Ok bear with me here.

Characters 16
Characters following a different occupation from that of their family/clan open the primary (first-listed) parent occupation skill at OML+SB.

Cook/Servant Intrigue/4, Rhetoric/4, Cookery/4, Textilecraft/3, Herblore/2

Important: An Automatic skill is sometimes listed as an Occupation Skill. In such cases, only the Occupation Skill OML is used – they are not added together.

The default OML for INTRIGUE is SB x3. But the Occupational OML is x4.

Question: I'm not following the parent's occupation, what's my starting OML for INTRIGUE which is an Automatic skill and an Occupation skill?

Is it SB x5?
OML = x4 + SB

I was thinking that can't be right because if you stay in the parent's occupatin, it opens at +SB to each skill, which again is OML = x4 +SB = x5.

But I think it is SB x5.

It’s the same as staying in the Occupation and having OML + x1 SB.

The difference is that because you are leaving the family occupation, you only get to open one more skill at OML, whereas staying in the family occupation you get ALL skills at OML + x1 SB.

Is that about it?

SBx4 in this case.

OML (meaning the OML as shown on the table on Skills 3, not "occupation OML") is SBx3.

If the parent occupation was, say, Alchemist, you'd get Alchemy at SBx2, not SBx5.

Are you sure it's not x5 because it says:

An Automatic skill is sometimes listed as an Occupation Skill. In such cases, only the Occupation Skill OML is used.

And the Occupation Skill OML is x4.

And

Characters following a different occupation from that of their family/clan open the primary (first-listed) parent occupation skill at OML+SB.

Yes, I'm sure. Check out the example in the sidebar under "Family Skills".

But it says to take the Occupation INTRIGUE OML, not the Skill INTRIGUE OML. If I was taking Skill it would be SB x3, but I'm told to take the Occupation SBx4. Add to that x1 SB gives me x5 SB.

Character 15
Jeweler Occupation: Jewelcraft/4, Metalcraft/3, Mining/2, Script <- Default occupation OML

Skills 4
Jeweler OML: x1 SB <- Default Skill OML

Character 16
Taking Family Occupation: Jewelcraft/5, Metalcraft/4, Mining/3, & Script <- That's +1 SB in each instance

Character 16
Not Taking Family Occupation: Jewelcraft/2 and Mining /1 or Metalcraft/1 or Script <- OML +SB

If my character is not taking the Jeweler occupation, it's Jewelcraft Skill (OML x1) + x1 SB = Jewelcraft x2 SB

If my character is not taking the Cook occupation, it's INTRIGUE Skill (OML x4) + x1 SB = Intrigue x5 SB

As you take the Occupation OML not the Automatic OML

The example listed on CHARACTER 16 under [2] OCCUPATIONAL SKILLS is word salad and has been pointed out to CGI (I have pointed out a lot of these "small" bugs to them).

But the intention of the example is good. First, you should notice that the example is listed under [2] OCCUPATIONAL SKILLS so it was written to enhance the understanding of that rule. The meaning of the example is to clearify to everyone that you don't add the "default" OML for a skill to the OML listed in the occupation you are following. The example only address how to handle your occupational skills, not your family skills and not your automatic skills (unless they also are occupational skills).

This is one of the reasons I (some time ago) asked CGI for some errata (I even presented them with my own list and suggestions). It is easy for me who has all the HM books and knows where a certain rule comes from or why it is written in a certain way.

A Summery:
[1] AUTOMATIC SKILLS - The OML is listed on SKILLS 3/4 (the only bug here is that the Unarmed skill is listed to have an OML of 4. It should be 3. It is 3 in all the other HM versions and also some occupations have Unarmed to SB4 which would be pointless to have if the default OML is 4. (edit: this can of course be only me).

[2] OCCUPATIONAL SKILLS - Use the OML for the occupation you follow. If an Occupational Skill is also an Automatic Skill, then use only the OML of the Occupational.

[3] FAMILY SKILLS - If you work at the trade of the family (i.e. have the same occupation as the one that has fostered you), you can add +SB to all you occupational skills.
If you don't follow the family trade you will open the first listed skill to OML+SB and one other to OML. If you don't work at the trade of the family, then you have another occupation than they have so you will use the OMLs listed under SKILLS 3/4. Occupation OMLs are only used for the occupation that you follow. There is an example in the sidebar about a jeweler I think.

[4] OPTIONAL SKILLS - 1 OP to open a new skill to OML. This OML is of course the OML listed under SKILLS 3/4 because the only time you use the Occupational OML is for the Occupation you have chosen for your character. You can also increase any open skill by SB for 1 OP and even further (another SB) by paying another 2 OP (so +2SB cost 3 OP).

Edit (from CHARACTER 23): If you are a son of a metalsmith but you don't want to follow in his trade you will get Metalcraft to SB2 as a family skill (OML +SB) and either Mining to SB1 (OML) or Weaponcraft to SB1 (OML). Assume that your character becomes a Peleahn Shek-Pvar he would get a whole bunch of interesting skills, including Metalcraft/1 and Weaponcraft/1. Since family skills are probably learned before occupational skills, your character already knewl Metalcraft to SB2. Since Metalcraft SB2 is higher than the SB you normally would have got for following Peleahn Shek-Pvar, so in this case you add 1 to your SB. If you chose Weaponcraft as your other family skill, it remains at SB1 since it is not higher than your Occupational skill. This is not stated on CHARACTER 16 but it is a logical rule to follow. It doesn't happen all that often, but sometimes.

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Cook:
Occupation: Intrigue 4
Skill: Intrigue 3

Not taking the occupation would be Occupation OML + SB.

So my Intrigue would be OML + SB = ?

Yes
For example, if you play a son of a Beggar (Rhetoric/5, Intrigue/4, Dagger/4) and wants to walk in his footsteps you will Open Rhetoric/6, Intrigue/5, Dagger/5 (oops, not bad). If you instead wants to follow the brilliant occupation of a Longshoreman you will Open Intrigue/4 and Seamanship/2 as Occupational Skills and also Rhetoric/4 (OML+SB) and Dagger/3 as Family Skills (normally you choose the other family skill but the choice was between Intrigue/3 and Dagger/3 so).
If your son of a beggar instead wants to be a Litigant (thats a social jump) he would open Law/4, Oratory/5, Rhetoric/5, Intrigue/5, 2nd Language and Script as Occupational Skills. The only family skill that is opened extra is Dagger/3 since your (new) occupation has the other skills better.

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And I keep coming back to Intrigue opening at SB x5

My parents were Cooks. So the primary skill is INTRIGUE/4.

But INTRIGE is also an Automatic skill at INTRIGUE/3.

Occupation skill i s x4 SB
Automatic skill is x3 SB

I am told that if you have a skill that is an Automatic skill and also an Occupation skill, you use the Occupation opening. In this case INTRIGUE x4 SB.

The rules state that if I follow another occupation, I still use the Occupational opening of x4 SB. Plus x1 SB.

That to me is INTRIGUE x5 SB.

You only use Occupational OML for the Occupation that your character have chosen to follow and only when you assign your Occupational Skills (Step 2 of the Assignment of Skills). This is the only time that Occupational OML is used.

If it is the example under [2] OCCUPATIONAL SKILLS that's bothering you, then that example/clarification is perhaps not so good worded, especially since the numbers in the example are wrong, but still the example that say that "only the Occupational OML is used" means just that when you have selected an Occupation you should use the OMLs for that Occupation instead of those given on the list on SKILLS 3/4 when calculating skill MLs for your character, not to add them together.

Also the wording on this place can be confusing. I know that for example under [3] FAMILY SKILLS it say that you "open hte primary (first-listed) parent occupation skill at OML+SB, and any one other family skill at OML. It is bad that the game uses the same abbreviation for two different things. But the example in the sidebar explains what to do.

And to be blunt here. It is also very logical to follow the example given in the sidebar. Why? Because your family skills are skills that you have picked up while growing up. At the age of 13-15 or so you are working as either as an apprentice (or beginner, recruit or whatever it may be called for the various occupations) and usually live with the family that you work for. They should be bonus skills, not top first-rated skills.
So for example two sons (twins) have a cook as a father. The elder son, Garlic (born only minutes before his brother) follows in his fathers footsteps and will become very good in what his father does, which is primarily to mingle, he will get SB5 in that skill (Intrigue/5, one more than listed on the Occupation Skill just because that he didn't only learn this skill as an occupation, he learned it as a very young boy looking at his father when he was mingling).
His brother (his name is Leek, of course) left home at the age of 14 and become a thatcher. A thatcher does not mingle as much as a cook does, or not at all (Intrigue is not listed as an Occupational Skill for a Thatcher), but Leek the Thatcher will get some bonus for growing up with such a good mingling father, so he will get OML+SB. This can for a beginner be confusing since the same abbreviation is used for the same thing regardless of origin, but lucky for us, the example in the sidebar give us what to use, it is the OML given on the Skill list (SKILL 3/4), so it will be SB4.
According to you this thatcher brother will also get SB5 in intrigue. Very illogical, since Intrigue isn't part of a thatcher's skill list and he left home when he was 14, he hasn't watched his father until 17-18 as his older brother has.

The should have called the OMLs listed on the SKILLS 3/4 as Basic SKILL OML or and the OMLs listed on CHARACTER 15 for Occupation Skill OML and also used those names in the examples.

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So it's more errata needed then

Thanks Fenhorn

The origin of the rule.

In HM2 (or HMC) they skipped the concept of family skills all together (I think, I couldn't find it anyway) and in HM3 they changed it so the first listed skills is opened OML+SB and you may chose another skill to be opened at OML. HMG has a more complex system with -½SB to +½SB depending on various factors.

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When I complained to CGI about all these erratas (call them small if you wish) I got a "check with HF" email but I also got an email from another source that claimed to be working on something.

But I'm guessing that all was for nothing.

I have said it before, it is easy for me who have all the HM books (I don't have one of the versions of Chybisa, darn) to see and check for bugs. A new player don't have that luxury.

Also one thing that is not helping is that the company itself publish modules made by a third party (I mean fans here and this in itself is not a bad thing) but that third party has used their own house rules or mixed versions to creating it. This is less good since I don't know what house rule or version they have used.
I remember when I created some NPC for Dan, I was very thorough when using what rules/tables because I knew this will become official products. Not so easy for me back then because I used modified tables for everything in my game (a mixture of all HM and some extra). Perhaps I should not have bothered with this "official line" so much as I did.

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Did Harnmaster 2ed have all these vague rules issues?

Is there a thread that details the differences between Harnmaster 2ed and Harnmaster 3ed?

HM2 is very similar to HM3. Without rules for horses, bestiary. Also a very funny and strange thing. The idea buying your character came with HM2 but in there you buy your Occupation (it cost 20 CP to become a knight, if I remember correctly). I don't think anyone took that rule seriously.

And yeah, a bird has again whispered in my ear that something is in the works about these character creation obstacles and even though I have high respect for the people that are working with it, I don't think we will see one for sometime or at all actually. But sure, please surprise me.

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That's a good point now you mention it. It's just the character creation rules where I have a lot of trouble. If these are cleaned up, that would be great.

One can hope I guess.

The majority of the "issues" (as have been discussed at length in previous threads) surround the fact that HM Religion, HM Magic, and HM Barbarians were written under HM2 rules, and were not updated when HM3 came out. There is an effort underway to publish an official HM3 errata. It should come as no surprise, however, that such efforts take some time to get through the CGI "process".

As for the clarity of specific rules/examples, that's obviously more of an issue for some folks than others, but on the whole, I don't think HM3 is a terribly complex game system.

Oh I agree. HM3 isn't a complex game, it just leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to explaining certain rules.

No it's not a terrible complex game, personally I put it on the "Simple Games" shelf but that is because I spent most of my 90s playing HM1. Also during late 80s and perhaps also early 90s the complexity of the games grew (and with that the books needed to play them).
Perhaps HM3 is not Simple, more Medium, but when it comes to understand the rules, I have said it before, It is much easier for me that have played HM1 for so long. It is very important that the basics of the rulesystem is clean or is as clean as possible with (accurate) examples that helps new players to the game. HM3 is a very good rulebook, but then again, I have played HM1 so I have that back in my head when I read the rules.
I have myself players that are new (so they haven't played HM1) and they have asked questions, questions that I thought was obvious, but apparently obvious for me with 20 years of HM experience (and soon 30 years of RPG experience in general), less so for those that are new to the game and especially to those new to RPG.

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I agree I'd use SB5 since you can always cap it with the starting skill mastery rule. Edit My Bad thought he was a cook following the family profession. Of course he could have two parents in different professions like his mother the cook or be an older veteran cook moving up in the household or an organization like a chantry catching the eye of a resident or visiting guild member since cook is a relatively short career and 13 is the age of majority for commoners.

I'd use SB x5 because I'm convinced that's what the rule is saying.

Sorry I don't mean to sound antagonistic, it's just that I've taken the above apart and it's definitely saying that x5 SB is the right answer.

Clearly states when a skill is listed in occupation and automatic, you go by the 'occupation' (OML 4) and not 'skill' (OML 3). And when you add x1 SB to x4, you get x5.

Hi Warden, I think you are misreading the occupation skill / Automatic skill rule. This paragraph in HM3 is there to elucidate one point and that point is, if you open an occupation skill which also happens to be an automatic skill, then these are not added together. If, as your example states, you are opening a family occupation skill, which is also an automatic skill, but you are not following the family profession, then that skill opens at OML+SB, and this is the OML on the SKILLS 3 and 4 tables.

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Understood.


Ok thanks all, I'm just going to go with using the 'Skill' oml as everyone has pointed out.