[Skarg]

Originally Posted by platimus

Why not?

Because it does not match the entire rather self-consistent body of published TFT characters throughout all TFT products. Nor does it match the descriptions in ITL of what average attribute scores in the population are.

If average is 30, and the range is about 24 to 40 (6 points below 30, to 10 points above 30), then there are many people with attributes in the 24 to 30 range. It can't be very easy or common that people add attributes.

If you read and play all TFT products ever published, and you pay attention to the attributes of the NPCs listed, you'll see that the vast majority of humans warriors listed are in the 30-34 point range, and are supposed to be somewhat competent. So if basic military physical conditioning, or any other common training available to people, could give you 5 attribute points as easily as it could give you a one-point talent, then this would not be the case, or it would make no sense.

Originally Posted by platimus

I don't understand why this is a problem unless you think of PCs as being genetically superior super-men/women.

That is an interesting (different) topic, and I take the traditional TFT view that PCs are a bit above average and it's up to them to learn from extraordinary (and probably very dangerous) experiences if they're going to become even more capable. And that most people don't go on life-threatening extraordinary adventurers and gain that experience, or else the average would be higher and/or many of them would die off trying.

Really though you've bypassed the main point, which is why is gaining 5 attributes on par with learning just one talent point? I was a bit generous in giving Pudork the Pole Weapons talent. If he had no weapon talent and had to learn that too, it'd take 1500 XP, not 500! I don't think there's any point discussing any of the rest of it without tackling that.

Originally Posted by platimus

As GM, you have complete control over how this works by controlling a NPCs back-story, their opportunities to learn and improve, and the rate at which they learn (i.e. acquire XP for PCs or PC-ish NPCs).

Again, this is completely within the GMs/authors control. The GM/author writes the stories and controls what opportunities present themselves.

Yes, which is why my response to this thread is I would not use RAW but at least restore the ability to study talents up to your IQ during play using study time and without using XP, so raising IQ means you can learn more talents. (In fact, I'd probably also house rule that you can train someone with full IQ to learn more talents without XP, but it just takes more time.) This discussion after having said that is just about why I would do that.

Originally Posted by platimus

Using the Pudork example, will the legion he attempts to join accept every peasant that wants to join? I would think not. What circumstances motivated and allowed Pudork to leave the family farm and join the legion? If you think about this from a medieval history perspective, why weren't all the peasants turned into soldiers?

Because they considered them the "third estate of men", and they needed peasants to farm, and would just conscript them when needed as soldiers.

Originally Posted by platimus

I doubt it was because the peasants were not physically capable of becoming more than peasants. In modern terms, why doesn't every inner-city kid living in the slums rise above their situations to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc? Surely you would not suggest that they are an inferior race of beings incapable of improving themselves.

I have no idea why you're writing most of these things.

Not sure why you're asking, but I think peasants tended to be mostly average people who may have had the equivalent in a weapon talent or two, probably not as good though as a trained soldier at fighting with them (but TFT doesn't have a good way to represent that the way GURPS does).

I think that basic training's physical conditioning probably does things like train discipline and physical fitness, and probably at most might maybe give some trainees +1 ST and/or +1 DX if they were not in good condition already. It might be worth some XP, but mostly I think it should be able to train basic talents.

And that they probably do not increase people's attributes much if at all - I'd call it maybe 1d6 x 10 XP per three months of training.

I think a military training program should be able to teach 1-4 points of talents, usually taking about a year. That matches SJ's original rate of 1 talent point per 3 months of study, and my house rule of double time to study total talent points above your IQ. I think most NPCs may not have their full IQ in talents.