Post by The Darkness on Oct 21, 2016 13:08:45 GMT
The natural inclination when one sees 'specialization' in the WOD and has looked over any of the core books on the subject is to cringe. This brings it all together in a manner that is fair, balanced and makes sense.
For our World of Darkness setting we treat specializations as secondary skills. What this means is that these secondary skills are tied to a primary Attribute or Ability. As such when used they receive a -1 reduction to difficulty rolls. When a roll is made in the WOD system it usually consisted of combining two stats together to form a pool. In this instance, with specializations, only one 'specialty' can and will apply. This is to keep the difficulties in a manageable range and still allow the ST/GM to tell a compelling story without killing PC's outright due to what would need to be thrown to make it challenging.
An example of how Specialization works.
"Katherine is a sniper. As such she has a specialty tied to firearms, called 'sniping'. Her firearms is rank 4 while her Sniping is rank 5. She will combine her five dice of sniping with her Dexterity to form her attack pool at a base difficulty of 5."
This reflects Katherine's skill with sniping a target.
*Note: ST's will situationally adjudicate situations. Just because you are specialized in something does not mean that it applies to all applications and situations. In such cases the dice pool will default back to the base Attribute or Ability it was tied to, to determine the pool.
Example:
"Katherines Firearms is rank 4, her Sniping is Rank 5. She sees Marcus suddenly enter the hallway and snaps off a shot. She cannot use Sniping here as she did not take time to set up and prepare her shot so the roll is her Dexterity + Firearms at a standard difficulty of 6."
Had she altered that and set up her shot and taken the time to practice the skills inherent to a sniper she could have used her sniping skill and done so at the reduced difficulty.
For our World of Darkness setting we treat specializations as secondary skills. What this means is that these secondary skills are tied to a primary Attribute or Ability. As such when used they receive a -1 reduction to difficulty rolls. When a roll is made in the WOD system it usually consisted of combining two stats together to form a pool. In this instance, with specializations, only one 'specialty' can and will apply. This is to keep the difficulties in a manageable range and still allow the ST/GM to tell a compelling story without killing PC's outright due to what would need to be thrown to make it challenging.
An example of how Specialization works.
"Katherine is a sniper. As such she has a specialty tied to firearms, called 'sniping'. Her firearms is rank 4 while her Sniping is rank 5. She will combine her five dice of sniping with her Dexterity to form her attack pool at a base difficulty of 5."
This reflects Katherine's skill with sniping a target.
*Note: ST's will situationally adjudicate situations. Just because you are specialized in something does not mean that it applies to all applications and situations. In such cases the dice pool will default back to the base Attribute or Ability it was tied to, to determine the pool.
Example:
"Katherines Firearms is rank 4, her Sniping is Rank 5. She sees Marcus suddenly enter the hallway and snaps off a shot. She cannot use Sniping here as she did not take time to set up and prepare her shot so the roll is her Dexterity + Firearms at a standard difficulty of 6."
Had she altered that and set up her shot and taken the time to practice the skills inherent to a sniper she could have used her sniping skill and done so at the reduced difficulty.