Missile weapons skill for wizards

[phiwum]

A player pointed out to me that the missile weapons skill applies to missile spells, something I had missed or forgotten.

And then he tried to talk me into charging a wizard only one point for it, since it's such a natural talent for a wizard and the text says it takes only practice to master.

The text clearly does not say this is one of those talents that costs only one point for a wizard. He has a point that this is a pretty natural talent for a wizard to take. It's in line with their work. But I held firm and said if he wants it, he has to pay double cost, as with almost all other talents.

Sound right to y'all? Any reason to buy his argument?

[Kieddicus]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Sound right to y'all? Any reason to buy his argument?

As someone who firmly believes more talents should not cost double for wizards, Missile Weapons is not one of them.

Now this is just how I do it, but my general rule is "If the talent is more of an RP out of combat type skill I wont charge extra (like Scholar for example), but never under any circumstance can a wizard learn a combat talent cheaper."

[Skarg]

It seems to me that it's not like the other talents that cost wizards only 1/level.

Missile Weapons can already be quite effective for an IQ 12+ wizard to take, even at 2 points per level.

But of course, GMs can do what they like.

[hcobb]

When your wizard gets to the point where a point of DX costs 8k XP then spending 1k XP on Missile Weapons is no big deal. Note that this doesn't help wizards as much because missile spells are very short ranged compared to bows.

[David Bofinger]

There's a bunch of talents that might just as reasonably cost the same for heroes and wizards. Presumably wizards talk to each other so interpersonal skills like Sex Appeal, Charisma, Courtly Graces, Diplomacy, Priest, Carousing might be available, unless you imagine wizards as stereotypical nerds. Diplomacy in particular has its case strengthened by the ability of wizards to learn languages just as well as heroes. Intellectual talents like Mathematics, Alchemy and Literacy are OK, so why not Scholar? What about Writing, Poet, etc.

The best argument for making them cost more is the feeling that wizards are too good as it is so why do anything that makes them better.

Breaking spells and talents up into categories and giving a class cheap access to some categories but not others would be an option.

[hcobb]

Wizards already get "half cost" talents because adding IQ after creation adds no memory points and it's much easier to start as a high IQ wizard than a high IQ warrior.

[Kieddicus]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

The best argument for making them cost more is the feeling that wizards are too good as it is so why do anything that makes them better.

Breaking spells and talents up into categories and giving a class cheap access to some categories but not others would be an option.

I counteract this by adding a 2 IQ-cost talent that lets heroes learn spells for only 2.
So a hero knowing 1 spell cost 3, knowing 2 cost 4, knowing 3 cost 6, and so on.

This is the list of talents I let wizards learn at normal cost: Carousing, Literacy, Most Mundane, Sex Appeal, Swimming, Bard, Charisma, Climbing, Priest, Business Sense, Diplomacy, Naturalist, Poet, Streetwise, Courtly Grace, Woodsman, Writing, Expert Naturalist, Mathematician, Scholar, Alchemy, Theologian.

Originally Posted by hcobb

Wizards already get "half cost" talents because adding IQ after creation adds no memory points and it's much easier to start as a high IQ wizard than a high IQ warrior.

Wait?! Adding IQ after character creation doesn't give more memory-points? That is really weird (and a little stupid) though after reading the rules it does seem to imply that...

[Chris Rice]

The Talent is called “Missile Weapons” so you could quite reasonably claim that it doesn’t apply to spells. If you do allow it to apply to spells then I’d stick with the increased Talent cost for Wizards, which should make it an unattractive option.

[Kieddicus]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

The Talent is called “Missile Weapons” so you could quite reasonably claim that it doesn’t apply to spells. If you do allow it to apply to spells then I’d stick with the increased Talent cost for Wizards, which should make it an unattractive option.

The talent explicitly states it can be used with missile spells.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Kieddicus

The talent explicitly states it can be used with missile spells.

I’m aware of that, which is why it should cost double (if you allow Wizards to use it, which I don’t despite what the rules say.)