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Old 06-15-2018, 12:30 PM   #71
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Experience Points

"Everyone knows a few spells" worked okay for Runequest, though I think it works better with a cap on how many talents/spells you can know.
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Old 06-15-2018, 01:46 PM   #72
JLV
 
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Location: Arizona
Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
It is, and I like the idea of a 1:300 or so ratio of people who are wizards to non-wizards in the population.

If being a wizard were just a matter of putting in 500 EP, then certainly everyone would want to be one. But if being a wizard has a significant cost/disadvantage of some other sort, it could address the "every PC wants to be a wizard because why not?" issue - there may want to be more of an answer to "why not?" than double or maybe (?) even triple EP cost for talents. I haven't yet studied the situation enough to see what the size/shape of a good answer might be.

I think the new system wants something to limit some talents to be innate traits about the character rather than just things you can learn. Things like Charisma, Alertness, and Acute Hearing, and being a full wizard, don't seem like everyone would be able to learn them the same way many talents can be learned.
I created a system that did exactly this -- things that I considered more "genetic" traits (and that included "Magery" if you wanted to be a Wizard) were "talents" that you could select two of when you created your character (Elves, Dwarves and Halflings could only select one of them, since their racial advantages, in effect, were already genetic talents). After that, you couldn't acquire them at all (except perhaps by WISH). All of the other existing "talents" became "Skills" (to differentiate them from genetic "talents") and the normal rules applied normally...

I suppose if you think about it, what I actually did was create a vastly simplified "advantages" list (with no "disadvantages" aspect to it) a la GURPS, but without all the extra complexity that GURPS provides for...
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Old 06-15-2018, 04:45 PM   #73
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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I created a system that did exactly this -- things that I considered more "genetic" traits (and that included "Magery" if you wanted to be a Wizard) were "talents" that you could select two of when you created your character (Elves, Dwarves and Halflings could only select one of them, since their racial advantages, in effect, were already genetic talents). After that, you couldn't acquire them at all (except perhaps by WISH). All of the other existing "talents" became "Skills" (to differentiate them from genetic "talents") and the normal rules applied normally...

I suppose if you think about it, what I actually did was create a vastly simplified "advantages" list (with no "disadvantages" aspect to it) a la GURPS, but without all the extra complexity that GURPS provides for...
Yeah, that sounds good to me. It would also provide a way for not choosing wizardry to open up some other advantage, giving further reason not to always be a wizard just because it ends up being cheaper in EP eventually.

There could be various such things, though I don't know how much could be added before people will think it's too far from classic TFT.

(As for racial abilities, it seems like they could be optional too, and/or in some cases things other races could get at a higher cost. e.g. Halfling missile/thrown modifiers could be those talents, and cheaper for them, but optional.)
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Old 06-15-2018, 07:53 PM   #74
David Bofinger
 
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Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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Originally Posted by Rick_Smith View Post
If the rules specifically suggest that the GM can tune the cost of being able to use magic, then different campaign types will arise. Some will have a very strong class distinction, others will allow worlds where everyone can learn a spell or two. I believe more variety and an easy way for the GM to tweak his or her campaign is good.
In principle it's easy to tweak the class system, e.g. I had a generalist character who was between hero and wizard, and in most cultures not all classes were available. But you end up with cost ratios that e.g. need to be closer to 1 than 2 and rounding errors quickly become a nuisance. So I suppose a talent approach might be easier to tweak.

There are consequences: the system would probably hurt starting characters and favour experienced ones. Not obviously a problem.

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I liked that TFT was a classless system. No D&D style Thieves, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers and Monks. I could grow into what ever type of character I wanted! Except wizards. There was a class distinction between wizards and heroes.
I can see in principle it's elegant to allow a character to transition from fighter to wizard. I don't think it would happen often in practice.

If you are going to do classes with talents then there's several that spring to mind:
  • Wizard, as discussed: characters without this talent suffer the hero rules for spells, can't read spell books, etc.
  • Advanced Wizard: characters without this talent pay extra for high IQ spells.
  • Fighter: you know how to defend yourself in a fight. If you don't have this attackers roll two dice to hit you and weapon talents are more expensive. Non-adventurers will tend to lack this.
  • Shady: Provides access to the "taught by the Thieves' Guild" talents.
  • Educated: Lets you buy the scholarly talents like Mathematics, Naturalist and Scholar at a reasonable price.
  • Practical: Lets you buy talents like Horsemanship, Boating, Woodsman, etc. at a reasonable price. Characters without this are fish out of water when they leave town. (Incidentally, something has to be done to emancipate Woodsman from Naturalist.)
Would you want some or all of these? I don't know if I'd favour all of them but it's hard to see how the game would work without something like Practical.

You'd also need to think about order. If I buy a spell, and then learn the talent that makes spells cheaper, do I get a discount? Because that's a kind of believable story and I wouldn't want to penalise it relative to "so I went to magic school".
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Old 06-16-2018, 12:12 AM   #75
zot
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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Originally Posted by tbeard1999 View Post
I played with the idea of having Magic Talent. It cost (I think) 5 IQ points and it reduced the cost of spells to 1/2 IQ point each. Without the Magic talent, spells cost 3 points.

Anyhow, it more or less replicated the hero/wizard distinction.

Then I asked myself - “what’s the point of changing a very simple and straightforward rule?” I decided that there was no point other than to show that I could needlessly complicate a simple rule. So I discarded it.

A lot of TFT modifications (including many of mine) fall into that category, IMHO.
That talent would seem to allow a hero character to "become a wizard" later in life.

Isn't that a significant departure from the hero/wizard distinction, which freezes your choice at the point of character creation?
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Old 06-16-2018, 12:46 AM   #76
JLV
 
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Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Yeah, that sounds good to me. It would also provide a way for not choosing wizardry to open up some other advantage, giving further reason not to always be a wizard just because it ends up being cheaper in EP eventually.
Yep, that was more or less the intent. Plus it put some hard choices in front of the players right up front (and hard-coded a few difference in their characters that couldn't be overcome by later game EP spends...).

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
There could be various such things, though I don't know how much could be added before people will think it's too far from classic TFT.
That's always the problem, isn't it? ;-) But, season to taste and in coordination with your players and you won't go too far wrong!

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
(As for racial abilities, it seems like they could be optional too, and/or in some cases things other races could get at a higher cost. e.g. Halfling missile/thrown modifiers could be those talents, and cheaper for them, but optional.)
Sure! There are a lot of different ways to skin this particular cat (with apologies to cat lovers), I just picked the one that seemed least disruptive towards the existing rules to me at the time... YM will definitely Vary!
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Old 06-16-2018, 02:05 AM   #77
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Default Re: Experience Points

An alternative to the xp cost would be something like "wizards have -2 attribute points. Non-wizards learn spells at -4 to IQ". That gets rid of both "Why not create this fighter as a wizard" and "why not learn a couple spells".
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Old 06-16-2018, 02:42 PM   #78
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Experience Points

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
An alternative to the xp cost would be something like "wizards have -2 attribute points. Non-wizards learn spells at -4 to IQ". That gets rid of both "Why not create this fighter as a wizard" and "why not learn a couple spells".
Yes, I'd think there would be room for some trading between Wizardry, starting attributes, other unlearnable traits, and perhaps a slight adjustment to maximum point cap (?).


As I continue to sleep on the system, I wonder if the hard cap at 40 might instead be some sort of exponential EP cost, so it's not impossible to go over 40, but just unlikely/inefficient, and also the arrival at 40 would be slower. Because I notice people are going straight to strategizing about targets for 32 and 40 as if it's not going to take years of play to get to 40 (which I'd hope it would, as it usually did for us in old TFT), and also about exceptional characters whom I wouldn't think were that way due to Wishes.
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Old 06-16-2018, 02:57 PM   #79
tbeard1999
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Tyler, Texas
Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
That talent would seem to allow a hero character to "become a wizard" later in life.

Isn't that a significant departure from the hero/wizard distinction, which freezes your choice at the point of character creation?
Query how practical it is for him to free up 5 IQ points, plus the points necessary to learn a new slate of spells... And since the game presumably assumes that wizards require YEARS of study, how likely is it that the player will want his character to be out of action for (say) 3-5 years while he learns wizardry?

I think that this is so incredibly unlikely that I’d rather just houserule it if it EVER came up - “Okay, you can go off to a wizard’s academy for 3 years. When you graduate, you’ll have forgotten most of your talents. Any you keep will cost you double. Spells cost 1 point.”

Or - “fine, pay the Wizards Guild $X and they will rewire your brain. When it’s over, you’re a wizard. Rework your talents and add the spells you want, paying the IQ cost that wizards pay.”
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Old 06-16-2018, 07:16 PM   #80
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default Re: Talent (or advantage) needed for spell casting.

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
I created a system that did exactly this -- things that I considered more "genetic" traits (and that included "Magery" if you wanted to be a Wizard) were "talents" that you could select two of when you created your character ...

I suppose if you think about it, what I actually did was create a vastly simplified "advantages" list (with no "disadvantages" aspect to it) a la GURPS, but without all the extra complexity that GURPS provides for...
Hi JLV,
Yes, if you wanted to, a simple advantage system would be a nice addition to TFT. And the ability to user magic is certainly a useful advantage. For a long time, I let people roll on an Advantage / Disadvantage table (most were minor perks or minor disadvantages). However, I considered the ability to use magic an genetic advantage, but let anyone who wanted to play a wizard to just take it.

Warm regards, Rick.
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