Or alternatively, you can't pick certain Heroic Abilities unless you have specific skills up to a certain amount (like say Marksmanship 15).Another option to address Heroic Ability imbalance would be to adjust advancement by adding another unit of experience (for the sake of argument, called Ability Points). If you gained one Ability Point per session, characters started with 4 AP, and each Heroic Ability cost on average 5 AP, then the current rate of advancement is the same. At that point, weaker Heroic Abilities could cost fewer points and stronger ones could cost more. Then the imbalance issues between abilities is instead around costing them instead of needing every ability to be exactly the same power level.
I think that’s the point - Professions are background jobs, they’re not classes. They are what the PC did before they became an adventurer and therefore set starting skills and (in the current version of the Beta) the starting Professional (heroic) Abilities. Once the campaign starts, all bets are off and you can advance any skill and master multiple Heroic Abilities.
Mariner, Merchant and Scholar don't feel like they fit properly in an adventuring setting. They feel more like backgrounds jobs rather then classes. Though in the Scholar's case it might just be easily solved by changing it's name to Archaeologist.
Not sure what to do about the other two jobs.
this also comes with the risk of the heroes becoming even more similar :SI think that’s the point - Professions are background jobs, they’re not classes. They are what the PC did before they became an adventurer and therefore set starting skills and (in the current version of the Beta) the starting Professional (heroic) Abilities. Once the campaign starts, all bets are off and you can advance any skill and master multiple Heroic Abilities.
Mariner, Merchant and Scholar don't feel like they fit properly in an adventuring setting. They feel more like backgrounds jobs rather then classes. Though in the Scholar's case it might just be easily solved by changing it's name to Archaeologist.
Not sure what to do about the other two jobs.
That’s why I just suggested using the Advancement Points - you can spend them on (attempting to) increasing skills or on buying abilities. It works for Talents and Skills in other FL games and I’m not sure why the different system here (I also note that other BRP-derived games that use Advancement Rolls e.g. Mythras, MRQ2, also have special abilities (spells / powers) cost a certain number of advancement rolls so it’s been done before)I have a feeling that if characters gain a Heroic Ability every five sessions, my group will have a dozen Heroic Abilities in no time (we play weekly, planning on an ongoing campaign). I like what was suggested above about Ability Points (similar to "Hjältepoäng" in older editions), but would love to see other potential uses of these points other than purchasing new abilities.
Not to mention how their skills would look like. All the "generally" good skills(attack, dodge, spot and bush-craft) would likely also be high/capped across the board.I have a feeling that if characters gain a Heroic Ability every five sessions, my group will have a dozen Heroic Abilities in no time (we play weekly, planning on an ongoing campaign). I like what was suggested above about Ability Points (similar to "Hjältepoäng" in older editions), but would love to see other potential uses of these points other than purchasing new abilities.