In this thread I shall cover the rules for character generation. Just like the campaign combat rules thread, only I will post here. If anyone has questions, comments or suggestions post them in the OOC thread.
     With some exceptions one may pick any RCC/OCC/PCC that one can expect to find in the Lazlo area that are available to player characters. The exceptions include Wanderers, Travelers and Shifters. The reason those three have been exempted is that I have certain events planed for this campaign that those three character types could interfere with. I’ll allow one hatchling dragon in the party ((Taken.)) and one Heroes Unlimited type character into the party. I have most of the Rifts world books and “The Rifters.” Therefore there is a wider selection of possible RCCs, OCCs, PCCs, skills, gear, etc to select. I’ll allow human and human mutant characters to roll on the human mutant table from the Lone Star table. For those not familiar with the table, basically one rolls percentile dice to determine the number of special traits one’s character gets. Then one can either roll again to determine which traits one’s character gets, or one can just select. I’ll let one select one’s character’s trait(s) if one wants to. So we’re clear, the types of characters that can roll on this table are humans, Psi-Stalkers, True Atlanteans, Psi-X Aliens, human Demigods and Neo-Humans. I consider psychics, Heroes Unlimited type human characters, Psi-Stalkers, Psi-X Aliens, human Demigods and Neo-Humans to be mutants. This is important to note because Normals can have 0-2 traits from the table while mutants can have 1-3 traits.
     When creating one’s character I ask that everyone take into account that this is going to be a military campaign and roll up a character that can handle combat. That doesn’t mean one has to select a “Man-at-Arm” type of character, but when creating one’s character keep in mind one is going to want a character than can hold his/her own in combat. One doesn’t have to be Rambo, but don’t be useless in combat either. We’re going to spend more time in combat than anything else, so if anyone has a problem with that then you’re in the wrong campaign.
     Everyone who joins the campaign will either be a member of the Lazlo militia or mercenaries hired by the Lazlo militia. I’ll leave it up to the players to decide if their characters are militia or mercenaries, but there are going to be certain issues to consider. Firstly, Lazlo has standards. This isn’t Tolkeen, who was happy to hire demons and monsters to fight for them so long as they did more damage to the CS than anybody else. Lazlo has standards of conduct it expects out of its militia and to a lesser degree from its mercenaries. I’m not saying you have to be saints, but there is a line. Don’t cross it. As a mercenary one can get away with a little more than a militiaman could and one can play a character that is more of a free spirit than as a militiaman. However, there are advantages to selecting militia over mercenary. One would be rank. Because this is going to be a military campaign everyone’s character will be given a rank. I’ll discuss the method of selection below. Another advantage is gear. A mercenary character is basically going to have his/her starting gear plus a few items that I’m issuing to everyone. A militia character will have his/her starting gear plus a few items I’m passing out to everyone plus near complete access to Lazlo’s armory. I say near because there will be some items I won’t let you take. Most armors and firearms will be acceptable, but if one asks for too much or for anything too outlandish one will have one’s request denied. I also ask that when listing one’s equipment on one’s character sheet to denote which is one’s character’s starting gear versus the gear issued by Lazlo. I don’t care if one puts a mark next to the gear or lists the issued gear separately from one’s starting equipment just so long as it’s clear what belongs to the character and what belongs to the Lazlo Militia.
     Another issue to selecting one’s character and starting gear is what your mission is going to be. Your squad will be a sort of advanced-armored recon squad. The basic idea is you’ll be issued an APC to act as a mobile base with an NPC crew. The APC will be sent ahead and at a certain point hold its position. Then faster and more maneuverable scout vehicles will be sent out from there to collect the intelligence. Once the intelligence is collected the scouts return to the APC and move on to the next site. Later you will all get to enjoy the hive missions. The APC will be crewed by NPCs so that the players will be free to participate in the missions. Without them one or more of the players would have to stay with the APC and that would be boring. The specs on the APC and the crew will be given to you on the first mission briefing. Because of the nature of your missions Glitter-Boy Pilot would not be an acceptable OOC selection. Robot Pilot, however, would still work, as there are several different power armors that would be appropriate for the campaign scenarios.
     The first couple of missions will be for breaking-in purposes. This is for a few different reasons. The first being so that everyone can get used to my rules. The second is so that we can all get used to one another and our styles of plays. The third reason is so players can evaluate their characters. One may design a character and then after a run or two decide that his/her character is not quite as good as expected. During this break-in period I’ll allow the players to make some minor modifications to their characters and even allow them to create entirely new characters. After this break-in period is concluded everyone is stuck with his/her choices. The fourth reason is how everyone conducts themselves will determine what rank you’ll be given. Everyone, militia and mercenaries, alike will start out as a private. After an undetermined number of break-in missions I’ll assign the characters their rank. I will listen to what any of the players have to say about the selection. If there is one player in particular anyone thinks would make a good squad leader, or if there is someone the players are dead set against becoming squad leader, I’ll take that into consideration. The reason we’ll be going through this routine is that I have run a couple of other military campaigns and when it came time to assign rank I did so blindly and often times I gave the higher positions to players who couldn’t lead a horse to water and gave more deserving players positions beneath their capabilities. This way I’ll be better able to evaluate the players and give them a position more deserving of their abilities. As I said earlier, whether one decides to be a militiaman or mercenary would also be taken into consideration when determining one’s rank.
     For starting gear one may select most items found in North America. The exceptions will be those items from the Coalition War Campaign and Free Quebec books. Those items are too new to have made their way to the Black Market. The only way one can have those items is if one is playing a character that deserted from the CS or FQ armed forces. Or, if one is bringing an old character, captured it from CS/FQ forces during a fight. Similarly speaking, Tolkeen’s gear from the Siege on Tolkeen series isn’t available. It’ll still be another year before the CS and Tolkeen go to war and the gear described in those books won’t be revealed until the war starts. So there’s no way anyone could have any of that gear. Don’t even ask. Naruni Enterprises gear is available on a limited basis as starting gear but won’t be available in the Lazlo armory. According to the Rifts timeline, the CS recently destroyed all of the Naruni Enterprises distribution offices in North America. So there is currently a limit on what NE gear is available and it’ll only be decreasing as time goes on.
     When rolling up one’s character I go by the roll one extra die and drop the lowest method. This applies to the standard attributes. I.e. IQ, ME, MA, PS, PP, PE, PB and Spd only. HP, SDC, MDC, ISP, etc will be straight dice rolls. I’ll allow everyone to min/max the results within certain limitations. One may only min/max with attributes of the same dice value. With human characters that’s not an issue since all the attributes are 3d6. If one is playing, say an elf, one cannot roll for PB (5d6) and then place the results in MA (2d6). I’ll only allow one to move around dice results between attributes that one must roll the same number and type of dice for. Another issue when min/maxing is that some races may have attribute bonuses. For example, elves are 3d6 +1 for their IQ attribute. When min/maxing dice results that +1 would stay with IQ.
     To determine when one may roll bonus di(c)e take number of sides the di(c)e has/have, subtract 1 from that number and then multiply the difference by the number of di(c)e rolled, then add 1 to the product. That’s the number one needs to meet or beat to roll one or more bonus dice. E.g. 3d6: 6-1=5. 5*3=15. 15+1=16. 2d4: 4-1=3. 3*2=6. 6+1=7. This covers dice rolls themselves. One does not include any possible attribute bonuses into the equation. If one rolls the bonus die and rolls the maximum value one may roll an addition bonus die. The maximum number of bonus dice one may roll for an attribute is equal to the number of dice one rolls to determine the attribute. E.g. On a 3d6 one may roll an additional bonus die if one rolled a six on the previous bonus die roll. The maximum number of bonus dice that may be rolled is 3, even if one rolls a 6 on the third bonus die. On a 2d4 one may roll an additional bonus die on a 4 with the maximum number of bonus dice possible being 2.
     Something to remember with various skills, spells and powers is that most of them have a range, percentage, damage, etc, listed as x +y/level. The FAQ at Palladium’s web site states that at first level the y/level isn’t added in until second level. Along those lines, there are a few abilities that do not increase with levels. For example, a Psi-Ghost can phase himself plus 20 pound worth of weight and that’s it. In that case I ruled that Psi-Ghosts could phase an addition 5 lb/level. There will be a few powers I’ll adjust that way. I’m not going to list them here, but I plan to review everyone’s character sheets when they apply. If there are any such powers I’ll let one know and let tell one what changes I’ll enact.
     I’ll let players select a broader range of Hand-to-Hand combat skills. One may select such skills as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, etc. I’ll even let one select kung fu, karate or judo. However unless the character’s background include a stint in Rifts Japan the character would have a somewhat Westernized version. By that I mean the Mystical Martial Arts Skills one usually gets to select are not available. To select one of these Hand-to-Hand skills one must pay one primary skill higher than the cost for Martial Arts/Assassin. One may only select one Hand-to-Hand skill. Some of Palladium’s games allow one to select more than one Hand-to-Hand skill, but I’m not going to allow it in my Rifts campaign. One Hand-to-Hand skill and that’s it. I would allow one to upgrade their Hand-to-Hand skill. In a situation such as that the old Hand-to-Hand skill remains frozen at whatever level it was at and the new Hand-to-Hand skill takes over at level one.
     I know some players have old characters from a previous campaign sitting in a binder somewhere not being used. Some of you may be thinking of bringing them into this campaign. Generally speaking I’ll allow one to bring in an old character. However, they would have to conform to the character creation rules as a new character would. Which probably means one may have to revise the character a bit here and there. I have no problem with that so long as one does not completely reroll the character’s attributes. If one decides to completely reroll the character then I would consider that character to be new and must start back at level one. Another consideration is the type and level of the character. If I feel the character is too powerful or simply doesn’t fit into the campaign for some other reason then I won’t allow it.
     Another possible character set up is partnerships. I’ve had one campaign where one player was playing two characters that were partnered with each other. I have also played such characters. If one wishes to play such a set up I will consider the request. I will not say I will accept it right off the bat. Like everything else one’s plans would be reviewed first and if I approve I’ll allow a player to control such a partnership. I may also allow players to play more than one character that are not already teamed up. Everything is subject to review before I give the ya or nay.
     While I’m at it, if someone wants to do something a little different and off script, so to speak, I’ll consider the idea. For example, I had a player once who wanted her character to have a tarot card skill. There is no tarot card skill in Rifts, but there is an astrology skill and since the two are similar in concept if not in method we used the astrology skill to create a tarot cards skills. So if anyone wants to do something along those lines feel free to ask and we’ll see what we can come up with.
     And for a little more off the script ideas, in some cases I’ll allow one to select a skill for one’s character that is normally off limits. There are a few considerations. Firstly, while normally off-limits, it has to be a skill that would make sense for the character to select anyway. No one is going to have a Vagabond with the MD skill. Don’t even think of asking. Perhaps it’s something in the character’s background or maybe it’s because of the campaign it would make sense for said character to take this normally off-limits skill. Like everything else, it’s up to my approval. Assuming I allow one to take the skill it’ll cost two primary skills to take the off-limits skill. If anyone doesn’t care for the cost, then don’t take any off-limit skills.
     Normally skills can only be taken once, with the exception of Domestic skills. There is one non-domestic skill I’ll allow one to take more than once. Body Building. It makes sense that one can take that skill more than once. After taking the skill once take it again with more weights. However, the cost of taking the skill doubles each time one takes it. So it counts as one skill the first time, two skills the second time, four skills the third time, eight skills the fourth time, etc. The cost doesn’t have to be paid in Primary Skills. One could pay it off as Secondary Skills, or split it between Primary Skills and Secondary Skills.
     If I may make a suggestion, everyone here should consider taking the Spelunking Skill. When exploring or traveling through the hives the skill will be very useful to prevent one from getting lost. I would also allow the skill to be used navigating extremely large structures, like the Fortress City of Chi-Town for example.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:29, Thu 02 Nov 2006.

     We’re going to cover rank in this post. There aren’t too many details on Lazlo in general. A few bits scattered here and there. Palladium Books plan to eventually print a Lazlo world book, but that’s not out yet. So I’m going to make a few rulings here in regards to the Lazlo Militia. To start off with I’m going to use the U.S. Army’s ranking system. Since it’s likely that more than a few players aren’t going to be familiar with it I’ll list it below in a bit. Another important detail is that Lazlo does get a mention in the Canada world book and it’s mentioned there that the commandant of the Lazlo Militia has the official rank of Colonel. That would suggest that there are no general ranking officers in the Lazlo Militia, but then again this is Palladium we’re talking about here. As my friend Chris has commented, sometimes their work looks like they’ve been hitting the drugs hard time. But for this campaign we’re going to assuming that the highest rank in the Lazlo Militia is colonel.
     I’m going to give a somewhat in-depth explanation since in all likelihood some if not most of you are going to be unfamiliar with them. Nothing to be ashamed of. Before I enlisted my knowledge of military matters came mostly from “Star Trek” and “Babylon 5.” To start with, there are three types of ranks: enlisted, warrant officers and commissioned officers. Enlisted are the guys who went to boot camp for a couple of months and graduated as a member of the armed forces. Enlisted are the lowest ranks. Even a high level enlisted is lower in rank than a low level officer. Ranks are also given what are known as a pay grades. This is a letter-number combination that places the rank’s position in the hierarchy. This is very useful today as the U.S. has five branches of the military each with its own ranking structure. The pay grades tell service members from different branches how they compare with each other. For example, a Navy second-class petty officer (E-5) is the equivalent rank to an Army sergeant (also E-5.) While the players won’t have to deal with different military branches in this campaign there are a few ranks within the Army that are the same pay grade. The difference is that one is a field rank for the pay grade while the other is an administrative rank for the same pay grade. I am going to list both field and administrative ranks. You won’t run into the administrative ranks too much, except in the field headquarters. The other consideration with pay grades is noncommissioned officers. Within the enlisted ranks are what as known as noncommissioned officers. For the U.S. Army that typically means sergeant (E-5) and above. However at the E-4 pay grade there is corporal and specialist. A corporal is considered a noncom while a specialist is not. These days specialist is used more often than corporal. Superior enlisted are not addresses as “Sir” or “Ma’am” or saluted except by a boot camp recruit.
     Warrant officers are enlisted who have been raised to officer status. Warrant officers are below commissioned officers rank-wise, but are saluted and addresses as “Sir/Ma’am” by their subordinates. There are two ways for an enlisted to become a warrant officer. The first is to request the promotion. In the U.S. Army one can put in their packet at E-5 or higher. Truth be told the higher one rank is the better the odds of having one’s request accepted. The other way is that upon graduating certain schools one is promoted to warrant officer. For example, it is possible for enlisted to enter helicopter pilot school and upon graduation they will be promoted to warrant officer one. Basically to become a warrant officer one has to ask to. If one wants to stay enlisted one is free to reach the highest enlisted rank and stay there until one retires if one wants to.
Commissioned officers typically enrolled in the academy for four years and upon graduation receive a degree and a commissioned rank. Another possible route to take is Officer Candidate School (OCS). OCS is basically boot camp for officers. This is typically for those entering the armed forces with a degree/doctorate in hand from another college or university. Typically the candidate goes through boot camp and then after boot camp enrolls into OCS. It is possible to enter OCS without a college degree if the enlisted meets certain prerequisites. The third way is to just get promoted to a commissioned rank. It is possible to start off as a boot camp recruit, move through the ranks and achieve a commissioned rank. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work, but it has been done before.
Below I’m going to list the pay grades from highest to lowest, the rank(s) name(s) and the rank insignia. O = Commissioned Officers. W = (Chief) Warrant Officers. E = Enlisted. Where the rank device is placed depends on the uniform worn and whether the member is enlisted, warrant or commissioned. We’re not going to worry about dress uniforms, just field uniforms, armor and power armor. On the field uniform the rank insignia can a pin or patch sewn onto the uniform’s collars. Because of this rank insignia are often called collar devices. Rank insignia will also be worn on the hat as a pin only. Warrant officers are considered specialists and as such when wearing a field uniform they will have their ranking pin/patch on their right collar and their specialty pin/patch on their left. On their hats they wear only the ranking pin. On armor and power armor the rank insignia will be painted on the helmet’s forehead. For enlisted a “chevron” is an arrow pointing up and a “rocker” is an open lower half circle. If a rank has both the bottommost chevron and the topmost rocker will be connected. The exception is the specialist. Their ranking device looks like the silhouette of a solid upside-down chevron-rocker combination with an eagle in the center. For commissioned officers, a silver colored ranking device is higher than a similar one of gold color. It seems backwards, I know, but they didn’t exactly consult me when they came up with the system.

O-12: General of the Armies (Wartime only rank): Whatever he wants
O-11: General of the Army (Wartime only rank): Five Silver Stars
O-10: General: Four Silver Stars
O-9: Lieutenant General: Three Silver Stars
O-8: Major General: Two Silver Stars
O-7: Brigadier General: One Silver Star
O-6: Colonel: Silver Eagle
O-5: Lieutenant Colonel: Silver Leaf
O-4: Major: Gold Leaf
O-3: Captain: A pair of vertical Silver Bars connected by two very thin horizontal bars, one at the top and the second at the bottom.
O-2: First Lieutenant: A single vertical Silver Bar
O-1: Second Lieutenant: A single vertical Gold Bar

W-5: Chief Warrant Officer Five: A single vertical Silver Bar with four white squares with black outlines in the center.
W-4: Chief Warrant Officer Four: A single vertical Silver Bar with four blue squares in the center.
W-3: Chief Warrant Officer Three: A single vertical Silver Bar with three blue squares in the center.
W-2: Chief Warrant Officer Two: A single vertical Silver Bar with two blue squares in the center.
W-1: Warrant Officer One: A single vertical Silver Bar with one blue square in the middle.

E-9: Sergeant Major (Field): Three Chevrons and Three Rockers with Star in the center/Command Master Sergeant (Admin): Three Chevrons and Three Rockers with a Star between two Leaves.
E-8: Master Sergeant (Field): Three Chevrons and Three Rockers/First Sergeant (Admin): Three Chevrons and Three Rockers with Diamond in the center.
E-7: Sergeant First Class: Three Chevrons and Two Rockers
E-6: Staff Sergeant: Three Chevrons and One Rocker
E-5: Sergeant: Three Chevrons
E-4: Corporal: Two Chevrons/Specialist: Upside-Down Chevron-Rocker Silhouette
E-3: Private First Class: One Chevron and One Rocker.
E-2: Private: One Chevron
E-1: Private: No ranking device.

To answer the most likely questions, with warrant officers, only the W-1 is titled Warrant Officer. From W-2 to W-5 they’re titled Chief Warrant Officers. Don’t ask me why, that’s another thing they did without consulting me. An E-1 and E-2 are both titled Private. The difference being that the E-1 is a boot camp recruit while the E-2 has graduated boot camp. Typically. It is possible to enter boot camp with as high a pay grade as E-3 and if one gets into trouble after boot camp one may be demoted to E-1. If demoted to E-1 he or she doesn’t go through boot camp again, but it does look bad to be an E-1 outside of boot camp. I included the general ranks in case anyone was curious how they we organized, but they won’t apply to the Lazlo Militia. Before anyone comments on it, a major general is of lower rank than a lieutenant general. That might seem backwards, but I believe they mean lieutenant as the immediate subordinate to a position rather than as a comparison to the rank lieutenant. For example, the position directly below governor is lieutenant governor, not vice-governor. So I suspect that was their line of thinking, especially when one considers that for the Navy and Coast Guard a three star is a vice-admiral. Everyone will start with the rank of Private (E-2).

     Two questions have come up in the applications that I’m going to answer here.
All newly rolled characters start off at level one. Old characters from a previous campaign will generally continue at their current level unless I feel they’re too high for this campaign, and then I may bump them down to a lower level to make them acceptable.
      Because you’re going to be participating in two different mission types; scouting and hive invasion; one may need to select more starting gear than is typically allowed as gear appropriate for one mission type may not work for the other mission type. For Militia this isn’t a problem as they have access to Lazlo’s armory and can get what they need that way. For mercenary characters one will probably have to take a little bit more than one’s usual starting equipment. If it comes to that just tell me what extras one has selected and I’ll go over them. If I feel one has gone overboard we can discuss it and come up with a compromise so that one is not being shortchanged, but one is not going overboard either.

     It has been brought up recently about what the rules are in regards to changing OCCs and multi-classing. Let’s start with changing OCC. One may choose to change OCCs upon completing their current level advancement. Upon doing so their skills and powers freeze at their old OCC’s level. They then become an apprentice whatever OCC they are switching to. At that point their XP is in the negative as they train to become their new OCC. How far into the negative depends on the new OCC they selected. If the new OCC is either magic or psychic OCC then one goes into the negative equal to the amount that OCC normally needs to reach third level. If another type of OCC then only the amount of XPs necessary to reach second level. Once one reaches 0 XPs one has completed their apprenticeship and gains all of the skills and abilities of one’s new OCC. If one or more of the new OCC skills were selected while as the old OCC then the new OCC skill bonus is added. All skills selected while advancing as the old OCC will remain frozen until the new OOC reaches the old OCC’s level.
     If one wants to multiclass, the rules are similar. Where they differ is that after the apprenticeship is over the player can choose which OCC to focus one’s advancement efforts. There is also a XP penalty to advance. If both OCCs are of the same type; i.e. Man-at-Arms, Adventurers, etc; then the penalty is 25%. If the two OCCs are not in the same category then the penalty is 50%. One must also have an IQ attribute of at least 12 to multiclass. If one really wants to, one may multiclass between three or more OCCs. However, one’s IQ attribute has to be sufficiently high to do so. 14 for three classes, 16 for four classes, 18 for five classes, etc. Also, each additional class would increase the XP penalty. I’m not going to go into detail here, but long story short, the more OCCs one multiclasses into and the more different OCC types selected the greater the XP penalty.
     To help explain I’m going to use an example. John Doe is a 10th level Vagabond. John has decided to become a Ley Line Walker. In order to begin the process he has to begin when he levels up. So if he’s halfway through 10th level he has to wait until he makes 11th level. If, on the other hand he makes the decision as soon as he reached 10th level then he can begin the apprenticeship right away. Let’s say he began right away. To reach 10th level Vagabond he needs 71,201 XPs, so any XPs he earned beyond that go straight to his apprenticeship. Since Ley Line Walker is a magic OCC he starts off with negative 4,481 XPs. Once John reaches 0 XPs he’s a 1st level Ley Line Walker with all of the skills that accompany the OCC. Now some of the skills that John gets he may have already from when he was a Vagabond. For example, Climbing. In that case the +5% bonus goes to John’s climbing skill. John also gets two other languages of choice with a 20% bonus. Here I would let John decide whether he wants to select an entirely new language skill or apply the 20% bonus to an already existing language skill. Now part of the OOC skill package includes the Hand-to-Hand Combat: Basic skill. Vagabond also comes with that skill. John has a choice here. He can either use this skill set to upgrade to Expert for free, to upgrade to Martial Arts/Assassin for the cost of one primary skill instead of two, or trade in the skill for an additional OCC related skill. When it comes time to select the OCC related and secondary skills those are new skills selected by John. John does not get to apply his +5% bonus to a Technical skill he already has and count it as a skill selection.
     Now let’s explore the difference between switching OCCs verses multiclassing.
     Switching OCCs- The skills John selected as a Vagabond will temporarily lock at their current proficiency. When John reaches 10th level Ley Line Walker the previous skills will unlock and start advancing again. There is one exception. Rifts Ultimate Edition introduced a new skill for the Vagabond called “Eyeball a Fella.” Because that is an OCC specific skill it would forever be locked at 10th level. The same is true for any OCC specific skill. Let’s say John started off as a Ley Line Walker and switched to a non-magic OCC. In that scenario John’s spell casting abilities would be forever locked at his Ley Line Walker level. If John switched from one magic OCC to another then his spell casting abilities would be equal to whichever OCC is higher.
     Multiclassing- Because John selected a new OCC from a different category than Adventurer he receives a 50% XP penalty. This starts immediately so his apprenticeship will take longer to complete than if he outright switched OCCs. Once John completes his apprenticeship and selects his skills he has a choice. He can continue to advance as a Ley Line Walker or as a Vagabond. If he decides to continue to advance as a Ley Line Walker he cannot switch his focus until he reaches 2nd level Ley Line Walker. If he decides to advance as a Vagabond he cannot work on advancing as a Ley Line Walker until he reaches 11th level Vagabond. John can only concentrate on advancing one OCC at a time. All of his XPs go to that OCC. Whenever John reaches the next level he can decide if he wants to continue advancing the same OCC or work on the other. Whenever John switches his focus his XP amount for the off OCC is equal to the minimal amount for that level. For example, after reaching 3rd level as a Ley Line Walker, John decides to focus on Vagabond again. To reach 3rd level as a Ley Line Walker John needs 4,481 XPs. Any additional XPs that he earned that would put John over 4,481 XPs as a Ley Line Walker get shifted over to Vagabond. John must separate his skills from those he selected as a Vagabond verses those he selected as a Ley Line Walker. Those skills John selected as a Vagabond only increase when he advances as a Vagabond. This is true even if he received a bonus to that skill when he became a Ley Line Walker. For example, John had selected the Climbing skill while a Vagabond. When he multiclassed to Ley Line Walker he gains a +5% bonus to his the skill but it still only progresses when he advances as a Vagabond. If at some point John decides that he doesn’t want to multiclass any longer and instead switch OCCs he can do so when he levels up. Let’s say he decides he doesn’t want to advance as a Vagabond any longer and focus solely on being a Ley Line Walker instead. John first has to advance as a Vagabond. He can’t gain a level up as a Ley Line Walker and then lock the Vagabond OCC. Doesn’t work that way. For this example let’s say John advanced up to 13th level Vagabond before deciding locking it. As before his Vagabond skills freeze until his Ley Line Walker OCC reaches and exceeds 13th level. If John is already 13th level or higher Ley Line Walker then the skills will remain unfrozen and advance as he does as a Ley Line Walker. If John was 14th level or higher as a Ley Line Walker when he locked up his Vagabond OCC his Vagabond skills do not get to jump up to 14th level or higher. When he advances as a Ley Line Walker the Vagabond skills advance also with the same restrictions as if he switched OCCs from the beginning.
     Some RCCs come with a natural skill or ability. For example, Bearmen can track by smell and it increases as the Bearman advances in level. His/her tracking by smell skill is equal to whichever OCC is higher. This is regardless if s/he switched OCCs or is multiclassing.
     If one has any questions feel free to ask in the OCC thread.