The Fantasy Trip

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by JLV

it no longer forces you to go to IQ 12 in order to earn a three-point IQ 10 talent.

Right. Which is also what Rick's mIQ does.

Something you haven't said (or I missed) is whether the cost of talents would go up as the character gets more experienced, the way the cost of attributes does.

You can do that right now, if you so choose, but why would you choose to do that?

Not really. Look at a classic character like, say, a 13-11-8 halberdier. For talents he needs Pole Weapons and ... you know, that's pretty much all that's utterly necessary to his concept. He can make do with just that.

In RAW TFT he gets another 6 points of talents free. He might well burn most of those on combat talents: Running, Knife, Crossbow, save up for buying Warrior when his ST is high enough. But there's at least a chance he'll pick up some odd talent like Dwarvish, and this makes a small contribution to character variety and texture.

But in a system where talents are purchased separately, and he's got a choice between (A) picking up the less essential talents and (B) an extra point or two of DX, he might be very tempted to think that DX is going to make him hit his charge attack and missing is what will get him killed - I think anyone who's played a halberdier can sympathise with that feeling - and buy the DX. The result is a purpose-built killer that's arguably less interesting than the RAW one.

In Rick's system this doesn't happen because people get the free talents and mIQ is only for extras. It's not a huge deal breaker, but it's something to think about.

And how does decoupling IQ limits from talents force you to do it in *my system*?

Never said force, just make it possible. But if the specialised version is more powerful in combat, and combat is common, and combat is what kills PCs, and the alternative talents really aren't that critical, then it can feel like golden handcuffs.

Quite the reverse, I would think -- it allows you to build a character with a normal IQ who has the ability to learn more talents than he would be able to do under the current system OR the mIQ system.

It depends how much the talents cost, of course, but then it also depends how much the mIQ costs. Adjust those two numbers and you can make your statement true, or the reverse.

There aren't any arbitrary limits on the number of talents he can learn, as long as he has the XP to spend on them and chooses to spend it that way.

Right. Which is what mIQ does. Hmm, I see you agree they have similar effects, so maybe we've been arguing at cross-purposes.

starting characters should probably have a set limit on the number of talents they can start the game with

I dislike limits on starting characters. 32-point characters aren't newly-hatched: they have experience and stories to tell. Some will have more than others. To draw a line between pre-game and game feels, well, gamey.

[David Bofinger]

Rick, I think you've mixed together two very different concepts (abuse of a spell, and spells used for routine economic and lifestyle purposes). The second is what I would call industrial magic.

I have absolutely nothing against there being industrial magic. Some stories will need it. But I agree it would be handy to have guidelines for places where magic is less reliable.

I've sometimes thought every setting needs three kinds of magic:

• The one everyone thinks of as normal. "Bloody gargoyles have been eating the slate roof again." "It's been twelve years since the last winter, that means the next one will be bad."
• One that player characters can aspire to learn: not everyone can learn it, and most people only have a vague understanding of it, but available to those who wish to learn or have the right toys. "I cast Boneshatter on Pugio's halberd." "A witch! I plunge my head into the tub of insanity and call on Morgast to protect us."
• One that nobody understands and nobody ever will. Why the dead walk once a year from the graveyards to Miller's Peak. What happens if we don't sacrifice a child each blood moon. Who is this Cthulhu fellow?

OK, some settings only need some of these, and maybe the examples are dodgy, but I think the idea has merit. The idea is to prevent magic from slipping up the list, becoming familiar and dull. Many GMs try to push the second kind of magic down to the third level, but I don't think that works very well because nobody is awed by something they could have on their own character sheet at a price they know.

[David Bofinger]

The prootwaddle spells got some appreciative comments so anyone who is interested can find them, along with more practical spells, here.

Proot! Proo-oot!

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

It's the mIQ cost that's increased. I didn't change fST costs, do you think I should?

The mIQ cost is not rounded since if it were every spell would cost 2 which cripples the idea. If you have 10 IQ you can buy 8 points of talents and spells. Actually, a quick check on a spreadsheet suggests the +25% or -20% is too high a penalty. ...

Hi David, everyone.
OK, Generalists have to pay 1.25 times as much for talents as well as spells I missed that from your post before. Re: changing fST costs.. no, no. When you said increasing the cost for spells, that is what I thought you were saying, but your idea is very simple. Generalists pay an intermediate memory cost for both spells and talents. It makes perfect sense.

I do not think that paying 1.25% for both spells and talents is too high a penalty. The ability to use both is COOL. (A thief with Lock/Knock and Flying spell for example.)

Warm regards, Rick.

[Rick_Smith]

Hi all,
On the Brainiac TFT forums there was some debate about if a wizard with the Quarterstaff talent and the Staff spell was too powerful.

Let's say Bonkem is a wizard with:
ST 11, DX 13, IQ 8 - Quarterstaff (2), Staff Spell (1) ... (mIQ cost in parenthesis).

This figure is doing 2d+2 damage for spending 3 memory. This is awesome compared to other starting figures. The combination does not require any fatigue ST to be spent in combat so he has ~9 fST and 5 memory worth of spells as a bonus.

Things get even worse when Bonkem gets Staff of Power.

I tried a lot of things to fix this and I eventually decided that this combo (plus most other spells that add to damage of other weapons) do damage separately. So the 1d+2 from the quarterstaff is done (with armor protecting) and then the staff spell shocks the victim for 1 die of damage (with armor protecting). Effectively armor is doubled verses this combo.

So the combo is very effective vs. figures with no armor, but it gets much less useful against people with heavier armor.

This works well. The bonus comes up often enough that it is worth taking Quarterstaff talent, but most of the time it is not overwhelmingly powerful. I've used it for many years in my campaign and it works well.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Rick, I think you've mixed together two very different concepts (abuse of a spell, and spells used for routine economic and lifestyle purposes). The second is what I would call industrial magic. ...

Hi David, everyone.
Actually, I am talking about both.

In the real world machines have friction, they wear out. They go wrong. TFT magic (and magic items) typically work perfectly with no moving parts. On top of this, magic is very cheap, so people would like to replace normal tech with magic as often as possible.

For example, let us say you have a guard who's job is to walk around the central square of a town at night. (The most valuable buildings are in that area.) If there is a central lantern they have to buy lamp oil (every single night), trim and replace the wicks, clean the glass. Even if lamp oil is 1/10 of the price of molotov oil, in under a year, that lamp could be replaced with a lamp pole with a Light Enchantment cast on the pole top, in lamp oil savings alone.

It is possible to make a fantasy world where magic is everywhere and it is taken for granted. But I would prefer settings where magic is rarer and more mysterious.

This is one of the reasons why I've reduced the prices of non-metal, non-magic items by ten times. If that lamp oil is 1/10 the price, it is harder to justify replacing a lamp with a magic enchantment.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I've sometimes thought every setting needs three kinds of magic: ...
<<< common, hard to learn, Cthulhu >>>

A very good point. I bought 7th Edition Rune Quest and really admired how it had different types of magic.

Having a section in the GM book that talks about the mysterious magics and artifacts left over from the Ancients / Mnorren / Fey would be cool!

Warm regards, Rick.

[David Bofinger]

To get a feel for how large the price tag should be for a generalist, draw a graph where x runs from 0 to 1 and is the fraction of resources devoted to spells (with 1-x devoted to talents). So Hero runs from (0,1) to (1,1/3), or less if we take the -4 DX into account. Wizard runs from (0,1/2) to (1,1) The generalist line has to be higher in the middle than hero or wizard, but lower than hero for small x and lower than wizard for large x. To achieve that a horizontal line at y=4/5 (25% premium) is really as low as you want to go, and you could make a case for higher. Especially considering the rounding effects. On the other hand I guess it's better if generalists are a little too weak, rather than a little too strong.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

To get a feel for how large the price tag should be for a generalist, draw a graph where x runs from 0 to 1 ... On the other hand I guess it's better if generalists are a little too weak, rather than a little too strong.

Hi all, David.
Interesting analysis!

Another point - like astronomers searching for orbital resonances between orbits of bodies in the ratios of small integers, you want to make it easy to calculate the memory costs. Let us say that due to your theoretical calculations you decide that the ideal price for a generalist is spending x1.29 mIQ for both talents and spells. Better to make the price x 1.25 and punish Generalists in some other way (say they are at -2 DX casting spells) and keep the easier to use 'plus a quarter' mIQ.

Consider this idea: your Generalists spend x1 mIQ for spells and talents. Simple! But they are at -2 DX casting spells and spend +2 fST for all spells. Not only is calculating the memory cost trivial, but it means that generalists are less likely to learn, low powered, subtle magics. They prefer higher powered, heavy handed type of spells.

I find in TFT some spells are far more likely to be taken by wizards than others. The +2 fST cost, will cause a large class of wizards to take a different blend that adds variety to the game.

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi everyone,
There have been numerous threads on the TFT forums about magic being used in clever ways. For example, two gates above each other separated by 5 meters. A massive bolder is dropped into the lower one, and comes out the upper one. It goes faster and faster until it is going just below the speed of sound (terminal velocity for a heavy bolder). Then a wizard casts a new Gate spell to link the the bottom surface to a gate pointing at an enemy keep 1,000 km away. Boom! Massive bolder goes thru 2 or 3 layers of walls blowing open the castle with no risk to the wizard! Clever!

In other places magic (or magic items) are used to do jobs for which we use modern technology.

These types of ideas were termed 'industrial magic'.

*****

Industrial magic is, I think, a bad thing. I would prefer that the mind bending, reality smashing magic is something that is scary, unpredictable, and hard to understand. (This was part of the reason I made Environmental Magics, but that is another subject.)

Industrial magic, makes magic humdrum and predictable.

For this reason, I support the idea of spell failure and magic backlash which other people have suggested. Sometimes spells going wrong, is good. Rarely spells going wrong in spectacular fashion is better.

Magic is so difficult and hard to do, I would not mind an automatic miss happening on 15's, full fST loss on rolls of 16, full fST loss and fall down on a 17, and if an 18 is rolled, there is a roll on the spell failure table. (And on a really bad roll, there are severe consequences.)

If that is too excessive, 1/2 of the time on a roll of an 18 is the normal 18 result, and the other half of the time there is magic backlash.

This does add a table to the TFT system (which I dislike), but I think it is worth while to make magic less dull and predictable.

Comments welcome,
Warm regards, Rick.

I agree, and if the price of doing it is another table, it's a small price to pay.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Right. Which is also what Rick's mIQ does.

Something you haven't said (or I missed) is whether the cost of talents would go up as the character gets more experienced, the way the cost of attributes does.


Not really. Look at a classic character like, say, a 13-11-8 halberdier. For talents he needs Pole Weapons and ... you know, that's pretty much all that's utterly necessary to his concept. He can make do with just that.

In RAW TFT he gets another 6 points of talents free. He might well burn most of those on combat talents: Running, Knife, Crossbow, save up for buying Warrior when his ST is high enough. But there's at least a chance he'll pick up some odd talent like Dwarvish, and this makes a small contribution to character variety and texture.

But in a system where talents are purchased separately, and he's got a choice between (A) picking up the less essential talents and (B) an extra point or two of DX, he might be very tempted to think that DX is going to make him hit his charge attack and missing is what will get him killed - I think anyone who's played a halberdier can sympathise with that feeling - and buy the DX. The result is a purpose-built killer that's arguably less interesting than the RAW one.

In Rick's system this doesn't happen because people get the free talents and mIQ is only for extras. It's not a huge deal breaker, but it's something to think about.



Never said force, just make it possible. But if the specialised version is more powerful in combat, and combat is common, and combat is what kills PCs, and the alternative talents really aren't that critical, then it can feel like golden handcuffs.



It depends how much the talents cost, of course, but then it also depends how much the mIQ costs. Adjust those two numbers and you can make your statement true, or the reverse.



Right. Which is what mIQ does. Hmm, I see you agree they have similar effects, so maybe we've been arguing at cross-purposes.



I dislike limits on starting characters. 32-point characters aren't newly-hatched: they have experience and stories to tell. Some will have more than others. To draw a line between pre-game and game feels, well, gamey.

"mIQ" is not an issue. In my system, there are only three attributes, IQ, ST, DX. Adding in additional attributes (and that's all mIQ, fST, and whatever the DX variant is, really are) is not something I'm willing to do.

Talents cost the same, regardless of the character's experience (does gaining experience in the real world make it harder or easier to learn a new talent?), but the cost should vary based on the current IQ of the talent, (and if you want a multiplier, the number of "slots" it required in the original game system; so a "one-slot" talent would be the base price; a two-slot talent would be the base price times 2, and a three-slot talent would be the base price times 3.) Put another way, the difficulty (XP expense) of learning a talent would be based on the talent, not the character.

I get that you guys have used and loved mIQ, fST, etc., for years. But really, Steve is asking for minor tweak ideas to original TFT, not complete re-writes of the rules into something else. Doubling the number of attributes exceeds the task, in my opinion. Frankly, decoupling talents from IQ in regard to "slots" may also do that, but at least it's getting rid of a rule and not adding a bunch.