Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > The Fantasy Trip > The Fantasy Trip: House Rules

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-17-2018, 05:41 PM   #111
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: priest and theologian

Quote:
Originally Posted by platimus View Post
I call this "spell-creep". Too many spells readily available to PCs.
One solution is to separate spells into colleges, so that nobody has access to them all. Then maybe some colleges are only accessible to priest-types rather than wizards, etc.
David Bofinger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-17-2018, 06:23 PM   #112
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: priest and theologian

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
That's two different characteristics which I think you're implicitly mixing.
Correct, which is why I wrote "and/or". A valuable distinction, as you described.
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-17-2018, 07:05 PM   #113
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: priest and theologian

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
One solution is to separate spells into colleges, so that nobody has access to them all. Then maybe some colleges are only accessible to priest-types rather than wizards, etc.
Oh, you mean like D&D does it? LOL

If you re-read my comments, I said RAW TFT does NOT suffer from the problem of too many spells readily available to PCs. You're telling me how to solve a problem in TFT that I don't believe exists. And...I believe your proposed solution would actually cause the problem that does not exist.

Maybe I've misunderstood something?

Last edited by platimus; 09-17-2018 at 07:11 PM.
platimus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-17-2018, 07:16 PM   #114
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: priest and theologian

Quote:
Originally Posted by warhorse11h View Post
Spell creep is something I can believe most GMs would and will dislike. But, I don't know that one can prevent it altogether. No matter how good the mousetrap is someone will try to improve it. Look at this game back when it started. Interplay magazine, all eight issues of it, were chock full of new types of characters, new spells, new magic items, etc. Some things fit one campaign, others another, and some just don't fit. But, what the hey, life is change, unpredictable and chaotic.

I don't know that magic, no matter how many spells a wizard may have, is never likely to replace talents as a way to do things. Even with the new staff rules and mana, you can still run short on available magic pretty quick.

Say you gave a ranger type woodsman a spell like darkvision. He can use it, but he won't have a staff, he's not a wizard. So, it won't last long, if it works that is, and he'll have to muddle through without it until he gets a chance to rest. He would probably save it until he had to use it, because once it's gone, it's gone. Or at least until he gets a chance to rest.
We'll have to agree to disagree about Holy Symbol only being for Wizards and the properties thereof. I understood your reasoning for the Talents and Spells before. Your explanations there make me wonder if we had a miscommunication or something.

To clarify, I am not in favor of spell-creep and it is not something that I think TFT is prone to currently - for the reasons you have stated.

Another thing that I lump under the term "spell creep" is there are tons of spells and a lot of them are very similar. I hate that and is why I'm generally not receptive to the idea of categorizing spells into colleges by character archetype. There will be spells created for colleges that are near duplicates of spells in other colleges. I think the responsibility and privilege of deciding who can use what spell should rest with the GM.

Last edited by platimus; 09-17-2018 at 07:35 PM.
platimus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-17-2018, 08:39 PM   #115
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: priest and theologian

No apologies necessary as there was no offense. I was just wondering if we were on the same page. I really hope I get my PDFs this week!
platimus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-18-2018, 11:43 AM   #116
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: priest and theologian

What I like to do to avoid too widespread spell knowledge, and to make things (and religious orders, and Wizard guild chapters) interesting, and to avoid spells I don't want to be widely (or at all) available, is to list which groups know (and have books for) which spells, and which ones they teach, and to whom.

Different groups may know slightly different versions of some spells, too.

No classes or rules needed other than the Advanced Wizard rules on how a wizard can learn a spell (not by staring at clouds and spending experience points, but by books and/or teachers and time).
Skarg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-18-2018, 12:24 PM   #117
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: priest and theologian

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
No classes or rules needed other than the Advanced Wizard rules on how a wizard can learn a spell (not by staring at clouds and spending experience points, but by books and/or teachers and time).
Right on, brother!
platimus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2018, 11:51 AM   #118
hcobb
 
hcobb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: priest and theologian

Would an ally (who might be a demon merely claiming to be a god) who interacted under certain conditions have the same game cost as a talent?
__________________
-HJC
hcobb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2018, 05:07 PM   #119
hcobb
 
hcobb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: priest and theologian

My vision of how to redo priest is to have a third class of Expert in equal standing to Warrior and Wizard. Expert would trade away the "hidden" talents of Warrior combat skills and Wizard magical powers for at least one slot of expertise.

Then your rogues would be Experts with some thieving talents, scholars would have book learning, etc. Conan remains a Warrior, but he's picked up some roguish talents also. Alternately replace Warrior and Wizard with templates that spec out all the talents to do the things they do in Melee and Wizard and up everybody's starting points to match.

Priests then are scholars with knowledge skills about the rituals of their religion. If these rituals actually do things outside the bounds of known spellcasting then these extra effects are tied to allies (from higher planes or lower) and having access to these allied powers requires both talent and skill slots. The balance against Wizards is that priests can only ask, not demand or impose their own will on the cosmos.
__________________
-HJC
hcobb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-21-2018, 05:10 PM   #120
platimus
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: behind you
Default Re: priest and theologian

@warhorse11h
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=126
I like this as possible background for a campaign. Very interesting.

Another possibility is that the Mnorens were already split into factions and have already fought some great, cataclysmic war. After the cataclysm, an uneasy truce was reached. The Mnorens decided they were too powerful to wage war against each other themselves as it threatened their existence and the very existence of the universe itself. They decided to war against each other by proxy. The Mnorens resposible for this proposal created and offered up Cidri as the proposed battleground. The various Mnoren factions were allowed to genetically engineer their champion race and deposit it in Cidri. The race that ends up dominating Cidri scores a victory for its Mnoren creators. Cidri is one humongous and complex gladiatorial arena for the Mnorens. However, the rules of this game (their truce) stipulate that they aren't allowed tell the inhabitants of Cidri all of this. Also, the Mnorens have strict rules restricting their ability to interact with the inhabitants of Cidri.

At some point in the past or future of Cidri, the inhabitants did/do learn of these things and manage to form an alliance of their own for the purposes of over-throwing their Mnoren masters. Perhaps one Mnoren broke the rules and told the inhabitants about the Mnoren war-by-proxy and instructed them on how to shut the Mnorens out of Cidri. As punishment, the other Mnorens exiled this heretic to Cidri as a mere mortal. They had hoped these ideas would eventually die-out but a new religion was formed in Cidri. That religion continued to amass followers and grew very close to discovering the secret to defeating the Mnorens. At this point, the Mnorens collectively decided to send another emissary to the people of Cidri to start a counter-religion to stop the efforts of the other one.

Meanwhile, another Mnoren devises a new strategy that he believes will make him victorious over all the other Mnoren. Through loop-holes created by the previous emissaries, this Mnoren spreads the teachings of atheism and secretly begins instructing a group of wizards in the making of an invincible golem. This Great Beast, he tells the wizards, is the key to defeating the Mnorens and Cidri's independence from their games. After thousands of years, the wizards finally succeed and their Mnoren benefactor purposely commits some act of defiance that he knows will get him cast-out into Cidri. He knows the Mnorens will give him a choice. "Take any mortal form you wish that inhabits Cidri to live out your days." He chooses the Great Beast that the wizards made. His plan was to start his own religion once he inhabited the Great Beast - a religion that worshiped him. Since the beast would be undefeatable by the inhabitants of Cidri, his faction - this new religion - would be the ultimate victor of Cidri and the other Mnorens would have to restore his Mnoren form and crown him their king.

One side note: The demons summoned by spells aren't necessarily supernatural beings from a religion. They might just be beings from another dimension or some kind of alien life-form. I had a campaign idea once where Dragons were the hive-queen of nests of Kobolds and Dragon-men. (Inspired by the Alien movies) 90% of the dragon's eggs hatched into Kobolds. 9% hatched into Dragon-men. They were rare and most of the inhabitants of this world were superstitious and/or religious so these Dragon-men were referred to (and thought of) as Demons.

Last edited by platimus; 09-21-2018 at 05:48 PM.
platimus is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:29 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.