Jack of Trades, skills and timing

[SolomanMedici]

The rules are quite clear that "During Stage 1 of the Resource Phase, the controlling captain must announce which tokens they wish to collect from any with Jack of Trades". My questions are: can one use to acquire a skill useable for other purposes besides (or in addition to) acquiring resource tokens or can it only be used for tokens? If it can be used as a skill, can it then be declared before the Resource Phase?

Here is the situation I have in mind: I have played the stalwart Lt. Cmdr Sir Sandar van Othlezee, and in the Action Phase I pay a credit to obtain . What I would like to do is declare the as , then play Crash Course to increase the to , then play Opportune Alliances to procure a or (all within the Action Phase) . Or has my reach completely exceeded my grasp?

I'm not trying to run fast and loose with the rules, but I must admit that I have come late to the realization that might be far more limited than I thought at first. Then again...

[Frewfrux]

Not that my opinion matters for much, but I could see an argument for either case. When this question came up during our game it didn't matter to me either way as I knew I was about to hit 21 , but, for what it's worth, here's what I think (and I am eager to hear what the official ruling is )

From the rules...

"Jack-of-all-Trades is slightly different from the other skills. It does not have a token of its own."

"Jack-of-all-Trades is a partial exception to the rule that tokens are generated automatically."

"During Stage 1 of the Resource Phase, the controlling captain must announce which tokens they wish to collect from any with Jack-of-all-Trades."

At first reading, and this is the interpretation I'm leaning towards, I would tend to think that a who acquires during an earlier Phase would wait until Phase 1 of the Resource Phase to declare which token will replace it. However, as there is no token for or I'm not sure how captains are supposed to represent this 'skill' on a who's acquired it.

If a skill is acquired explicitly, the rules are clear that we need to represent that with a token. Only implicit skills don't need tokens (page 14). As there is no token with which to do this in the case of and , I could see an argument that when a captain uses an explicitly acquired skill they must, at that moment regardless of what Phase it is, declare which skill token it will represent.

Now, like I said I am leaning towards having gain an explicit skill, despite there not being any such token, and then deciding what skill it is during Phase 1 of the Resource Phase, but I could see this go either way.

[Horizon Jeff]

The rules are quite clear that "During Stage 1 of the Resource Phase, the controlling captain must announce which tokens they wish to collect from any with Jack of Trades". My questions are: can one use to acquire a skill useable for other purposes besides (or in addition to) acquiring resource tokens or can it only be used for tokens? If it can be used as a skill, can it then be declared before the Resource Phase?

Here is the situation I have in mind: I have played the stalwart Lt. Cmdr Sir Sandar van Othlezee, and in the Action Phase I pay a credit to obtain . What I would like to do is declare the as , then play Crash Course to increase the to , then play Opportune Alliances to procure a or (all within the Action Phase) . Or has my reach completely exceeded my grasp?

I'm not trying to run fast and loose with the rules, but I must admit that I have come late to the realization that might be far more limited than I thought at first. Then again...

provides a skill token during the Resource Phase, but does not actually provide the skill. Hence, you could not perform of the skill you're "faking" with .

Using Crash Course on would increase it to , which would entitle you to two different trained skill tokens, but would not gain you an expert token.

's flexibility in providing skill tokens is very powerful, but its limitations only become apparent once you're more familiar with the game, as you're finding now.

[SolomanMedici]

's flexibility in providing skill tokens is very powerful, but its limitations only become apparent once you're more familiar with the game, as you're finding now.

Yes, I see that re-reading the rules after a game is a good way to expose mistaken assumptions and wishful thinking.
I have a growing respect for the subtle complexities of this game.