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Old 05-17-2020, 10:05 PM   #21
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
The current system seems to suggest:
  1. Buy as much IQ as you can at 32 attributes.
  2. Plow the first 700 XP into +4 DX
  3. A memory point is less expensive than the 37 attribute so consider adding abilities at this point.
Yes, and while this first point would still be true if spells&talents cost only 100 XP a point, it would no longer be such a big difference that it would be worth have a ST8 DX8 IQ16 starting character.
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Old 05-19-2020, 01:11 AM   #22
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: Experience Points

Probably the overriding consideration should be how often a given group of players gets together. If you play monthly, the XP curve needs to be much gentler than if you meet weekly. That, or the amount of XP given out by the GM has to go up accordingly.

You don't want any character that plays in every adventure, even a pretty advanced one, to wait a year or more to earn their next Attribute point -- hard to keep the player interested at that rate!

These are the cumulative costs for a starting 32 point character to reach 40 points:

800 XP – Melee/Wizard rules

1,500 XP – Original ITL rules

8,300 XP – Legacy ITL rules

That last one is tough! If you feel a figure should advance enough in 5 years of continuous, successful play to reach 40 points, then they currently need to make:

140 XP per session playing once per month

70 XP per session playing twice a month

35 XP per session playing 4 times a month


That doesn't look so bad, but what's ugly is that 7/8's of that XP goes to earning points 38, 39 and 40. Only the first 7 months is going to seem interesting for the player (going from 32 to 37 that fast) whereas points 38-40 will take 4.36 years! Less than 1 per year.

I guess everyone is just supposed to stop at 37 points and put all future XP into talents, spells, or Staff Mana. I can't say I really like that.
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Last edited by Steve Plambeck; 05-19-2020 at 02:10 AM.
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Old 05-19-2020, 12:37 PM   #23
Axly Suregrip
 
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Default Re: Experience Points

Thanks SteveP for that summary. And your summary did not include learning spells and talents in Legacy, which is more on top 8300.

And here is another way to look at the XP cost of talents/spells in Legacy.
- In old ITL: The cost to go from 32 to 40 in old ITL, including gain all talents & spells with IQ increases is 1500.
- In Legacy: The cost of zero attribute advancement but of only one 3 point talent is 1500.

Last edited by Axly Suregrip; 05-19-2020 at 12:41 PM.
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Old 05-19-2020, 12:46 PM   #24
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Experience Points

Legacy and Classic both have exponential cost increases. The difference is that Legacy has an exponent of 2 and Classic has an exponent of 1.15
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Old 05-19-2020, 12:46 PM   #25
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: Experience Points

Quote:
Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip View Post
And here is another way to look at the XP cost of talents/spells in Legacy.
- In old ITL: The cost to go from 32 to 40 in old ITL, including gain all talents & spells with IQ increases is 1500.
- In Legacy: The cost of zero attribute advancement but of only one 3 point talent is 1500.
The 'sweet spot' for the ideal rate of character advancement is somewhere in the middle IMO (though exactly where is the subject of much debate).
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Last edited by TippetsTX; 05-19-2020 at 01:06 PM.
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Old 05-19-2020, 01:05 PM   #26
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Experience Points

Given ITL 45's 75 XPs per session average we get:

Play session, total XPs / free XPs, what
1st, 75/75 XP, no advancement
2nd, 150/50 XP, 33rd attribute
3rd, 225/25 XP, 34th attribute
6th, 450/50 XP, 35th attribute
10th, 750/50 XP, 36th attribute
18th, 1350/50 XP, 37th attribute
24th, 1800/0 XP, first one point talent or spell

GURPS 3rd edition awards at most 5 CP per play session which is a basic skill or one 4th of an attribute point.

If Character Molly starts with 9 more memory points than Joe then she is already 60 gaming sessions ahead of him.

I.e. attribute advancement is about at the same rate, but talents are much much much slower in TFT.
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Last edited by hcobb; 05-19-2020 at 06:39 PM.
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Old 05-19-2020, 05:43 PM   #27
ParadoxGames
 
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Location: New Jersey
Default Re: Experience Points

This hilarious meme was produced by PeterDiscord on the TFT Discord group, using a quote I typed in conversation (the second frame).

https://i.imgflip.com/2xafxp.jpg
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Old 05-20-2020, 02:59 AM   #28
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: Experience Points

Purely for the heck of it, what might it look like if the cost of Attribute Points was (roughly) midway between original ITL and Legacy ITL? Well it could look something like this:

AP# / XP cost / Cumulative cost
33rd / 100 / 100
34th
/ 200 / 300
35th
/ 300 / 600
36th
/ 400 / 1,000
37th
/ 500 / 1,500
38th
/ 600 / 2,100
39th
/ 700 / 2,800
40th
/ 800 / 3,600
41st
/ 900 / 4,500
42nd
/ 1,000 / 5,500

Here it's only 3,600 XP to reach 40 points, a little more than double the original ITL cost and a little less than half the Legacy cost.

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Old 07-12-2020, 03:05 PM   #29
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Default Re: Spending Experience Points

A 32 attribute point character (say ST10, DX11, IQ11) has 11 points worth of talents.
Lets say the player is looking for a Ranger type (ITL p 13).
Now lets say that I’m not looking for Tarzan or Indiana Jones with Stats in the teens.
I would like to play a slightly above attribute beginning hero and I want them to have their appropriate talents as suggested in Ranger type.

Now if that character wanted to invest in Talents at 500XP a whack (or double that for more expensive talents), then he would be vastly inferior to his brethren party members who are bouncing up the attribute path. They are at 35 Attributes when he still hasn’t bought one thing.

Sure you say, well he too should be buying Attributes first. But if you want to run a low attribute character, you are stuck.

I propose a slight change to the following line in
Learning New Spells and Talents (ITL p 45) which says
Each new spell or talent learned costs 500XP – or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on. As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard.

The new line would say
At 34th or lower Attributes:
Each new talent learned costs 250XP – or 500 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on. As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard.
At 35th or higher Attributes: Revert to original XP costs for talents.

THIS IS BASICALLY MAKING TALENTS COST HALF IF BELOW ATTRIBUTES 35.

[Note: I have not included spells in the above change because I haven’t evaluated how that would affect things.]

With the above alteration, the Ranger would be able to show some gains comparable to his Attribute Hungry mates, but still keep his slightly superior generic character stats.
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Old 07-12-2020, 03:29 PM   #30
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: Experience Points

Interesting... this is essentially the same approach I took when designing my character 'tier' system. Characters up to 36 total attribute points are considered 'Novices' (my system goes higher than the 40-point 'cap' in the Legacy rules) and talents at that tier cost either 250 or 400 XP.
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