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Old 01-12-2019, 06:49 PM   #71
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

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Tier 3 - Smite (1500 XP):
The character with this Power has unlocked the ability to channel positive energy as a weapon against creatures that draw their strength from negative energy such as the undead (and demons in my campaign). Three times per day, they may target a single opponent and deliver Smite damage equal to 1d plus 1 for each Power tier they have (i.e. 1d+3 initially). This damage will bypass the armor or natural defense of its target, however, magical defenses such as Stone Flesh still apply. The charge can be delivered directly via touch or as bonus damage channeled thru the character's melee weapon on a successful hit. Additionally, a wizard with this Power can add Smite damage to their arcane staff strike or missile spells.

Tier 4 - Radiant Burst (2000 XP):
Once per day, the character can now deliver a burst of positive energy to every undead creature (or demon) in their hex or any hex directly adjacent to them. It has no effect against other creatures. Burst damage is 1d for each Power tier they have (i.e. 4d to start). No roll to hit is necessary, although intelligent foes in the blast radius may attempt to resist, taking half damage by making a successful adjDX roll.

As a secondary effect, the energy burst will paralyze unintelligent undead up to two hexes away from the character for 3 turns (assuming those closest are not immediately destroyed by the initial blast damage).
So in preparation for my Ptolus campaign kickoff, I've been thinking about these two Powers and I'm concerned they may be too situational and narrow in scope. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the undead and demons will play a key role in the campaign, but that likely wouldn't be true for other games and I want to try and make these Powers more broadly relevant.

I think I have a decent fix for the 'Radiant Burst' power (see below), but I'm still struggling with 'Smite'. One idea I did have would be to expand the types of foes that 'Smite' could be applied to. For example, the GM could rule that 'Smite' can be used against any supernatural and evil creature. Thoughts?

Tier 4 - Radiant Burst (2000 XP):
Once per day, the character can now deliver a burst of positive energy to every undead creature (or demon) in their hex or any hex directly adjacent to them. It has no effect against other creatures. Burst damage is 1d for each Power tier they have (i.e. 4d to start). No roll to hit is necessary, although intelligent foes in the blast radius may attempt to resist, taking half damage by making a successful adjDX roll. The energy burst will also paralyze unintelligent undead up to two hexes away from the character for 3 turns (assuming those closest are not immediately destroyed by the initial blast).

As a secondary effect, all living beings caught within the blast radius receive the effect of the ‘Bestow Grace’ Power. This does not count against the daily uses of that Power.

Note: The opponents that Radiant Burst can be used against may be expanded at the GM’s discretion and based on the nature of their specific campaign. For example, in some settings characters may be able to use the power against any 'supernatural evil’ creatures.
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Old 01-13-2019, 12:26 PM   #72
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

Another idea I just had would be to keep 'Smite' somewhat limited in scope, but add a non-Power (but thematically related) advantage to reward the character for sticking with the portfolio up to this point.

For example, if the character is a 'hero' they can select any of the following spells at the discounted price of 2 points instead of 3 (assuming they have the IQ necessary).
  • Clearheadedness
  • Minor Medicament
  • Cleanse Poison
  • Regeneration
  • Cleansing

Alternatively, a wizard character might be able to aquire the above spells without meeting the IQ prerequisite or use them at a reduced ST cost.
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Old 01-19-2019, 03:07 PM   #73
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

Transferring Skarg's comments from the 'Heal spell' thread where I posed the following question...

I'm curious what you thought of my solution over in the 'Powers' thread.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...1&postcount=57

I considered many of the concerns and suggestions raised in this very thread as I was designing it (quite a long, but helpful exercise reading all those posts back to Steve's original proposal).


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Honestly that's one thread I actually haven't read, because I've been really busy and it seemed to be about a powers variant that seemed like it would take some effort to digest and appreciate.

So I'm not sure how well I can comment since I've only really now read the first post and the one you just linked.

For instance, I don't know if it's in the context where the only way to learn talents is to spend 500XP per point.

And I don't know if there are other prereqs besides spending the listed XP?

Because if it is essentially 1 talent point worth of learning per power, but with a limit of 5, then 500XP seems quite cheap for a magic power. If Bob gets level 1, 2, and 3, is that 500 + 500 + 500 XP? Or 500 + 1000 + 1500 XP?
So to clarify the proposed progression, the 1st tier power (Bestow Grace) is 500 XP, but the 2nd tier healing power costs 1000 XP and you must have the 1st power before you can select the 2nd. Other than that, I dont have any other prerquisites defined for the powers in this portfolio though I am open to suggestions. And yes, the listed XP is in the context of the Legacy edition rules for talent/spell costs (in my own campaign, I will likely alter the costs to align with the more aggressive XP schedule that I shared in another thread). I am considering changing the escalating XP cost of Powers to be a flat cost of 1000 XP per Power regardless of tier, however.


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Leaving all those questions aside, the healing power has a great advantage over SJ and most other proposed spells, in that it does not create a scheduling game about resting up fatigue and casting the Aid spell as much as possible to keep using it. That's great.

And it is limited to a rate per user per day, which is also, I think, good.

It does range quite a bit in what that maximum is, starting at 2/user/day, up to 15/user/day for a master physicker with the level 5 power, who also gets 4 other super powers to use.

2/day is quite useful, but not a huge effect. 5/day I would call a strong effect. 15/day seems to me like a really big deal, since it lets you heal up even a hugely-wounded warrior who would normally take weeks of bed rest to heal, in one day, and/or path up most wounds a party might take from a typical encounter where someone got hurt, in one day. And it seems you could do it while marching, adventuring, etc.

So the level of healing hero is quite significant, and then the question becomes how rare are these people who have these powers, can PCs start with them, can PCs find NPC people with them fairly easily and convince/pay they to join their party, how hard is it to gain these powers, etc.

And then how many healers of what level will determine how quickly wounds vanish for the people who have them. And that's a matter of GM/player preference for availability of healing.
Given the escalating XP costs (7500 XP to reach the final 5th tier power plus whatever it would take to qualify for Master Physicker) I would expect characters or even NPCs that are dedicated enough to maximize the healing ability presented here will be quite rare. That's how intend to play it in the Ptolus campaign I've been developing.


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So, it seems like healing at somewhere from moderate to quite strong, to me, and in a version that is nicely easy to see what it is (unlike spells that attempt to limit by fatigue). So, good job (even if my own taste would be to have it be unknown or very rare, because I like people to usually have to actually rest for days to heal up major wounds).
Thanks, all feedback is greatly appreciated!
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Old 01-20-2019, 08:31 AM   #74
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

Most of these sound a lot like spells. Why not just have people expend XP to gain the ability to cast spells, and perhaps add a spell or two that introduces a power you like? This would avoid the introduction of a new sub-system and just use one that is already core to the game.
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Old 01-20-2019, 10:57 AM   #75
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

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BTW, I did make some alterations to a couple of the 'staff' Powers. Any feedback on those?
I'd suggest (maybe starting another thread and) listing the specific changes, because otherwise it will be unclear which specific tweaks you made, which commenter actually noticed which changes, which changes were intentional, and which are being discussed.

One piece I noticed was you specified that you reduced the cost to recharge staff mana from 5 to 3, and only the wizard's own ST can recharge staff mana, but I assume that can be bypassed by someone using Aid to aid the wizard?

As for wizards "needing" a melee weapon, it seems to me that many original TFT wizards chose not to learn staff, that avoiding melee is an even better plan in most cases, and that it's very easy to "fix" that issue, for example by retaining the original Melee staff spell (or equivalent), or having a cheap (or even free) talent which lets a wizard hold an attuned weapon and still cast spells.
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Old 01-20-2019, 11:27 AM   #76
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

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Your question has inspired another idea... what if the staff represents formal membership in the Wizard's Guild; a symbol of their status within the organization?

That would certainly justify the delay in acquiring one. And maybe the initial 500 XP required to earn the staff could represent some kind of 'test' that the starting wizard must pass to be accepted. Yeah, I like that... except now I need to create a mini Death Test solo adventure; welcome to the Trial of Mages!
Not to say it's a bad idea, but it strikes me that this seems a bit like the reverse of the situation described for the ITL Wizards' Guild, which seems to want or even try to require (and according to ITL, mostly succeed) in having all wizards be members (i.e. they want to collect dues and exert power & authority over them, so they might not want such a barrier to entry). Maybe though it might be a sign and/or prerequisite for some rank in the guild, now that it is tied to the ability for experienced mages to have mana staves.

Also, in original TFT at least, and I would think even in new ITL, there would be a fair proportion of good wizards who do not get staff abilities, preferring to concentrate on other abilities.

My own house-rules-in-progress have been separating the combat functions of staffs from the mana functions of staffs, because I like to think different wizards have different interests and should not have one path that lumps together mana powers with powerful zappy combat powers.
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Old 01-20-2019, 11:39 AM   #77
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

Focus(S) This spell comes in the same five levels as Staff at the same IQ levels.

Any wizard can have a focus or a staff at any given time, but not both.

The focus doesn't have the occult strike of a staff and generally isn't a weapon at all. Instead it has the following two powers:
  • Find Focus - The wizard concentrates for one turn and on a succesful IQ roll knows which of the six directions his focus is in. Roll is 3/IQ for a ten yards or less, add one die for each ten fold increase in distance. On a critical falure roll a random direction.
  • Concentrate - The wizard spends a minute staring at his focus then may cast any one turn spell he knows at the average of IQ and DX (round down) instead of DX. Add one to IQ before averaging for each level of Focus above I. (I.e. IQ +4 for Focus V, which is +2 for the final roll.)
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Old 01-20-2019, 11:42 AM   #78
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

In general on using XP costs, I struggle to interpret them because I can't make sense of the RAW ITL XP use rules unless increasing IQ allows adding talents too, or some (? even better?) other house rule to make sense of them.

That is, personally I want to have all characters (including NPCs) have a consistent system for learning at least some things like swimming or horsemanship or a new spell without needing to somehow acquire and use 500 XP per point, while retaining the meaning of typical attribute point totals where average people are 30 points, 32 points is an above-average person, 35 points is notably more capable than most, and of course then there are many sub-30-point people in the population who are not considered cripples or incompetents, yet many of whom who stay below-average (q.v. the meaning of the word average). i.e. I want people to be able to learn something like swimming or be trained in a new weapon talent without implying everyone can add 500-1000 XP as easily, but instead increase their attributes, because that would mean to me that average people should be more like 36 points, which in many ways is very much not what I want.

I say all that as context for commenting on your costs for these super-powers. Because the implications for a campaign are extremely different depending on whether the GM assumes these XP requirements are a big deal that few people could do, or whether they're trivial because a basic military training can give people 1500 XP worth of weapon talents, so there may as well be a trained Healing Corps that instead put that 1500 XP into level-2 healing Power so that the army has a lot of magic healers. Now, you did clearly say the GM can and should limit the availability of Powers, so this would only exist if the GM wanted it to, but it seems like how this is balanced is tied to how the GM relates to the RAW XP costs for learning talents.
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Old 01-20-2019, 11:45 AM   #79
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
Most of these sound a lot like spells. Why not just have people expend XP to gain the ability to cast spells, and perhaps add a spell or two that introduces a power you like? This would avoid the introduction of a new sub-system and just use one that is already core to the game.
Thanks for your feedback Lars.

Yes, some of the Powers could be re-tooled as spells and that still may be the approach depending on how my playtesting goes. The reason I would prefer not to use the existing spells rules is that one of my primary design goals was to create an option for heroic abilities that are 'class' agnostic. The Channeling portfolio is a good example of this... the Powers can work just as well for a cleric-style wizard or a paladin-style hero. The XP costs would be the same for either archetype and having Powers as a separate sub-system means the GM can easily take them or leave them as the campaign or desired character concepts demand. In addition, and I know that the power-sets I've shared so far may not reflect this well, some of the Powers I intend to create will be less magical in nature. Some will be for more physical feats.

BTW, check out the thread covering my Mystic Monk portfolio as well.
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Old 01-20-2019, 01:18 PM   #80
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Default Re: New use for XP - Heroic Exploits

I wonder a bit about what it means in the game universe logic that there are these powers limited to 5 and possibly costing congruent XP, but being disparate things like super-jumping, healing, using staff magic, etc?

And more practically, what do the characters know about the limits and means of acquiring these powers, and what's their theory/thinking about what/why that is the case, and do they (and/or how) choose to acquire them and then do so?

i.e. Does Sambo the Adventurer know he can develop up to five super-powers split between those various things, and that there will be the trade-offs the player can see about whether to get multiple paths or concentrate which will impact how quickly he can get them? How would I think about that as a player wanting to immersively roleplay my characters' decisions?
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