All of these questions and answers were posted on the Assistance Forum of this website and are archived here for easy reference. If you do not find an answer to your questions here, please post it in the Forum.

Q: What does social level mean for a Draconian born on Draconia?

There are some differences in how draconians are brought up. Depending on a young draconian's aptitudes and performance, it is shuffled into different couses and living conditions. Some of them are trained with an eye toward business or political administration while other seem to fit policeman or security guard better (and all across the whole range). So, as a result, some of them would be given more money to start their adventuring with, and be used to a higher lifestyle than others. The numbers, however, should probably be adjusted - none of them would actually have been raised at either extreme end of the social spectrum.

Q: Could starting characters get an extra skill of their choice, to represent background knowledge?

Yes, that would make sense. GMs can give starting characters extra stuff as they see fit, because many groups want to start off with more experience and funding than the very minimalist way the book describes it (of course, every group to date has decided not to do this when creating a second batch of characters). I'm leery of letting players make the choice, though. A few skills would suddenly show up on everywhere (I can see a hacker justifying how his character learned Marksmanship with spitwads in school).

Q: Field Hacker, Medic and Tech would need CyberImplant - Neural Socket.

Yes, we noticed after publication that neural sockets were missing from their equipment.

Q: The following specialties have the mis-named skill "Repair - Starship": Rigger, Gunnery Officer, Construction.

Yes, Repair - Starship was renamed Repair - Vehicles since atmospheric and hover craft are not terribly different from a starship, just simpler. Obviously, we missed a few instances of the old name.

Q: Some of the specialties are not in alphabetical order

Yes, there is one specialty out of order, which was a case of a name change where we forgot to rearrange it's position (the Systems Op was originally a Sensor Op, which is where it still is alphabetically).

Q: It said "one unarmed combat skill" in the skill set for mecha pilot. Is there more than one?

There are quite a few unarmed combat skills. Obviously, "Unarmed Combat" counts (and is probably the best choice for a starting character because it is the most general). Other substitutes include Wrestling, Martial Arts, and Boxing.
The reason for the choice is to give Soldier characters with multiple specialties a more rounded set of unarmed combat skills, while still giving beginning level characters access to the most fundamental skill that will be of use most often. It may also help to notice that anytime we refer to a specific skill, we try to capitalize it. Therefore, "an unarmed combat skill" is different from "the Unarmed Combat skill."

Q: If a character is of a specialty that lists – (one unlearned), does that mean all skills of that type can be purchased for 10 points each? That is, once you've bought the skills needed to advance to a new specialty can you continue to purchase skills?

For specialties with a skill that says (one unlearned): yes you can then spend points to take all of the skills there that you like. The only requirement to finish the specialty and move on is that you take one, but if a player would rather stock up on skills, I think that's a wise move. It also means that any character within the same Career Area could pay 15 EXP to learn any skill covered by that (one unlearned). This makes it relatively easy for hackers to learn computer skills, soldiers to learn weapon proficiencies and commercial types to pick up job-related skills. This does include savants

Q: How does buying skills work for specialties with concentrations (such as the Civil Defense Forces and Systems Operator)?

A starting character picks one concentration for his starting skills. Likewise, a player who just wants to complete the specialty so that he can move on, would just be required to learn skills from one concentration. However, all concentrations are available to a character in that specialty, so that he could stay for a while and learn all of those skills at the usual price of 10 experience points each.

Q: Is it really necessary to purchase skills like carousing for the hovercraft pilot?

This one is really a GM call. Some of the specialties have skills that don’t seem entirely necessary to their function, but we felt that they would be useful to a person in that profession. In this case, the Carousing skill includes knowledge of where to find good parties, and this would be extremely useful to a cab or limousine driver. A player could always appeal such a skill requirement to the GM who is the ultimate authority on all rules matters.

Q: There seem to be problems with the starter sheets given on pages 200 and 201.

There are a few cases where specialty-specific equipment has not been included on those sheets, so they are not quite as complete as we’d hoped they would be for players. However, there is only one that is actually incorrect.
The "Construction Mech" is actually the same as the "Construction Powersuit" on those pages, so it isn't correct. The powersuit looks fine, though. The only difference to the structure chart is that the mech should properly have an Outer Hull (25) entry in the first line of the chart – everything else is in the right place since mechs don't have a sub-hull. You'd also need to adjust the unit’s ST and other mechanized unit stats and fix the height, but those are somewhat less important.

Q: According to the character generation rules no human male can be under 6 feet tall. Is this a typo?

Yeah, that's a typo. The goal was an AVERAGE of 72 inches, so it should be 62 inches + 3d6 inches (or 155 cm + 3d6x2.5 cm). Actually, some players like the difference. Females should use 56 inches + 3d6 inches (or 140 cm + 3d6x2.5 cm).
The weights, of course, are also off - for the adjusted heights above, the weights should be 120 lbs + sizex7.0 lbs (55 kg + sizex3.0 kg) for males and 80 + sizex5.0 lbs (40 kg + sizex2.0 kg). Obviously, the metric and English units of measurement do not perfectly match, but it is easier to have clean numbers, and they are both close approximations of ideal weights and slightly taller average heights than modern humans.
Some players like having really tall characters and may want to just leave the numbers in the book as is (after all, centuries of genetic drift or engineering could cause such a shift). However, those heights were a mistake introduced at the last minute when we decided to show English and metric equivalents.

Q: The height of the red draconian female is 3d6+63" inches, while the blues and onthers are +64". Is this a mistake?

No. The red draconians are supposed to be larger and taller than the blue and green types. However, the red draconians have a size of 3d6 instead of the 2d6 size for the blue and green - so the average height of the red female is the desired 2 inches taller than the other colors. So the height of the red draconian female is exactly what it should be.

Q: The Programmer, has "x c" as opposed to an actual number in his equipment. What should the value be?

The programmer should have an upgrade of 175 c to his AM. The x was left there as a placeholder while we were working on the computer rules and some of them escaped us. By the way, the Programmer should also have some other changes: he should have 10 5 km Removable Disks, a PR 6 Cryptware Package (Text) and there should be a note that the Access, Connect and Defense packages were programmed by the hacker himself (meaning they will not degrade as quickly).

Q: Starting characters seem weak. What else can we give them?

Well, first, it is worth noting that most groups have started their first batch of characters off with more equipment. All of them decided not to do that their second times around, so we feel confident in the book's description. But, here are some suggestions:

First, Remember that characters start with a credit card with a 10,000 CR limit. They'll have to pay it back, but this is usually enough to get some basic equipment. Getting other loans is also possible, as described in the book.

Second, the GM may consider giving characters additional money based on their social class:

Subsistence level: 3d6 x 25 CR

Lower Class: 3d6 x 50 CR

Lower-Middle Class: 3d6 x 100 CR

Middle Class: 3d6 x 200 CR

Upper Middle Class: 3d6 x 500 CR

Upper Class: 3d6 x 1000 CR

Wealthy: 3d6 x 2500 CR

As a final suggestion, giving additional experience or even a whole second specialty may help players start with stronger characters – try giving them 50 EXP and the equipment to reach another specialty.

Q: Where is the Rigger's Swimming skill described?

Actually, it isn't. Swimming was a skill we eliminated early on in playtesting when it was decided that most characters would know how to swim from their background educations (just like they know how to read and do basic math).