cases.

Also do shamans still use Artisan or whatever to make their spell formuli? I seem to remember them needing to do that.

If you're going to house rule it, I like IceKatze's solution slightly better. It's simpler, and it lets someone with artisan skill be well-rounded artistically (which the skill is supposed to convey) without getting to the point where the person with the skill is good at everything. I also like it because it doesn't run into the problem of getting the Inspired quality, or adept improved ability at the artisan skill, and not being able to get any benefit out of it because the knowledge skills are too low.

I have just hit this EXACT issue.

I have three magicians ALL wanting to take Artisan for various reasons and they ALL want to take enchanting as part of that (hey at least they aren't minmaxing).

By RAW anyone with Artisan 3 can weave wicker baskets as well as they can sing.

Personally, I agree with you Muspellheimr. Split the skills out. Each specific art is a skill in its own right. Not unlike the old Etiquette rules....

Having said that Hyzmarca's suggestion is a lot more manageable and doesn't break the game.

- J.

I like your house rule, Muspellheimr. I am going to be using that in my game from now on. Seems pretty solid to me.

Muspellheimr: Like your solution, allows you to take the skill once, without breaking the bank, and still have multiple levels depending on different areas.

Enchanting is a seperate skill covered in Street Magic, so i certainly wouldn't allow that.
Artisan would produce faux ritual materials or foci to be sold to mage wannabes, tourists, people interested in esoterics and the like, but if you actually want working binding materials or a power focus you can actually bond, you use Enchanting.
Okay, you may use Artisan to make the power focus look prettier, but besides that, it's completely useless for enchanting purposes.


As far as houserules are concerned, i'd make every art a seperate specialization of the skill and allow to take multiple specializations. even though it is not possible for other skills.
But to be honest, i don't really mind the idea of SR artists all being multitalented renaissance men, it fits the general superheroic tone the game has always headed towards ruleswise.

I agree that having one skill cover such a broad field is no good and that making each specialization a seperate active skill becomes way to expensive karmawise for such a minor thing.
We ditched artisan as an active skill alltogether. Every single "art" is a seperate fully functional knowledge skill, so it's even cheaper to buy than in Muspellsheimrs suggestion.

Anyone considered the Artisan skill having associated "maneuvers"? You buy Artisan and you get one "discipline" (i suppose you could call it), with additional disciplines able to be bought with 1bp, with a limit on disciplines equal to Artisan rating.

I think I like that, although I would probably go with 2 BP / 4 Karma.

Best one so far - just need to test it a bit.

The way I see it, you can either cost artisan skills as knowledges - they're probably going to be useful in about the same circumstances - or talk to your players to find out what they had in mind when they designed the character. I have a mage in my campaign with a peculiar fascination for fashion. He has taken artisan for designing clothes, and while he could conceivably by RAW also be an expert potter, dancer, painter etc. he hasn't. The rigger also has artisan for the purposes of building spiffy bodywork.

The way our group had it was you can take the broad skill artisan, but if you wanted to be truly know the field you would be more specific. This applied to any knowledge based skill.

For example take Black Markets as a knowledge skill. It means that you might know some things about the black market in general, but if you had Black Markets - Weapons then you are truly tapped into the actual knowledge base and are more in the know of the black market dealing in weapons.

Generally our GM would either assign lower thresholds or just give the party more information then just the general field of black markets.

Some people can as a hobby know a crap ton about music, art, and dancing. Some people know more specific things about each individual field.

For instance when I built a smuggler I took

Black markets - Weapons 4
Black Markets - Antiques 4
Smuggling routes - Sea 2
Smuggling routes - Land 3
Safe houses - Urban 3
Business - Distribution 2

In this respect it focused a lot of the characters knowledge and made knowsofts less awesome as well.

Artisan has three uses in the RAW that I can bring to mind:

1. Allows a magician to perform the Thesis/Masterpiece ordeal;
2. Allows an armorer to make a customised weapon look suitably badass;
3. Allows a mechanic to pimp someone's ride.

Much as it jars for the super-singer to also be a talented sculptor, I'm not sure it's unbalanced at a "normal" Shadowrun table.

As a RL sculptor/painter/drawer/musician/filmmaker/poet/writer/installation artist/martial artist/performance artist/conceptual artist/dancer/ect, I have no problem with the Artisan skill covering general artistic aptitude in multiple fields.

How about the solution of allowing the Knowledge Skill of the type (IE: Singing) be allowed to add to the active skill for success rolls?

I have an adept musician who has Artisan with a specialization in percussion. He has the Enthralling Performance adept power, but I apply it only to his drumming.

I like that rule a lot and don't really think it's needs much polishing. Then there is the fact that it's bascially the way my homebrew system that I've been working on functions. Some skills just act as limiters for others.

Example:
A street sam has Short Arms 6, Long Arms 4 as base skills and the skill limiters of Automatics 5 and Two Weapons 3. If he fires an SMG single shot he uses Short Arms of 6, and burst firing is Automatics at 5. He shoots an Assault rifle single shot he uses Long Arms of 4 and Automatics of 4 for a burst. Shooting two pistols he uses his Two Weapons skill of 3.

So, yes. I love that way of using Artisan.