[Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier

[ericthered]

I've always allowed soldier skill to be used in place of many fear and will checks. This is mostly at low tech.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I've always allowed soldier skill to be used in place of many fear and will checks. This is mostly at low tech.

I think I'd apply this if you're in a situation where you can "let the training take over" and respond in a standard way. So when you're one pikeman in a square, and the cavalry are charging at you, yes, absolutely (or indeed when you're a 1950s cold war grunt and the horizon flashes white); when you're scouting with a small squad and there's a horrible roar over the hill, not so much.

[safisher]

Soldier is just the skill that fills in the middle ground of the profession. It's like having Law (Police) and Interrogation, but wanting to know whether the inmates awaiting trial are held. It gives you the "lay of the land" on a military base or a battlefield and handles the esoteric knowledge that makes the difference between civilians and veterans so obvious.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by safisher

It gives you the "lay of the land" on a military base or a battlefield and handles the esoteric knowledge that makes the difference between civilians and veterans so obvious.

I sometimes when driving in hilly country find myself wondering what pieces of ground I would want to occupy. What would Soldier(amateur-dabbler) be?

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by CoyoteGestalt

I used it once for cops as a generic "knowing how to operate and stow your basic gear" skill, as I needed something they could roll against to represent that knowledge, and to differentiate the street-level uniformed cops who had it from both senior desk-bound folks and investigators from other agencies, who didn't.

(Obviously, this came with the assumption that it only applied to police gear, and would take heavy familiarity penalties or be entirely non-applicable to actual soldiers' equipment and functions, if that had ever come up.)

I've long felt that there really ought to be a "Police" skill, by close analogy to Soldier, covering exactly that sort of stuff. You've got a profession that involves all sorts of routine maintenance and operation of comms gear, vehicles, and weapons, and generally knowledge of the way that things are done, sometimes because it's the best way, sometimes just because it's useful to have everyone in the organisation doing stuff the same way... Why we got Soldier in 4e but there was resistance to Police eludes me.

Originally Posted by RogerBW

In my space-navy game I use Professional Skill (Sailor) for this purpose, which I should possibly have called something else; it fits alongside Spacer (living aboard ship, basic shipboard tasks) and Savoir-Faire (Military). Ground troops do have normal Soldier, and there's obviously some overlap.

Sorry, what does the Professional Skill cover that Spacer or Savoir-Faire (Military) doesn't? I'd think that most of it was Spacer (with a military set of familiarities). Adding a third skill just looks like skill bloat.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I've long felt that there really ought to be a "Police" skill, by close analogy to Soldier, covering exactly that sort of stuff. You've got a profession that involves all sorts of routine maintenance and operation of comms gear, vehicles, and weapons, and generally knowledge of the way that things are done, sometimes because it's the best way, sometimes just because it's useful to have everyone in the organisation doing stuff the same way... Why we got Soldier in 4e but there was resistance to Police eludes me.

If someone were silly enough to let me redefine GURPS, I'd quite possibly use Soldier as the canonical example of a Professional Skill.

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Sorry, what does the Professional Skill cover that Spacer or Savoir-Faire (Military) doesn't? I'd think that most of it was Spacer (with a military set of familiarities). Adding a third skill just looks like skill bloat.

I can see the argument for that, and I thought about this for a while, but I think it's justifiable even if the division is a bit close at times. Spacer is living on and basic operations of a spacecraft. PS(Sailor) as a Soldier-equivalent is for all the things you get to do in the Navy that aren't spacecraft operation: drill, tactics, personal weapon maintenance, whom to salute and when, which cleaning nanites will get your boots shiny enough but not eat holes through them. Savoir-Faire (Military) is not only cross-service but deals more with regulations and customs: who buys drinks for whom, when snogging your girlfriend is OK and when it's Fraternising.

I can easily picture the old lag who's too lazy to do the job well but knows all the rules, the newbie who's got the basic training down but hasn't yet picked up the "way things are done", or the shipboard specialist who's at a loss when he's dropped into a staff job, and they all have different combinations of these skills.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I've long felt that there really ought to be a "Police" skill, by close analogy to Soldier, covering exactly that sort of stuff. You've got a profession that involves all sorts of routine maintenance and operation of comms gear, vehicles, and weapons, and generally knowledge of the way that things are done, sometimes because it's the best way, sometimes just because it's useful to have everyone in the organisation doing stuff the same way... Why we got Soldier in 4e but there was resistance to Police eludes me.

Well, what's stopping you from having Soldier (NYPD)? I mean, if Soldier (US Navy) is valid, that would have to be as well. True, the term might be confusing, but so is Machinist/TL0 for flint knapping.

[Kalzazz]

Having been a radiation remediation tech, an electricians assistant, and a correctional officer, I think that 'knowing how to use job appropriate load bearing equipment to properly stow all your job appropriate goodies on your person' is definitely a professional skill thing in general, and would probably allow a default for such purposes between different such skills

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I've long felt that there really ought to be a "Police" skill, by close analogy to Soldier, covering exactly that sort of stuff.

There is! GURPS Mysteries p. 112.

[Sword-dancer]

Originally Posted by johndallman

That's entirely reasonable.

That is entirely depending on the army, i would it only allow in very narrow circumstances as a default.
What i learned in boot camp was at best not entirely useless, and was suboptimal at best.