Specializations

Specializations

Specializations are the heart of mcRPG. Every player picks two skill categories to focus on, and those skills level much faster than the rest. You can still train anything, but you can't master everything quickly, so what you choose shapes what you're good at.

The categories

The 19 skills are split into six categories. A Specialization is always a whole category.

Category	Skills	Passive
Melee Combat (melee)	Swords, Axes, Maces, Spears	None
Ranged Combat (ranged)	Archery, Crossbows, Tridents	None
Metallurgy (metallurgy)	Mining, Smelting, Excavation	Copper Mastery
Botany (botany)	Woodcutting, Herbalism, Alchemy	Wooden Mastery
Blacksmithing (blacksmithing)	Repair, Salvage	Chainmail Mastery
Survivalism (survivalism)	Taming, Acrobatics, Fishing, Unarmed	Leather Mastery

The name in brackets is what you type in commands.

XP rates

Your skill is in...	XP rate
Your Primary Specialization	1.25×
Your Secondary Specialization	1.0×
Neither	0.35×

For example, with Metallurgy as your Primary and Botany as your Secondary, Mining, Smelting and Excavation earn 1.25× XP; Woodcutting, Herbalism and Alchemy earn 1.0×; and everything else earns 0.35×.

That's a big gap. A Primary skill levels about 3.6× faster than a skill outside your Specializations. Reaching level 100 in a skill you haven't specialized in takes almost three times as long as in your Secondary.

Role	Time to reach any level, compared with a Secondary skill
Primary	0.8× (20% less time)
Secondary	1.0×
Neither	about 2.9×

Skills outside your Specializations still work normally. Their abilities, chances and bonuses depend only on your level, not on your Specializations.

Choosing

Until you choose, every skill earns 0.35×. You'll get a reminder in chat every time you log in until both Specializations are chosen; click it to open the menu.

With the menu: type /choosespecialization (or /csp, /specialization, /specializations).

• Each row is a category: its label on the left, then its skills. Hover over anything to see your levels and the XP rate it earns now.
• Left-click a category (or any of its skills) to make it your Primary. Right-click to make it your Secondary.
• A confirmation screen shows exactly what you're choosing. Click Confirm to lock it in.

With a command:

/choosespecialization primary metallurgy
/choosespecialization secondary botany

Typing the full command counts as your confirmation.

Rules:

• Your Primary and Secondary must be different categories.
• You can't choose a Specialization you already have. To change it, abandon it first (below).
• Progress you made before choosing is kept. If you reached Fishing 12 at 0.35×, you're still Fishing 12 after choosing Survivalism, and from then on it levels at the faster rate.
• The rate that counts is the one when you earn the XP. Changing Specializations never changes XP you already earned.

Abandoning

The only way to change a Specialization is to abandon it:

/abandonspecialization <category|primary|secondary>

(/asp for short.) Every skill in the abandoned category keeps only 10% of its total XP, and its level is worked out again from what's left. The first command only shows a warning listing what each skill will drop to. To go through with it, run the same command with confirm on the end within 30 seconds:

/asp botany
/asp botany confirm

Because each level costs more XP than the one before, keeping 10% of the XP keeps more than 10% of the level:

Level before	Level after
6 or lower	0
10	1
20	4
40	9
64	17
100	28

What else happens:

• Abilities you no longer have the level for are lost until you earn the levels back.
• The category's passive turns off.
• Your other Specialization isn't touched. Abandoning your Primary does not promote your Secondary; you just have no Primary until you choose one.
• The abandoned skills go back to 0.35×. You can choose the category again later, and it keeps its reduced levels.
• This can't be undone. If you abandoned something by mistake, ask a server admin: they can set Specializations without touching anyone's progress.

There's no way to swap your Primary and Secondary without abandoning one of them.

Example

You have Metallurgy as your Primary (Mining 64), Botany as your Secondary (Woodcutting 40, Herbalism 10), and Fishing 9 from casual fishing. You want Survivalism instead of Botany:

1. /asp botany, then /asp botany confirm. Woodcutting drops to 9 and Herbalism to 1. You have no Secondary.
2. /csp secondary survivalism. Fishing stays at 9 and now levels at 1.0×, along with Taming, Acrobatics and Unarmed.

Picking a build

Some things to think about:

• Pick what you already do. A Specialization only pays off if you actually play those skills. If you spend most of your time mining, Metallurgy is an easy choice.
• Primary is your main job. It gets 1.25×, so put the category you'll play most there.
• Passives reward commitment. Four categories unlock an armor or tool bonus once their skills add up to 25 levels. See Category Passives.
• Categories differ in size. Blacksmithing has 2 skills, Melee Combat and Survivalism have 4. A small category is quicker to finish; a large one gives more skills at the faster rate.
• Trade with others. A miner can sell raw ore to a Smelting specialist; a Blacksmith can repair everyone's gear. Nobody has to do everything.

Example pairings:

Build	Primary	Secondary	Why it works
Prospector	Metallurgy	Blacksmithing	Mine and smelt your own ore, and keep your tools repaired
Warrior	Melee Combat	Survivalism	Four weapon skills, plus Dodge, Roll, wolves and Berserk to stay alive
Marksman	Ranged Combat	Melee Combat	Strong at range and up close
Homesteader	Botany	Survivalism	Grow your own potion ingredients, fish and tame animals
Treasure Hunter	Survivalism	Blacksmithing	Fish up enchanted gear, then salvage it for materials and enchanted books

For admins

• /rpgsetspecialization <player> <primary|secondary> <category|none> sets or clears a Specialization without changing any progress. Use it to fix mistakes.
• /rpgskillreset <player> <skill|category|all> resets levels to 0, and clears any Specialization a reset skill belongs to.
• XP given with /rpgaddxp isn't multiplied by Specializations.

The multipliers, the 10% kept on abandoning, the confirmation timeout and the login reminder are all settings; see Server Setup.