Updated Theurgy Toolkit and call for contributions

[zot]

Hi everyone,

Here's an updated version of the Theurgy Toolkit. I've retooled the talent point costs and incorporated vocational requirements into Theurgy. The Village Wise One requires Naturalist expertise and the Mngineer requires Mechanician expertise.

Steve has weighed in on really disliking the name "Mngineer" but I don't understand that because I think it's quite reminiscent of "Mnoren," who the Mngineers revere. I'd love to hear if some of you have opinions on the name. Maybe ;). If it's SUCH a bad name, maybe I'll change it...

This is most decidedly an alternate magic system and I've taken care to balance it carefully with wizardry so that theurges, while extremely fun to play (IMHO) and powerful in their own right, don't outclass wizards by any stretch -- a theurge can't hope to match the versatility or power output of a wizard and a theurge's talisman doesn't hold a candle to a wizard's staff... Also, since their vocational requirements are all non-combat talents, they don't outclass warrior-types. In addition, the buy-in for theurgy is quite high (counting all the prerequisites, it costs 6 talent points to gain theurgy 1) so they also shouldn't outclass specialized non-combat heroes. Theurges in a religion that specializes in thievery, for instance, shouldn't outclass master thieves with the same amount of experience points.

Well, that doesn't sound like a good advertisement for theurgy. I love to play them, their ceremonies add a ton of flavor to any adventure and they keep the players "in the world" because they are always conscious of what time of day / week / month it is. Ceremonial preparations keep the whole group laser focused on the current goals of the mission. Also, theurges make great buff / utility / healer characters, something that wizards can potentially do but generally don't specialize in (in my experience). Do a lot of wizards use the Aid spell to buff other characters' attributes during a fight? Theurges work well both in and out of combat.

One thing theurges specialize in is healing, with the same limitations as Physicker (in addition to the other limitations on theurgical ceremonies) and any Physicker talents a theurge has stack with healing they do. Theurgy 4 can heal 4 hits in addition to healing from any physicker talents the character may have, so it outclasses Master Physicker but I think the high cost of entry justifies that.

The way theurgical creatures work is quite a contrast with summoned creatures and there are (what I think are) some interesting trade-offs between the two models.

Making religion effective in TFT changes the flavor a lot but I really love the possibilities. It's great for Conan-/Lovecraft-style stories and ancient myths are all religious in nature. I'd like to add several more types of theurge, including Catholic paladins and friars, maybe sufis or yogis, thief-priests, assassin-priests, druids, blood mages, some different types of evil priests / cultists, etc. Who knows, maybe some day, someone's friar theurge will become Bishop of Cidri (Pope?)...

This is still a work in progress, I do still need to fill in some flavor descriptions for talisman powers and ceremonies but I've tested it quite a lot and I'm very satisfied with how it plays.

So now that I'm satisfied with the playability, I'd like to officially call for contributions -- anyone who would like to contribute religions to it is more than welcome. You can keep your religion in a separate document, with your own copyright, and I will add a link to it at the bottom of my doc (using Google docs is a very easy way to do this if you don't want to host a PDF or web page somewhere).

I encourage anyone wanting to contribute more ceremonies or talisman powers to read my Theurgy Designer's Notes for guidelines on working out the power levels. And if there's anything you disagree with or you think needs improvement, please tell me. You can include your ceremonies in your own document like with additional religions and I'll put a link to that in my document.

[Skarg]

I don't like the term Mngineer. It seems punny to me (but it also doesn't work as a pun) and doesn't feel right to me. The word M'noren is mysterious and supposed to inspire awe. Mngineer seems like a modernism or attempt to cleverly combine two words.

[Tywyll]

If I'm understanding this correctly, it requires 24 talent points to max out your Theurgy. Is this intentional? It seems ridiculously high.

I know in some of your example builds you were using a house rule that gave players more talents points. Is this built around that house rule? If so, can we get a version that doesn't use it?

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I don't like the term Mngineer. It seems punny to me (but it also doesn't work as a pun) and doesn't feel right to me. The word M'noren is mysterious and supposed to inspire awe. Mngineer seems like a modernism or attempt to cleverly combine two words.

These are good points -- I'll think about alternative names. Although I refer you to the "Temple of Enok" entry which did influence the religion...

[zot]

Originally Posted by Tywyll

If I'm understanding this correctly, it requires 24 talent points to max out your Theurgy. Is this intentional? It seems ridiculously high.

I know in some of your example builds you were using a house rule that gave players more talents points. Is this built around that house rule? If so, can we get a version that doesn't use it?

I count 14. Are you looking at the doc I linked above or at the old doc? In the new version, I recosted the Theurgy talents at 1 talent point each.

Also note that the 14 points includes all the prerequisites, including the 5 points of vocational talents, which should be of use to the character anyway. You can also buff up healing with the Physicker / First Aid talents for an extra 1, 2, or 4 talent points, potentially bringing the total up to 18, but that's optional.

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by zot

I count 14. Are you looking at the doc I linked above or at the old doc? In the new version, I recosted the Theurgy talents at 1 talent point each.

Also note that the 14 points includes all the prerequisites, including the 5 points of vocational talents, which should be of use to the character anyway. You can also buff up healing with the Physicker / First Aid talents for an extra 1, 2, or 4 talent points, potentially bringing the total up to 18, but that's optional.

Don't you have to buy 10 Ceremonies at 1 talent each as well?

[zot]

Originally Posted by Tywyll

Don't you have to buy 10 Ceremonies at 1 talent each as well?

No, there are no longer any required ceremonies. The Theurgy talents still provide ceremonies though and you can get more ceremonies for one talent point each.

I figured the prereqs and high buy-in justified getting a set of ceremonies at no extra cost. Plus ceremonies are more limited than spells because you can only keep a small number of ceremonial benefits at any time (and you have to pick them in advance).

[EDIT] Additionally, I made Theurgy 4 allow getting Theologian at IQ 12 (Theurgy 5 requires Theologian), due to the mystical insight it provides, so there can be more variability in Theurge builds.