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| Merits and Specialties | |||||||||||||
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 12 2018, 04:51 AM (7 Views) | |||||||||||||
| TheStranger | Jan 12 2018, 04:51 AM Post #1 | ||||||||||||
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For Abilities (which are your Talents, Skills, and Knowledges - this rule does not apply to Attributes), you may choose more than one specialty beyond the first, but there are limitations when doing so. Here's how it works: First, you must qualify for at least one specialty to choose a specialty (duh). So Academics at 1 dot qualifies, Melee at 4 dots qualifies, Brawl at 2 dots does not qualify (but would at 4). Once you qualify for your first specialty in a particular Ability and select it (which comes at no additional cost, as per the normal rules), if you wish to select an additional specialty at some point in the future, the first limitation is that you cannot have more specialties in a particular ability than you have dots in that ability. So if you have Crafts 3, you can choose the initial specialty upon gaining the first dot as usual, and you can choose up to 2 more specialties (1 + 2 = 3) at a maximum. The trick, however, is that those additional specialties after the first one come at a cost. The cost breaks down as follows:
Note that all costs are in XP. You may not spend Freebies on additional specialties. Additional specialties may only be gained through the expenditure of XP. So let's walk through some examples. Marvin rolls up a new character and ends up with Academics 3 to start. Academics has you choose a specialty at the first dot, so he selects Ancient Civilizations. At the start of the game he decides he wants to gain more specialties in Academics. Since he has 3 dots in Academics, he can choose 2 more, right? No. Why not? Because he has to purchase the additional specialties. OK, fine, so he can spend some Freebie Points to do that, right? No. Why not? Because he can only spend XP for additional specialties. Alright, so Marvin plays the game for awhile and saves up 14 XP. He decides it's time to purchase some additional specialties for Academics finally. So he already has Ancient Civilizations from character creation. Now he wants an additional specialty in Linguistics, so he pays 5 XP (since this is his second specialty in Academics). Right? Yes! That's how it works. He has 9 XP left over, and he sees that a third specialty in academics would cost him 7 XP, so he spends 7 more XP to pick up a specialty in Classical Literature. Right? Yes! That's still how it works. Awhile later, he gets 10 more XP to spend, and he decides he wants a fourth specialty in Academics, so he pays 10 XP and gets it, right? No. He has enough XP, but he only has 3 dots in Academics, so he can't purchase any more specialties until he gets at least one more dot in Academics. Remember, you cannot have more specialties in an Ability than you have dots in that Ability. So skip ahead a bit. Marvin has 3 specialties in Academics, but he's really been working on his skill with firearms (he's something of a warrior scholar, I suppose). He finally works his way up to Firearms 4. Upon reaching 4 dots in firearms, he earns a specialty in it. But he has to pay for it since he has other specialties in other things, right? No. The specialties in other abilities don't affect each other, not even for purposes of this rule. So he gets that first specialty for free, as usual, and he selects quickdraw. As it happens, he has 10 XP saved up by this point. He decides he wants to take a second specialty in Firearms, this time in trick shooting, so he spends 10 XP because he already has additional specialties in Academics, right? No. He only needs to spend 5 because he only has 1 specialty for Firearms right now. The specialties in Academics have nothing to do with the additional specialties in Firearms. So he spends his 5 XP and picks up trick shooting as his second specialty in Firearms. He could have as many as 4 specialties in Firearms at this point, but he'd have to buy the additional ones, of course. So there you have it. This gives you the ability to make more nuanced characters as you develop them over time, and another avenue to spend points so that there's half a reason everyone doesn't just end up with 5s in everything eventually and then have nothing left to spend on. Plus, just cuz you know how to paint really well doesn't mean you don't also know how to draw equally well. The two aren't mutually exclusive, so here we are. |
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| Oracle | Jun 29 2018, 03:53 PM Post #2 | ||||||||||||
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On the topic of Merits and Specialties, here are a few notes: • Merits do not apply when making the initial roll to use a Discipline. Enchanting Voice does not apply to Dominate, nor does Acute Sense apply to Aura Perception. Disciplines are special, borderline magical, and don't behave by the same rules that mundane actions do. Merits are typically intended to apply to normal actions, not the supernatural secrets that exist within your body and blood. There could be subsequent rolls in which a Merit might apply, however. For instance, a Merit that increases your ability to move silently might apply while trying not to break Obfuscation while moving across a room full of hazards. But it would not apply, for example, when trying to activate Vanish, as that initial roll is an active use of your vampiric power, while trying to walk quietly and not step in puddles are mundane actions. • Additionally, if you have multiple Merits which might apply to a single roll, you may choose which Merit applies, but you may only apply one such Merit on that roll. Merits do not stack on a single roll under any circumstances (aside from an exception made by the Storyteller, but this should be exceedingly rare). • The same is true of specialties. You may only apply a single specialty to a single roll, so the player may choose which specialty to apply (though the mechanical benefit should remain unchanged). • Players are encouraged to list their specialties and Merits if they think they might apply to a roll (or even if they're not sure). The ST will tell you if it does not does not apply to a given roll. It is not considered rude to list it during your roll. It would be considered rude to fight with the ST about the ruling after the fact, but the ST does NOT actively track all of your specialties or Merits, so if you don't mention it to the ST when you roll, we very likely probably won't know you have it when we're interpreting the results. One example of how you might communicate it is when you're performing your roll, you might say: Intelligence 3 + Politics 4 (Scandals) = 7 dice [result]8&8,1d10,0,8&1d10[/result] [result]2&2,1d10,0,2&1d10[/result] [result]10&10,1d10,0,10&1d10[/result] [result]7&7,1d10,0,7&1d10[/result] [result]6&6,1d10,0,6&1d10[/result] [result]9&9,1d10,0,9&1d10[/result] [result]9&9,1d10,0,9&1d10[/result] or perhaps: Manipulation 2 + Politics 4 (Scandals) = 6 dice, Enchanting Voice [result]9&9,1d10,0,9&1d10[/result] [result]6&6,1d10,0,6&1d10[/result] [result]5&5,1d10,0,5&1d10[/result] [result]3&3,1d10,0,3&1d10[/result] [result]9&9,1d10,0,9&1d10[/result] [result]10&10,1d10,0,10&1d10[/result] Then the ST will know what you've got and can decide whether it applies to the situation or not. |
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6:16 PM Jul 10