Maybe this is dealt with in the core book and I missed it, apologies if so, but say someone has Level 1 of Healer and also level 1 of Specialist and chooses Heal for their specialist skill, how would you deal with that seeming redundancy? Would you count Heal as a combat skill, so it doesn't apply? Or would you give them 4d6, which seems slightly OP?
Cheers in advance.
Posted Apr 9, 2019, 9:35 AM UTC
According to this post on the rpg.net forums, they do stack.
Huh. Well if Crawford himself says it stacks I guess it stacks.
4d6 drop the two lowest is how I would handle it. You don't change the range of the results, you just increase the chances of success.
Level Two of Specialist already allows for 4d6. I would allow them to skip to level 2 of it due to already essentially having the benefit of level 1 from another focus.
I probably would just disallow taking the specialist focus for any skill that already has a dedicated focus. It seems that the specialist is designed precisely to make up for the fact that some skills lack dedicated foci.
I would let them use 4d6 and drop the worst two; yes that's very strong, but they've invested a lot of resources in the skill so I think it's fair to recognise that.
Of course, if they came to me later on and said they'd over-invested and now regretted it, I'd let them re-choose.
That's a good shout about the Foci investment. If they want to hyper-specialise and know what they're getting into, I may let them.
It stacks. Foci are supposed to be powerful. You only get a half dozen, tops. So if the Hacker and Specialist/Program focus intersect, let that player roll 4d6 when hacking computers.
The real question is how to use Specialist/Trade and determining the sale price of goods in Suns of Gold. 4D6 choose 3 is one hell of a bonus!
When these types of Foci combos happen, I just let them use 4d6 drop the two lowest.
Rules as written, they both allow you to roll 3 dice, not add another one, so they don't stack.
A GM could be nice and say they stack, but then of course the question is what happens when that character takes specialist 2?
Either way I'd caution against overspecialization: Being amazing at 1 skill is nice, but often it is more useful to be very good in 2 different ones.
Yeah I was thinking about Specialist 2 as well. I mean, 5d6 drop the three lowest? Seems like a lot.
Since they both say roll 3d6 drop the lowest, not roll an extra die, I would rule that they don’t stack. If the player want 4d6 drop two, he can take specialist lvl 2.
I don't think it stacks. As GM I would either refund specialist or healer, or have them choose a different skill from specialist.
It stacks, and it can stack ridiculously if you take Specialist 2 with it, but there very rapidly becomes a point where it's a non-optimal pick. You're spending a big chunk of limited character resources to get a smaller and smaller advantage.
The average of 2d6 is 7. The average of 3d6 drop one is 8.46. The average of 4d6 drop two is 9.34. The average of 5d6 drop three is 9.93.
At 3d6 drop one, with Heal-2 and a +1 in your attribute, you're already rolling 12 a bit less than half the time. Paying one of your very limited focus slots to roll 12 a bit more than half the time isn't generally an optimizing move, but it can make sense for a PC who is totally focused on medic-fu.
Ah, thank you! For both the answer and the awesome game.