11-05-2016, 01:40 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
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11-05-2016, 02:16 PM | #12 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
Marines also have Soldier (it is even part of the Assaulter Style...); I wasn't advocating a different skill, but rather pointing out that Curmudgeon was being Army-centric.
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11-05-2016, 02:23 PM | #13 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
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11-05-2016, 03:49 PM | #14 | |
Dog of Lysdexics
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
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11-05-2016, 10:41 PM | #15 | ||||
Join Date: Sep 2011
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
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To some extent, you’re being U.S.-centric, and it's more of a blind spot with me. Canada doesn’t have Marines but if it ever does form them, they would be closer to Royal Marines than U.S. Marines in tradition, i.e., to some extent they’re “just” another unit in the army, rather than a separate service, or in other words, somewhat more like an Airborne Regiment or the U.S. Special Forces. Quote:
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I’m not only army-centric, I’m artillery-centric, so here are a couple of specific traditions that do come up as part of Savoir-Faire (Military): the Royal (Canadian) Horse Artillery, when mounted, is entitled to the position of Right of the Line unless the Gentlemen-Cadets of the Royal Military College are paraded as a formed unit, in which case they have precedence; and artillery units are handed over “at ease” whereas all other units are handed over at “attention”. |
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11-06-2016, 06:32 AM | #16 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
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11-06-2016, 07:26 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
They were originally a combination of SPs and commandos. So were the US Marines. They expanded into a full-fledged second army during the Bananna Wars or perhaps a bit before and kept that design when it was realized that this would fit them for a place in War Plan Orange.
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11-06-2016, 07:40 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
One use of Soldier skill is hefting gear on the march. During the Franco-Prussian war one reason the Prussians blindsided the French is that the French didn't realized that railroads would allow them to put reserves into the field because they assumed they would have to march them all the way up to the frontier before starting the campaign. And it required regulars to know how to carry gear without ending up to exhausted to be of any use.
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11-06-2016, 07:48 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
There is definitely room for more examples of pre-TL 5 Soldier skill in use.
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11-06-2016, 06:19 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
I put a lot of my thoughts on Soldier skill in this thread a while ago. (My commentary is on the bottom of the linked page, as well as following pages.) As a professional soldier, I hope that I have something productive to say on the matter...
I like Soldier skill. A lot. Admittedly, it can be difficult for a GM who has never been a soldier to implement it well. But it solves the problem of massive point and skill bloat for anyone in the military. It keeps you from having to give every IQ8 conscript a dozen skills like Electronics Operation (Commo), NBC Warfare, Hiking, Armory, Engineering (Combat), Camouflage, Tactics, etc., etc. Also, if you put even one point into each of those then your average soldier will be far too competent. Most know only very narrow applications of these skills. For instance, they can use their own service's squad-level radios including changing batteries, setting frequencies, fills, net protocol, keywords, etc., but if they had full-on Electronics Operation (Commo) then every private would have a decent shot at managing a cellular network or satellite uplink, which is patently ridiculous. It's sort of Dabbler (A Bunch of Militaria), though you have to be careful to bear in mind that it is very limited to covering routine (+4 or better) uses of other martial skills. Then, just use massive amounts of time spent as required (see page B346). FWIW Kromm officially opposes thinking of it as a limited form of a bang! skill, even though it clearly works at least somewhat similarly. Absolutely, it needs to be specialized by nationality, service, and era. Then you can allow familiarity penalties for, for example, A US Marine trying to use a US Army codebook. I continue to maintain that most privates do not have Savoir Faire (Military), but are rather using Soldier skill to cover what would otherwise be +4 rolls against Savoir-Faire. That should cover recognizing patches, rank insignia, and saluting rules for your own service. (I still can't make sense of US Navy enlisted ratings.) As described in Curmudgeon's post above, IMHO Savoir-Faire (Military) is more often used for covering ceremonies and hobnobbing, which wouldn't get the +4. That's not really RAW from anywhere, though- it just makes more sense to me as a military guy.
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I'd need to get a grant and go shoot a thousand goats to figure it out. Last edited by acrosome; 12-30-2020 at 08:44 AM. |
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