Skill Specializations for NPCs?

For the new campaign I'm creating, due to the genre skill specializations will be more prevalent than what's typical for my homebrews. Something I've noticed though, is that despite skill specializations having been toggled on in Options and working fine for PCs, they're not available for NPCs.
Is that by design, or something that just got overlooked during the SWADE ruleset development?

I'm also looking for the best way to handle the skill specialization penalty modifier. Currently for the pregen PCs I've created, I created a modifier for any skills with specializations and labeled it 'Nonspecialized'. That modifier has a -2 penalty and is disabled by default. Anytime a player encounters a situation where their PC doesn't have the required specialization, they can just right-click the skill and enable the radio button for the 'Nonspecialized' modifier. Well that's not too painful, it does run the risk of the player not disabling the modifier for a future roll in which their PC does have the specialization.

So, I'm wondering if I'm missing something and if there might be a way to handle it in a more automated way?

I'm surprised no one here knows if this is expected, or something that's missing from the SWADE ruleset?

I'm well aware that skill specializations aren't there by default for SW, but for some popular 3rd party settings like Interface Zero they're part of the setting's default rules.

Sorry, I saw this during the day but didn't have time to answer then and forgot about it later.

As far as the automation goes, I don't know how it works. It seems like turning it on simply adds the "Add Specialization" feature to the radial menu.

As far as the Easiest way to implement. What you are doing is probably it. You could make a Global Effect but then would need to make an effect to ignore Specialization and that can't be done in the specialization spot from what I have tested.

Global Effect would look something like this: Specialization [Academics|Athletics|Battle|Boating|<Skill Name> -2]
Use | should be above the enter key while using shift key.

The counter effect would be [Ignore #Specialization]
You could use [Trait -2] but that hits Attributes as well as Skills.

And you can't really code Specializations as they aren't specific, they vary from time period, setting, and even GMs.

Many thanks for the reply Mgrancey.

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Originally Posted by Mgrancey

As far as the automation goes, I don't know how it works. It seems like turning it on simply adds the "Add Specialization" feature to the radial menu.

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Yup I've discovered that and have been using it. I just created a public note with the different skill specializations so my players can easily copy & paste the specialization names from it. I'm been wondering why that "specialization" radial option isn't available for NPCs/Extras though? It's not a biggie in terms of the current state of specializations, because I can easily create a 'Nonspecialized' modifier for them as well. Just the ability to create the smaller text specializations under those NPCs skills is missing.

Something I've since learned, is that you can add a skill twice to a NPC (provided you've made a copy of any NPC that was included with a companion) or PC character sheet. So say you want the Athletics skills to have the specializations of climbing | swimming | throwing. You can add the Athletics skill to a PC or NPCs sheet without any specialization and create a modifier with a "Nonspecialized" name and value of -2. If say a PC has the 'climbing' specialization, you can then add the Athletics skill again and use the pop-up radial to create a 'climbing' specialization.

If it's an NPC, you can add the Athletics skill again and modify the name as "Athletics {climbing}". When the default/Nonspecialized Athletics is rolled it displays in the Chat window as Athletics {-2 Nonspecialized} (roll result), whereas a PCs' specialized skill just displays as Athletics (roll result). For that custom NPC format I mentioned about, it displays in the chat window as Athletics {climbing} (roll result) I don't know, the custom NPC specialization hack in terms of the chat window is actually a bit clearer. But in terms of the SWADE rules, just an Athletics (roll result) is closer to how it's actually supposed to come into play.

It sounds like it might clutter things up too much, but the truth of it is that the Traits tab is quite clean and PCs and Extras don't typically have enough skills or specializations to make it unmanageable. As well, like many windows the trait tab can be resized horizontally and vertically to whatever a player or GM desires. So it's definitely possible to arrange it so all those skills and skills with specializations are visible.

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As far as the Easiest way to implement. What you are doing is probably it. You could make a Global Effect but then would need to make an effect to ignore Specialization and that can't be done in the specialization spot from what I have tested.

Global Effect would look something like this: Specialization [Academics|Athletics|Battle|Boating|<Skill Name> -2]
Use | should be above the enter key while using shift key.

The counter effect would be [Ignore #Specialization]
You could use [Trait -2] but that hits Attributes as well as Skills.

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I'm thinking that creating a default skill with a 'Nonspecialized' -2 modifier and creating a 2nd, 3rd, etc instance(s) of the skills with the specialization(s), is much easier. Also more visible and recognizable for the players.

[Edit] All that said, it would be really nice if the specializations on the Traits tab could have a checkbox or radio button beside them. That way when a player was rolling the parent skill when they didn't have the pertinent specialization(s), they could just disable that checkbox(es) or radio button(s) and the roll would be made with a -2 modifier. Then re-enable it for a roll when a specialization applied.

In practice I've found that having two entries is less likely to be accidentally "abused" than the radio button/check box approach where you have to rely on players remembering to enable/disable a mod prior to making a roll.

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Originally Posted by mac40k

In practice I've found that having two entries is less likely to be accidentally "abused" than the radio button/check box approach where you have to rely on players remembering to enable/disable a mod prior to making a roll.

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Thanks for the feedback. Having 2 entries is indeed the approach that I decided to go with.