Specialties

[To see what items can be made with each Specialty, click on the Specialty name. You will be redirected to either a dedicated page for that Specialty, or (if it's sufficiently simple, like Art, Machinery, etc.) a section of a "Miscellaneous Item Creation" page.]

Specialties are special abilities acquired by learning 1-3 related Skills. Their level is determined by averaging the levels of the related Skills, rounding down. Thus, it is easier to raise the level of the Scout specialty, which has only one related skill, than it is raising the Alchemy skill, which has three. All specialties have an upper level limit of 10. Specialties allow the characters to do such activities as cooking food, playing music, and other actions that can affect various aspects of the game. The level of the specialty determines the chances of success. Note, however, that without the needed Talent, the specialty is virtually guaranteed to fail.

Specialty Format

--Name--
Description (taken from game text)
Accessed from (which menu)
Needed Skills
Needed Talents
Super Specialty: (which super specialty this is featured in, if any; also says if it's a major or minor specialty)
Needed Items (needed but not consumed)
Consumed Items (consumed as specialty is being used)
Support Items (increases chances for success, sometimes enhances abilities)
Extra Comments (if any)

--Alchemy--
Description: Transmute iron into valuable materials such as metals and jewels.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Mineralogy, Fairyology, Scientific Ability
Needed Talents: Blessing of Manna
Super Specialty: Blacksmith (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: Iron
Support Items: Erlenmeyer Flask, Lezard Flask
Comments: Why pay for that diamond when you can make one? This lucrative specialty can both produce extra FOL or more exotic minerals and gems to use in Customize or Metalwork. Note that because of the talent requirements, only spellcasters (Rena, Celine, Leon, Noel) can use this specialty. As the level of specialty increases, the alchemist can transmute more exotic materials. The highest levels of ores and gems are only available after Lezard's Flask has been obtained. This skill becomes increasingly more important as the game continues, and is a wonderful complement to Customize and Blacksmith to make the game's most powerful weapons and armor without having to search for the rare minerals needed. [Iron to Sage's Stone = increase of over 79,700 FOL each! BLORG!]

--Art--
Description: Make items by investing a soul into pictures and statues that you make.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Esthetic Sense, Sketching
Needed Talents: Sense of Design
Super Specialty: Orchestra (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: Magical Canvas, Magical Clay
Support Items: Graphics Software
Comments: An expensive item creation technique. Using a Magical Canvas creates various cards or paintings to be used in battle, or portraits of one of the characters in the game. Using Magical Clay creates various dolls, balls, cards, and other items that can be used. The usefulness of this skill depends on whether you prefer using items during battle. The powers of these works of art can range from reviving fallen comrades to doubling experience to random items.

--Authoring--
Description: Maintain a guidebook that gives you the details of your skills as they increase.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Writing
Needed Talents: Writing Ability
Super Specialty: Publishing (major)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: Fountain Pen
Support Items: Text Software
Comments: The specialty allows you to create a guidebook on a skill that a character has a level of 5 or greater in, using a Fountain Pen in the attempt. Any character that reads this guidebook will automatically gain a level in the written skill without having to expend the SP normally necessary. However, you can only raise a skill to level 5 using a guidebook (thus, the writer cannot use it, for instance). Early mastery of this skill can be useful to beef up skills that normally require a large amount of SP to learn. However, only certain skills (around 20) can be authored. This specialty is especially recommended for Leon; his use of books as his weapons allows him to author special books for him to bash over opponents' heads. [After learning Perseverance, only a small amount of Skills will need more than 10 or so SP to level up before level 5, meaning that this can be fairly useless. Good ones to use it for include Fairyology, Musical Notation/Instrument, Functionality, Biology, and most Combat skills. Note that Leon can use this to randomly make his own weapons.]

--Compounding--
Description: Make medicines by mixing two types of herbs.
Accessed from: Item Creation Menu
Needed Skills: Herbal Medicine, Biology, Mental Science
Needed Talents: Dexterity
Super Specialty: Master Chef (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: herbs (Rose Hips, Mandrake, etc.)
Support Items: Antiseptic Gloves
Comments: This specialty allows for creation of a variety of medicines and items through the mixing of two herbs. Each possible mixture (including mixing the same herb with itself) can create up to 4 different items. Note, however, that though some are extremely helpful, some have nasty side effects, and a few can be hazardous to your health, depending on the properties of the herbs being mixed. In general, however, this specialty is quite useful [especially later in the game].

--Cooking--
Description: Make drinks and food with cooking ingredients.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Recipe, Good Eye, Kitchen Knife
Needed Talents: Sense of Taste
Super Specialty: Master Chef (major)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: ingredients (Seafood, Grain, etc.)
Support Items: All-Purpose Knife (must be equipped)
Comments: One of the more interesting skills, this specialty allows you to make a dish or drink out of a cooking ingredient. These items will restore HP and/or MP when eaten, and some of them sell for a good price, as well, making this a viable way to make some extra FOL if you're a good cook. There are also special ingredients you can find which make more exotic (some would say weird) foods. Also, each character (with the exception of Chisato) has a favorite dish that can be made with this specialty that, when ingested, restores their HP or MP to their maximum levels (think Popeye and spinach). [One more thing: Adult characters (such as Noel and Celine) can make a few extra dishes which child characters (like Rena and Precis) can't. These are usually more effective and more expensive than the others.]

--Customize--
Description: Modify weapons into your own original type.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Functionality, Craft, Metal Casting
Needed Talents: Originality
Super Specialty: Blacksmith (major)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: weapon, ore, metal or gem
Support Items: Magical Rasp
Comments: One of the most interesting specialties and the hardest to catalog, customize allows you to combine a weapon and an ore/gem into something new. You lose both the weapon and the ore/gem, and, unfortunately, don't always get a more powerful weapon or even a weapon at all (I occasionally get food?!), so save your game before testing things on a treasured sword that you might want to keep after all. The number of weapons and available ores, along with the fact that you can continue to customize the resulting weapon, allow for multiple possibilities, so just keep trying it yourself. Note, however, that each character can only customize their own weapons, so to create weapons for each character requires that each has the Customize specialty. The weapon made is determined by the strength of the weapon along with the rarity of the ore or gem being used. In addition, certain weapons require a specific weapon and/or ore/gem be used to create them.

--Familiar--
Description: Send animals to shop for you when you're deep in a dungeon or other such place.
Accessed from: Specialty menu
Needed Skills: Whistling, Animal Training
Needed Talents: Love of Animals
Super Specialty: Come On Bunny (major)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: Pet Food
Support Items: none
Comments: This useful specialty allows you to shop for certain basic items at any time, anywhere - as long the carrier bird responds to your call. Carry around a lot of Pet Food. Also, this may be the only specialty that you may not want to increase to level 10 immediately. There are 5 different birds, each able to shop for a different set of items. As you advance in level, the bird changes. The problem is, you cannot go back and choose the previous bird! Thus, it is advisable to have a few members of your party with this specialty at varying levels to get different birds in case you like more than one bird's selection of purchasable goods. A higher level in this specialty does increase the chances of the bird arriving. [And the last bird does have the overall most useful items.]

--Identify--
Description: Identify unknown items indicated by a question mark (?) at the start of their names.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Mineralogy, Herbal Medicine, Tool Knowledge
Needed Talents: none
Super Specialty: Identify All! (major)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: Spectacles
Support Items: Element Analyzer
Comments: One of the first specialties obtainable, the Identify specialty, while not being flashy, is a necessary specialty. There are invariably going to be unidentified items either made through item creation or found, and these items are unusable until they have been identified. Each try at identifying an item uses up a Spectacle, which is fortunately quite cheap.

--Machinery--
Description: Make machines that help with your adventure.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Mech Knowledge, Mech Operation
Needed Talents: Dexterity, Sense of Design
Super Specialty: Publishing (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: Material Kit
Support Items: none
Comments: This useful skill allows you to make a variety of items, including bombs for use in battle and the support items for many of the other specialties. This specialty is especially important for Precis and Opera, who can create their own unique weapons and Killer Moves through this specialty.

--Metalwork--
Description: Make jewelry and equipment out of jewels and precious metals.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Mineralogy, Esthetic Sense, Craft
Needed Talents: Originality, Dexterity
Super Specialty: Identify All! (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed items: ore, metal, or gem
Support Items: Soldering Iron
Comments: This item creation skill allows you to create your own accessories to equip. There are 7-8 possible items that can be created from each ore or gem. However, each character can only create around half of these items. Thus, to ensure that all possible items can be made for each ore or gem, multiple people should be proficient in this specialty.

--Musical Talent--
Description: Compose and play music.
Accessed from: Specialty menu
Needed Skills: Musical Notation, Musical Instrument
Needed Talents: Pitch, Sense of Rhythm
Super Specialty: Orchestra (major)
Needed Items: instruments (Piano, Harmonica, etc.)
Consumed Items: Feather Pen, Conductor's Baton
Support Items: Musical Software
Comments: A complicated but powerful specialty, Musical Talent is done in three stages: first, an instrument must be found or bought. Only one of each type is necessary. Then, a character uses the specialty to attempt to compose a song for that instrument, using up a Feather Pen at each attempt. Each instrument in the game has two songs associated with them, all of which have various effects in the game, such as increasing defense or calling monsters to fight. (Note that since there are only two songs, once both are composed for an instrument, any extra attempts are a waste.) After a song is composed, a character may use a Conductor's Baton to play a song written for a selected instrument. This song will temporarily replace the normal background music, and while it is playing the abilities of the song are used (unless the song sounds out of tune, in which case your character is missing a required talent). The effectiveness of the song is determined partly by the character's Specialty level. Also, each character has a preferred instrument that can enhance that instrument's effectiveness.

--Oracle--
Description: Gives you helpful(?) messages from Tria, the Goddess of Creation.
Accessed from: Specialty menu
Needed Skills: Piety, Playfulness, Radar
Needed Talents: none
Super Specialty: none
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: none
Support Items: none
Comments: Basically a frill specialty, the Oracle will cycle through various messages that range from completely useless to quite useful. The number of messages increases as the level increases, but there is no actual need for this specialty at all. [In fact, one of the messages it tells you is that Oracle is useless! 8-)]

--Pickpocket--
Description: Skill used in conjunction with special gloves to steal items from people.
Accessed from: special
Needed Skills: Courage, Poker Face
Needed Talents: Dexterity
Super Specialty: Reverse Side (major)
Needed Items: Bandit's Glove (must be equipped)
Consumed Items: none
Support Items: Magician's Hand (must be equipped - can be instead of Bandit's Glove)
Comments: Walk down the path of crime and steal from townspeople, even your own party members. To pickpocket, you must have the Bandit's Glove or Magician's Hand equipped. Walk up to a person and press the Square button within speaking range and you'll receive an item if your pickpocketing was successful. Regardless of your success or failure, you can only attempt to pickpocket a person once. There are a couple of special notes for pickpocketing. One, since you only get one shot at stealing items, you should never attempt to pickpocket if you don't already have Dexterity as a talent. Two, each time you attempt to pickpocket with a character, any other character currently in the party will have their Emotional Levels reduced towards the stealing character. Thus, it is best to attempt this specialty during Private Actions, when the only character in your party is either Claude or Rena. If you plan to pickpocket, then, Claude or Rena should be the main characters to learn the skill, unless you don't care about a character's Emotional Levels. It is, however, a useful specialty to learn early due to the many opportunities to get powerful items that aren't normally available, as well as special items only gotten through pilfering. It's all for a good cause... [This specialty rocks!]

--Practice--
Description: Increase your experience points by going through combat with lowered abilities.
Accessed from: Specialty menu
Needed Skills: Patience, Perseverance, Effort
Needed Talents: none
Super Specialty: Comprehension (major)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: none
Support Items: none
Comments: Turn on this specialty to go through battles weaker in exchange for more experience. I originally thought that only the practicing character would get the extra experience, but after repeated testing I've found that all the characters in the battle party get the extra experience. Furthermore, the more characters that practice, regardless of whether they are in the current battle party, the more experience the battle party gets for battles! I'll have to experiment with this more, and I'll be happy for someone to prove me wrong, as it seems like another huge bug in the US version of Star Ocean 2. Note, however, that, as the description states, practicing characters do have their stats lowered in battle (but if they're not in the battle party, it doesn't matter). This seems to reduce a little the intended idea for speeding up your lagging characters' leveling, though it does speed up the battle party's leveling. The penalty for practicing makes the specialty more useful for beating on weaker enemies rather than taking on new, more dangerous opponents.

--Reproduction--
Description: Make an item identical to another.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Copying
Needed Talents: none
Super Specialty: Reverse Side (minor)
Needed Items: Magical Camera
Consumed Items: Magical Film
Support Items: Ririca
Comments: This specialty allows you to make a duplicate of items in your inventory. To do so, you first need to select the Magical Camera (or the Ririca, which is more powerful) to take a picture on a piece of Magical Film. The result will be either a copy of the item or a blurry picture. Also note that most rare items can't be copied using this specialty, although most items bought in stores and many of the more useful accessories and items can be copied, making this a great money saver/maker -- if you succeed.

--Scout--
Description: Allows the user to increase or decrease the probability of enemies appearing to a certain degree.
Accessed from: Specialty menu
Needed Skills: Danger Sense
Needed Talents: Sixth Sense
Super Specialty: Come On Bunny (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: none
Support Items: none
Comments: Great for leveling or traveling unhindered between places. Note, however, that only the current leader (first person listed) of the party affects scouting, so your party makeup should affect who should learn this specialty. Also note that Sixth Sense may be the hardest talent to acquire in the game, so don't bother Scouting if you don't have it.

--Survival--
Description: Find useful items when in the field. Consumes 4 MP.
Accessed from: Item Creation menu
Needed Skills: Herbal Medicine, Patience
Needed Talents: none
Super Specialty: Comprehension (minor)
Needed Items: none
Consumed Items: none
Support Items: Survival Kit
Comments: This specialty might more aptly be named "Scavenging" due to its random nature. The items you find while expending the 4 MP on this specialty range from the useless to the rare, and it's all random. The range of items differs depending on where the skill is used, whether in a building, a dungeon, the forest, whatever. [The results are almost always cooking ingredients or minerals.] Certainly not a necessary skill, but sort of amusing. You can use it to expend all of your MP before resting at inns.