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Old 02-19-2018, 06:31 PM   #511
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Talents are too expensive.

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Why is it harder to remember you can have 2 x IQ talents/spells than it is to remember which individual talents are 1/2 slot or 2 slots or whatever against yet another attribute? Remembering one thing is a lot easier than remembering two or three things to accomplish the same thing.
I am saying, that if you reduce the price of all talents by approximately 1/2, is easier than remembering that memory is double IQ.

The question of ways to fix attribute bloat is another issue.

Rick
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Old 02-19-2018, 06:44 PM   #512
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default A way I have seen to fix talent problem.

Hi Everyone,
Years ago, I was visiting in Brandon Manitoba and met a young man who was a big fan of TFT. He was fed up with the high price of talents so he had added a new attribute called Education, which started at 1 for all races.

To find the amount of memory that you could spend on talents and spells you MULTIPLIED the Education attribute to the IQ. (So a fighter with an IQ of 10 and 4 Education, could learn 40 memory points worth of talents. A wizard with a 12 IQ and a 6 Education, could learn 72 points of spells and talents.)

I was appalled by this design decision. I didn't want to be too negative so I gently suggested that this might make it too easy to get talents. He primly told me that "his players LIKED Education." All PC's in his campaign played wizards.

To repeat, I do NOT like this idea, nor do I suggest it for consideration. I just thought it might amuse people.

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 02-19-2018, 06:57 PM   #513
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Terminology: Coreq.s and Prereq.s

Hi Skarg, everyone.
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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Is that your house rule terminology?
Yes, this is my terminology, but I introduced it at the top of this thread.

Both talents and spells are called prerequisites of each other, but they behaved in different ways. So I made new terminology so I could write rules more precisely.

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 02-19-2018, 07:06 PM   #514
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Hard for Heroes to learn spells.

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
I disagree -- magic should be HARD for the layman to learn; and conversely, if someone is capable of handling magic they ought to find talents comparatively easier to acquire than a layman should to acquire magic.
Hi Everyone, JLV.
Above I made two arguments. One that talents cost too much, and two, that wizards got many advantages over heroes (and that I would prefer for things to be fairer).

I replied previously to your point above and said that as the TFT rules are written, that the alien, difficult-to-learn, reality-tearing spells that shatter the laws of physics, are actually easier to learn than talents.

However, let me backtrack a bit and say if most of my other suggestions were implemented, I don't have a big problem with wizards learning talents at x2 and heroes learning spells at x3 mIQ cost.

Warm regards, Rick.

Last edited by Rick_Smith; 02-19-2018 at 08:23 PM. Reason: fixed grammar.
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Old 02-19-2018, 09:51 PM   #515
JLV
 
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: A way I have seen to fix talent problem.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi Everyone,
Years ago, I was visiting in Brandon Manitoba and met a young man who was a big fan of TFT. He was fed up with the high price of talents so he had added a new attribute called Education, which started at 1 for all races.

To find the amount of memory that you could spend on talents and spells you MULTIPLIED the Education attribute to the IQ. (So a fighter with an IQ of 10 and 4 Education, could learn 40 memory points worth of talents. A wizard with a 12 IQ and a 6 Education, could learn 72 points of spells and talents.)

I was appalled by this design decision. I didn't want to be too negative so I gently suggested that this might make it too easy to get talents. He primly told me that "his players LIKED Education." All PC's in his campaign played wizards.

To repeat, I do NOT like this idea, nor do I suggest it for consideration. I just thought it might amuse people.

Warm regards, Rick.
That guy's solution seems...extreme...

(And I rather imagine his players DID like it! ;-) )
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Old 02-19-2018, 09:59 PM   #516
JLV
 
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Default Re: Hard for Heroes to learn spells.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
Hi Everyone, JLV.
Above I made two arguments. One that talents cost too much, and two, that wizards got many advantages over heroes (and that I would prefer for things to be fairer).

I replied previously to your point above and said that as the TFT rules are written, that the alien, difficult-to-learn, reality-tearing spells that shatter the laws of physics, are actually easier to learn than talents.

However, let me backtrack a bit and say if most of my other suggestions were implemented, I don't have a big problem with wizards learning talents at x2 and heroes learning spells at x3 mIQ cost.

Warm regards, Rick.
I agree -- talents DO cost too much. At least in terms of IQ "slots." Doing away with "slots" would do away with the issue.

However, I will continue to disagree that Wizards have it too easy. I look at the meta-picture; there are only a few wizards (according to the rules), Wizards are few and far between -- because it's a rare phenomenon to have the ability to handle magic -- which is why non-Wizards have it so much harder (again, according to the rules) learning to manipulate the forces of magic. Given that (again, according to the rules) talents are already very hard to learn (lots of "slots" required), much more so than spells (which only require a single "slot" per spell); doubling the costs for wizards makes sense, and tripling the cost of spells for non-Wizards also makes sense. It's all right there in the rules.

If we did away with the slots entirely, I could see changing the cost for Wizards to learn non-Spells to 3x normal cost, but without that, the reasons for the difference are patently obvious in terms of the RAW.
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Old 02-20-2018, 12:37 AM   #517
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
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Default Re: Forgetting Talents --> Very gamey.

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By simply not tying the number of skills to the IQ stat, we can solve this problem easily. If you let characters spend XP to acquire new talents/spells/languages, OR to acquire new attributes (each of which has their own advantages), then the problem of attribute bloat drops away immediately, character design and in-game development becomes a LOT more interesting, and even the best characters still have a chance to fail along the way (as Conan quite frequently did). Which solves a whole host of problems.

Fundamentally, what I see as the real problem driving ALL of the issues noted along the way with attributes is that XP may ONLY be spent on attributes. Give the players something else to spend them on, and they will, thus solving *almost* every issue that arises because of having only three attributes in the game
I mostly agree with this, and Rick's mIQ model actually leads to much the same effect. The main differences are:
  • In your model IQ is effectively more expensive than in RAW TFT, because it no longer comes with a free point of talent. If I've understood you correctly.
  • In your model it might be possible to construct a character who has normal IQ but has never learnt anything in his life except e.g. to use a sword. I think this would be a less interesting starting character.
It could be argued that Rick's mIQ model introduces an unnecessary layer of indirection, relative to just buying talents. On the other hand it could be argued that Rick's implementation makes it easier to keep track of how many attributes a character has, and therefore XP costs. But generally the approaches are pretty similar in effect.

You could also take your model to extremes. Delete all the attributes and replace them by talents. Fighters hit more often because they've bought higher levels of the fighting talents; they dodge falling boulders if they've bought the agile talent; etc. This has pluses and minuses, but it isn't TFT. Keep going this way you might end up with something vaguely similar to Fate, or not.
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Old 02-20-2018, 12:57 AM   #518
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Hard for Heroes to learn spells.

I ran a game briefly using a third type of character alongside hero and wizard. This was intended to represent:
  • Dilettantes like Grey Mouser, who know a bit of magic and also how to fight. Actually Mouser was mostly a hero in TFT terms, maybe this represents more what Mouser would have liked to be.
  • Anyone who took up magic late in life, when they already had a lot of life experience, but did it seriously.
  • Part-time hedge magicians who can't support themselves on the local demand for magic and so also have to have honest jobs.
  • Shamans from tribes that respect magic but expect everyone to know how to ride a horse and shoot a bow.
  • Characters like you see in RuneQuest. "I'm not a sorceror ... well, sure, I know a few useful spells, but who doesn't?"
  • Dropouts from magic school.
  • Characters from magical kingdoms where everyone gets taught basics like Aid in high school.
  • etc.
The list of archetypes seemed long enough it deserved a class. In any individual culture only some of (hero, generalist, wizard) would be available.

These characters could buy spells or talents at 125% of list price and cast spells at -1DX. That might seem a pretty good deal but it's about what you need for them to have a decent niche between heroes and wizards. I think there's a few other places in the rules where "wizard" is mentioned explicitly and they had some of those capabilities but not all.
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Old 02-20-2018, 04:49 AM   #519
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Generalists are between Heroes and Wizards.

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Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
I ran a game briefly using a third type of character alongside hero and wizard. ... generalist ...

[Generalists] characters could buy spells or talents at 125% of list price and cast spells at -1DX. That might seem a pretty good deal but it's about what you need for them to have a decent niche between heroes and wizards. I think there's a few other places in the rules where "wizard" is mentioned explicitly and they had some of those capabilities but not all.
Hi David, Everyone.
David your generalist class seems pretty cool. I assume the price of spells (125% fST cost) is rounded UP?

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 02-20-2018, 09:00 AM   #520
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: The Fantasy Trip

I view this purely as a purely utilitarian, game-balance issue: In the RAW, ST, DX and IQ exist in a kind of equilibrium - each provides you things you want but can't have unless you invest in raising their scores. Raising each of them by 1 point loosely translates to a similar value in terms of the benefits you gain during combat (although their benefits out of combat differ from each other and are harder to rank order). Each feels quite limiting when less than 10, pretty competent at 15, and increasingly superfluous above 20. Except in special circumstances, none is a 'dump stat', and it is hard to say what distribution of points across the three is ideal.

If you change this balance by increasing or decreasing the value of one attribute without changing the value of the others, I think the game basically breaks straight away. There are just too few degrees of freedom to permit a rule that makes one of the stats obviously and quantitatively the best choice for increases. I can turn a few talent points into a situational +3 DX adjustment (Missile Weapons), a damage bonus (Fencing or Unarmed Combat), armor (Veteran and Warrior), and any number of more subtle benefits. If everyone is allowed to have all of these for a modest investment in IQ, they will obviously take them. That kind of 'grade inflation' seems like a bad move to me. If I were the game designer I wouldn't touch it.
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