Problem with the Dabbler perk

[johndallman]

I have a character with Engineer (Spacecraft) at 18 [4], several other Engineer specialisations at 16 [1], and some more specialisations on the character sheet at default, which is 14. He has a Dabbler perk for +2 to defaults in four skills, including an Engineer specialisation, which is thus at 16. And that's the problem.

The description of Dabbler says:

Originally Posted by Power-Ups 2: Perks, p. 16

If a skill has an unusually generous default, you can’t raise it to the level that actual points in the skill would buy.

I hit this when the character bought up his highest Engineer specialisation, and if he does it again, things will get silly. How do we fix this?

[Anthony]

Dabbler only applies to attribute defaults, not skill defaults.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Dabbler only applies to attribute defaults, not skill defaults.

GCA doesn't appear to understand that.

[Armin]

GCA is unable to deal with that. I'm afraid you have to fix that manually.

[ericbsmith]

As Armin said, GCA can't really handle all the intricacies of the Dabbler perk. There's just no way for it to accurately track that the skill is 1) defaulting to an attribute 2) has no points assigned to it and 3) will not be raised above the 1 point level (and adjust the bonus to make sure it doesn't). It's just too many variables to handle reliably.

If you want to limit the bonus you'll need to hand-edit it to reduce the bonus.

[Anthony]

Though as Engineer has no attribute-based default, there is never a situation where dabbler can be applied to it.