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In the event a character has two specializations relevant to a roll, what are some bonuses that could be given that character for having an in depth knowledge or knack for something beyond the norm?

Examples of this include an elven spider slayer with Spider Lore and Elven Lore singing a song of Ungoliant and the Darkening of Valinor, elven warden singing a song of the discord of Melkor, which began all discord (Elven Lore and Shadow Lore), or Dunedain Warden telling a story of the downfall of Numenor (Old Lore and Shadow Lore)

Similar bonuses might be given for a character who has a trait and a specialty match up, or even two traits. (Being Elusive AND Swift surely helps on a stealth roll, just as being Lordly and Fair Spoken does wonders for a Persuade roll...)

You only get to choose one sorry. Many ciscumstances could be found to exploit this to get AP's - although your example is a natural one....

However, there are fellowship undertakings that give you a trait for an adventure phase; if you already have the trait it lets you double use it or two effects at once (succeeding and getting an AP for instance); possibly only once in the Adventure phase however ("may gain two benifts form a single trait invocation" is the wording I think)

One issue I have with the Specialization rules it that you can never gain a new one. I can see this with Elven-lore, but Smoking? Cooking? Beast-lore?

E.

The problem with gaining new specialties is, if you can gain any new specialty, it would open the door, by house rule or otherwise, to gaining them all. The only time specialties should be switched is if the player made a mistake in chargen and ended up not using the specialties he does have, or the specialties he fit poorly fit his character concept. Most of that should be dealt with in chargen, though.

I had to change a specialty on one of my characters because my plan at the time was 'don't be redundant with the rest of the party.' We didn't need, to my way of thinking, 3 elves with elven lore and mirkwood lore. But then the other two elves quit, and I wanted my elven lore, which I would've normally picked...

Since traits don't grant bonuses to rolls, there's no problem.

Also you are free to have your characcter smoak and cook, be a storyteller and know some old lore of their culture without the traits - they just need them for the things to be

a) character defining

and

b) have mechanically importants

And many can be replaced with skill - e.g. be a loremaster without old lore - yup, just have a high lore skill

Angelalex

You raise a very good point and one that I tried to discuss on the old forum without success, namely the RAW only say (p.95 of AB) that traits are unranked and cannot be improved, BUT NOWHERE are there guidelines for gaining ( or losing) traits - a serious flaw IMHO.

So I came up with a houserule - choosing the Expertise Mastery Virtue allows the PC to either select a skill as favoured OR choose a new Specialty, provided the specialty was either culturally appropriate or the PC learned it during adventuring.
New Distinctive Features are more difficult to justify, so I have ruled that a new DF counts as 2 virtues, the PC can only obtain with the agreement of the Fellowship ( "yes, he's Bold so should have that trait").

Anyway I came up with a list of a lot of new Specialties & DF"s for the old forum, but no-one seemed interested

Robin S.

Robin Smallburrow wrote:Angelalex

You raise a very good point and one that I tried to discuss on the old forum without success, namely the RAW only say (p.95 of AB) that traits are unranked and cannot be improved, BUT NOWHERE are there guidelines for gaining ( or losing) traits - a serious flaw IMHO.

That's not what the initially OP is talking about - he's asking about when two Specialisations are applicable to a task, can you 'double up' and in fact his comment here:

Angelalex242 wrote:The problem with gaining new specialties is, if you can gain any new specialty, it would open the door, by house rule or otherwise, to gaining them all. The only time specialties should be switched is if the player made a mistake in chargen and ended up not using the specialties he does have, or the specialties he fit poorly fit his character concept. Most of that should be dealt with in chargen, though.

He's actually not expressing any interest in the idea of gaining additional ones.

Coming back the original post... if there are nothing in the RAW againt it, I would let two Traits work together, the way described in Heart of the Wild when a character gains a temporary trait, and he already has it.

But as a GM, I would be very strict for when two applies. But then they do, a character should be able to gain more for having two traits for a situations than one, I think.

E.

Robin Smallburrow wrote:(...)
So I came up with a houserule - choosing the Expertise Mastery Virtue allows the PC to either select a skill as favoured OR choose a new Specialty, provided the specialty was either culturally appropriate or the PC learned it during adventuring.
New Distinctive Features are more difficult to justify, so I have ruled that a new DF counts as 2 virtues, the PC can only obtain with the agreement of the Fellowship ( "yes, he's Bold so should have that trait").

Anyway I came up with a list of a lot of new Specialties & DF"s for the old forum, but no-one seemed interested

Robin S.

Nice rule. Maybe it's not what the OP was looking for, but it's interesting.