[Skarg]

I'm not trying to convince everyone who thinks otherwise, but it is curious to me that the issues don't seem clear and problematic to everyone.

Here's are two examples and then I'll probably give up:


Example 1:

Pudork the typical peasant arrives at legion and reports for inspection and training.
ST 11 DX 10 IQ 8
Farming, Swimming, Animal Handling, Pole Weapons

He can be spear-fodder as is, but we want to train him to be a good soldier. We'd like to at least train him to use a shield.

RAW, that takes 500 XP.

Or, RAW, with that much XP, we could have him use the spear 2-handed, so he doesn't have use for a shield, and put 500 XP into ST & DX, which would but us FIVE ATTRIBUTE POINTS. i.e. it's enough to make him:

ST 13 DX 13 IQ 8, ready to slaughter typical 30-32-point characters. Or, for the same amount of XP, gain the shield talent and not really be any better than he was before.


Example 2:

Three 32-point starting wizards:

Horace
ST 9 DX 13 IQ 10
Staff, Fire, Shadow, Image, Wall, and 5 other points in spells & talents.

Boris
ST 9 DX 12 IQ 11
Staff II, 3-hex Fire, 3-hex Shadow, Image, Wall, and 6 other points in spells & talents.

Norris
ST 8 DX 11 IQ 13
Staff III, 3-hex Fire, 3-hex Shadow, 4-hex Image, 3-hex Wall, and 8 other points in spells & talents.

So far, no problem or difference from original TFT.

For these characters to advance 3 attribute points, it would cost 100 + 100 + 200 = 400 XP. They might then all be ST 9 DX 13 IQ 13.

But they won't be equal by a long shot. Norris will have 13 points in spells and they could most/all be spells Horace and Boris could not have taken as starting spells. If Horace and Boris want the spells Norris has, they need to spend 500 XP for each new spell and new version of the spell. So to catch up to anything half-like Boris' starting knowledge:

Horace would need to get Staff II, Staff III, 3-hex Fire, 3-hex Shadow, 4-hex Image, and 3-hex Wall, which would cost 3000 XP.

Boris would need to get Staff III, 4-hex Image, and 3-hex Wall, for 1500 XP.

Meanwhile, Norris caught up to their starting advantages at the same rate they could have bought up to his IQ and gotten almost nothing for it except the ability to Disbelieve and notice traps as well as Norris already could. If everyone gets more XP and learns spells, Norris remains ahead of them by 1500 to 3000 XP, plus the advantage of having started with higher-IQ spells in the first place.

By the time Horace could learn those six spell levels for 3000 XP, Norris could gain another 3 attributes (making him a 38-point character!) AND learn another two spells, and have 100 XP left over. Or gain 3 attributes and 5 staff mana plus 100 XP.

Also, in what self-consistent universe does it make sense that Norris is supposedly on par with Horace and Boris, but was able to learn all those spells before play started, but now it's going to take massively more effort for them to catch up to where he started?

How would you represent a young Norris learning the spells that got him to his starting spell list?

How would you represent NPCs trying to learn new spells?

Why is the average person 30 points, and somehow learned talents at some point, but then talents became something that needs as much experience as becoming an exceptional person in terms of attributes?