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Old 07-29-2019, 02:35 PM   #11
Nils_Lindeberg
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

Starting character is not the same as a beginning character. Often it is but TFT allows for a 40-year-old retired veteran that puts his sword belt back on and takes to the road of adventure. He might be rusty and out of shape, but at least he knows his stuff and in time he will be back to his old self.

The same goes for the son of a nobleman that got the best education money could buy, but no real combat experience to go with it, and he really has to buff up or be laughed out of the barracks.

Expertise and Mastery aren't so good that it puts people in an upper-tier on their own. If you would remove the prereqs for DX and ST it would still be balanced. Simulations have shown this. And I could definitely see a fencing master as in a guy who knows all the moves but lacks speed, coordination, killer instinct and timing to perform them well. You could call the talents martially talented and Martial Savant or weapon special techniques and weapon secret techniques. And people wouldn't connect the name Expertise with being an expert and hence a high-level character. Most high-level fighters will never get those talents since they don't really add power. They are more of a way for high IQ heroes to compete. And you never see a spell called Arch Mage's Revenge at IQ 13, since any apprentice can take it if they have sufficient IQ so it would be a misnomer.

Change the name, or lower/remove the prereqs, or make it better so it is worth the extra x*500 XP it is going to cost to get it.


And no one complains about a master physicker, a profession it would take years and years to master and still a starting character can take it. Should we have artificial prereqs for that talent as well so it is out of reach for beginning characters? The prereq of high IQ and a high talent point cost to boot is more than enough for me. I am thinking of house ruling away the prereqs all together. Balance wise it wouldn't be a problem as long as you kept the IQ level.
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Old 07-30-2019, 10:14 AM   #12
Skarg
 
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
Starting character is not the same as a beginning character. Often it is but TFT allows for a 40-year-old retired veteran that puts his sword belt back on and takes to the road of adventure. He might be rusty and out of shape, but at least he knows his stuff and in time he will be back to his old self.
Ideally, it would, but it seems to me it doesn't really.

Because what does a 40-year-old veteran who hasn't lost any limbs look like in TFT? A high-powered character ready to overpower all your 32-point characters! Because there are no aging effects in TFT before age 50, and no natural decline in abilities.

And even if there were some good rules for those things, which would be great, it still wouldn't/shouldn't have a 40-year-old veteran decline into a 32-point character, because that would probably be pretty weird and inappropriate.

If ST 9 DX 12 IQ 11 is a 40-year-old veteran, I'm thinking a halfling or someone who was locked up in a prison cell and starved, and who wasn't all that great in the first place.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
The same goes for the son of a nobleman that got the best education money could buy, but no real combat experience to go with it, and he really has to buff up or be laughed out of the barracks.
This makes a lot more sense to me as a ST 9 DX 12 IQ 11, but it's not satisfying to me that starting characters can be weapon masters but only if they're weak.

I guess I'm spoiled by GURPS, where there are plenty of ways to make various characters and describe them accurately, including low-character-point weapon masters, because there are so many other ways to offset a concentration of points, and they tend to be interesting and end up with appropriate-looking characters. By contrast in TFT, the only option is ST 8 or 9.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
Expertise and Mastery aren't so good that it puts people in an upper-tier on their own. If you would remove the prereqs for DX and ST it would still be balanced. Simulations have shown this.
I agree they don't really make people great fighters, and shouldn't.

I'm sorry but I don't accept that your simulations have shown that they are "balanced" except in the specific parameters of your simulations in computerized 1-on-1 hackfests.

Certainly in the context of how much XP they cost in the (problematic) RAW, there are huge XP discounts involved for the characters who decide to start as ST 8-9 Experts, assuming they can survive long enough to buy up their ST.

But again the main sticking point for me is in terms of whether it feels right as a representation or not. The reason I prefer TFT (& GURPS) to almost all other games is because (I know them like the back of my hand, and) their rules and values tend to work about like the things they represent, instead of being abstract, gamey, and over-"balanced" empty game terms. And I don't yet have a good feeling about Expert and Master, though I'm getting used to them and they're growing on me a bit.

That is, the main thing I don't like about Expert being available to 32-point starting characters, is that then the characters need ST 8-9, and so the only starting experts are weak, which just seems weird to me.

Dropping the DX & IQ requirements would help that point, but also seem a bit weird if you have low-DX experts instead, and if you drop the IQ requirement (which does feel like a good idea to me so you could have an IQ 9 weapon expert), then it starts to become a "why don't all fighters take weapon expert?" thing.

And as I wrote in earlier posts, I would prefer that Expert and Master represent exceptional levels of experience and training, and so for starting characters tending to be goals rather than "a good fighter should probably start with it" or "you can get it if you start with low ST (or a low DX)" or "it's a great deal on XP if you can survive the cost of having started with it".

If people want to start as weapon experts, I'd generally prefer to start them as at least 35-point characters.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
And I could definitely see a fencing master as in a guy who knows all the moves but lacks speed, coordination, killer instinct and timing to perform them well.
Ok, yes, I can see that as another ST 9 DX 12 IQ 11 Expert type that makes sense. The Master would be more of a stretch unless as you suggested, you drop the DX prereq, and/or say it's someone who has the knowledge of the talent but can't actually use it even though he/she can teach it.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
You could call the talents martially talented and Martial Savant or weapon special techniques and weapon secret techniques. And people wouldn't connect the name Expertise with being an expert and hence a high-level character.
You could, yes, and that would address my main concern about what the talents and resulting characters represent!

What I'd ideally want would be a whole range of distinct different talents that (do a good job of) representing each of those things: Savant, specialized techniques/training, and great experience and mastery, all being different things with different effects and requirements. Only savant would be available for characters without the appropriate background (whether that background is something a campaign lets them start with, or whether they have to go get it in actual play).


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Most high-level fighters will never get those talents since they don't really add power. They are more of a way for high IQ heroes to compete.
That's not quote accurate. They DO really add power. Quite a bit, in fact, as they give abilities that were not available in original TFT: to become harder to hit, and to do an extra die of damage! However, the IQ requirement, especially combined with the new XP table, means a fighter needs to get higher IQ to get them than a fighter would tend to get (especially for Mastery) which is a questionable trade-off against raising ST & DX instead.

And I don't like that aspect much at all. I think it's an unfortunate side-effect of over-balancing and the point-buy and attribute ceiling which seem like problems that call for house rules, to me.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
And you never see a spell called Arch Mage's Revenge at IQ 13, since any apprentice can take it if they have sufficient IQ so it would be a misnomer.
Right, because IQ is the main thing wizards get, so every wizard who was thinking about fighting would want it, kind of like if you dropped the IQ requirement for weapon expert/master.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
And no one complains about a master physicker, a profession it would take years and years to master and still a starting character can take it.
That's because it's not a game about healing competitions.


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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
Should we have artificial prereqs for that talent as well so it is out of reach for beginning characters?
Not unless the GM wants to limit starting characters that way.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
The prereq of high IQ and a high talent point cost to boot is more than enough for me. I am thinking of house ruling away the prereqs all together. Balance wise it wouldn't be a problem as long as you kept the IQ level.
Yeah you could lose the DX requirement and not the IQ one. At least it would allow starting "experts" with ST over 9. They'd be hard-pressed to ever make a shrewd attack. You'd just have to decide if you think it makes sense that low-DX figures might be more evasive than higher-DX figures and be able to Defend for 5 dice to hit.

(If you allow high-armor "blocker" fighters to Defend yet Engage people, it could be even more annoying than those designs already are. DX 8, down to 3 for plate armor, cheesily Engaging people while Defending for 5 dice to hit, while his friends shoot you and jab you with pole weapons from 2 hexes away.)
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Old 07-30-2019, 07:22 PM   #13
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

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Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg View Post
The same goes for the son of a nobleman that got the best education money could buy, but no real combat experience to go with it, and he really has to buff up or be laughed out of the barracks.
Heh, that gives me an idea for a new option on the jobs table... Professional Student. The risk roll is 7/18 because there is no danger to speak of (other than drunk diving off the dorm tower) and every success generates a couple hundred XP that can only be used on talents. Oh, and it deducts money from the character's parents instead of granting a salary.
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Old 07-30-2019, 07:28 PM   #14
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

BTW, the only way to have a 40 year-old veteran as a starting character in my campaign is to spend five 4-year tours of duty in the military from the jobs table. It works much like the career rules from Traveller which means, yes, you may die during character creation.
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Old 08-09-2019, 02:03 PM   #15
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

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P.S. In my own campaign, I prefer a broader range of character potential thus the 'character tiers' would be structured as follows...
Novice - 31 to 36 points
Veteran - 37 to 42 points
Legend - 43 to 48 points
FYI, the specific XP progression model that I am using to support this concept in my games can be found here...

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=55
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Last edited by TippetsTX; 08-09-2019 at 02:08 PM.
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