Jack of Trades, skills and timing

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SolomanMedici

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Jack of Trades, skills and timing

Post by SolomanMedici » Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:21 pm

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 :crew with Jack of Trades". My questions are: can one use :jack- 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 :crew Lt. Cmdr Sir Sandar van Othlezee, and in the Action Phase I pay a credit to obtain :jack- . What I would like to do is declare the :jack- as :social- , then play Crash Course :event to increase the :social- to :social+ , then play Opportune Alliances :heroics to procure a :connection or :crew (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 :jack might be far more limited than I thought at first. Then again...
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Frewfrux

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Re: Jack of Trades, skills and timing

Post by Frewfrux » Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:12 pm

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 :vp, 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 :crew with Jack-of-all-Trades."

At first reading, and this is the interpretation I'm leaning towards, I would tend to think that a :crew who acquires :jack 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 :jack- or :jack+ I'm not sure how captains are supposed to represent this 'skill' on a :crew 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 :jack- and :jack+, I could see an argument that when a captain uses an explicitly acquired :jack 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 :crew gain an explicit :jack 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.
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Horizon Jeff

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Re: Jack of Trades, skills and timing

Post by Horizon Jeff » Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:56 pm

SolomanMedici wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:21 pm
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 :crew with Jack of Trades". My questions are: can one use :jack- 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 :crew Lt. Cmdr Sir Sandar van Othlezee, and in the Action Phase I pay a credit to obtain :jack- . What I would like to do is declare the :jack- as :social- , then play Crash Course :event to increase the :social- to :social+ , then play Opportune Alliances :heroics to procure a :connection or :crew (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 :jack might be far more limited than I thought at first. Then again...
:jack provides a skill token during the Resource Phase, but does not actually provide the skill. Hence, you could not perform :heroics of the skill you're "faking" with :jack.

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

:jack'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.

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SolomanMedici

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Re: Jack of Trades, skills and timing

Post by SolomanMedici » Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:07 pm

Horizon Jeff wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:56 pm
:jack'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.
“I don't always play card games, but when I do I play Traveller CCG”
-- The Most Interesting Man in the Imperium

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