The next day they continued on their way. They would reach the estate around evening time so their last few discussions needed to happen in route. Adam was loathe to explain much of his class with Jay listening until he remembered how much such behavior had annoyed him when he was on the other side of that line. The limited knowledge that he had had about classes was still having an impact on his life, and, with the way Jay’s life had gone, it would likely be a problem for him as well. Resolved to helping the boy in whatever way he could, Adam opened the gates of skill selection as much as he could while hamstrung by System Assistance.

The discussion between the three was lively, and with the amount of thought he had put into his skills and the path forward over his watch shift the night before he was well prepared to answer questions. He was curious to get Martin’s opinion without influencing the man too much because he was concerned that he may have let his subconscious desires influence his next choice a little too much. He should have expected it, but Martin took the conversation in a slightly different direction than he had anticipated, negating most of his preparatory work. And it only took one question, asked before they even got to his new skills.

“You decide on a Specialization yet?”

“I, uh… no.” Martin’s response to that brilliant answer was just a look. A very effective look, but still just a look. “I’ve been a little busy you know,” Adam huffed.

The man’s look faded away to be replaced with a sly smile. “Oh I’m aware. I just wanted to make sure you were still paying attention.” Jay didn’t even try to hide his giggles.

“Ugh. Yes, I am. You have suggestions?”

“Not in the way you are thinking. Specialization is very much a personal decision, but I can help you work towards finding the right decision for you.”

“Please?” Adam attempted to turn the weaponized cuteness of puppy dog eyes on Martin, but his attempts were pointless.

“Stop that. You don’t have the eyes for that. Try it in your bear form if you really want to make an impression. In the meantime, I was planning to help you no matter what.”

“Thanks. And isn’t the bear too big for that?”

“For most people, yes. But I’m not most people. Back to the real questions though. What, exactly, do you want out of your class?”

And there it was. The question that Adam couldn’t answer honestly because what he most wanted from his class was out. Thanks to the little he had heard about Specialization, he had known something like this was coming, so he was prepared. Perhaps more importantly, he was also aware that a Specialization was forever, so he was looking, hopefully, at a choice of role more than anything else. That still wasn’t the right question though, and he had to answer Martin first.

“I want to matter.” Even with all of his preparation, the answer slipped out before he realized it.

“Heh. Don’t we all kid. Don’t we all.” There was a period of silence as they all thought that one over. Martin coughed, and got them back on track. “OK, enough of that. We’re dealing in reality now, kids. Wanting to matter is great and all, but with a Specialization it’s about how you make that happen. It’s a matter of focus. With your class you only have a few options, so it should be an easier decision than for some of the other classes. Not that it is ever an easy choice.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. And less choices that are all better than anything a basic fighter has is still incredibly difficult.”

“Nope. So, break down your options. What do you have?”

“If it matches my class skill sections,” was as far as Adam got before Martin cut him off.

“Aspects. Call them aspects.”

“OK, aspects then. Anyways, my aspects are Protection, Love, Discipline, Household, and Chores.”

“I know we’ve been over it before, but let’s cover it again. What combat role does each of those represent?” At Adam’s look of irritation, the man subtly tilted his head Jay’s direction. He had figured out why Adam was willing to discuss this near someone else for the first time, so he was reminding him of it.

“Protection is what it sounds like, a defensive aspect aimed at myself and children. Love is healing, while Discipline is damage and crowd control. Household is leadership, and Chores is utility.”

“Still haven’t nailed down Discipline, eh?”

The smug bastard was laughing at him, Adam could tell. He had that knowing smile on his face that he always wore when he knew something Adam didn’t. It wasn’t fair, considering his education. And Martin was theoretically his teacher. Irritated, he just glared at the man, waiting.

“Oh calm down,” Martin laughed. “I was going to tell you before you did anything crazy. Quick question though, just to make sure. Do you have any more skills there?”

Quickly, Adam went over the details for Scolding. He still wasn’t particularly thrilled with the skill, but he told Martin what he knew.

The man nodded and explained. “Discipline fits a well-known, but confusingly named role. Malaise, ailment, malady, misfortune, affliction, or scourge. All of these are names for much the same thing. It’s a form of combatant that focuses on damage over time combined with control effects, and each performs in slightly different ways. Some are higher damage, others more control; the options vary. I would guess that with Mother being an unevolved class, Discipline is a broad take on the idea rather than a match to a specific one.”

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

“Huh, that… yeah, that fits. Thanks.”

“No problem. Now, ignoring Chores, do any of the others really speak to you?”

Adam was confused. “Why ignoring Chores? It has incredibly useful skills. Like, some of my best stuff so far.”

“Yes,” Martin agreed, nodding, “but. Chores is utility. It’s a catch all. If nothing else looks interesting to you in any way then we can consider it, but going pure utility is normally a poor option for a combat class. Those useful skills you have in Chores? How many of them are combat skills?”

“Um,” Adam said while thinking. His quick realization showed exactly why Martin was saying too ignore it. “OK, I get it now. Multi task is the only one that has obvious, and numerous, combat applications.”

“Exactly. Utility isn’t a bad thing, and those types of aspects normally have fantastic, but generalized skills. It’s not something many people should or can specialize in. Your personality doesn’t quite match that of people who can actually excel with utility builds. Your particular build will likely end up more utility heavy than most, but that is due to the nature of your class rather than your personality.”

Adam was looking at him oddly, but Jay got the question out first. “What does that mean?”

“Utility people are those that are incapable of dedicating themselves to one particular aspect of their class. That does not make them weaker, exactly, or less useful. Particularly in usefulness they are normally the top of the line. Hang on, I’m not explaining this right.” It had been obvious he was getting annoyed with how his explanation had gone, so it was no surprise to the boys that he took a moment to sort his thoughts. After a bit of time, he came back strong.

“OK, that basic fighter class you mentioned. Someone might go with a great sword aspect, which would make them great at fighting larger creatures in wide open spaces. That same aspect makes them terrible at fighting in enclosed spaces where they can’t actually swing a sword that size. Now, they could switch to using a short sword while in those small spaces, but they become less effective. Specialization gives skills and bonuses to the aspect that you choose. That fighter has bonuses to great swords, not short swords.” He paused, looking to see how the boys were doing. “With me so far?”

They both nodded, so he kept going.

“Now, a specialized utility fighter won’t have either of those things happen to them. They would have less powerful, but wider coverage bonuses, and the skills utility people get are widely varied so you never really know what they can pull out. The bonuses though, they are easy to figure out. Utility fighters can use a great sword or a short sword and have the same bonus to both of them. Heck, they can pull out a spear, or an axe, or whatever weapon they want and be just as deadly with each of them. Well, dependent on training anyways. The point is, their bonus is the same for all of those weapons. And it’s not just weapons, it’s armor, skills, abilities, whatever.” On a roll now, he didn’t bother stopping to check on the boys.

“If the only type of warrior you need is a defensive specialist you’ll be looking for a heavy armor, or shield specialization. Nothing else would fit that slot in your group, so one specializing in any kind of sword is pretty pointless. If you can’t find the specific kind of fighter you want, the next step down would be a utility specialist. This is a generalization mind you, things are actually more complicated than I’m making it seem to get the point across. Is it making sense?”

“Yep.”

“Yes.”

With both boys responding positively, Martin moved on. “Good. Now, there is a difference between Specialization, and a specialist. Specialization is mostly just a gateway to the bonuses and skills, which means it is important, and can open new skill paths. Those new skill paths are generally how you end up with specialists. Specialists focus on doing one specific thing to the absolute best it can be done. You could become a defensive specialist if you focused all of your efforts on specific skill options in Protection, and chose it as your Specialization. Doing so, however, would mean you would not have the skill points to do much else. You might get one or two skills from other Aspects to round you out enough that people couldn’t just move around you while you stand there, but you would be mostly stuck in bear form all of the time. On the other hand, you would be nearly impervious to harm, and able to protect anyone you needed to for quite some time. You just wouldn’t be able to dish out a lot of damage.

“This is where the problems with specialists show up. Even with how strong you bear form is, at some point your enemies will be too fast for you to hit, too tough to break their defenses, or have too many skills that can lock you into place while they go around you. Specialists need a team that can truly take advantage of what they have to offer. Defensive specialists are amazing if they have the right team. Stick a healing specialist, and a couple of ranged damage specialists of different types behind one and they will wreck most things that don’t completely overpower them.

“That is actually how adventurer parties form up for the most part. Show up at the guild as a specialist, and they will help find the people to slot you in with to make you as useful as possible. It’s one of the main purposes of the guild after all. But specialists, of all kinds, need a team to be effective, and even more importantly, they need to choose their targets. If a specialist team that only had damage dealers that do fire damage took a job against water or earth based enemies? What are they going to do then? They’ll die, that’s what.

“Now, a team of generalists or utility people might not kill as fast as a specialist team, or have quite the same hardened defenses, but they don’t need to be quite as picky with targets. A nice spread of damage types, adaptive defenses, and more than one person with a healing skill leads to the ability to handle just about anything equally well. Nothing in particular that a group like that will focus on killing, but few things they can’t handle.”

“Can you mix and match?” Jay asked. The boy was really quite excited about the discussion. It was more interesting than many things he had gotten to hear over his years, as well as exciting. He had had some experience now with fighting monsters and was excited to learn more about the people that did so professionally.

Adam for his part, was mostly thinking while listening to Martin. Certainly it was important information, but he was most interested in how it applied to him. He was no adventurer, and may never be, but that didn’t mean Martin’s lecture held no importance for him. One thing he had already deduced was that going down a specialist route with Protection wouldn’t work for him. If he couldn’t kill an assassin, then he’d need someone else to do it for him while he held them back from killing the kids. That wasn’t going to be a workable option. Who knew how long it would take for someone capable of killing an assassin to show up.

While he thought Martin kept talking, and the ideas trickled in as the topics advanced. Mixed groups of specialists and generalists. Tactics for each. How to find and form groups. A rambling diatribe about the difference between adventuring parties and combat units. Mage types and elements, and a comparison of which he believed were better in which situations. The list of things Martin brought up went on and on, filling the hours of the last day of their trip. While it didn’t quite solve the problem of not having chosen his Specialization yet, it did give him many of the tools and a lot of the information he would probably need to make that decision.

It wasn’t as good as a focused education would have been, but it wasn’t bad for a crash course in class choices and the significance of those decisions. He hoped that it was equally useful for Jay in the future.