Hybrid careers

[Morrus]

Sometimes a player will say, quite reasonably, "I wasn't a librarian then a vampire slayer - I'm a librarian who moonlights as a vampire slayer". There's a difference - both careers are taking place simultaneously. Han Solo wasn't a pilot THEN a smuggler, he was both at the same time. Here's how I'd handle that.

The first thing to bear in mind is that the real solution is to invent a new career, the librarian vampire slayer. The guidelines below are how to quickly combine two existing careers into a new hybrid career.

This requires GM approval. You can't just combine careers if there's no logical reason to do so.

1) Name: the new career is named Librarian/Vampire Slayer (or similar). The two constituent careers form the title separated by a slash.

1a) Years: the number of years it takes is the longer of the two careers.
1b) XP: the XP cost of a hybrid career is the same as a normal career.

2) Prerequisites: you must meet the pre-requisites of both careers as normal.

3) Attributes: you still only get 4 attribute points. Choose 4 from those listed in both careers. However, if any attributes are listed in BOTH careers, then you MUST include that attribute in your four choices. Also, you cannot change the four choices each time you take a grade in this new career -- a career with a free choice for 8 attributes is a very broken career! So once you choose the four, you are stuck with those four each time you advance your new career.

4) Skill choices: the two constituent career skill lists are simply combined. You still only chose two.

5) Exploits: you may choose an exploit from either career. However, as you advance, you must alternate between the two exploit lists.

And voila! There's your Librarian/Vampire Slayer. Or your Soldier/Medic. Or your Pilot/Smuggler.

Thoughts?

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Simple, easy, to the point. Gives the flexibility something like that should have, and not overpowered.

The alternating exploits - need to note which is which (unless that is your only career), but that is easy.

I like it.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Print this out and tape it into the back of my OLD and NEW books...

 

[Morrus]

I should probably add it to the rules FAQ.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Or pretty it up a bit, add a piece of art, and make it a "free for anyone" 1 page EONS article.

 

[Morrus]

It's hard to stretch that even to a single page!

 

[easl]

It's nice, but your (4) is still a bit broken. Let's say I have a career I like (say, Spy), but it doesn't have a skill I want to take (say, starship tactics). I make a combo spy/navy tour career using your rules that looks exactly like the spy career - same attributes, etc. - but lo and behold, it now has a a bigger skill list and I can take starship tactics.

IOW, your system allows every career to have practically any skill attached to it. That's kinda wrong.

Personally I'd go with simpler advice to my players: just assume the experience you gained from your careers didn't necessarily come from d6 consecutive, dedicated years. Write your PC history in the way that makes sense for you. If you want to say that you went to University for 2 years, dropped out and joined the marines, and then went back to school on a GI bill and completed your degree, take Marine Tour and College and just describe it in the way that makes sense for your character. Want to be a librarian/vampire slayer? Then take librarian, take vampire slayer, and say you did the combo for 2d6 years.

 

[Morrus]

It's nice, but your (4) is still a bit broken. Let's say I have a career I like (say, Spy), but it doesn't have a skill I want to take (say, starship tactics). I make a combo spy/navy tour career using your rules that looks exactly like the spy career - same attributes, etc. - but lo and behold, it now has a a bigger skill list and I can take starship tactics.

IOW, your system allows every career to have practically any skill attached to it. That's kinda wrong.

That's the case with any new career you create, though. I think the GM approval of it making logical story sense is the key thing - if you're just combining two careers to get a skill rather than because it makes sense for your character, then the GM should disallow it.

Skills aren't exactly a rare resource in the game - you can pick up a new one for just 3XP, and the system does encourage diversification and broad areas of competence by making them easy to come by and capping dice pools.

Personally I'd go with simpler advice to my players: just assume the experience you gained from your careers didn't necessarily come from d6 consecutive, dedicated years. Write your PC history in the way that makes sense for you. If you want to say that you went to University for 2 years, dropped out and joined the marines, and then went back to school on a GI bill and completed your degree, take Marine Tour and College and just describe it in the way that makes sense for your character. Want to be a librarian/vampire slayer? Then take librarian, take vampire slayer, and say you did the combo for 2d6 years.

That works perfectly for character creation. It becomes more tricky when advancing careers in play though. You'd have to save up twice the XP and then buy both careers in full at once, which feels ... arduous!