Newbie question on special ops

[Elf86]

Here's what I want to do: create a German KSK unit. Each four-man team will have an officer and three enlisted men.

I want to make sure I understand how this works for the characters. For the officer, I use the first term military officer (let's use airborne). He gets the first term skills PLUS basic training skills for Germany. Next term, he goes special ops officers but uses his first term as spec ops officer. The new officer does NOT get to use subsequent skills in either airborne officer nor spec ops officer.

The enlisted person goes to army in his first term. Gains first term skills. On his second term, he gets gung-ho and joins the KSK. As with this case, there are no subsequent skills to acquire, only the first term skills as a spec ops. For his third term, he chooses three subsequent skills.

Have I got this correctly?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

To add a disclaimer... I'm working completely from memory here as I don't have my books in easy reach - if I've made a balls-up, someone please step in and correct it!

Just to make sure I have the correct rules, you're using version 2 or 2.2, is that correct?
If so, at it's most basic, whenever you start a new career, you get the First Term skills. Then as long as you stay in that career, you use the Subsequent Term Skills for every other term they take.

As soon as they change to another new career, they then get that new careers First Term Skills.

Don't forget to add in the skills from Secondary Activities for every Term and check for chances to earn promotions for every Military Term as well.

So to answer you examples: -
The Officer
Joins military as an officer;
1st four year term in military: gets Basic Training skills AND First Term Skills for Airborne Officer
2nd four year term in military: gets a new career by going to SpecOps Officer so he/she gets the First Term Skills for SpecOps Officer only
3rd four year term in military: if he/she stays in military then they are eligible for Subsequent Term Skills from SpecOps Officer but not from Airborne

SpecOps is the new career, Airborne is the old career and no longer has any effect on any extra terms taken unless the Officer goes back to Airborne. Because they have already done one term as Airborne Officer any extra terms in Airborne means they choose from the Subsequent Term Skills (as they have already done a First Term in Airborne earlier in character creation).

The Private: -
Joins military as Enlisted;
1st four year term in military: gets Basic Training skills AND First Term Skills for whatever branch they went in
2nd four year term in military: changes to a new career which is SpecOps (KSK) and gets First Term Skills for SpecOps (old career no longer applies for getting skill packages)
3rd four year term in military: stays in SpecOps (KSK) and so gets to choose from SpecOps Subsequent Term Skills

There's always a bit of confusion when we start talking Terms/First Terms/Subsequent Terms because we have to keep track of Character Generation Terms and Career Terms.
If a character changes careers a few times, they're eligible for the First Term package even though they might be in their third or fourth term of character generation!

[Elf86]

Thanks. Now lookout terrorists! Here comes the KSK!!!

Wish I was playing instead of GM...but someone has to do it!

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

To add a disclaimer... I'm working completely from memory here as I don't have my books in easy reach - if I've made a balls-up, someone please step in and correct it!

Just to make sure I have the correct rules, you're using version 2 or 2.2, is that correct?
If so, at it's most basic, whenever you start a new career, you get the First Term skills. Then as long as you stay in that career, you use the Subsequent Term Skills for every other term they take.

As soon as they change to another new career, they then get that new careers First Term Skills.

Don't forget to add in the skills from Secondary Activities for every Term and check for chances to earn promotions for every Military Term as well.

So to answer you examples: -
The Officer
Joins military as an officer;
1st four year term in military: gets Basic Training skills AND First Term Skills for Airborne Officer
2nd four year term in military: gets a new career by going to SpecOps Officer so he/she gets the First Term Skills for SpecOps Officer only
3rd four year term in military: if he/she stays in military then they are eligible for Subsequent Term Skills from SpecOps Officer but not from Airborne

SpecOps is the new career, Airborne is the old career and no longer has any effect on any extra terms taken unless the Officer goes back to Airborne. Because they have already done one term as Airborne Officer any extra terms in Airborne means they choose from the Subsequent Term Skills (as they have already done a First Term in Airborne earlier in character creation).

The Private: -
Joins military as Enlisted;
1st four year term in military: gets Basic Training skills AND First Term Skills for whatever branch they went in
2nd four year term in military: changes to a new career which is SpecOps (KSK) and gets First Term Skills for SpecOps (old career no longer applies for getting skill packages)
3rd four year term in military: stays in SpecOps (KSK) and so gets to choose from SpecOps Subsequent Term Skills

There's always a bit of confusion when we start talking Terms/First Terms/Subsequent Terms because we have to keep track of Character Generation Terms and Career Terms.
If a character changes careers a few times, they're eligible for the First Term package even though they might be in their third or fourth term of character generation!

It all sounds right to me. Nice post.

[B.T.]

Don't forget, that in the case of a promotion the characters get one skill for free. These skills have to be taken from the package of the career, that specific term was spent in. In the case of an NCO this differs a little: When a characer is promoted as NCO, he gets all three NCO skills for free. In each following term, he can choose one skill from that list (Skills are Leadership, Persuasion, and Instruction).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Swag, thanks for the thumbs up

B.T., I had totally forgotten about the NCO skills, thanks for adding that information

[pmulcahy11b]

The only problem about the Leadership skill is that it's difficult to role play.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Yeah I agree, I got the impression that Leadership as a skill was more useful for commanding NPCs.
Truth is, it never really factored in the game much so I never paid much attention to it (e.g. I cannot for the life of me remember what the actual description of the Leadership skill was but I have a general idea of descriptions of the other skills).