The step for determining derived statistics is after the step for spending starting XP.

Also, the amount of times a ranked talent can be purchased appears to be missing. By my reading right now, once I hit the 25xp tier of a Specialization and can buy Dedication, all of a sudden it only costs me 25 xp to raise any attribute by one point (to the cap of 6). Thinking about it further, I guess its not "too" powerful, as thats significantly more expensive than training a skill, but attributes apply to far wider range of tests. Still, its cheaper than buying the attributes up at character creation.

Good point. It would be nice to have a quick overview of what exactly changes when a character discards a specialization the first time this is mentioned. I believe that I found the answer elsewhere in the book. I think the skills that became career skills when you chose the Spec. remains so, and you retain any talents that have hte "permanent" status (the colored red bar above the talent name). You would thus lose any non-permanent talents.

Venthrac said:

That sounds right; I mean, is there any other listed reason for some talents to be listed as "permanent"?

KommissarK said:

It seemed to me like you don't voluntarily buy an additional rank for a talent, you gain it when you purchase the talent again, in a different box. There are trees, for example, where you buy a ranked talent, and then you follow the grey line down and the next box contains the exact same talent. At first this confused me, but then I decided it must mean you simply gain a second rank in the talent. I went on to intuit that you cannot purchase the same box on the talent tree twice.

This all makes pretty good sense to me, but I freely admit that my interpretation could be totally incorrect. It's an area where I think we could benefit form additional clarity and multiple examples.

The thing I am not sure about, however, it permanency as it relates to additional ranks and discarding specializations.

For example, let's say I gain the "Plausible Deniability" talent from the Politico tree twice, and the first instance was permanent but the second was not. I now have two ranks in Plausible Deniability. When I discard the Politico specialization, do I retain both ranks, or only one? Only one of the two boxes had the red light of permanency over it; the box that gave me my second rank did not. So do I only carry the benefits of that one permanent box, which would entitle me to only one rank of PD?

I would assume I literally only get what was in my red boxes, so additional talent ranks I gained from non-permanent boxes would all go away.

So in theory, a PC could cycle through all the specializations, cover all the skills as class skills, and effectively save xp? Obviously the GM would need to slap them for doing so, but it seems kinda gamey to me.

(working on a table to figure how cheap this actually would be)

On ranked talents; what about when the talent only comes from one specialization? (ref. command from mercenary soldier)

Is this just future proofing then?

The book says ranked talents would have a number in parentheses to indicate the max rank allowed (or otherwise its theoretically infinite I think).

I don't have my book on hand, K, so I'm flying blind here. All I can add without a reference on hand is that I had to read the rules in a few different places (Chapters III and IV both) before I felt like I had a grasp on the concepts, and even now I'm not sure I have it totally correct.

By the way, good idea on making that table. IIRC it is relatively cheap to unlock a new Specialization (5 or 10xp?), so you might be onto something there with makinng all the skills into career skills.

KommissarK said:

No, you can only have 3 specialization active at one time. That still give you a ton of class skill.

I have a concern about starting credit of 500. I think it's a bit low.

As a Blaster Pistol is 500 credit, and a set of Heavy Clothing is also 500 credit… Even if I go for hold out Blaster Pistol, it will cost 300 credits. It really doesn't give you much purchase power.

It does feel low. Were it up tp me. I'd set it at an even 1,000. I mean, it's tough to choose between either having clothes or having a gun. :)

Funny image though.

Qingtian said:

That struck me as a bit low as well. It seemed very odd that a character such as a bounty hunter could start out with only light blaster pistol. However, this does encourage he playing taking extra obligation with a reward in the form of cash. Not saying I wouldn't support an increase in starting cash, but I can see the benefits of the current amount: keep 'em hungry.

Shakespearian_Soldier said:

Very possible, but I think they need to state that a bit more clearly.

GoblynByte said:

Well… Greedo was a bounty hunter.  All he had was a pistol.  What could possibly go wrong… oh..never mind.  Bad example.

 I guess they really want to character to take additional obligation to increase the starting credit. I noticed that range weapon tend to cost a lot more than melee weapon. I guess it's a way to balance range's advantage over melee based equipment? 

Qingtian said:

Could you not obtain another "Obligation" to get more funds for your starting character? I think being able to do so would add more flavor to the PC as well as justifying the extra amount to start with.

KommissarK said:

This is dealt with on p.88 under Talent Trees.  The PC will immediately lose all talents not marked as "Permanent" (a red bar in the Talent tree).