Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

Greetings, all!

What would be the reasonable improvement per point spent on a hypothetical Improved Job Training? I'm thinking specifically of improvements that provide a benefit under routine, on-the-job circumstances subsumed into Job Rolls, but aren't good enough to affect rolls under other circumstances, let alone under outright adventurous conditions.

On one hand, there's Hyperspecialisation, which provides +5 to a narrow area, and surely most people with Hyperspecialisation would be working in such narrow niches. On the other, there's Efficient, which allows working at no penalty in 80% of the normal amount of time required (thus essentially providing free time equal to 1/5th of the normal workhours), and is very useful under all sorts of circumstances. On the third hand, +1 to Mixing Cocktails seems to be very narrow, and doesn't even fully cover a bartender's role (though it does seem to be handy for them).

So, how much is too much, and how little is too little? For Job Rolls Only, that is.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

I'd be inclined to call this a leveled perk associated with a specific skill. I'd probably also put a fairly low cap on it (say, no more than +3); if you want to be better at your job, increase your skills.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

Perk: work handbook bond
Reputation: good employee
Contact: Related Field Person
Ally: Boss
Ally: Boss's Boss

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

well, traditionally improving one aspect of a skill without improving the rest of a skill is called the technique.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

I'd do it this way as well. There is a certain correlation with knowing how to do your job that comes from experience vs. having the skill for said job.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

I agree, Bartending seems to be a 'tip' profession i.e. they pay you half and you get the other half in tips. I'd allow a Bartender to have a technique (perhaps called Showmanship) that allowed them to increase earnings by 10% x Margin of Success.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

A leveled perk that gives +1 per level is functionally the same as an Average technique that defaults to full skill and can be raised above skill. Either would be fine, and amount to more reliably earning income with a skill by raising it at 1/4 cost. Such a trait would be utterly meaningless to most adventurers, and given that Independent Income also costs 1 point/level and "just works," I don't see it being especially easy to abuse.

However, while it might represent specific facility at the tasks mentioned in the skill write-up that are most central to the job, I would not try to explain the bonus in such terms. I'd leave it as a meta-game abstraction for "good at divining all the little touches that workplaces deem worthy of reward": rapport with coworkers, skill at handling bosses, aptitude for clock-watching, glued-on happy face, and knowing exactly what lines each company likes filled out on TPS reports.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

Mmmm. As someone with a little experience in the field, that's more a DX-based Professional Skill (Bartender) roll rather than a technique. I supposed you could use a technique if you wanted, allow it to go up to Skill+4, and make it an Average technique. I don't know if I'd say, "Use a technique instead of a skill" for a job roll though. That said, I'd definitely allow a character to use the better of the two attributes to make his job roll. Hell, depending on the venue and the bartender's gender, an HT-based roll might even be in order for drinking beverages bought by your patrons. People tend to give more tip-wise if they think of you as a "drinking buddy" rather than "someone who gets me my beer." When I worked as a bouncer/bartender in a gentleman's club, I used to get CRAZY good tips from most of the patrons, especially if they bought me a drink so "[They] didn't have to drink alone." Fun fact, most people who go to places like that don't want to stare at boobs (though that does factor into the equation) - they just want someone to talk to.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

You just made me realize I've heard that term a lot and never known the meaning.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

A perk feels better IMHO. Also, you are a terrible person for that last bit. Just terrible. Worse than RevBob.

Slight Derailement: It's from Office Space.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

Hmm. So you're in favour of a mere +1 per [1], per level. Seems weird to me in the face of Independent Income, Hyperspecialisation, Efficient etc.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

You can't take Hyper-Specialization (My Job) . . . the specific definition of that perk is that it shouldn't be something that could matter more than once in a PC's career, and mattering every month is clearly a bigger deal. I can't even see how you're involving Efficient – it's a penalty canceller, and such tend to be about twice as large as bonus-givers, because they can't give the net bonus that's just about always what players actually want.

The most apt comparison is to Independent Income. There, we're looking at 1 point for +1 to a freelance job roll giving you +1 to margin of success and +10% to monthly income, while 1 point for Independent Income 1 adds +1% of starting wealth to monthly income. Thus, this putative perk is better unless (starting wealth)/100 > (monthly income)/10, which never actually happens unless you have a rotten job:

TL, SW/100, MI/10
0, $2.50, $62.50
1, $5.00, $65.00
2, $7.50, $67.50
3, $10.00, $70.00
4, $20.00, $80.00
5, $50.00, $110.00
6, $100.00, $160.00
7, $150.00, $210.00
8, $200.00, $260.00
9, $300.00, $360.00
10, $500.00, $560.00
11, $750.00, $810.00
12, $1,000, $1,060.00

Wealth multiplies both figures, so it's a red herring. Plus, the perk gives you better odds of promotion, etc. All told, the perk is better if you plan to work in the first place.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

My attention to Efficient was because you can get paid 100% of the salary by investing 80% of the time. IOW, assuming a pay-by-amount-of-work-done freelancer work, you perform 50 effective man-hours in 40 chronological hours, which is a +25% improvement in the amount of work done (and money earned, assuming a job where these map 1:1).

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

...and that assumes that the Time Worked rules apply to job rolls. It's not clear to me that they do.

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

Efficient definitely has no effect at all on jobs! It's very specifically a tool for tasks, not for rolls that abstract many tasks. Jobs involve large numbers of time factors that are wholly independent of worker skill, notably wait times for clients, processes, work-related shopping and sales, etc. It isn't as if, say, a freelance jeweler with Efficient (Jeweler) can make buying gems and metal, setting adhesives, traveling to the bazaar, and selling the final product go any faster. There are vanishingly few jobs where one time-dependent skill defines the whole of what goes on. The fact that the job roll is against a specific skill isn't meant to suggest that's the only skill that matters . . . most jobs are defined by templates with many skills, and the job roll just uses the iconic skill for meta-game simplicity. At best, a kind GM might say "Efficient helps about 10% of what you do, so go ahead and add 2% to monthly income."

Re: Pricing improved Job Rolls (without increasing skills)?
 

Not to mention, some that do-like being a cover band at a club-would not work particularly well, as singing a song 20% faster is probably not looked upon fondly.