This one is a stretch, a very far stretch. Yes, a good cook can never have farmed a day in their life and still be good. At the same time, the very best cooks and pioneer (colony) cooks know what each plant is, what it does, and how to combine them to get different effects. Being a farmer and knowing about the different herbs you have would give you an advantage over just grabbing a handful of random mushrooms and hoping for the best.
I can understand this one. The shepherd isn’t just caring for animals, they’re also going out and finding them, then bringing them back. They’d need knowledge in how to lure and trap them without hurting them before they could be brought back.
This one I can relate. Think of an herbalist as a nurse (in a very loose term) and a cleric as a field medic (again loosely). A field medic (cleric) would need some medical knowledge before they can run out and start helping people in battle. Yes, military wise this can be argued half a dozen ways, but you get my point.
See my above statements. I feel the mentioned ones should be tweaked, if not balanced, but at the same time, there are advantages (lore wise) as to why they’re like this.
I will say that @Jeffrey_Bomford has a good idea, and let me let me iterate this through a simple chart.
Say you want a cook.
Lv2 Farmer -----> Generic Cook
Lv2 Trapper -----> Cook mostly focussing on advanced meat based recipes.
Lv2 Herbalist -----> Cook mostly focussing on advanced plant based recipes.
If you wanted to take this further, and throw some XCom leveling into it, where you have to pick individual skills each level (but only pick one), it wouldn’t hurt either. Just at that point, this system might be getting more complicated than it needs to be.
@Siyat, look into XCom2’s leveling system. That’s exactly what you’re describing.
Also, @jomaxro, this could probably get merged back with the original thread, as it still talks about @Brackhar’s original idea.