Taking Skill Synergy Prior to Multiclassing

[Spippity]

Hey all,
I searched the forum, and decided to go ahead and ask with a new post. Players in my group are leveling to 4th level. A soldier 3 PC took Skill Synergy (CRB pg 161) as his 1st feat on Perception and Computers, making them Class skills. He's muliclassing into Mechanic, which has those two skills as class skills already. In this case would Skill Synergy retroactively give +2 to Perception and Computers, since they come with Mechanic? And as a tag along question, are there any other feats retroactively handled in this manner? Last thing I would want to do is inadvertently handicap them before sending them through the Ukulam Wilderness, lol. Sources please. Thanks in advance

[Taja the Barbarian]

Spippity wrote:

Hey all,

I searched the forum, and decided to go ahead and ask with a new post. Players in my group are leveling to 4th level. A soldier 3 PC took Skill Synergy (CRB pg 161) as his 1st feat on Perception and Computers, making them Class skills. He's muliclassing into Mechanic, which has those two skills as class skills already. In this case would Skill Synergy retroactively give +2 to Perception and Computers, since they come with Mechanic? And as a tag along question, are there any other feats retroactively handled in this manner? Last thing I would want to do is inadvertently handicap them before sending them through the Ukulam Wilderness, lol. Sources please. Thanks in advance

RAW, there is nothing in the feat indicating it is changed if the skills become class skills at a later date, so your player is probably stuck with a 'now useless' feat:

Skill Synergy wrote:

Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 161

You understand how two skills work well together.

Benefit: Choose two skills. These skills become class skills for you. If one or both were already class skills, you gain a +2 insight bonus to those skill checks instead.

Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Its effects don’t stack. Each time you take it, it applies to two different skills.

[Taja the Barbarian]

Note that the character in question unfortunately multiclassed just a little too late to possibly use a Mnemonic Editor to fix this issue as this device only works on 'decisions you made as a result of advancing over the previous 2 character levels you gained': If they had decided to multi-class at 3rd level, they could have used this device before leveling up to either take their first level of mechanic at level 1 or select a different feat at creation. Of course, the major caveat is that this is a level 5 device, so it might not have been available to the PCs at level 3 (and presumably the player waited until level 4 to not delay getting weapon specialization).

Also, note that the Mechanic's baseline Bypass class feature grants an insight bonus to Computers which would not stack with Skill Synergy's insight bonus to a skill that is already a class skill.

Mechanic / Bypass (Ex) - 1st Level wrote:

You are skilled at getting inside computer systems and electronic devices. At 1st level, you gain a +1 insight bonus to Computers and Engineering skill checks. At 5th level, every 4 levels thereafter, and at 20th level, this bonus increases by 1.

If I may ask, what is the player trying to accomplish with this build:

• a) Is this just a 'trying to fill gaps in the party lineup' sort of improvised build? I mean, it's hard to imagine a party that needs a typical Soldier to heavily invest in Computers, but it is probably technically possible... (If this is the case, I might be inclined to allow the player to retrain the feat into Skill Focus [Perception])
• b) Is this a 'High Int' tech character build that dipped Soldier to make it tougher at low level? (If this is the case, I'd be inclined to deny retraining as that feat slot is just a cost of the build)
• c) Is this an attempt to duplicate a character (either from another campaign or some other media?

[Spippity]

If I recall correctly, it was an attempt to make a "combat engineer/mechanic" so a mix of a & b. That said, you have been very helpful with answers and possible solutions. Thank you!

[BigNorseWolf]

if you're not playing societym, there is no reason not to let the feat retroactively add its bonus.

[Wesrolter]

I would probably say they just need a week of downtime (If available) to switch it from "Class skill" to "Insight bonus" since Skill Synergy has no requirements.

Though Taja makes the best point, if they are going more than 4 levels in Mechanic, the Insight bonus would be ignored. Suppose, at that point, you could retrain again into something else.

[Spippity]

All of you bring up valid points. In the end, I handwaved it and asked the player which feat they would have picked and allowed them to exhcange it this time. I was also looking to see if there was an "official" answer concerning this, and how the games handles retroactive feats as well. Thanks again.

[Metaphysician]

My rule of thumb: order of operations should *never* matter. If a character has Ability X, you should never need to care when they acquired it. Thus, best way to resolve? If something ever makes a previous choice redundant, the player gets to reassign that choice.