06-12-2018, 08:49 PM | #41 | ||
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Experience Points
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And actually Steve did write in his new EP system here: Quote:
But that's not what I was talking about. My conjecture is that with this new system with no IQ limits, and increasing and capped attribute expansion, that it will be more tempting than in original TFT for experienced fighters to learn spells (since in old TFT there was a pretty hard limit at 3 memory points because a fighter doesn't want to put too many points in IQ, and there are nice non-spell talents for them to get). If it's just 300 EP to get a spell, but it's going to be 1500 EP to get the next attribute increase, or you've reached 40 attributes, and if there aren't more nifty talents to get, I think experienced fighters may start to favor getting spells... if they forgo that 1500 +1 DX for a while, they could get 5 spells for that, which no original-TFT fighter would do because it'd take 15 memory points! (So I was thinking it might be good if higher-IQ spells cost even more EP, which would also be tripled for non-wizards, slowing down what I'm concerned may be a non-wizard spell-bloat phenomenon that might be annoying. Certainly if that Healing spell doesn't get nerfed, I forsee every hero wanting to get Aid so they can give the healing wizard power to heal them with...) Last edited by Skarg; 06-12-2018 at 08:53 PM. |
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06-12-2018, 09:14 PM | #42 | |
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
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Re: Experience Points
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In the new TFT why would anyone take a fighter? Heroes pay 3:1 for spells, and Wizards pay 2:1 for talents (except a lot of useful talents are 1:1). I was hoping that attribute bloat would be addressed to make TFT work better with the elder game. But the elder game (at least as far as gaining attributes has been eliminated), so advanced characters will just buy more and more languages, talents and spells. Given that wizards get a huge reduction in experience costs buying talents and spells, compared with heroes, I think that heroes will be marginalized. Your idea of tougher spells costing more experience I like. Someone else previously suggested that the experience cost to learn a spell is based on the IQ of the spell. (Say: IQ of spell x 25 experience points.) I like this idea, tho it does not help the 'wizards dominate heroes' problem. Warm regards, Rick. |
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06-12-2018, 10:40 PM | #43 | |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Experience Points
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I think it's very odd to have one system for 0 to 32 attributes and another for 32 to 40 attribute points and then a third one for 40+ attributes. What is the purpose of this cut and change? Why not one system all the way through? The idea that only wishes can allow progress after 40 attributes ... I assume most GMs will handle this by making obtaining a wish the reward of the adventure, and then the players can argue about which of them gets it, so that each player gets a wish occasionally. Or the GM will house rule away the 40 point cap. But the PCs will still be getting experience points, so they'll still be buying talents ... and by the time they would have reached 44 or 48 attribute points, they'll be liberally festooned with talents because why not. And then talents cease to be a defining characteristic of characters. I think this leads to some very peculiar consequences. It's the one aspect where I don't understand why Steve wants to do this. A single system approach:
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06-13-2018, 12:14 AM | #44 |
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: Experience Points
Shouldn't the staff stat cost the same EP to advance as any other stat?
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06-13-2018, 01:00 AM | #45 |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Experience Points
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06-13-2018, 01:22 AM | #46 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Experience Points
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06-13-2018, 01:42 AM | #47 |
Join Date: May 2018
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Re: Experience Points
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06-13-2018, 01:43 AM | #48 | |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Experience Points
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Even if you do survive and get piles of EP so you reach 40 points, there's still a choice of being a fighter or a wizard to consider. Fighters are needed because they don't exhaust themselves when fighting, for one thing, though I guess you could all try to be wizards and hire/befriend fighters to join you. The starting character designs will probably be about like they were in original TFT. Fighters usually starting with IQ 8-9 to be competitive fighters with ST & DX. So if I follow you, you're saying I might be wise to be a wizard even if I want to fight, so say I'm a survivable fighter-style character who's actually a wizard: ST 11 DX 12 IQ 9 Sword (2x2) Shield (1x2) Literacy (1) Horsemanship (1x2) That works to begin with. I could either put my advancement points into actually being a wizard, and eventually get up to IQ 17 at most, which isn't bad. Or I could actually mainly be a fighter... my talents would cost double EP, but how many am I actually going to need? Depends on whether any cool new ones are being added, but let's just make a cool fighter from here assuming only ITL talents, so say: ST 14 DX 17 IQ 9 So what ITL talents would I really like at this point? Let's see, probably crossbow (1x2), missile weapons (3x2), and warrior (2x2). That's only 600 "penalty" EP. Though there are a bunch of other talents there too that would be useful, easily another 600 "penalty" EP. Oh, well the problem with this example I chose was I stuck to IQ 9 to be an ace fighter. Oh well, I'll stick with it. So what spells would I want? If they're like candy at 100 EP each, probably Staff (the new free ST battery), Blur, Drop Weapon, Image, Detect Magic, Clumsiness, Aid, Summon Wolf, Fire, and Dark Vision. 10, for 1000 EP. And, I notice I'm also nearly out of things I want to buy with EP at IQ 9, for 3400 total EP. So let's see, if I were a hero with the same attributes, I'd get to start with 4 more talents. Then to get the rest would be 800 for talents, and if I got all those 10 spells at 300 each, would be a total of 3800 EP. Not a lot different, and again we see a tradeoff where I take longer to reach my "final form" (LOL) but I got to start out with more talents, which seems fine to me. If spells cost 25 x IQ-level, then it would cost... Wizard: 2400 + 5 x 25 x 8 + 5 x 25 x 9 = 4525 Hero: 2000 + (5 x 25 x 8 + 5 x 25 x 9) x 3 = 8375 So it looks like the higher IQ-based costs would slow down hero-learning of spells... though this guy will still eventually do it given enough GM EP awards, because there's nothing else for him to do with EP. But it also makes even this guy with only 10 spells he'd like better off (in the end-game, anyway) as a wizard than a fighter, even though really he's a fighter design. The incentive to be a fighter is still there but is really mainly in terms of learning talents in the early game. I'm sure it's rather different and more work to compute for higher-IQ characters. But I think that in the long run, the more IQ, the more clearly you'll want to be a wizard, as there are tons of spells to want, and as you pointed out, the exchange rate is better overall as a wizard. And if higher-IQ spells cost more EP to learn, that just increases the savings in the long run to learn them. I think I/we need to test and stew on this further. |
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06-13-2018, 01:54 AM | #49 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Experience Points
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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. |
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06-13-2018, 02:49 AM | #50 | |
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
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Wizards are just better.
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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? 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? Steve Jackson has completely changed TFT experience and character development to allow it to work in the elder game, with advanced characters. Other than a bit of attribute development, most of the experience will go to buying talents and spells. Heroes buy spells at 3:1, Wizards buy talents at 2:1 or less. 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. Well true. I would prefer that my character is awesome because he is awesome, not because he has a load of magic items. 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. Warm regards, Rick. |
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