Classless play

[hcobb]

So every character is a "hero", but they unlock wizardry if they

1. Are literate(1)
2. Learn Sorcerers tongue(1)
3. And pay triple cost for their first spell(3)

Would that be balanced? (All scrolls and books of magic are in Sorcerers of course.)

[Shostak]

This could yield more warrior-wizard types who wield spears and swords enchanted as staves. That can actually be a ton of fun. But why not just make Sorcerers' Tongue cost 3 or 4 points instead of making the first spell 3?

[larsdangly]

There are different ways to do this, all of which amount to converting the talent point difference from 'pay as you go' to 'pay up front'. And, I think implicitly, just ignoring other spot rules re. wizards and heroes (like, only wizards can learn and cast Staff spell). It isn't clear what the best way is to do this; it depends on whether you want to shift the median point of characters more toward wizards or more toward heroes, or somehow keep it right where it is (if you can define that...). The way I've done it in the past was to introduce several 'gatekeeper' talents that act as prerequisites to sub-sets of spells.

[hcobb]

So Sorcerers(3) + talent then buy spells at one point each?

Animal Handler: Control Animal, Summon animals

Architect/Builder: Wall

Astrologer: Divination

Bard: Control Person

Chemist: Acid Touch

Poet: Image and Illusion

Physicker: Zombie

Priest: Revival

Woodsman: Magic Rainstorm

etc?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Would that be balanced?

Balanced against what? The net effect is that you add an up-front cost to being a wizard, but from then on it's cheaper to improve and mixing talents and spells is cheaper. As long as everyone is under the same rules, it just changes which sorts of builds are encouraged without being a net balance issue.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Balanced against what? The net effect is that you add an up-front cost to being a wizard, but from then on it's cheaper to improve and mixing talents and spells is cheaper. As long as everyone is under the same rules, it just changes which sorts of builds are encouraged without being a net balance issue.

Good question / point.

I think the "balance" issue from my perspective is that most of my players, and most people in my TFT-based campaigns (and as described in ITL about Cidri), are not wizards and know no spells. And, players like myself like and prefer it not to be a practical disadvantage to be someone who never learns any spells. So from that point of view, the "balance" point is that it should not be demonstrably a great idea for many/most/all non-wizards to learn spells.

From this perspective, since spells do so many powerful supernatural things, they shouldn't be easier to learn and use than other non-magical alternatives. One classic such complaint has been Lock/Knock overpowering lockpicking talents even for non-wizards, and even with the (omitted in Legacy) -4 penalty to cast as a non-wizard.

So what's the effect of making wizardry be a 4-point talent that for some reason now requires Literacy?

* Wizards can no longer be illiterate (seems just like a mistake or random change to me).

* Wizards now start with 3-4 fewer maximum spells than they can in RAW TFT.

* Being a wizard with one spell now costs 5 rather than 3, but also gets you all of the advantages of being a full wizard (staffs, scrolls, books, wizard-only item use, etc etc).

* Being a wizard with two spells now costs 6, the same as RAW it costs a non-wizard to learn two spells. BUT ALSO they get Literacy, Sorceror's Tongue, all the wizard abilities, AND they can learn talents at full efficiency.

Etc.

Answer: I think any way you slice this, no, it's not balanced, UNLESS you just want it to be cheap for anyone to learn both spells and talents. In which case, it seems to be the imbalance that such a person wants, so go ahead.

[larsdangly]

One extreme, leading to a fantasy world like Glorantha, would be to get rid of the wizard 'class' and have all spell costs be 1 talent point for everyone, the end. In this case, it would be odd for you not to make a character that has both several talents and several spells. If this is your goal, I would also do away with the (arbitrary and pointless) rule re. magic use while wearing or carrying iron.

Another extreme would be to parse the spell list into fairly small groups of related things (fire, illusion, control, etc.) and require a 2 or 3 point 'gate keeper' talent to learn spells from each category, but have a 1 point cost for each specific spell. A few heroes would invest the talent and IQ points needed to pull this off (grey mouser, elric, etc.), but not many.

[Skarg]

One thing about letting everyone learn spells, is that if you only charge one point for them, that makes them extremely easy compared to talents. Hmm, I can learn to swim, or learn to magically fly... learn to ride a horse, or learn to summon a gargoyle from thin air. Learn to use a sword and shield, or learn three spells, including thrown spells that will win a one-on-one fight if I can make a DX roll at -1. Hmmm?

So that's another sort of "balance" issue. Seems to me if everyone can learn spells, and talents still cost what they do, it'd be more balanced if everyone had to use 3 points to learn them, not 1.

But the people who do want "Glorantha" seem to not care and just want every character to be able to use various spells and be a fighter. So again, if that's what you really want...

I might suggest at least considering having different spells cost different amounts, and/or adding prerequisites, so e.g. you need Fire before you can learn Fireball (though to be balanced, you might need to add some filler spells to the spell list).

[Nils_Lindeberg]

What about setting up a prerequisite for some talent/spell combinations.
M.Physicker and Regeneration
Chemist and Acid Touch
etc.

And if you have one, you can buy the other for the basic price. And it works both ways?

Staff Spell could be connected to Quarterstaff or Woodworking or some such to get rid of that limitation too.

That would mean that a really great healer (both Heroes and Wizards) would have all the relevant talents and spells sooner or later, but would still not be better at crossing over for some other area of expertise.

[TippetsTX]

While there's nothing wrong with altering the rules to allow for 'classless' characters, I agree w/ Skarg's points. For me, it's not a question of balance or even the ruleset... it's about how the world works. Does the GM want magic and mages to be commonplace or a rare gift? Is the ability to cast spells some kind of genetic mutation or something that anyone can learn?

It's a world-building decision.