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Old 08-23-2018, 04:04 PM   #71
Dominator
 
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

Another bump for doubling costs versus hard caps.
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Old 08-23-2018, 09:18 PM   #72
flankspeed
 
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

I was not going to try to persuade Steve to change the official rules, but I was already planning on ignoring the 40-point Attribute cap. I plan to house-rule a steep increase in Attribute costs rather than a hard cap.

I don't like artificial caps, though I would establish the standard that normal, human ST, DX, and IQ have a maximum of 20. Nonetheless, I would still allow players to achieve super-human levels of Attributes if they want to put in the effort to earn it AND they get lucky enough to survive that long.
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Last edited by flankspeed; 08-23-2018 at 09:23 PM.
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Old 08-23-2018, 11:57 PM   #73
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

Quote:
Originally Posted by flankspeed View Post
I was not going to try to persuade Steve to change the official rules, but I was already planning on ignoring the 40-point Attribute cap. I plan to house-rule a steep increase in Attribute costs rather than a hard cap.

I don't like artificial caps, though I would establish the standard that normal, human ST, DX, and IQ have a maximum of 20. Nonetheless, I would still allow players to achieve super-human levels of Attributes if they want to put in the effort to earn it AND they get lucky enough to survive that long.
I'm likely to ignore it as well... but at the same time, even with it in place, I'd rather see the triangular progression (1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21...) rather than doubling (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32...)
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Old 08-24-2018, 07:45 AM   #74
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

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Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
I'm likely to ignore it as well... but at the same time, even with it in place, I'd rather see the triangular progression (1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21...) rather than doubling (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32...)
Upon reflection, I do agree that the cost of Attributes would not double but rather grow more slowly and steadily as you have suggested or something similar. I think doubling the cost would make it rise too steeply and too quickly.
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Old 08-26-2018, 11:30 AM   #75
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Join Date: Apr 2018
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

I've been thinking about the staffs as batteries concept. I apologize if some of my thoughts have already been expressed by others, but I feel the existence of strength batteries has a potential to push the game into a "not fun" zone.

I will probably use these house rules

1) No staff/wand/rod can be a "strength battery" with a strength reserve greater than the strength of the wizard that created it (even assuming "group" efforts to create such items - and strength batteries greater than 15 are practically unheard of)

2) A character that tries to pick up a "strength battery" with a strength greater than theirs (item fixed strength versus character un-adjusted strength, not current battery strength charge or character current strength score) must roll under IQ on 4d or their hand is burned and they lose 1 strength. They will automatically lose another strength and be burned again on any attempt to pick up the battery for the next 24 hours. After 24 hours have passed, the character can try to pick up the battery again, on another 4d IQ roll. Once the roll is beat the character can always handle that battery.
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Old 08-29-2018, 01:57 PM   #76
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Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

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Originally Posted by warhorse11h View Post
Staff Spell

In addition to the abilities listed in the spell listed for a staff, it has one more property. The wizard can cast up to five spells into the staff and hold them there until they are needed. The ST cost to cast them is put into the staff at the time of casting. (...)
I really like the idea of storing "pre-cast" spells in the staff, rather than using it as a straight-up ST battery, and have actually been trying to come up with a version of this myself. I think I had it limited by a) total ST cost of stored spells <= wizard's IQ and b) number of distinct spells that could be stored, probably related to the level of Staff.
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Old 04-03-2019, 09:42 PM   #77
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

Huh. Interesting. For myself, Ive been GMing TFT on and off for 40+ years now (Zloty me that long??) and our house rule has been, for a damn long time, that a Staff stores extra ST points equal to the wizard's IQ that regenerate the next time he/she/it gets 8 hours rest. The wise wizard uses these Staff points up first, so as to not threaten their ability to survive getting stabbed etc. Staff of Power (the only upgrade we ever used, used to be an IQ 16 spell/upgrade in the original system) did double that (ie 2x IQ in extra ST points). Simple to remember, gives wizards on a long adventure the chance to be pretty casty during, or outside of, combat without cutting their own throat .. worked good. Sometimes we experimented with an alternative, that the Staff ST regenerates 1 point only per night slept, leading to the wizard usually preferring to spend their own ST first, trying to preserve their extra power. This lead to wizards being less casty, more fearful of using too much of their power up on trivial things. (no Im NOT checking 23 orc spears and axes for magic dammit) Oh, and a broken Staff causes a Megahex fireball that does flaming damage to everyone inside the fireball equal to the ST left in the Staff (plus a SR3/ST or get knocked down). A bad roll to hit with a Staff in melee combat, or casting Break Weapon on an enemy Staff (which Staves of Power were immune to), devastating .. or a wizard could deliberately break their own Staff as a sort of suicide bomb (but not hurting themselves if they were Fireproofed lol). Both systems worked well but have different 'feel' for how magic is, like high-magic world or low-magic world. lots of comments here are on similar lines .. Id suggest avoiding the systems that are harder for newbs (or old buggers) to understand/remember, the maths-crunch heavy or bookeeping heavy ones basically. TFT is a simple game, lets not make it too GURPS .. GURPS, and tons of other games, already do stuff hyper complex, right?

On attribute caps .. dont do it, better to make it ridiculously, ABSURDLY expensive. A hard cap causes players to start a new PC, or sometimes just stop playing. Even if its tens of thousands of XP, even millions, or more, an amount that might even require thousands or millions of kills, or more time than theyll actually live in the real world, the player has the illusion they are still moving forward. RPGs are all smoke and mirrors in the end, just .. dont break the spell.

heres a good one
TAP 41 = 10,000 xp
42 = 20,000 xp
43 = 40,000 xp
44 = 80,000 xp
45 = 160,000 xp etc

its like that old fairly tale about the doubling grains of rice on the chessboard squares .. dont worry, theyll never get to even 70 TAP or probably even 50, some lowly prootwaddle will throw a rock at their eye for a triple damage or something eventually lol

Last edited by mark hill; 04-03-2019 at 10:36 PM.
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Old 04-04-2019, 12:08 AM   #78
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

That's what he ended up going with, though it's 41 for 8,000, 42 for 16,000, doubling each extra point.
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Old 04-04-2019, 06:35 AM   #79
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

Note carefully that if your staff has both Mana and a Powerstone that the two different power reserves act differently.
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Old 04-04-2019, 10:11 AM   #80
mark hill
 
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Default Re: Staff, mana, stored ST

huh .. tough but not off the table .. cool beans :)
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