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Old 10-09-2018, 10:17 PM   #121
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: IQ rise and talents

Most of the questions in this thread revolve around spells...which is odd because the thread title is "IQ rise and talents"...
1)Can I forget a spell?
2)How long does it take to learn a spell?
3)Where do I go to learn new spells? Where do the new spells come from?
4)Why can't I get a new talent or spell when I increase my IQ?

(1)You don't need to with the XP-buy system. I certainly wouldn't allow forgetting talents.

(2)Perhaps learning a spell is akin to learning to play a particular song on a musical instrument. You can memorize the notes rather quickly but it will take some practice to play them correctly with the right timing. Perhaps it takes a number of days equal to the IQ level of spell? There should be some guidelines about how soon you can learn a spell from a scroll found while adventuring, etc. You shouldn't be able to learn a spell from a scroll you just found just because you already had the XP required.

(3)ITL does discuss being able to learn spells from Wizard's Guilds, books, and scrolls but it never specifically says that one must visit or obtain one of these things to learn a spell. Maybe it should. Or maybe it's deliberately left open for you to house-rule.

(4)Hmm. This is the most illogical expectation in the world to me. I know it was there in old ITL but it was so weird to me. In fact, I thought maybe my old copy of old ITL was missing some pages or something until someone confirmed that raising your IQ automatically entitled you to a new talent or spell. I can't overstate this: Does Not Make Sense To Me. If you drank a potion that raised your IQ, would you expect to suddenly know a new spell or talent? I think not. Raising your IQ should only make you ready to learn something, not automatically fill your head with knowledge. With the XP-buy system, we have our explanation: You learned it in your "off-time" while adventuring and acquiring the XP to buy it. That seems to work just fine for talents and spells you already had access to. This brings us back to #3. There should definitely be guidelines on where the knowledge of a new talent/spells comes from.

Summary:
If you throw out #4, #1 becomes irrelevant. #2 needs to be answered in the rules for spells. #3 needs to be answered in the rules for spells and talents. My hope is that getting the answers to #2 and #3 would alleviate some of the demands for #4. I think some adjustments to the XP costs of raising stats (and possibly talents/spells) would also be required to quell most complaints about #4. As has been pointed out, a starting character with enough XP (500) to learn a new talent or spell could raise stats 3 times with the same amount of XP (500). Talents and spells are often more valuable than 2 points of stats in this game but 3 points of stats seems to be pushing it. Perhaps XP costs like this would be a solution:
33rd (1st) -- 100XP
34th (2nd) -- 200XP
35th (3rd) -- 300XP
36th (4th) -- 400XP
(the rest could stay the same)

Last edited by platimus; 10-09-2018 at 11:09 PM.
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