Talent allotments for NPC's

[Steve Plambeck]

A more overarching question may be: are NPC builds even restricted by the normal character build rules, and if so to a full or only partial extent?

I would favor answering: almost never, but still keep the character at least somewhat believable.

Exceptions would be NPCs that the GM might allow to "crossover", giving them away to a player for future use as a PC. In that special case, yes the build must be fully within the rules to be fair. And normally it should start at 32 points, or whatever limit for new characters your house allows.

But otherwise, shouldn't the GM be free to build an NPC to the needs of the story above all else? NPCs are already limited to whatever role the GM has contrived for them, so limits on talents, spells, attributes, or unusual abilities shouldn't necessarily have to conform to the rules at all. This is pretty well accepted already for creating new "monsters"; the rules wouldn't be considered a restraint if the GM wanted to introduce a 3-headed flying cat. We do that stuff all the time. It's never a problem, unless you allow the players to show up with 3-headed flying cats as PCs for the next adventure (not recommended).

I see no need to refrain from creating NPCs that, like monsters, aren't in the book but happen to belong to the races or species PCs come in as well.

Probably the main times the GM would want to exercise this flexibility would be when the story's plot requires an NPC to demonstrate certain talents or spells, but you don't want the NPC to have more than a certain IQ or other attribute. The opposite might just as well be true: the NPC may need certain attributes to play their part, but that doesn't mean you have to equip them with any abilities that might me things up just because you gave them a certain ST or IQ; so you just don't do it.

You can always improvise a rationalization to keep the story believable.

PC to NPC wizard: "If only someone could fly up to that window with this rope all our problems would be solved! How can you be such a smarty IQ 29 wizard and not know the flight spell?"

NPC wizard to PC: "Are you kidding? I'm afraid of heights!"

Or an inverse example: you've given Expert Naturalist to an NPC that only has IQ 8. Because you want to confer information on the party, without the NPC otherwise changing the outcome.

I wouldn't hesitate to stack up an NPC with more talents or languages than they technically should know if it furthers the story. Or give them a spell no one has heard of that doesn't appear in the rules, if a plot point hinges on it.

[Anomylous]

I honestly don't see any reason why NPC builds shouldn't follow exactly the same rules as PCs, but minus the relentless optimization. "Too many talents for your IQ level" isn't a problem anymore in Legacy Edition; who's to say your NPC hasn't been rattling around for a while racking up the XP? Conversely, there's no reason to assume that NPC's necessarily have a full "starting loadout" of talents.

For example, I just created Smelly Tharboz the Shopkeeper. I didn't even bother to fully stat him out, simply wrote down that he has Literacy, Recognize and Assess Value, Business Sense, Charisma, and the Detect Magic spell, because that's what he needs in order to fulfill his plot function. Since the highest-IQ of those is Assess Value at IQ 12, I'll assume he has IQ 12 – good to know in case he needs to roll vs IQ for some reason. If I thought he'd end up in combat, I'd give him arbitrary ST and DX scores, and hand him a weapon. If he were to join the party as a PC, I'd let the player fill any remaining empty IQ slots as they saw fit, provided they could invent a justification for why a shopkeeper would know Tactics or whatever (maybe he's retired military?).

Similarly, I've got a mercenary captain who needs a LONG list of talents in order to do his Plot Thing competently. No problem. Mercenaries fight all the time, this guy's probably been earning XP hand over fist for years.

As far as giving NPC's non-canonical spells or talents, same rule applies. My general assumption is that whatever shiny new gadget or ability I come up with, someone at the table will inevitably get their grubby mitts on it and figure out how to exploit the hell out of it, so I try to plan for that and munchkin-proof everything ahead of time. Either that, or make it abundantly clear that the plot-advancing gimmick in question is cast from Pure Non-Reproducible Handwavium. ("The unicorn approaches and touches you with its horn, then gallops away and vanishes in a puff of mist. You find yourself fully healed, erase all your damage tallies.")

You can always improvise a rationalization to keep the story believable.

PC to NPC wizard: "If only someone could fly up to that window with this rope all our problems would be solved! How can you be such a smarty IQ 29 wizard and not know the flight spell?"

NPC wizard to PC: "Are you kidding? I'm afraid of heights!"

Lol... brilliant!

Or an inverse example: you've given Expert Naturalist to an NPC that only has IQ 8. Because you want to confer information on the party, without the NPC otherwise changing the outcome.

Same approach works though! Maybe he's sworn to an order that's forbidden to interfere with whatever the PC's are doing, and even providing them information is skirting on breaking his oath. Maybe he accidentally poured an extra-strength Decrease IQ potion into his coffee this morning (...or someone else did that, on purpose - plot hook, anyone?). Maybe he'd ordinarily love to help out, but his wife is going into labor. Or maybe he's a particularly intelligent gorilla. If nothing else, just play up the fact that this guy is some kind of idiot savant. Not everything has to be perfectly by-the-book, but exceptions without an excuse are pointless and frustrating.

Edit: formatting. Plus, I just realized the original question is basically about adding more "mundane talents". I haven't felt any need for that, but there's no reason not to if it seems useful. I'd say any such new talents should be open to PC's as well, if someone wants to play, like, an expert sommelier or something.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

It's always been an issue with TFT, that characters had a tendency to fall into standard patterns. It's one reason I like the idea of letting a character buy a single 1-point talent from IQ level one above his actual IQ, it increases variety.

I like this idea too. I think I'll swipe it.

[Skarg]

I tend to make NPCs based on thinking about what the person is logically like, and then giving them those abilities.

I keep the character system well in mind and make them be legal characters, but rarely optimized and not designed as adventurers unless that's actually their background. I don't aim to "fill up" their IQs necessarily. If they end up having similar talents with other NPCs, that will tend to be because those talents make sense to me for those NPCs to have.

I keep well in mind what the average person's stats are supposed to be like (average 10, average 30 total) as well as what I think the curve of unusual ability levels in the population is.

I also don't think that the NPC population generally has players selecting their attributes or trading off. So in the general population, there isn't the same cause & effect where one low attribute means the others will be higher.

If it turns out that this is weird compared to what the character system is like, then I tend to analyze why and see if I can devise house rules that make the character system closer to what I think/want character development to be like.

(That's why the "100 XP to raise an attribute until 34 points, but 500 XP to learn each talent point, but average attribute total is 30, but they manage to learn various talents" doesn't work well for me RAW.)

[Terquem]

We are probably not seeing a list of over 100 "talents" for NPCs. The sorts of talents that everyday working folk need to get through each day.

When it comes right down to it, you should remember that adventurers are great at being adventurers but at being vegetable booth builders and cigar box stackers - they suck.

[Skarg]

Yes, AKA Mundane Talents, ITL p.36.

I also tend to assume people can attain higher than first-level talent in various talents, so yeah Farmer is a 1-point talent letting you do stuff as a farmer, but an older farmer might have several talent points in Farmer. I have each point after the requirement count as a +1 to the relevant attribute for any rolls.

So e.g.:

Old Farmer Fred
ST 11
DX 11 (15 Farming)
IQ 10 (14 Farming) (12 Animals)
Farmer (5: +4)
Animal Handler (4: +2)
Horsemanship (1)
Driver (1)
Swimming (1)
Area Knowledge (area around his farm) (1)

[hcobb]

I.e. the Master Farmer from ITL?

[Skarg]

Like that, but with a mechanical effect, single-point precision, and not limited to one additional level above basic.