is a characater allowed to take more than one specialty in each skill?

The short answer is yes.

The longer answer is: Yes, but not during character creation. As always, feel free to ignore the rule if it doesn't work for your group. To be honest, I have a hard time thinking of a good reason someone would bother to get two specializations (for 1/2 a point each) instead of simply raising the entire skill (for 1 point).

I guess the possibility exists that a player really wants the character to be better than level 5 with a couple of aspects of a skill - but it smacks of the munchkin to me.

When I GM, I typically scrutinize second specializations to make sure they make sense with the character's MPH, recent actions, etc...

For example: If Lem (who has a melee specialization with spears) suddenly finds an enchanted axe, I wouldn't let him purchase a specialization with axes until he has demonstrated during the course of the game that he is spending effort extra to master it.

the thing was a player picked another speciality up with his experience points

as it is i let him run with it it saved arguments

Hullo, WalkerRedEye,

First off, welcome to the DESOLATION forums here on the Greymalkin pages! Always nice to see a new face around here, and someone else who's discovered the game! You'll find we're a pretty friendly bunch, not like some of those orcs and goblins that you're likely to meet out there!



Since Matt has already answered this question, I'll just add to what he said. Strictly speaking, you can't take more than one specialization for a skill during character creation, but that's a good rule since it forces players to take more skills that way. That said, in my own campaigns, I allow a player to take as many specializations in a given Skill as they want, if they are willing to spend their creation points (you only get 15, plus the 15 additional which use a slightly higher cost), but do not allow them to take a single specialization under a given skill at more than +2. That is to say, if the characters wants the Scavenge Skill with the Urban specialization twice, I will allow him to take that specialization, which would be recorded as:

SKILL (Base/Level/Rating/(Average)

Scavenge 3/2/5/(2+)
-Urban +2 7/(3+)

This allows a player to take a specialization that they want to be really good at to begin with at a slightly higher value, while still allowing them to have a few points to do other things. In my experience, I haven't seen a lot of players actually take more than one specialization in an individual Skill, but could see where a player might do so for character concept reasons.

Just my $0.02.