Outdoorsman seems overcosted

[Dalin]

I like talents, even when they’re suboptimal, because they help me build character concepts. Often, I don’t want my outdoorsy scout or barbarian to be too brainy. As a GM, though, I would always be willing to reprice things if players felt they were out of whack. My groups don’t tend to care much about optimization, so I haven’t had to deal with it yet.

[Polkageist]

Do you have a link to those resources?
I can put together a pretty good dungeon, but getting the 'multiple paths to the same place' thing to work has always been a challenge in making those paths distinct and interesting in their own right without overwhelming myself.

[WhiteLily]

So far, a random encounter is 9 or less most of the time, or 12 or less if they are camping out in a hazardous area like a dungeon or a graveyard at night time.

I have a monster table and I just pick one.

[Kalzazz]

I have no particular desire to have my archer be Outdoorsy. Giving me more than one choice to build an archer would help

[WhiteLily]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I have no particular desire to have my archer be Outdoorsy. Giving me more than one choice to build an archer would help

In DFRPG, you are limited to the templates offered. Only Scout offers a significant investment in the Bow skill and it requires Outdoorsman 2.

You are more or less stuck having an out doorsy archer.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

In DFRPG, you are limited to the templates offered. Only Scout offers a significant investment in the Bow skill, and it requires Outdoorsman 2.

You are more or less stuck having an outdoorsy archer.

Not necessarily. The default assumption is that a beginning group will use the professional templates as-is, but it is explicitly stated in multiple places that this is optional.

Originally Posted by Adventurers, p. 7

In gaming groups familiar with Dungeon Fantasy, players might create characters this way, too; see Custom Professions (p. 14). In that case, the GM will hand out a certain number of starting points, which the players will then spend on their characters.

Originally Posted by Adventurers, p. 14

The GM is free to hand out any number of points (250 isn’t sacred!) and let the players buy whatever they like from Adventurers and Spells.

In my experience, most players end up customizing their templates in various small ways. For disadvantages, of course, players don't even need GM permission (see Disadvantage Selection, Adventurers, p.14). Even for other traits, though, if a "required" trait doesn't fit someone's character concept, I don't see why most GMs wouldn't approve an alternative. It's not like we have the DFRPG police looking over our shoulders (or the need to be legal by Adventurers League rules, as with D&D).

[WhiteLily]

Well then I suppose my position on the Outdoorsman trait would be this:

It is inefficient in comparison to simply increasing IQ unless the specifics of your game make that more difficult.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

Well then I suppose my position on the Outdoorsman trait would be this:

It is inefficient in comparison to simply increasing IQ unless the specifics of your game make that more difficult.

Or unless your character (and your group) have need of that focus of 'outdoor skills' without adding the extra brains for skills that character largely lacks anyway. Yes, you can get more bang for your buck by increasing IQ - but "pure IQ" is something that rarely sees rolls. So then you also need to invest in skills that use that IQ: for the Barbarian, that mostly means adding off-template Social Skills (a poor choice due to the obligatory Social Stigma) or Knowledge Skills (where ANY Barbarian will be behind most novice Mages or Clerics).

That's not useless by any stretch, but in a game that by design asks characters to mostly live in their niche, I'd argue a Barbarian or Scout spending 20/level for IQ to boost his outdoor skills is spending points inefficiently and, importantly, not spending those points on core tasks like Survival, Tracking, and Murderhoboing.

Note also that unlike pure IQ (or Per, for skills based on it), Outdoorsman adds to those skills even when rolled against a different attribute. IQ or HT-Based Survival, or DX-Based Fishing, aren't wild deviations and it's part of the GM's job to know what's on the character's sheets and design challenges that make players feel like their points are well-spent. If your game isn't going to use those outdoor skills (and my take is that it should: there are plenty of examples of how to make them useful in Exploits!) then Outdoorsman is bad; otherwise, it's an efficient way to be very good at a niche without spending the full 20/level on IQ.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Harald387

Note also that unlike pure IQ (or Per, for skills based on it), Outdoorsman adds to those skills even when rolled against a different attribute. IQ or HT-Based Survival, or DX-Based Fishing, aren't wild deviations and it's part of the GM's job to know what's on the character's sheets and design challenges that make players feel like their points are well-spent.

A good point. Though the game largely leaves it up to the GM to make that happen, as it suggests few non-IQ/Per rolls for the skills covered by Outdoorsman.

Boosting Outdoorsman to a full 10 skills with the addition of Hiking helps a bit here, as that's almost always HT-based. (As would slipping in a couple more non-brainy skills like Boating and Swimming; I believe the BS rule for talents allows up to 12 skills for a 10-point talent.)

Also worth keeping in mind: A few (?) magic items published so far specifically call on Outdoorsman for their full effect.

All in all, though, it's true that Outdoorsman is a hard sell compared to IQ. If the DFRPG line ever publishes a work on wilderness adventures, it'd be a good place to introduce more non-IQ/Per rolls for skills covered by Outdoorsman, or other benefits of the advantage.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

I find the Advantage quite underwhelming and I will encourage my players to never take it.

I almost always see at least one player taking this advantage in my campaigns. Why? My campaigns play out the process of going to the dungeon, and these skills are more valuable than combat skills in doing this.

This is like Language Talent. Do your campaigns feature loads of NPCs not speaking the same tongue as the PCs? Then it's a great buy. Otherwise, it isn't worth anything. A blanket statement of value isn't warranted; it's only applicable to your campaign.