Magic Dilettante/Rogue

[tbeard1999]

A random idea...allow heroes to take spells for only 1 IQ point. But, for purposes of determining the spells they can take, their IQ is reduced by (say) 3. So the IQ 12 Grey Mouser can learn IQ 9 spells. He’ll never be a powerful Wizard, but he has some low level ability to use magic.

[JLV]

That's a really good idea Ty, except that at some point, Attribute Bloat rears its ugly head again. Of course who's to say that the Grey Mouser didn't actually become a powerful Wizard in later life...

[Rick_Smith]

Hi Ty, everyone.
I think your new class is too good. Attribute bloat will soon make the penalty small, and a hero with spells is awesome. I would rather that there are further penalties. How about...

1) a Rogue casts magic at -3 DX.
2) a Rogue must add +2 fatigue extra to the cost of all spells. This includes the spells that cost the user ST damage (like the Death spell).
3) a Rogue always doubles the time to cast a spell. (So two turns for a normal spell, and 2 minutes if casting it out of a book.)

With these rules, a high DX will not effectively negate all penalties.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Shostak]

Why not just have spells be the same cost for all characters and eliminate the warrior/wizard polarity? I ran several games this way back in the 80s and it only added fun.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Why not just have spells be the same cost for all characters and eliminate the warrior/wizard polarity? I ran several games this way back in the 80s and it only added fun.

Hi Everyone, Shostak.
There is nothing wrong with that idea, it is more logical than the current system (where heroes are punished more than wizards), and can make fun campaigns. (I've actually ran 2 campaigns over the years where heroes could take spells with no penalty.)

However, in TFT as published, wizards make up about 2% of the population, and the PC parties almost always having a wizard or two. This gives them a significant advantage. I think Steve Jackson wrote the rules to make spell use rare and significant.

Warm regards, Rick.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Why not just have spells be the same cost for all characters and eliminate the warrior/wizard polarity? I ran several games this way back in the 80s and it only added fun.

You wind up with a Runequest style campaign, where everyone can use magic. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but very different than the classic fantasy setting where only a few wizards use magic.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Ty, everyone.
I think your new class is too good. Attribute bloat will soon make the penalty small, and a hero with spells is awesome. I would rather that there are further penalties. How about...

1) a Rogue casts magic at -3 DX.
2) a Rogue must add +2 fatigue extra to the cost of all spells. This includes the spells that cost the user ST damage (like the Death spell).
3) a Rogue always doubles the time to cast a spell. (So two turns for a normal spell, and 2 minutes if casting it out of a book.)

With these rules, a high DX will not effectively negate all penalties.

Warm regards, Rick.

Three objections - first, this adds three special rules that contradict the text in Wizard. This creates an opportunity for misreading the rules. "The rules say that spell costs 1 ST." "Yes, but the special rules say that rogues pay an extra 2 ST." Etc.

Second, I think that you may have made the spells unattractive, bordering on useless.

Third, "attribute bloat" - a concept that I don't acknowledge as the serious problem that others claim - breaks every game subsystem eventually. So that alone isn't a particularly compelling rationale.

If you think that high IQ heroes with spells is a serious problem, limit rogues to (say) IQ 14 spells.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

Three objections - first, this adds three special rules that contradict the text in Wizard. This creates an opportunity for misreading the rules. "The rules say that spell costs 1 ST." "Yes, but the special rules say that rogues pay an extra 2 ST." Etc.

Second, I think that you may have made the spells unattractive, bordering on useless. ...

Hi everyone, Ty.
Lots of rules modify base rules. Dwarves can carry double mass when calculating encumbrance. I do not see this as a problem. It is parsimonious design to modify existing rules rather than repeat slightly different rules in their entirety. (In the Dwarf rules I could repeat the full rules for encumbrance but with the masses doubled. But then the difference could easily be missed as well as multiplying the rule book size, if this was done often.)


As for Rogues spending 2 fST more for a spell, you could make it 1 fST. But there is another thing, if all spells cost more, then some spells become more attractive than others. A Fire spell (1 fST) is strongly affected, where as the Staff spell (5 fST but not in combat) or Summon Demon (50 fST) are barely changed.

This results in the ideal MIX of spells by a rogue being different than for a normal wizard. More variation is a good thing.

Now you might argue, we want Rogues to have weaker (lower fST) spells in the mix, in which case my suggested rule is encouraging the opposite of what we want. If you wanted Dilettante / Rogues to prefer low cost spells, you could write the rule that the cost of the spell is increased by 1.33 times, round DOWN. (So spells that cost 1 fST or 2 fST would not change but everything above that, would get more expensive.)

This would make Rogues greatly prefer weaker spells, but if they REALLY want to throw a 5d-5 damage Fireball, they could do so. But they would pay 1 extra fST for the cost.

Warm regards, Rick.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi everyone, Ty.
Lots of rules modify base rules. Dwarves can carry double mass when calculating encumbrance. I do not see this as a problem. It is parsimonious design to modify existing rules rather than repeat slightly different rules in their entirety. (In the Dwarf rules I could repeat the full rules for encumbrance but with the masses doubled. But then the difference could easily be missed as well as multiplying the rule book size, if this was done often.)


As for Rogues spending 2 fST more for a spell, you could make it 1 fST. But there is another thing, if all spells cost more, then some spells become more attractive than others. A Fire spell (1 fST) is strongly affected, where as the Staff spell (5 fST but not in combat) or Summon Demon (50 fST) are barely changed.

This results in the ideal MIX of spells by a rogue being different than for a normal wizard. More variation is a good thing.

Now you might argue, we want Rogues to have weaker (lower fST) spells in the mix, in which case my suggested rule is encouraging the opposite of what we want. If you wanted Dilettante / Rogues to prefer low cost spells, you could write the rule that the cost of the spell is increased by 1.33 times, round DOWN. (So spells that cost 1 fST or 2 fST would not change but everything above that, would get more expensive.)

This would make Rogues greatly prefer weaker spells, but if they REALLY want to throw a 5d-5 damage Fireball, they could do so. But they would pay 1 extra fST for the cost.

Warm regards, Rick.

I think I'd want to try my system first. If it poses the problems you fear, then I'd implement some or all of your solution. I would limit Rogues to (say) IQ 12 spells.

Now for the hard part: What price should Rogues pay for having this ability? A Rogue talent perhaps: IQ 11, Rogue (1) allows Rogue spellcasting; must be taken concurrently with at least 2 spells (representing past spellcaster training).