 April 24, 2010 - 10:48pm | inspired by another thread: http://starfrontiers.us/node/4111 it occured to me that doctors like to specialize in one area of medicine so why not in the Frontier was wondering what you all think once a character reaches a certain level with med skil they can specialize for a +20% in that area alone and what party wouldn't want a doc specialized in trauma? However if you limit it to a level say 4 or higher that character is already rolling on a higher level and now they get a +20% There's no drawback to specializing and getting a tough to fail chance so maybe this isn't such a good idea and who would even bother with being an oncologist- after all cancer is just not something your RPG character worries about. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 25, 2010 - 9:25am | I like the idea of specializing. SF has lumped all science and medicine into one category. It is simple, but not much fun. While an oncologist IS a bit narrow for a PC skill, it could be a beneficial in the right setting. I suppose it really depends on how much detail the game master wants in his game. |
 April 25, 2010 - 12:47pm | jedion, is that for the AD skill set? (I know you like using A Skilled Frontier). I mentioned before I'm updating "A Skilled Frontier" and adding "Specialization" in addition to a few skills that are missing. Since this skill system is broad by design (categorical) your character can specialize in a certain area, narrowing the focus. Specializing gives you a +10% to this focus but all other aspects of the skill are at -10%. For example; A character with the Medic skill might want to specialize in field surgery, radiation treatment, disease treatment, toxin treatment, or a specific race. Another character with Air Vehicles might pick a specific type of vehicle such as cyclejet, aircar or jetcopter. Let's say the character chooses to specialize in cyclejet's, whenever he is asked to make a pilot check using a cycletjet he receives an additional +10%, however when using any other air vehicle he receives a -10%. Inigo, There is a Science skill with no finite list of sciences from which to choose, but some example fields of science are archaeology, anthropology, physics, mathematics, agriculture, and education. |
April 25, 2010 - 6:53pm | ooops double post I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 25, 2010 - 6:51pm | why would a specialize character lose -10 because he specialize? I know it makes sence from an RPG stand point but it doesn't from a reality stand point. just because a doctor becomes a pediatrician he doesnt forget what he already learned. Though to be fair, your average pediatrician doesn't do surgery. But then it would be too complicated to have surgical medics and general medicine medics. If you just made specialization something you could do at a certain level then there is your limiting factor and you could drop the -10. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 25, 2010 - 8:35pm | Understood. A character should only specialize if he is trying to fill a character concept. Sometimes a player wants to get the initial starting boost but could regret it later (since it last the lifetime of the character). By narrowing the focus you are concentrating on a certain aspects of the skill and do not retain the broad scope. Feel free to ignore, I was just making a suggestion. |
 May 10, 2010 - 2:04pm | I think this idea has merit - the idea that a doctor should specialise in certain areas is a good one. Perhaps, instead of specialising, the medical PSA should be split down into different skill packages/archetypes - general practicioner, surgeon, ships doctor, paramedic for example. Skills such as diagnosis would probably be available from the start, but not every archetype would start off with access to every medical skill. Hmm - not sure I'm explaining this correctly. I'll take a look at a few bits and get back to you on this, lol! |
May 10, 2010 - 8:55pm | I think this idea has merit - the idea that a doctor should specialise in certain areas is a good one. Perhaps, instead of specialising, the medical PSA should be split down into different skill packages/archetypes - general practicioner, surgeon, ships doctor, paramedic for example. Skills such as diagnosis would probably be available from the start, but not every archetype would start off with access to every medical skill. Hmm - not sure I'm explaining this correctly. I'll take a look at a few bits and get back to you on this, lol! I think you have to split the skill to have different subskills for different packages paramedic has activate Freeze field, admin drugs, first aid, and diagnosis. its skill cost is same as for military PSA cost (but its still in Bio-social PSA) General practioner has all of the above subskills plus, control infection& Disease and toxins, plus minor surgery; the skill cost is the same for Technician PSA (but its still in Bio- social PSA) Surgeon- has all medical subskills cost is at printed in book I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 11, 2010 - 4:41am | Yeah - thats pretty much what I was thinking, although I might add a vehicle operation skill from the Technician PSA to the Paramedic package. |
May 11, 2010 - 5:07am | Yeah - thats pretty much what I was thinking, although I might add a vehicle operation skill from the Technician PSA to the Paramedic package. You could do that though if you made an archetype with my proposed paramedic skill package then you'd just specify he takes paramedic 1 and Tech 1 The real complication comes in when a paramedic 3 decides he wants to become a doctor I guess he could pay the difference between paramedic 1 and general Practioner 1 in exp then he's be paramedic 3 and GP 1; you could end up with a situation where you had Paramedic 3; GP 2; and surgeon 1 which would mean traking which subskill was performed at which level of training- a bit complicated for the reason that you'd have to be able to upgrade to a different level of medical spec. I wouldn't put the vehicle skill in the paramedic package but just make it a requirement of the archetype. But I'm suddenly unsure if I like my proposed packages as I can see the possible complications. However the paramedic skill package is ideal of ther military character that just wants to be a combat medic and not the ships doctor. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 12, 2010 - 4:48am | I think it's still a good idea, but the overlap of skills is going to be a sticking point. My initial idea is to have the character always use the highest skill level in the PSA's, but the real problem for me is why would a character pay to duplicate his skills? If he's already paid full cost for his skills, why should he pay full cost again for only 1 or 2 skills that he needs. 1 solution might be (and this could work for all PSA's) to have a basic PSA of a few, core skills, then expert PSA's, with a few, more advanced ones. Unfortunately - this would probably mean yet another overhaul of the skill system, but it would make it easier, I suppose - to add new skills to an on-going campaign! |
 May 12, 2010 - 4:29pm | One element I liked about the SF2000 rules was that the subskills became separate skills on their own, and did away with PSAs. There are four main "professions" with three or so variations with their own skill list. It just seems to make it easier to get the mix of skills you want, but at the cost of complexity. But hey, if I didn't like complexity, I wouldn't play Star Fleet Battles. "Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way." |
May 12, 2010 - 6:32pm | Actually I play in a game where the house rules are if you can come up with a profession concept and match 3 skills to that then that would be your PSA thus technician, medicals skill and one other could be lumped together under that system as a paramedic PSA I mixed environmentals skill with technician & phsyc-social as a vursk smuggler PSA I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 2, 2010 - 5:41pm | How far do you guys want to take the level of detail? If you want to dial it down to where the medical profession is right now I can illustrate the complexity. Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men. Edwin Louis Cole |
