Expanding Skills in X-plorers with Specializations

 Fear Agent's Heath Huston gains a +1 in giant wrenches under weapons specialization. No bonuses in fixing stuff though.

Sci-fi settings lend themselves to skill-based systems and I’d griped earlier about trying to keep things simple while I work up additional classes for X-plorers.

I really like the system that Jeff Rients proposed in the comments of my earlier post, which was to use skill specializations (rather than expanding the list of skills themselves). Star Wars, West End Games 2nd edition (hereafter referred to as WEG) has a good list of skills covering a wide array, so I thought that’d be a good place to start.

The Attribute scores in WEG are:

• Dexterity
• Knowledge
• Mechanical
• Perception
• Strength
• Technical

…for X-plorers:

• Agility
• Intelligence
• Physique
• Presence

Step 1: Figure Out How Skills Would Translate
Following is my first stab at skill specializations as they might fall within the X-plorers ruleset. If you’re aware of this already being done, let me know as I’d like to take compare. Most of this is best guess at this point, so I reserve the right to revise(!). I’ve already got some misgivings about a few, Droid Repair being one (see complete list).

Two items of note: in the current X-plorers rule book, no Physique skills are listed, but the description for Martial Arts mentions it. Weapons Specialty is another un-associated X-plorers skill that I matched with Dexterity in WEG—making it Agility related in X-plorers. I've uploaded a complete list for you to download (see the file box in the column at right), and since I'm no good at HTML tables, I made a graphic of some sample skills:

Let me just state for the record that I think many of these skills are redundant so they could be eliminated or at least grouped/named differently. This table is only a portion of the one I’m working on. The column(s) not seen here are what I’d do in my own setting (which is still in progress). I’ll also add a few skills here and there that I don’t see represented in either system.

Anyway, if you’re converting between WEG to X-Plorers or want to expand skills in X-plorers and need a place to start, I hope this comes in handy. Again, the file is available for download at right. Oh, and thanks to Albert over at Terminal Space for posting that great file widget, which works great!

Now hopefully I'll get to finish a "Step 2" which would have my preferred specializations.

UPDATE: see the downloadable skills conversion document on the side of the blog? That was the result of this little exercise. G'head--take it, it's free!