Specializations: Transferable Skill Benefit

Specializations are dealt with in one of two ways:

• Art and Craft, and Science skills are addressed under Skill Specializations on page 54.
• In the case of Fighting, Firearms, Languages (by grouping), and Survival, the specializations contain much that is common and transferable from one specialization to another. For example, in learning to use a firearm, there are more similarities than differences between the subdivisions of firearms. In the case of fighting, there are a lot of transferable skills that any fighter will use (reaction times, judging range, evasions, feints, timing, spotting openings, knowing where to hit, etc.). Contrast those comparisons with Astronomy and Pharmacy (in the case of Science). Thus, within Fighting, Firearms, Languages (by grouping), and Survival, the improvement of one specialization has a transferable benefit to all other closely related specialisms.
• When a character first raises a specialization within one of these skills to 50% or over, all other related skill specializations are raised by 10 percentage points (but not higher than 50%). This may happen only once more: when a character first raises a specialization to 90% or over, all other related specializations are again raised by 10 percentage points (but not higher than 90%). During investigator creation the player may boost a specialization and gain the additional 10 points in each of the others prior to spending further points in those other specializations.

Languages

When a character first raises a language (other than Own Language) to 50%, all other related language families are raised by 10 percentage points (but not higher than 50%). This may happen only once more: when a character first raises a language (other than Own Language) to 90%, all other related languages within that family are raised by 10 percentage points (but not higher than 90%). For example, related family categories include Germanic (English, German, Dutch), Slavic (Russian, Czech, Polish, etc.), Niger- Congo (Swahili, Zulu, Yoruba, etc.)

Note this is in no way an exhaustive list of the possible language families, and Keepers opting to use this rule are recommended to refer to standard encyclopedia entries for “language families.”