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In the _Warhammer Quest Roleplay Book_, on page 168, the concept of "Specialist Actions" is presented. To summarize, upon reaching a new Battle- Level, a Warrior has a 50% chance of being able to gain a new "specialty" of his choice, with the GM's consent. This specialty (or "specialist action") is generally represented by gaining a +1 on rolls for some specific action. One example given is that an Elf might specialize in "Difficult Shots", while a request of "I want to get even better at shooting at Monsters and hitting them with my sword" is not acceptable.
This may seem terribly open-ended ... which is not in and of itself a bad thing ... but some players may be at a loss to think of what exactly they might want to specialize in, other than just whacking monsters more effectively. Therefore, I've endeavored to try writing up a sample list of possible "specialties" that might apply to the different character archetypes (and I've included some of my own home-made professions that were introduced elsewhere). This is all entirely my own opinion, but it might at least provide a starting point for some other GM to compose his own list of possibilities.
As a note, I've introduced a new characteristic into my own games called "Intelligence", determined at character creation by rolling 1D6 (re-rolling any occurrence of 1 once). The Wizard, the Noble and the Warrior-Priest get to add 1 to this roll. The Barbarian, the Dwarf, the Troll-Slayer and the Chaos Warrior must deduct one from this roll. This statistic is used in lieu of Initiative in cases where an "Intellectual Initiative Test" is called for. It's possible to end up with an Intelligence of 7 or 0, but in games where you act as GM, you can apply all sorts of modifiers to the roll and set the target value as you please.
The way I usually handle these tests is to assign a target value to the task (default of 7), ask the player to roll 1D6, add it to his Intelligence, and report the result to me. If the reported value is greater than or equal to the target, I assume success. In some cases (such as identifying an item), I may give more information if the player beat the target by a couple of points, or I may give partial information if the player only missed it by a point. Sometimes it may be better to do the rolling myself, so that the players don't know whether they've botched a roll or not.
In the case of "Knowledge" specialties, I apply this to situations where the Warriors might be faced with something totally unknown, and a player might suggest something like "My Warrior tries to remember any legends he might have heard that might pertain to this..." In cases like this, if the Warrior's background seems applicable at all, I might make the player do a roll, and upon a success offer some small tidbit of information, or some sort of clue -- the usefulness of which will depend on how well they roll (and possibly how close the player seemed to be to figuring things out already).
Barge Aside
Climb Wall
Duck
Fight Defensively
Hide
Jumping
Listen at Door
Search for Traps
Starting Fires
Difficult Shots
Duck
Fight Defensively
Hide
Jumping
Listen at Door
Starting Fires
Decipher Runes
Disarm Magical Traps
Historical Knowledge
Identify Magic Items
Identify Potions
Construction
Decipher Runes
Disarm Trap
Identify Gems and Precious Metals
Identify Magical Weapons
Search for Traps
Wedge Door Shut/Open
The following are unofficial, home-made professions. However, future releases of _Warhammer Quest_ characters might correspond with some of these. For instance, I understand that there will be a Halfling Burglar released, which would probably closely approximate what I've been trying to accomplish with my Thief character.
Bluffing Enemies
Climb Wall
Crawl
Disarm Trap
Distract Enemy
Duck
Hide
Identify Gems and Precious Metals
Jumping
Listen at Door
Pick Lock
Search for Traps
Bluffing Enemies
Distract Enemy
Duck
Hide
Historical Knowledge
Listen at Door
Persuasion
Pick Lock
Spot Lie
_Warhammer Quest_ is a trademark of Games Workshop, and its
use here does not constitute a challenge to that legal status.