High XP characters

[Skarg]

Cool, so our characters who survived 4-5 years of play, maybe 2 sessions per month, would have how many attribute points?

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Cool, so our characters who survived 4-5 years of play, maybe 2 sessions per month, would have how many attribute points?

If you mean characters in a 6 Attribute system, then it's hard to say as a "session" doesn't equate to the completion of an "adventure sequence" and not all adventure sequences will be experience related in a mechanical way. But let's say three sessions equates to the completion of a sequence that gains a point; that's 8 points gained in a year and over 5 years then potentially up to 40 points, although I've never played a continuing campaign with the same characters for that long.

So that would mean gaining 6-7 points per attribute. Which would make them very powerful. If that's not your thing you can cap the points at a certain level and only allow the award of Knowledge points (the Talent learning portion of Intelligence) after the cap.

[larsdangly]

I don't really get the argument about a 6 attribute system; I understand you might be playing something like that, but it must be a distant relative of the game the rest of us have in mind. In that game, characters with 60 total stat points have blown the doors off of everything the game has to offer.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I don't really get the argument about a 6 attribute system; I understand you might be playing something like that, but it must be a distant relative of the game the rest of us have in mind. In that game, characters with 60 total stat points have blown the doors off of everything the game has to offer.

Not at all, it's almost exactly the same game. See p42 of the Companion for an explanation.

[JimmyPlenty]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

That's pretty much what I do and it works fine. Also see p42 of the TFT Companion for a simple way to add more variety to characters without adding much complexity. I start characters with the normal 3 Stats and if they survive the first adventure I give them 2 Att points and split the Atts into six. After that they only get 1 per adventure.

What att do you split them us as?

Guessing here...

Strength/Health
IQ/Wisdom
Agility/Dexterity

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by JimmyPlenty

What att do you split them us as?

Guessing here...

Strength/Health
IQ/Wisdom
Agility/Dexterity

Certainly not Wisdom, that's a weird artefact from the days of D&D! I used to split attributes this way: ST into Strength/Constitution, DX into Dexterity/Agility and IN into Intelligence/Knowledge. However, I'm considering splitting them more as the original article from Different Worlds 15 (1981) into Strength/Hit points, Dexterity/Success Chance and Intelligence/Knowledge. Either way is fine as long as your clear what things are covered by the new attributes.

[JimmyPlenty]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Certainly not Wisdom, that's a weird artefact from the days of D&D! I used to split attributes this way: ST into Strength/Constitution, DX into Dexterity/Agility and IN into Intelligence/Knowledge. However, I'm considering splitting them more as the original article from Different Worlds 15 (1981) into Strength/Hit points, Dexterity/Success Chance and Intelligence/Knowledge. Either way is fine as long as your clear what things are covered by the new attributes.

OK I can get the first two, but what does Knowledge cover as opposed to Intellect?

To me, wisdom was just any mind thing not pertaining to learning. Street smarts, wit, social skills, etc...

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by JimmyPlenty

OK I can get the first two, but what does Knowledge cover as opposed to Intellect?

To me, wisdom was just any mind thing not pertaining to learning. Street smarts, wit, social skills, etc...

Knowledge is simply the number of Spells or Talents that can be known.

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Not at all, it's almost exactly the same game. See p42 of the Companion for an explanation.

The important point, in my mind, is that the budget of total points characters can have, and therefore the rate of point progression has to look very different in a game with 4-6 stats than in a game with 3. I.e., a house rule that accelerates point totals in a 6 stat game would be inappropriate for a game with 3 stats. I've written broadly TFT-like home brew systems with up to 10 stats (I know this sounds insane, but those systems also don't have skill systems so they actually aren't that complicated!), but I would not advocate porting the experience and advancement rules from such a game into standard TFT

[hcobb]

A three attribute system means that each attribute is sufficiently broad so that none of the attributes are dump stats.

Taking ST as a dump stat (which you should always do, of course) limits your character's hit points, ability to resist poisons, and range of their missile spells. (By ITL 135 not ITL 125 of course)