Thread: New Skills
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Old 07-09-2018, 11:09 PM   #97
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: New Skills

Quote:
Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
I've had players who loved them... because it gave them henchmen. ...
We had plenty of henchmen and allies, but the rules as written seemed wrong to us in several ways:

* Taken literally, it says you can roll 4/IQ to commandeer any same-race NPC. GM either has to allow that or defy/rewrite that. And GM needs to catch & fix that before players invest/design a character thinking they're going to be able to go around enthralling NPCs the way it says.
* It's too simplistic and feels wrong the way it works, not taking anything into account but PC IQ and race.
* The whole "the player runs the NPC as another NPC" thing is under-explained/under-developed - what are the limits, etc. We preferred to have NPC followers/allies still remain NPCs even if PCs were allowed to guide and move them - that was usually/mainly a representation of the PC's leadership.
* Implies maybe you can't have followers without this talent, which requires Charisma, which is designed as charming, etc...
* Ends up needing a bunch of "memory" points from a PC...
* The Monster Followers version seems even more weird.

i.e. Our PCs had piles of NPC allies & followers, but we didn't require talents for it but instead used roleplaying & GM discretion.


Quote:
Originally Posted by John Brinegar View Post
I agree with Steve here, but this highlights what for me is the problem with using IQ as a point pool to buy talents/spells with: a system that works quite well for wizards leaves heroes with cramped development. One spell per IQ point gives wizards a fair amount of options while also forcing choices and ensuring that not all wizards will look alike. Heroes must often spend multiple IQ points to get a talent and must build up other attributes to be eligible for some talents; as a result, certain types of specialist heroes end up all looking very alike.
I agree that TFT wizards seemed to have a reasonable yet interestingly limited number of spells with the usual 1 per IQ and the AW spell list. I remember there seemed to be a reason to want more than 20 points of spells. If you doubled it, that would throw that off. Though again, if something other than IQ is used to learn more spells (e.g. EP, or significant in-campaign training downtime for student and a qualified teacher), that the effective limit could be similar, but it's harder to assist/playtest, whereas we're all used to thinking of progression in terms of IQ limits. Also, since TFT spells are magic/psychic things, I don't mind them being limited to IQ the way I dislike it for Talents (because I'm sure that isn't how talents really work).
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