SKILL MASTERY"They’re still using DIS-3K Millennial for an operating system? How eight-bit can you get?"In A Time of War, some skills represent fields that benefit greatly from intensive study and practice. When mastered, practitioners of these skills may effortlessly complete basic actions, or perform actions that less-experienced characters may not. Skills that can be mastered in this manner include: Art, Computers, Interest, Martial Arts, Melee Weapons, and Prestidigitation.Non-Combat Skill MasteryFor characters with applicable non-combat skills (Art, Computers, Interest, and Prestidigitation), their breakthrough into mastery means that they have truly mastered the fundamentals of their craft.To reflect this concept, characters with a skill level of 5+ in an applicable non-combat skill can execute basic actions with automatic success unless the GM determines that extraordinary conditions apply to create modifiers. For example, a character who has mastered the Art/Drawing or Art/Painting skill can sketch out a detailed map or draw a crude image of a distinctive BattleMech or insignia from memory, while a character who has mastered the Computers skill can easily install and run any software package out of the box or perform basic troubleshooting on a malfunctioning system. Mastery of Interest skills can vary wildly, but characters with such levels of development should be able to describe the fundamentals of their Interest by heart, such as recapping the history of the Lyran Commonwealth—without dates and referencing only the most famous Archons—through use of an advanced-tier Interest/ Lyran History skill. For Prestidigitation, mastery should enable a character to easily palm any small object not secured in a closed container without anyone noticing—or can even allow the character to quick draw a Pistol or handheld knife as an Incidental Action in combat.Combat Skill MasteryBecause combat is a condition with far less certainty, applicable combat skills (Martial Arts and Melee Weapons) do not have the same success guarantee for basic-level actions that mastered non-combat skills offer. Instead, mastery of combat skills offers a wealth of special moves and actions. These capabilities are detailed in the Combat section (see pp. 16-21).
PDF, pg. 29, Federated Suns/FEderated Commonwealth Rank Table.The rank of Marshal, which is a rank is the AFFS and was a rank in the AFFC is missing. Marshal was a rank immediately superior to General (AFFS) or Hauptmann General (AFFC) and subordinate to a Field Marshal.The rank of Marshal should occupy the O-9 slot on the table. Naval Equivalent rank per FM Federated Suns is Fleet Admiral.
Federated Suns/Federated Commonwealth Rank Table (p. 29)The rank of Marshal (Fleet Admiral) should occupy the O-9 slot on the table, bumping everything at O-9 slot and higher up one level.
Federated Suns/Federated Commonwealth Rank Table (p. 29)The rank of Marshal (Fleet Admiral) should occupy the O-9 slot on the table under the AFFC column, bumping Hauptmann General (Admiral) down to O-8. The rank of Field Marshal should read Field Marshal (Fleet Admiral).
