I've got the bacta blues...

[Luwingo_Spince]

[Centinull]

"Scholar" by itself is not a skill, you must pick a field of study

"Engineering" by itself is not a skill, you must pick a field of study

"Medicine" is a complete skill by itself.
"Medicine" already has a prerequisite, 5D First Aid

All specializations of Engineering are exclusive.
They do not overlap in application, therefore it is logical they have different prerequisites.

All specializations of Medicine, are included in the use of Medicine.
Since someone can have medicine, without additional prerequisites, beyond first aid, and use all of it's specializations, it is illogical for the specializations of Medicine to have different prerequisites than Medicine itself has.

[Luwingo_Spince]

[DougRed4]

[Whill]

In my game PCs can only raise the base Scholar skill to 4D max, and beyond that point you can only specialize. The 4D represents part of the "general studies" aspect of the SW equivalent of a bachelor degree. I guess Education professors or Jeopardy champions could have their base Scholar skill higher than 4D, but we haven't had any PCs with those backgrounds.

In my game I have elevated some regular skills to advanced status, and all advance skills have multiple skill and attribute prerequisites. And I think it is natural for various specializations of advanced skills to have different prerequisites.
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[Centinull]

To be honest, I didn't even know the wording of the Scholar skill. I just assumed someone over at WEG thought "Scholar:Jedi Lore", looked better than "Jedi Lore".

The idea that Scholar could be taken without a field of study just seems ludicrous to me.

Knowledge about everything ?
That's what the knowledge attribute is for.

The ability to research information pertaining to a knowledge skill they don't have ?
I'd make the use investigation.

[Whill]

I feel the system works fine without Scholar, and sure, you can have those types of knowledge just come from the base attribute. There are a few abilities in my game that only default to the base attribute and can't be raised as a skill.

But the idea behind Scholar is not a knowledge of everything. Scholar is academic knowledge and the skill description strongly implies that the other Knowledge skills (such as Alien Species, Cultures, Business, Cultures, Languages, Planetary Systems, Survival, Tactics and Value), or at least the base Knowledge skills without their own specializations, all represent knowledge learned from experience, and I can agree that academic training can only teach you so much in these areas (represented by, say, base Knowledge).

The example areas of Scholar knowledge on R&E p. 45 include archaeology, botany, chemistry, geology, history and physics. If you want to be technical, these subjects could each be represented in the game by their own distinct knowledge skill, but I feel the game's basic Knowledge system structure as-is fairly adequately handles simulating cinematic reality of space opera adventurers. The base Scholar skill allows for a character to be relatively inexperienced in the ways of the galaxy (say a young adult with base Knowledge 2D and not many or any higher Knowledge skills) going off to college and completing the general studies component of their education, and thus having an increased skill level in general academic training in those book-learned subjects (and a corresponding increased ability to research that realistically does come hand-in-hand with higher education) yet still without having much general experience in life. As stated above, I think it is reasonable to have an increased general academic training up to a point, and then it does start to become ridiculous without specializing.

As far as the researching information aspects of the skill, sure there are overlaps with Investigation and Computer Programming. But they each have different emphases due to Investigation being under Perception, Computers being under Technical and Scholar being under Knowledge. Some information may be harder or easier to find based on the method used, but then in other cases they all could be equally applicable, I make it the same difficulty for each, and let players choose which skill to use. It makes sense to me to have a Knowledge-based option for finding information in some cases.

So does the game system absolutely need the Scholar skill? No, but it does have a place in my game. And for me, Knowledge and its skills are mainly for PCs only. I rarely roll Knowledge skills for NPCs because they just know whatever I want them to know. 8)
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[garhkal]

Since most games i have seen Scholar used, you 'get a field of study' per each full D you take it above your base Know, it has always been listed on pc's sheets as (say)
Know 3d+1,
Scholar 7d+1 (field of study cryptography, numerology, calculus, and one other)..

I would rather it be where each field of study would be it's own skill you inc.
So the above pc could be
Know 3d+1
Scholar calculus 4d+2
Scholar numerology 5d+1
Scholar cryptography 5d
Scholar what ever 4d+2
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[jmanski]

This has me thinking.... what if Scholar worked like languages? Beat the difficulty enough times and your character has a working knowledge of botany. This could represent the ability of scholars to learn without adding a ton of CPs for skills the character probably wont use very often.
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[Whill]

You could do that if you wanted to, but that seems contrary to the idea behind the skill. Scholar is supposed to be academic learning not gained through experience.
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