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Profession

Okay, this page deserves a bit of explanation. Essentially, there has been a debate going on in my group for some time as to the usefulness of Sail. The fact is, while it is an important background detail for many characters, it is rarely rolled or dealt with, and generally serves as a weaker ability than most others (especially if you aren't in the West). At the same time, there have been complaints that certain Crafts don't fit with the actual concepts of Craft, due to the Charms doing weird things (especially the baseline Crafts charm, which is designed to make things quickly and transforms oddly with things like Craft (War) or Craft (Cooking).

After some discussion, I've decided to do something a bit different. The ability of Sail has been removed from my game, and replaced with the ability Profession. Profession is defined as follows:

Profession
While Crafts is the art of construction and craftsmanship, Profession is the art of direct labour and vocations. Profession covers the multitude of trained jobs that do not fit neatly into other Abilities, and grants certain groups the ability to perform well in areas not related to direct skills. For example, Profession: Farmer allows a character to understand the cycle of crops, birthing times, and farmhand labour, Profession: Soldier teaches a character to quickly follow orders and work in a group, set up a camp, and the like, Profession: Domestic allows a character to easily cook, clean, and keep up a home or manor, Profession: Sailor allows a character to know nautical terms, pilot a boat, and work the sails, and so on. High levels of Profession improve a character's knowledge and efficiency; a character with high Profession is a useful aide in their chosen situation. Like Crafts, a character must choose her Profession to be a single field, and purchase each field seperately.
Specialties: Following orders, working quickly, making do, without assistance
Standard: Clean a room, have a vegetable patch.
Challenging: Clean a house in an evening, maintain a farm by yourself
Legendary: Clean every last speck of dust from a manor home in an evening, grow a bounty of fruits and vegetables the likes of which are served on the Empress's table.

The result of Profession, in general, is a slight increase in the versatility of the Eclipse Caste, the Chosen of Journeys, and the Water Aspect, each of whom has good reason to be able to quickly and easily adapt to these jobs. The following have been defined as Professions that might be used by player characters:
Profession: Farmer covers growing crops, knowing birthing cycles, proper harvests, and the like.
Profession: Sailor covers nautical terms, navigating over water, handling knots and sails, and the like.
Profession: Domestic covers cooking, cleaning, and handling the chores of a household.
Profession: Miner covers knowing rock veins, knowing how to mine without collapsing a tunnel on top of you, and the like.
Profession: Sexcraft covers the ability to please another person.
Profession: Soldier covers following combat orders quickly and efficiently, setting up well-ordered military camps, and training as a member of a larger military unit. (In Mail and Steel, a unit's Drill rating is equal to their score in Profession: Soldier)

If anyone thinks of any others, feel free to note them down here.

It's worth mentioning that any house rules that you apply to Crafts should probably apply to Profession. While Crafts is about making things and Profession is about doing things, there is a similar pattern to the two, so similar rules should apply. For example, in my games, a character buys Profession only once. If they learn a new profession, they purchase it at the cost of a specialty, and can then apply their full Profession rating to it.

Finally, a new Ability means that the Sail charms have to be transformed or removed, making way for Profession charms. So far, I'm still working on that. Here is what has changed so far:

FrivYeti/ProfessionSolars - Solar Profession Charms and Sail charm removals/changes
FrivYeti/ProfessionTerrestrial - Dragon-Blooded Profession Charms

Comments

I remember seeing those in the forum. It was like, 'what? you're creating the Endurance-Resistance problem with Craft now?' - willows

I was never there for the Endurance-Resistance thing so I can't comment but while I don't like screwing with the Character Sheet personally, the idea was better than things like 'tactics' - Paladinltd

The problem is best stated as, "It's not really clear what the in-game distinction between the two is, and why you would ever have a character with high values in one and not the other; they aren't distinct enough descriptively and in terms of their effects to justify making them into two Abilities." - willows

My reply to that is above; this bit was written before the above information was put up. - FrivYeti

I don't like recreating the Endurance-Resistance thing either. Why not just keep Sail (Which, frankly, can be a useful Ability, and it's charms have use, at least I found so), and add the Profession charms to the Craft section as a second tree? Take Craft as meaning "A Craft", not "Crafting" - trithne

That would be the standard approach. I just don't like saying "Half these Charms can't be used here, and the other half can't be used there." It seems too odd to me. Besides, I like the idea of expanding what Eclipse and Journeys are good at (Water is icing on the cake). - FrivYeti

Not sure if the people involved in ExaltedSecond are reading this, but this is would be a really good addition. -- Wordman

Woot, thanks. :) Always glad to hear positive feedback.

Rereading this, it might be useful to mention some "things you do" that are not covered by profession. For example, "Profession: Merchant" and "Profession: Politics" don't exist, using Bureaucracy instead. Not "Profession: Animal Husbandry", but Ride. Not "Profession: Engineering", but Lore. And so on. - Wordman

Expanding slightly on Wordman 's statement, profession : soldier has now been covered by the war ability... but apart from that I completley agree with you. I don't know about everyone else, but I always thought of the 'concept' box as just another way of saying 'job'. mabe it could enhance that in some way. sorry i am being so negative about this, it really is a good idea.

Blig001

Yeah, in Second Edition this isn't nearly so important. The fact is, adding War and significantly streamlining Crafts removes most of the impetus for having Profession in the first place - of those above, Farmer is now under Crafts: Wood, domestics are under Crafts: Water, Mining is Crafts: Earth, and Soldier is War. Leaving Sail as-is, there's only one option left, and it isn't so critical that it can't fall under Performance or Athletics. I wouldn't use Profession in Second Edition, as a rule. - FrivYeti