The College Experience

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

My working experience with new PhDs is that they have a super rapid learning curve, but they emerge from PhD school with skills you'd probably put in the 10-12 range in most applied areas, unless they came from research that had them actually building or making stuff.

This almost sounds like moderate-to-high skill with familiarity penalties.

Originally Posted by Lord Carnifex

College experience will certainly give a person the opportunity to invest points in skills. How much time and effort and points devoted will determine what the character gets out of it.

Still, let's not run down college graduates too much.

Let's do. Not done enough, IMO.

Some (perhaps many) people are morons. Give them a few years of college, and what do they become? College-trained morons, the worst kind. In my experience, the primary effect of college education is to trick the recipient into thinking he's smart and well-educated. Takes about ten years to wear that chip off.

This varies, of course. Anyone in the hard sciences really is either smart, well-educated, or both, or they wouldn't have made it to graduation. Business and teaching degrees aren't something you want to brag about.

You mentioned writing (snipped). Good for you; I've lost track of the number of college graduates who can't spell or write clearly.

Still, as you said, you get out of college what you put into it. Not everyone is lazy or a moron. Sometimes someone even escapes with their humility and perspective intact.

[nik1979]

Disclaimer: My opinion

"Bachelor" Background will allow characters to "buy" IQ or Talent up to 14/ +2, while "Masters" would allow players to "buy" IQ or Talent up to 15/ +4. It also comes at a +2/+4 reaction bonus when applying to certain jobs and dealing in a professional capacity with certain professions. The +4 to same or closely aligned professions; +2 for other serious about professionalism in general.

NB: this reflects people who merely take education for its social advantage, and those who take the opportunity to allow them to maximize their abilities. Not all schools are the same, some grant bonus reputation or other circumstantial bonuses or disadvantages.

Originally Posted by paladin15132

what rank should a character have in a skill after completing their graduate degree in the skill?

12 would be about right. Its the midway of 10 and 15. It can accomplish fairly easy or difficult but routine tasks ( of +2 to +3 TDM) with acceptable levels of risk.

I personally believe that 15, would be the expected professional standard whose tolerance for error would be almost 0. 16+ would be "experts" who are especially called in special professional circumstances where the tasks are more than "challenging" or the expected professional circumstance. While Skills of 20 aren't impossible or cinematic, but common place among the top most one to two individuals of a given field.

Of course this comes with the assumption that TDM +0 is the standard expected "professional" circumstance (which includes difficulty and time of completion). Basically a professional is expected to do something an ordinary layman who has no skills would be impossible to do (I follow the no familiarity no default rule) because he is a professional.

NB: in my experience all high paying careers (engineers, doctors, management, technicians of highly sophisticated technology or cutting edge tech) tend to have the 15 skill level requisite. Also note that Skill is not the Only way to guarantee a successful career- diplomacy, social position and other advantages affect anyone's career than just raw competency. A High Status professional has an easier time getting a head start compared to his peers when his family bank rolls for him a business/ a practice earlier then the rest would need to earn through merit.

How many skills should they get points towards?

? Its not that they have a budget of points for skills, its more important that they meet certain performance expectations- the matter of a professional being good out of natural talent than from hard work and study doesn't matter much to the expected standard of performance.

For example, should a history major have a skill at rank 14 (expert), one at 13, and maybe two at the high end of "ordinary folks) at 11?

Depends on you, at 12 he can pass for a new grad. But at 14, even if he is a fresh grad he is one of those really talented guys you hear off being asked to stay and teach immediately after graduating.

I'm sure a "Good" (highly productive) professional would have a 15 on his skill of trade. Having more than a few 15s is what makes some people exceptional IMO.

NB: This comes in light of my training in management and dealing with other experts and professionals. In any serious project, the tolerance for failure is near 0 but at the tasks at the same time really require a extensive professional background and working experience. Dealing with stuff that fall short of the professional grade, which happens a lot, makes a project cumulatively much harder.

I deal mostly with 13-14s because the 15s are usually recruited abroad. The 13-14s stay because they are too tied down. When I see a 15 work, I learn that what they do is something few can really do well and at the consistency of performance- but that doesn't compare to the scale and scope of those who are paid big bucks for doing the same thing and are really the 16+ and up.

At work the tolerance for mistake is often near 0, especially when you deal with relatively a lot of money and a loss that can cripple or kill your business even with enough buffers.

The key to my understanding of skill levels is expectation- and 12 (16% failure) doesn't cut it in serious work.

I admit to having only 11 management and organizational skill, but have a tremendous working advantage because of social status.

[Mehmet]

Originally Posted by Lord Carnifex

I think a Reputation along the lines of "Went to Harvard" would cover it well enough. The character is more or less borrowing the reputation of the school. Reputations like "Is a United States Marine" or such would work similarly.

I'm half inclined to use frequency of recognition and such similar mechanics with a house ruled Social Regard (Good Education) after your post. I have this new group, three NYU students, I believe this sort of stuff will come up quite often in this game.

Cheerio!

Edit: as a sort of an excercise in unnecessary geekiness I may even make it Gadget based (diploma and ID :P).

[Pragmatic]

Originally Posted by nik1979

Disclaimer: My opinion

"Bachelor" Background will allow characters to "buy" IQ or Talent up to 14/ +2, while "Masters" would allow players to "buy" IQ or Talent up to 15/ +4. It also comes at a +2/+4 reaction bonus when applying to certain jobs and dealing in a professional capacity with certain professions. The +4 to same or closely aligned professions; +2 for other serious about professionalism in general.

In the Space 4e book, the templates for beginning doctors (p. 229) and scientists (p. 231) have an IQ of 13. Their primary skills are all IQ +1 (i.e. a skill level of 14).

Doctors have three Hard skills (8 points each), while Scientists have an Average skill (4 points) and two Hard skills (8 points each).

Toss in secondary and background skills (at skill level 10 to 13) to complete.

[Dragondog]

IIRC, the standard job rolls have a +3 bonus. Thus skill 12 has a 95% chance to make it.

[nik1979]

Originally Posted by Dragondog

IIRC, the standard job rolls have a +3 bonus. Thus skill 12 has a 95% chance to make it.

I don't see any thing regarding that in B345 and B516. In fact, in the B516 when it talks about job rolls, it kinda contradicts whats it saying in B343. Specifically daily work as bundled together with mundane tasks and Job rolls with something to lose.

[Dragondog]

When I was talking about job rolls, I wasn't talking about it in the sense of B516. I was talking about it in the sense of B345, "mundane tasks, including rolls made by ordinary people at day to day jobs."

As I see it they don't have anything to do with one another. Mundane tasks, the bonus was actually +4 or +5, shows how easy a day to day job is compared to most adventuring tasks. While the job roll simplifies all of that into one roll per month to get paid.