CIA Special Activities Division PMO Skill Set

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by Kromm

That is correct. It's just about never a good idea to apply the nominal 3:2 conversion rate for Fourth Edition:Third Edition to individual purchases. For skills in particular, it's just about never necessary to adjust points unless the investment was quite large.

Except where you run into things like 1/2 a point in a skill in 3rd. You can't spend 1/2 point increments in 4th Ed, and for many of the same skills, spending one point on them in 4th Ed will actually give you one more rating point than you would have for 1/2 a point under 3rd.

Same deal when the 3rd Ed template has 6 points on a skill, like Tactics (CT) for Delta and DEVGRU or Navigation for SEALs.

So having taken your (and Anders') suggestion to convert by comparing actually final skill rating to attribute and determining the cost under 4th, I get 72 points in skills for the SF Weapon's Sgt. That's a lot close to your 50 - 60 point suggestion, but still a decent bit over.

[johndallman]

Some skills you might want to consider adding:

Administration: as all these guys are experienced NCOs, they will have some basic paperwork skills.

NBC Suit: They will presumably have had basic NBC warfare training.

Scrounging: You don't always have a full-function supply chain.

The template also looks a bit light on practical intelligence collection skills: some of Acting, Fast-talk, Holdout, Interrogation, Research, Search, and Urban Survival would be plausible.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Except where you run into things like 1/2 a point in a skill in 3rd. You can't spend 1/2 point increments in 4th Ed, and for many of the same skills, spending one point on them in 4th Ed will actually give you one more rating point than you would have for 1/2 a point under 3rd.

One higher skill level doesn't break anything, and precise assessment of what skill level real people have isn't practical. Some of the half-point skills may deserve to get dropped.

So having taken your (and Anders') suggestion to convert by comparing actually final skill rating to attribute and determining the cost under 4th, I get 72 points in skills for the SF Weapon's Sgt. That's a lot close to your 50 - 60 point suggestion, but still a decent bit over.

That's close enough in these matters, IMHO.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Fair enough, though I'm surprised it's in there.

I'm not especially surprised about that; the nearest example characters I have have about 150 points in skills. You can, of course, chop the skills budget and keep the same skill levels by raising attributes. 3e Special Ops was keen to keep the levels of attributes "realistic," but the thinking has changed somewhat since those days and raising attributes as the result of lots of varied, intensive training is accepted by many people these days.

That makes sense, but if you compare books, the attribute ratings are actually lower for the 4th Edition SEALs (SEALs in Vietnam) (IQ & DX of 13) than for the 3rd Edition SEALs (Spec Ops) (IQ & DX of 14).

What's the reason for the change?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by johndallman

That much? That's getting to "professional diplomat" levels of training.

For someone who might find himself say, negotiating with a Pushtun Chieftain to collect a bunch of tribalistic mercs for a raid on a Taliban camp? That's a more difficult job then many champagne sipping diplomats have.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

For someone who might find himself say, negotiating with a Pushtun Chieftain to collect a bunch of tribalistic mercs for a raid on a Taliban camp? That's a more difficult job then many champagne sipping diplomats have.

Truth.

From Wikipedia:

The main mission of the Special Forces was to train and lead unconventional warfare (UW) forces, or a clandestine guerrilla force in an occupied nation.

You cannot accomplish that mission if you are not VERY good at negotiating with powerful people across language and cultural barriers.

All of the other skills you have are worth 6 pounds of dick if you blow your diplomacy check with said tribal chieftain.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

What's the reason for the change?

If there's a detailed rationale, I don't know it. This isn't something where there's a demonstrable right answer.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

For someone who might find himself say, negotiating with a Pushtun Chieftain to collect a bunch of tribalistic mercs for a raid on a Taliban camp?

One might hope to have a specialist along for that kind of challenge.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Truth.

From Wikipedia:



You cannot accomplish that mission if you are not VERY good at negotiating with powerful people across language and cultural barriers.

All of the other skills you have are worth 6 pounds of dick if you blow your diplomacy check with said tribal chieftain.

Actually given the reputation of Pushtuns I should say that all the other skills especially guns, tactics, and escape will be worth very much indeed if you blow your diplomacy check.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Yes and no. On one hand, yes, there will be an accumulation of skills and an improvement in competency over time. I think that's the case with just about any professional skill set, whether soldier, accountant, or cook.

I disagree very strongly. GURPS is silly with its "1 CP per 800 hours of work"-concept. Fast food cooks and truck drivers quickly develop their skill to a point where they're no longer challenged by the work they do, and so the ratio quickly becomes 1 CP per 2000 hours, and eventually even 1 CP per 10k hours.

(Alternatively, GURPS may have various Perks that can serve as alternatives to ordinary people experiencing themselves up to absurdly high skills after a few decades. I know that I often have a blind spot when it comes to Perks.)

Many kinds of soldiers, and many adventurer-types (spies, ninja, artifact retrieval teams), differ from the above, in that they are continously challenged by new and different experiences, and so the 1:800 ratio may be reasonable to use for the time that they spend actively working.

That's certainly the case for those many types of special ops soldiers who spend most of their non-missioning time on active training, constantly striving to improve themselves. So for those it's not just "actively working" time, but the total time they spend on their job, be that 20 or 50 hours/week.

Also certain fictional characters, e.g. TV show police detectives who appear to almost always get tricky and complicated cases, may have some of that as well (they're "in the field" all the time, unlike special ops soldiers).

[ClayDowling]

Originally Posted by johndallman

One might hope to have a specialist along for that kind of challenge.

My somewhat limited understanding of the mater is that they -are- the specialist. I've heard that from multiple sources. They get intensive culture and language specific training before deploying into a region. Part of their deniability is that they won't do anything that would identify them as an American if they are caught. They'll wear local clothes, use local weapons and eat local food, so that any trace they might leave, including their smell, is identical to the people around them.

They also don't want to draw any unwanted attention from their enemies. The fact that you're trying to kill somebody means that they're going to get very interested in killing you right back. Making yourself easy to identify is bad.