Experience Points

[zot]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi David, everyone.
Hi David, everyone.
(Note in this post, 'talents' means 'talents, spells and languages'.)

I somewhat agree with this. Talents start quite a bit more than attributes. But pretty soon the price of attributes catches up. After the player has bought 4 or 6 attributes, they have the choice of a 'cheap' talent or an attribute. At the later levels, it takes a determined effort to save enough experience to get that last attribute.

However, it is better that talents be too expensive early, than too cheap.

What if each attribute point just cost 1000 EP with talent points also at a fixed cost? Then it would be a lot easier to tune the experience system.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by zot

What if each attribute point just cost 1000 EP with talent points also at a fixed cost? Then it would be a lot easier to tune the experience system.

Hi Zot, everyone.
The bit you quoted of mine was an argument which I thought I had put it too strongly so I revised it a bit. Anyone, please look at my revised post rather than this quote.

Zot, the really attractive thing about your idea is it is simple. (I rather liked the revision in 4th edition GURPS, were attribute improvement costs were now flat increases.). But to hook new players, there is something to be said with getting improvements early.

But let us say that we go with your plan. A huge advantage is that there is no minimaxing about when it is best to buy talents or attributes. There is the cost, period.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

What if each attribute point just cost 1000 EP with talent points also at a fixed cost? Then it would be a lot easier to tune the experience system.

If your first few attributes cost 1000 EP, you lose the curve of diminishing returns from experience. It seems to me that quick early development nicely represents the shift from someone who has little/no experience of actual deadly adventures, to someone who has actually survived serious combat and adventures. The difference between people who have never been in combat, never had their lives in danger and needed to act and/or attack someone, to people who have done that several times. After someone has had a fair amount of experience, the effect of a few more actions is not nearly as great as the first few actions.

And, of course, there's the actual TFT practical power curve. Lots of people are 30-32 points, and so a 32-point PC is much less able to survive combat and hazards than one with a few more points. Once a character has 35-36 points, they can enjoy having an edge over inexperienced people. (At least with my friends, they kind of wanted the rate at which they get better than most people to slow down as that gap got bigger.) With the curve, they start to get an advantage after having seen some action (100 EP), and people who have seen a fair amount more will be noticeably better. At 1000 EP per point, that's 10-40 adventure sessions (months or a year or more of play) before they're any better than they were when they still hadn't ever been in a single serious fight.

[Skarg]

Oh, another thing I wonder about the new staff mana - it seems similar to Strength Battery except staff mana seems to let you cast spells of higher than your own ST? That is, Strength Batteries say they can replace ST used in casting, which implies they can only be used after a spell was cast, so it wouldn't actually increase how strong a spell you can cast (unless the Strength Battery is first used to power an Aid spell for that purpose, which at least involves another casting and DX roll).

Also, I wonder if Staff mana can be used to recover spell-casting (and other) fatigue already spent?

[JLV]

That's never the way we read strength batteries; when it said "replace" we read it as "in lieu of," not "refresh after the fact."

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by JLV

That's never the way we read strength batteries; when it said "replace" we read it as "in lieu of," not "refresh after the fact."

I'm pretty sure we too thought they could let you cast more powerful spells without using Aid, but looking at it today, the wording reads otherwise to me:

Originally Posted by Advanced Wizard p. 34

... will replace ST lost through spell-casting or other fatigue.

I'm hearing the past-tense in "lost" this morning. We didn't play that way, but Strength Batteries were obviously another case of an item and/or money making someone already powerful much more powerful. As the description begins:

Originally Posted by Advanced Wizard p. 34

This is one of the most useful magical items there is.

(About to be joined by the IQ 8 Staff spell...)

So it occurs to me that the abilities could be split into different items so someone would have to pay for the added ability, i.e. a Capacitor (?) item which doesn't store mana but does increase your capacity to cast spells and/or draw from Strength Batteries to cast, not just recover...

I'm just noticing these possible distinctions...

[luguvalium]

With the proposed experience system allowing for EP to be used for Talents, Spells, Mana, etc, and not just attributes implies that just the total of a character's attributes is no longer enough to determine if two characters are matched.

In other words, one 36-point wizard with a staff full of mana will have an advantage over another 36-point wizard with a zero mana staff. Similarly a 36-point warrior may have many talents more than another 36-point warrior.

How will this handled in the future? By comparing the total amount of experience points?

[JLV]

Well, that would be both logical and consistent with our reality, I think. I've known many a Captain who was a fighter pilot, but if one of them has 2500 hours in the F-15, and the other only has 800 hours in the F-15, there's a world of difference between their skill sets. Similarly, a driver who's been driving for a couple of decades is probably (not always, but probably) a better driver than one who just got his or her license.

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Everyone,
I was introducing a new player, Glenn Spencer, to TFT long ago at a gaming club. He wrote up a character, and started roleplaying.

He became enchanted with the joint story telling. Then combat started. As he put it to me later...

"... I was really enjoying the story, but when combat started, everyone leaned forward, and started doing paperwork."

I won't mind if we go to a less intrusive way to keep track of experience.

Warm regards, Rick.

I keep track of all damage done. I use a piece of lined paper with the ST of each monster and as damage is inflicted I write the number and a notation of which character inflicted the damage and who go the kill shot. I don't award combat XP till the end of the session. Although I usually award RP and idea XP during the game.

[luguvalium]

I'm currently reading through Tollenkar's Lair and realized that the biggest villians will need to be redone due to the new limitation on attributes. Tollenkar, for example, is a 60 point character with ST 18, DX 17, IQ 25

In thinking about how he would be modified, his IQ can come down to 20, since there are no listed spells above 20, his ST can come down a lot, but it makes sense to keep a higher DX to cast spells well, so to meet the 40 point limit (assuming he has no attribute modifying magic items), his stats could become ST 8, DX 12 and IQ 20.

This implies that a wizard like Tollenkar would need to spent most of his life weak and only slightly higher than average at casting, which doesn't make sense. Potential solutions:
1] Raise the limit
2] Let there be a wizard only talent, much like missile weapons, that gives a +3DX to casting without needing to raise DX
3] Allow attribute point to be transferred from one attribute to another at a particular EP cost. So a wizard could be stronger and swifter in their youth, but gradually become craftier as their physically attributes weaken ( and they can rely to more magic items )