Some questions about the Soldier skill

[Celjabba]

Imho, a soldier may and probably often do use Soldier instead of Savoir-Faire (military)(unless he is in charge of protocol or have career ambition) but a civilian that wish to mix with army people will need the Savoir-Faire skill.

For a random trooper, I doubt he need Savoir-Faire on top of Soldier.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Mithlas

For my part, I favor throwing out Savoir-Fair entirely and replacing it with a relevant category knowledge or profession skill (because you're not a great investment banker if you don't know how to navigate the socioeconomic channels, you're not a practiced soldier if you don't know how to interact with enlisted and behave around officers). I'd just fold that into Soldier.

Is it true that a fresh recruit who hasn't started training might not know the ins and outs of interaction with the military hierarchy? Possibly, but it's not possible for them to graduate without learning anything about it.

This would make all experienced soldiers really good at Influencing other military people. That seems to conflate the skill of the archetypes of the 'technical' military person and the 'social' military person. Is this a desirable effect in your campaigns? I'm not sure whether I would want that in mine.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

This would make all experienced soldiers really good at Influencing other military people. That seems to conflate the skill of the archetypes of the 'technical' military person and the 'social' military person. Is this a desirable effect in your campaigns? I'm not sure whether I would want that in mine.

It probably would shrink your characterization options. A lot of historical and even more fictional soldiers were quite effective at actual soldiering without navigating the military bureaucracy well. By contrast Victor Henry in Winds of War concentrates on Savoir-faire which is why most of his missions are about dealing with foreign belligerents, domestic politicians, and local organizational projects. He has average at Sailor(US Navy) and certainly does not rack up the murderous collection of scalps that Warren and Byron do. However he does command ships and was present on the bench at Midway and Leyte and in the toughest parts of the Solomons.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It looks like something that should in fact be covered by Soldier. I mean what does Soldier do anyway?

It effects his physical features. For instance if he is a longbowman he has a strong but disproportionate upper body. Other stuff comes about. His muscles will have more the shape of one who is used to hefting a knapsack or trailing the puissant pike, then one who pushes a plow.

Much of it is just Survival(battlefield). Not just tactics, but things like how to sleep at the right time and wake at the right time, how to endure drab food(not necessarily bad food-it might be excellent to a begger if poor to a burgher-but it will be repetitive), where peasants hide their grain and so on.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

This would make all experienced soldiers really good at Influencing other military people. That seems to conflate the skill of the archetypes of the 'technical' military person and the 'social' military person. Is this a desirable effect in your campaigns? I'm not sure whether I would want that in mine.

Like I said there's a big gap between knowing how to wear a uniform specific to you and how to perform the bare minimum courtesies versus knowing how to arrange an armistice or how to convince the Joint Chiefs that you ought to given the command of a theater of war. Most service personnel can do the former tasks adequately but would be unprepared for the latter ones.