Experience Points

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by ecz

I agree that successfully jobs roll should not increase attributes since an inexperienced GM could find his party suddenly at 45+ points as average after a few years of undisturbed work in a quiet town.

I disagree about the fact that saving rolls using 4+ dice, or energy cast in spells or time spent in wizardly/priestly activities should not give a low amount of experience, eventually per week spent in a given activity.

Consider that certain characters type does not fight very much, and their best chance to gain experience is using their (Thiefly, acrobatics, knowledge, heroic etc etc) skills. Of course only when the roll happens in a critical moment of the adventure and a failure has bad immediate effects.

Otherwise the game shift towards combat-only one more step and non fighter type heroes are penalized.

just my 0.2 (euro) cents

I agree. I like rewards that go beyond fighting. Now, xp for gold...I'd get behind that simply because getting the treasure is a result of using your various skills (not simply fighting).

But in absence of that, I actually like jobs granting xp. It makes the world feel more real and explains in mechanics how NPCs work, allowing PCs to leverage those rules if the GM allows. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, though of course the amount one gains can be looked at.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi everyone, Skarg.
Note that high level wizards are just more powerful than high level fighters. I brought this up, and Steve Jackson wrote that fighters could improve by buying magic.

Do you think this is still true with the 8 point limit on increasing attributes? A 40 point wizard can have a good DX (say 14) and a good IQ (say 16) and an average ST (10). If he's going to get higher IQ spells, he'll have to reduce DX (which will make his spells less reliable) or ST (which will make him more vulnerable).

Of course, if you allow attribute enhancing magical items to be common, then the 8 point attribute limit becomes somewhat academic.

Well true. I would prefer that my character is awesome because he is awesome, not because he has a load of magic items.

I agree.

But OK. The explicit plan is that advanced fighters, to develop, must buy magic.

But advanced wizards can buy magic items as well.

And if you are going to be buying some spells anyway, and advanced wizards are just better than advanced heroes, I can see a LOT more wizard characters being written up under these rules than in the old TFT.

It would be interesting to fight a few battles between 32, 36 and 40 point wizards and fighters (with magical items appropriate to the characters). One big problem is missile spells in a one-off duel. I'd limit those for this exercise, since adventuring wizards won't have the luxury of putting most of their ST into a single fireball or lightning bolt in every fight.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Tywyll

xp for gold

For some campaigns I think it works well to give XPs only for gold wasted, i.e. spent without practical benefit. That might mean fine wine, fast women, slow horses, adorable orphans, skilled pickpockets, unproductive family farms, parasitic friends, medicine for your sick mother, priestly indulgences for all the people you've killed, psychotherapy for your PTSD, whatever fits your character.

[schoon]

First - I like Steve's new experience ideas. Simple, and they remove some of the obtuse rewards of the old system.

Second - I like tbeard's idea of getting rid of some trailing zeroes. If everything is going to be a multiple of 100, why not make it a 1.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Not sure what you mean by "session or so", do you mean "one or two sessions on the average"? Because if the supply of XPs is (25 to 100) x (1 to 2) then progress is going to be modest unless it's limited to talents: it could typically take ten sessions to earn an attribute point, even for a starting character.
...
I approve of the sentiment but for these rules it doesn't, at least not much. A 32-point character trying to buy talents does so at exactly the same rate as a 35- or indeed 39-point character. A 32-point character buying attributes is probably buying 12s or 13s on the average, at say 550 XPs apiece. Which becomes 13s to 14s or if he's lucky 15s for a 35-point character, at about 700 XP apiece. The slowing is, well, very slow.

I think you need a way to make it faster to progress, maybe for all characters but definitely for starting characters. And I think the previous system, which determined price based on total number of attributes rather than the specific attribute being raised, did that better.

Yeah, I agree I like the sentiment, but I need more time to understand what the new system actually results in, but so far it seems like it probably wants some tweaks at least.

I was talking to an old TFT GM friend who hadn't read any of this, and he said several interesting things, but his summary on experience and character advancement felt on-target to me and matched this design goal. Essentially he said, "Your first few combat victories should have a big effect, and your next dozen or so after that, but then the impact of more experience should really slow down. The population of experienced fighters should have a massive cluster of people with DX 12 to 13, with them mostly maxing out at about 14, and only a few exceptional people getting to 15 or higher."

For DX and IQ anyway, I think that makes sense and why I like a growing EP cost curve for them, though I think it could be steeper than the one proposed here. The 40-point cap also provides a limiter of a different kind.

I think I need to run more numbers to get a sense of what we're really talking about in terms of how much play someone has to do to get what kinds of characters.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

If you say, "I'm going to be a fighter, and only do fighter things!" then sure, you get more starting talents by starting with a hero class character.

But I know my players, and most of them will want to takes a few spells eventually. Given that they are going to be picking up spells, why not start as a wizard class?

Yes, it's a very valid concern that's impacted greatly by the shift to anyone being able to buy spells with EP. I think there's still an advantage for a fighter-type starting out as a fighter, but I think it might be better if it were more substantial somehow. I need to see/consider more cases and take into account how long it takes to get to what point and what the other choices are.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

There are not many ways to make yourself harder to hit in TFT - wouldn't it be great to have the Blur spell for tough fights? Of course. Blur is a super low IQ spell, most fighters who want some decent talents will have an IQ 9.

You want to become a healer... well IQ 12 gives you the Fireball spell. If you are in deep kimchee being able to do 6d-6 damage to some charging whatsit is a really cool option to have handy. AND what healer does not want to take that hugely powerful healing spell?

Yes, good points and I can think of many more similar examples. What thief doesn't want Lock/Knock, Reveal/Conceal, Silent Movement, Dark Vision, etc? There are all sorts of spells fighters could take to defeat opponents with. I don't like the old memory limits, but at least they did create a practical limit and downsides to fighters taking spells. With the new system, I'm not sure exactly how that will play out because I'd need to look at more play examples, but it seems like it wants a limit.

Of course that's actually the opposite of your concern that everyone will want to declare themselves a Wizard...

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

I would prefer that my character is awesome because he is awesome, not because he has a load of magic items.

Yeah, we didn't like that much in original TFT, and I think the 40-point cap and slower (?) development will tend to give more effect/emphasis to magic items as a way to increase power. My issue is that makes power and ability more about access to magic items than about the characters' own abilities. It also means that you get sympathetic talented people who may do things that should be good tactics but no, because your foe has magic items that mean you lose... is ok up to a point... but then PCs get ahold of items and never let go of them, and suddenly you're playing a game where they have these super powers, and we just found it less interesting and enjoyable. We ended up adding house rules that made magic items unreliable with a nice crunchy magic item breakdown system which we liked a lot and I kept using in GURPS, but that's probably not what's wanted for core TFT.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

But advanced wizards can buy magic items as well.

And if you are going to be buying some spells anyway, and advanced wizards are just better than advanced heroes, I can see a LOT more wizard characters being written up under these rules than in the old TFT.

Yeah I think you may be right. Have you thought of a counter-proposal that would address that?

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I approve of the sentiment but for these rules it doesn't, at least not much. A 32-point character trying to buy talents does so at exactly the same rate as a 35- or indeed 39-point character. A 32-point character buying attributes is probably buying 12s or 13s on the average, at say 550 XPs apiece. Which becomes 13s to 14s or if he's lucky 15s for a 35-point character, at about 700 XP apiece. The slowing is, well, very slow.

Good point.

Originally Posted by Tywyll

I agree. I like rewards that go beyond fighting. Now, xp for gold...I'd get behind that simply because getting the treasure is a result of using your various skills (not simply fighting).

But in absence of that, I actually like jobs granting xp. It makes the world feel more real and explains in mechanics how NPCs work, allowing PCs to leverage those rules if the GM allows. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, though of course the amount one gains can be looked at.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

For some campaigns I think it works well to give XPs only for gold wasted, i.e. spent without practical benefit. That might mean fine wine, fast women, slow horses, adorable orphans, skilled pickpockets, unproductive family farms, parasitic friends, medicine for your sick mother, priestly indulgences for all the people you've killed, psychotherapy for your PTSD, whatever fits your character.

XP for gold seems illogical to me, unless the world strangely somehow always gives out fair amounts of gold in sync with character development. If a GM is giving out gold in proportion to what it takes to get that gold (or if spending gold corresponds to some cathartic goal achievement), it may work out, but it seems to me the EP reward should be what the PCs do and experience, not how much actual wealth they manage to end up with (or spend). If it happens to correspond to the amount of loot a GM puts where the action is, that's one thing. But money is its own reward and I think shouldn't be surreally mechanically linked to XP in TFT.

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

It would be interesting to fight a few battles between 32, 36 and 40 point wizards and fighters (with magical items appropriate to the characters). One big problem is missile spells in a one-off duel. I'd limit those for this exercise, since adventuring wizards won't have the luxury of putting most of their ST into a single fireball or lightning bolt in every fight.

It seems to me that TFT wizards have always been more powerful than fighters if you measure in terms of what they can do when at full ST in one single encounter. Sleep or Freeze will drop/stop/defeat almost any single opponent. Lightning can fry dragons in one bolt. Etc. But it's a certain type of power with certain types of limits. In multi-figure encounters, and especially in longer-term situations than one fight, wizards fall more into line in power. One of the main ways is ST use and the need to rest a lot. A party engaging in several fights in one day without hours to rest between them, or even to engage in one large/long battle, probably really needs/wants some fighters who don't lose ST to fight (except when injured). In actual play experience, less-than-great wizards tended to be vulnerable, needed rest periods and often conserved their ST for unique problem-solving, did best when accompanied by several fighters per wizard, and also had fairly short life expectancy as they tended to get targeted with priority.

[Rick_Smith]

>> Rick wrote:
>> ... I think that there may be a lot more wizards written up under these rules...

Originally Posted by Skarg

...
Yeah I think you may be right. Have you thought of a counter-proposal that would address that? ...

Hi Skarg, everyone.
Here are some suggestions (note that some are mutually contradictory):

1) Get rid of the talents which wizards can learn for a 1:1 ratio. Literacy, Math, etc. cost wizards 2:1 like the other talents.

2) Add some hard to get, kick ass talents. This is the big thing. A handful of really useful talents would give heroes something to aspire to, make them stand up better against experienced wizards, and the high cost means that the wizards are unlikely to get them.

3) Say that wizards pay 3:1 to buy talents. That would fix the munchkin mini-maxing right there.

4) Get rid of the whole "wizard / hero" class thing. Everyone can buy talents and spells at the normal cost. (I would increase the cost of spells. I suggest the experience cost for a spell is = IQ of Spell x 25 experience.) If you do this, you may say that a character has to pay a significant cost for some sort of "trained by a master wizard" advantage, if they want to be a wizard.

Warm regards, Rick.

[larsdangly]

I never liked the wizard/hero division. In my 'maximum house rule on' version of TFT there are simply talents that enable spell learning - if you want to learn spells you need to have one or more of them. That worked as an effective gate keeper and avoided all the gymnastics of trying to balance one class against another.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I never liked the wizard/hero division. In my 'maximum house rule on' version of TFT there are simply talents that enable spell learning - if you want to learn spells you need to have one or more of them. That worked as an effective gate keeper and avoided all the gymnastics of trying to balance one class against another.

Hi everyone, Larsdangly.
I agree, and have seen your posts on the subject before.

I'm not sure if you want it to be a talent or an advantage. There might be a lesser version of the talent that allows spells to be learned but at a higher experience cost.

The thing I like most about your idea is that the COST of the talent can help distinguish one campaign from another. If the cost is trivial, then everyone has some talents and spells. If the cost is medium, most people are one way or another but a few people have a couple spells. And if the cost is high, then if you take a wizard, you go into spells in a big way, and everyone else leaves the spell casting to those specialists.

Changing one number will greatly change the style of the campaign.

Warm regards, Rick.

EDIT: I didn't comment much on your idea before because I was happy with how old TFT worked. Your idea was self evidently good, but nothing jumped out as worth of comment. But I think that it is a much more useful idea under the new TFT rules.

What were the costs you picked to allow someone to use magic? What are the details of your rules?

Rick

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

1) Get rid of the talents which wizards can learn for a 1:1 ratio. Literacy, Math, etc. cost wizards 2:1 like the other talents.

That'd help a tad, but I like the logic/feel of these exceptions.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

2) Add some hard to get, kick ass talents. This is the big thing. A handful of really useful talents would give heroes something to aspire to, make them stand up better against experienced wizards, and the high cost means that the wizards are unlikely to get them.

I really like this, because it's what I've wanted to see anyway, as it also adds flavor/variety to experienced characters and things to get other than increased attributes.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

3) Say that wizards pay 3:1 to buy talents. That would fix the munchkin mini-maxing right there.

Ok, yes that seems fine, though the munchkins will still calculate which option costs less for the talents/spells they expect to get, but it gives them less leverage and less incentive to be a wizard just to save EP.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

4) Get rid of the whole "wizard / hero" class thing. Everyone can buy talents and spells at the normal cost. (I would increase the cost of spells. I suggest the experience cost for a spell is = IQ of Spell x 25 experience.) If you do this, you may say that a character has to pay a significant cost for some sort of "trained by a master wizard" advantage, if they want to be a wizard.

Yeah, some other mechanism that works differently might be in order.

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I never liked the wizard/hero division. In my 'maximum house rule on' version of TFT there are simply talents that enable spell learning - if you want to learn spells you need to have one or more of them. That worked as an effective gate keeper and avoided all the gymnastics of trying to balance one class against another.

Hmm, so as Rick mentioned in 4) above, there's still a distinction, but it works differently - it's a prereq talent rather than a "class" or "type" of character.

As Rick replied, it seems like there could be several ways to handle that, and maybe there could even be settings a GM could pick depending on how he wants the population to be. Personally, I rather liked the TFT spell demographics, where most people know no magic, a rare few learn a spell or two, and then some small fraction are talented wizards, though most of those aren't very powerful, but there are rare exceptions on up to the really powerful ones.

I guess a question that comes up for me about the new EP system, too, is what happens when people (including NPC's) try to learn a new talent or spell but they have talents up to their IQ and they don't have enough spare EP. Can you train such a person to get a new talent by education, or do you need to take them on an adventure to get them some EP and then they can learn something?

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I never liked the wizard/hero division. In my 'maximum house rule on' version of TFT there are simply talents that enable spell learning - if you want to learn spells you need to have one or more of them. That worked as an effective gate keeper and avoided all the gymnastics of trying to balance one class against another.

A talent costs a fixed amount. A class-based price increase effectively costs a percentage of how many points you put into cross-skills. So the effect isn't quite the same: cross-skilling becomes more practical for more experienced characters than for beginners, and more practical for true hybrids than for dilettantes. I suspect neither effect is desirable, so I'm guessing I prefer classes, but of course I'd have to see the details to be sure.