Pre-Gen Character Card Errors

[Steve Jackson]

Thanks everyone, especially oldwolf and Ben Williams, who is doing the layout on these cards and checking as he goes. I am getting better at seeing what breaks as a character develops and changes in draft . . . but I still am convinced that posting them here is worthwhile.

The TFT Helper app will also be useful for validating characters, though (for instance) the current version is not going to tell me specifically that I have a talent too high for my IQ - it will just tell me it's not legal.

I don't really want to change the format of the cards, but I'll ask anyway because I'm a glutton for punishment: does anyone see anything that's necessary or highly useful that isn't yet shown on the card?

[tomc]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

does anyone see anything that's necessary or highly useful that isn't yet shown on the card?

They look good to me. I like to put an indicator on the card to show which counter they use, especially in larger combats, but it's probably not worth the space for most people.

Between the character cards, treasure cards, and post card labyrinths, you're most of the way to producing (solo?) adventures as decks of cards instead of booklets. Please? :)

[Steve Jackson]

Ah hah. Another question.

Several of the high-level cards note that they have "extra" spells and talents. Should that just be a general note on the instruction card, leaving more space (or letting type be bigger) on the individual cards?

[tomc]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Several of the high-level cards note that they have "extra" spells and talents. Should that just be a general note on the instruction card, leaving more space (or letting type be bigger) on the individual cards?

Unless is a character defining talent or spell, I vote you leave it off in favor of larger type and flexibility for the GM.

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by tomc

Unless is a character defining talent or spell, I vote you leave it off in favor of larger type and flexibility for the GM.

I agree, but it might be useful to have (somewhere) a small list of likely choices. Separate cards for that purpose seem like a good idea to me — one for Talents and one for Spells — and each one could have a few categories (Combat, Utility, Home Repair, whatever), with half a dozen of the likeliest Talents / Spells listed for each, and numbered so you can roll for them randomly if you want.

[HeatDeath]

Steve,

When I'm writing up my own cards on the pads, I always include, for each armor and shield item in the armor section, how many hits it absorbs by itself, and what it's DX penalty is by itself.

E.g:
Chain Mail. -3DX. -3 Hits
Lg. Shield. -1DX. -2 Hits

This way I can tell what the adjDX and protection level should be whether the shield is readied or not. It seems clearer to be than the other notation I've seen: having a second adjDX in a second set of parentheses in the DX box.

[Steve Jackson]

Further to the racial languages question :(

I see that p. 44, Languages box, still says that you get your race's language for free. Thought I had nuked that. It certainly leads to unfairness unless you assume that all Humans have a language over and above Common, which seems silly. But it's there. Must think on this, quickly.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Further to the racial languages question :(

I see that p. 44, Languages box, still says that you get your race's language for free. Thought I had nuked that. It certainly leads to unfairness unless you assume that all Humans have a language over and above Common, which seems silly. But it's there. Must think on this, quickly.

I think, as long as your game world is heavily dominated by humans, they have enough social advantages as it is. Given the clannish and racist nature of humans the fact that an elf or a dwarf has their own racial language in addition to the common tongue will be counterbalanced by the fact that these non-humans may be discriminated against in many places by the majority humans.

If your game has a different racial emphasis, you may want to tweak that so that humans aren't disadvantaged.

[hcobb]

Non-humans growing up in human-town get their racial language for free and Humanish as a mundane talent. This is all assumed at zero points as is therefore mentioned briefly on the reference card. No languages are listed on the character cards themselves.

Human wizards take Literacy as their mundane talent (again listed only on the reference card) while every non-human wizard with a chest lists Literacy(1) as a talent.

Or include a random wizard mundane talent table on the reference card like say:
1,2: Racial mundane talent (Miner for Dwarves, Area Knowledge-woods for elves, etc)
3,4: Most common language outside their own race
5,6: Literacy

One more thing:

Put ("And two points in other talents or spells") at the end of each wizard card and have a random wizard add-on deck.
Sample cards:
Sword Talent and a silver sword (staff also if they have the spell)
A wizard's chest and a book with a half dozen spells
Alertness
etc.

[GlennDoren]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

How extremely embarrassing. The proper number of errors would have been zero. Four cards wrong is quite out of line. (edit) On pained review, I see that Meg has a weapon too big for her (should be a hammer) and Sirocco is carrying a club which should be a rapier.

I feel motivated to reprint those, since we have updated the character card format anyhow.

Need a better checking process, obviously.

So attached, both as apology and part of that checking process, please find a pdf of the text file for the upcoming wizard cards. If you see anything, post it here!

Have you guys seriously considered re-printing the cards with mistakes corrected? Seems like an especially good time to do it, with the current DoD kickstarter going...