Conan the wizard
 

I didn't see any threads on this. Maybe someone addressed it in the giant Fantasy Trip thread or something.

So, Dark City games address this by making a wizard's staff be a a strength battery, starting at zero capacity, upgradable with EP to the wizard's IQ. There's something to start with.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

It's been discussed in a few of the threads here. People don't agree on what to do about it, or exactly what the problem is or what to do about it.

I think there is a problem and think it's not just Conan the Wizard but more generally "attribute bloat" (see that thread title) and lack of ways to represent experience.

I like the sort of approach you mentioned, where EP can and usually should be used for other things besides raising attributes. My favorite idea so far is using experience to buy Talents beyond IQ total, and then adding more advanced talents.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I'm a big fan of being able to expend XP on something besides attribute growth too -- all through the many discussions on attribute bloat, talents, etc., etc., I've advocated such a thing.

And I think Dark City Games had a LOT of good ideas in their system (though there are some I disagree with too). I hope, if Steve ever has any time to sit down and do so, he works through some of their adventures and sees how their ideas work; there are some things there he could port over pretty easily into mainstream TFT that would be pretty cool to have "officially" present in the system -- and the DCG Staff system is only one of them!

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Heh, I once posted rules on the Dark City forum for a Vancian magic variant. The staff started at the wizard's ST and could be upgraded to ST + IQ. A Vancian wizard had to use the staff's points to prepare spells (which was not possible in combat because it took time and concentration) and store them in the staff. Casting a spell doesn't fatigue a Vancian wizard but they can only cast the spells they have prepared.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

This is a thing. The house rule I introduced that addresses it is that I added a talent, Powers Beyond the Pale, where for every 1 talent point invested you gain a 2 point rechargeable ST capacity for spell casting. The conceit is that this represents your development of an ability to ritualistically meditate (or whatever). The ST points recover at the same rate as ST expended from your ST stat; the order is ST stat expenditure recovers first, PBtP points after (not simultaneous). This has never seemed to lead to noticeable power bloat in play testing, as the ST points are not an enormous resource and must be bought in exchange for other things (spells and other talents). It is true that ideal 'dueling' wizards built with this rule in play will always take a couple points, and will have several more points of ST to cast spells. So, that is a small but noticeable difference. On the other hand, you would be stupid to invest in ST as a pure spell caster, so Conan the Wizard is gone (unless you want to be a wizard who wins arm wrestling contests!)

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Oh yes, I also modified the Staff spell so that it serves as a rechargeable ST battery. That is a good house rule.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

... a flip side of this sort of 'grade inflation' (which is definitely what we're talking about here!) is that I don't do my players any favors when it comes to magic items. If they want to invest the time and resources into making one, and they can meet all the requirements, fine. But the game world is not awash with them. I feel like lots of magic items PLUS 'grade inflation' ST batteries is a game-breaking combo.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Hi Zot, everyone.
I think that experienced wizards are much more powerful than experienced fighters. So if wizards could spend experience points to improve their fatigue ST (fST) that they could use on spells, and fighters had nothing so spend experience on, it would exacerbate the problem.

Wizards would be improving their combat power, but their attribute total stays low so they would be buying attributes more easily. If this was done, you may wish to consider the fST spent on the staff as part of the wizard's attribute total.

And yes, this was discussed in the big TFT thread. :-D
Warm regards, Rick.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

This is true, and is exacerbated by the house rules I suggested ('talent' based spell casting ST, and staffs as commonly available ST batteries). I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, one of the miracles of TFT as a combat engine is that magicians and heroes both have lots of options for initial design and early advancement yet somehow are well balanced in head-to-head fights. The game nicely captures the drama of the original Conan stories, where our hero is regularly sticking a sword through some spell casting jerk. It would be nice if that balance could be better maintained at high levels of experience.

On the other hand, in a fully fleshed out roleplaying game it isn't so important that every character type be equal in 1-on-1 gladiatorial fights. Experienced heroes do things that magicians don't, and a magician who kicks butt in one fight is often basically helpless in the next because all of his or her ST reserves are gone. I guess I've just reconciled myself with the idea that experienced magicians beat experienced fighters in 'fresh' 1 on 1 fights.

Re: Conan the wizard - Wizards Beat Fighters
 

Hi Larsdangly, everyone.
I fixed that by making talents cheaper, and adding a few, hard to get, kick ass talents.

This gave the hero class something to aspire to, and made experienced fighters very dangerous.

Warm regards, Rick.

Conan the wizard, Groo the Genius.
 

Hi everyone,
The basic problem is attribute bloat. High attribute figures tend to succeed a lot. But more important for this discussion, they tend to grow toward similar attribute shapes.

***
Groo was a comic book character who was VERY stupid, but he has all sorts of fighting skills - a VERY tough fighter. In TFT, Groo HAS to buy IQ to have enough memory (mIQ) to be able to take his talents. Buying IQ pretty much defeats the point of a Groo like character. While Groo is the most extreme archetype of this problem, lots of literary figures are a bit dull mentally, but they have lots of skills, which is hard to represent using TFT.

Wizards need fatigue ST (fST) to power spells, (except for the Death Spell and others like it which power the spell with damage to the wizard). If you want to power lots of spells, you need to buy ST to give you more fatigue.

And EVERYONE needs a high DX.

So experienced figures tend to have high values in all three attributes, which makes all experienced figures feel the same.

***
I fixed this with my superscript rules, but I think those are too complex for new TFT so I've not been pushing them. The "Groo the genius" I've suggested fixing, by making talents cheaper, so you don't have to be a brain trust to get a decent number of (not complex) talents.

But the problem with wizards bulking up to cast more spells remains an open problem. Thanks Zot, for opening the discussion.

Rick

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I think a LOT of us did that! ;-)

Re: Conan the wizard
 

What do you guys think of these wizard talents, are they already on someone's house rules list?

Arcane Stamina (2): adjusts ST by +2 only for the purposes of spellcasting (does not help with wounds, weapons, etc.). Costs 2 for wizards or heroes.

Arcane Outlast (3): requires Stamina, adjusts ST by another +2 only for the purposes of spellcasting. Costs 3 for wizards or heroes.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

There is a LOT to like with a staff/wand/etc. Strength Battery. And yes, I've thought about it. This thread is making me think about it again.

Things to dislike, or at least to look at hard:

- 99% of wizards will now take the STAFF spell. Does this matter?
- It becomes a very big deal, affecting the way the world works, that a wizard does not want to be separated from his staff. A subset of that: a broken staff is a disaster of the first order. Would staves have to be more like a Staff of Power, immune to Break Weapon to keep all wizards from taking that spell too, and all combats reducing to whose BW could hit first?
- Of course, the rule about "staff explodes when someone else picks it up" has to go.
- The ST Battery, as written, is a LOT harder and costlier to make than a staff that could do the same job.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

It doesn't necessarily need to be a staff. It could be a ring, a pendant, a wand or some other sort of magical storage/focus device.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Oh no! When a new player would think they were so smart and pick-up a slain wizards staff, only to have it explode for 3d6 damage, was just great. Even better was when that player would argue and say: "That's not true! You made that up!"; and opening AW to the Staff Spell rule, and having them read for themselves, the cold and cutting-line: "doing the fool who touched it 3 dice damage.", provided so many great TFT moments.

The double-burn inflicted from that - especially with "rules lawyers" types, was priceless... so please preserve it, if at all possible.

JK

Talents to give you more fatigue ST.
 

Hi Zot, everyone.
I do not think your talents are powerful enough. In basic TFT, the only way to increase your memory (mIQ) is to raise your IQ by a full point. So for Arcane Stamina (2), the wizard is spending 2 attributes to gain 2 fatigue ST (fST). FAR better to just raise the wizard's ST and then you have more hitpoints, can bend bars better, etc.

Same objection to Arcane Outlast (3), only it is worse.

***

I would suggest:

IQ 11 Arcane Stamina [2]: Gives the wizard +5 fatigue ST (fST) which can be used to pay for spells, or other exhaustion effects. (This does not help with wounds, won't allow you to use larger weapons, etc. It CAN be used to pay for magic item fST costs, and fST lost to long fights, or for distant running.)

IQ 13 Arcane Outlast [2]: requires Arcane Stamina. Exactly like Arcane Stamina except that this talent gives you +3 fST for paying for exhaustion.


(Note that the square brackets [ ], in my talent list mean that wizards and heroes pay the same price.)

I think you will find that these two talents are good enough that players will sometimes take them. Each requires 2 attributes to buy, but they will give on average 4 fST to spend. The moderate IQ requirement suggests that the figure with the talent has figured out a way to use fatigue ST more efficiently to manipulate the mana field.

These talents assume that there is a diminishing returns. (So the basic level of the talent gives a fairly large boost, but more and more effort gives reduced gains.) Another way to work it would be to say, the higher IQ gives larger efficiencies. So it could be like:

IQ 11 Arcane Lv 1 [2] +3 fST.
IQ 13 Arcane Lv 2 [2] +5 fST.
IQ 15 Arcane Lv 3 [2] +7 fST, etc. for as high as you like to go.

This would mean that bookish, smart wizards are likely to have a fair bit of power for their spells. Let me know which version you choose, and how it works in your campaign! :-D

Warm regards, Rick.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Hi Steve, everyone.
There is another disadvantage which you are not considering. At low attribute levels, wizards and fighters are fairly well balanced. As the characters become more experienced, wizards become over powered compared to heroes. The "staff is a free fatigue ST bank" idea will just make things worse.

I would prefer that Staffs stay the same. If the wizard wants more fatigue ST to power spells, they always can buy ST batteries. They can even put the power stone ON TO the staff if they want.

On a side note, I like the Power Stones from GURPS much more than the ST Batteries from TFT. I would really like if the ST Batteries were quietly swapped out for Power Stones.

Warm regards, Rick.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

There are certainly precedents in literature. Gandalf broke Saruman's staff, ending him as a major wizard. Harry Potter & Co. depend on wands from day one. I'm sure there are others.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Another thing to consider is that you don´t have to be a *wizard* to cast spells in TFT. Anyone can take a spell. An archer can take Reverse Missiles, etc.

Does he need to have a staff? Will he be at a disadvantage not wielding one?

There could be some serious side effects if the way staves work in TFT is altered, and I have to say the look on someone's face when they pick up a stick near the camp to throw on the fire and it explodes in their face is priceless. :)

Re: Conan the wizard
 

What part of the difference do you like, other than the cooler name?

Re: Talents to give you more fatigue ST.
 

Hmm. Wouldn't a wizard who had less IQ than the highest-IQ spell he wanted, but also wanted more spell power, tend to prefer to raise his IQ and take these talents, rather than raise ST?

Re: Talents to give you more fatigue ST.
 

Hi Rick,

Power-wise, rather than thinking of the talents as being worth IQ points, wouldn't it be better to think of them in terms of being worth spells? A wizard player would be thinking, "I'll have to give up two spells to get that, is this talent worth two spells?". To me, getting an extra 2 ST in a combat would definitely be worth two spells to a lot of players (of course I wrote something I thought made sense as a trade-off :)).

Framing it that way: you're almost getting +2 ST at no additional experience cost for the low-low price of two spells.

This is how I think of it but during our 5-years or so of TFT, we stuck with the as-written talent point system. If you pay experience for talents, like in some house rules I've seen, this would be a whole different ball game.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I don't think it does -- quite a high percentage (in my experience) already take it so they can have a melee weapon of some kind, just in case they run out of steam.

I think that would be okay since Wizards should have some things to be concerned about, and in a LOT of fantasy fiction, losing your Wizards' Staff is a very big deal indeed; as far as the broken staff goes, I'd say leave it alone -- them's the chances you take, and sometimes things go...badly. However, you might want to make it harder to successfully cast BREAK WEAPON against a Wizard's Staff -- maybe roll 4 dice for success?

No, please don't change that. In effect, it's a Wizardly booby trap, and yes, it would take the Wizard some time to build a new one (and, if you do it the way I did it, time to charge it too), but the cinematic effect is just too cool to lose!

I tried to make it hard for Wizards to charge the staff -- it took a long time and a lot of ST to get a single ST point into the staff; it didn't self-recharge, and it took hours (eight of them, in fact) to get a single ST point into the staff. It was basically a long magical ceremony that "imbued" the staff with a ST point from the caster, who then had to rest up for a day before he could do it again (because of the ST he spent on the ceremony (8 ST; one ST per hour), plus the ST he lost in the actual imbuing -- the total was 9 ST, and since I made folks rest for an hour (instead of 15 minutes) to recover each ST point lost due to fatigue, that meant nine hours of rest). His Staff could never have more than 10 ST (Staff of Power went up to 25 ST max), and effectively it gave him another resource to manage...

The upshot was that Wizards went to all that effort and then only used it in a very dire emergency, because it was going to take them anywhere from a week and a half to almost a full month to do a full-up recharge on that sucker, and only if they did nothing else for that time period other than charge their staff and rest between ceremonies! And that assumes they weren't so badly wounded that they couldn't afford to spend 9 ST to do something; if that were the case, they had to heal up first. Of course, when their Staff ran out of juice, it was still a Wizard's Staff, and usable as a melee weapon... Oh, and the Wizard couldn't use AID Spells to get help -- he had to charge the Staff HIMSELF! (The theoretical explanation I advanced for this was because the Staff had to "attuned" to the user, and someone else's ST screwed that up...sort of based on the "if someone else touches your Staff -- blooie" rule, actually, so everyone bought the reasoning.)

This tied in well with the downtime issues though, and we always had a lot of downtime due to injuries anyway. If you change *that* up some, you might want to make it easier for the Wizard to charge the Staff than I did!

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I do think it's nice that non-staff wizards aren't at a big disadvantage in original Wizard. Staffs are cool and it's nice that they give logical advantages, and charging them seems to fit thematically, but if the Staff spell starts giving a new kind of ST Battery that's better than the existing ST Battery, then:

* it's going to be a huge bonus to those with staffs over wizards without staffs, unless as Chris suggests, you can charge other things. (On the other hand, if you can charge other things, a random thing will tend to have an advantage over a staff in that it's not obvious you have one or what it is (though a staff can be any piece of wood), and so less susceptible to Break Weapon.

* it's going to be a pretty major bonus of wizards over fighters - roughly equivalent in point value to whatever amount a staff can give them in effectively increased ST, moderated by it not soaking wounds, and however inconvenient it is to charge up. It will also tend to lower the barriers of ST to cast on some of the more powerful spells by however much you can get from a staff.

BTW the wizards in our games didn't charge staffs but they did sometimes set powerstones in staffs. Breaking the staff wouldn't necessarily break the powerstone.

Another idea could be to add some offsetting disadvantage to storing power in a staff.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Keep in mind that a Staff (or wand, or whatever a Staff is described as in the spell) is ALSO a melee weapon, capable of doing 1D damage to an opponent.

I like the idea of being able to charge other things, but it ought to be at least as hard to do as making and charging a staff.

On Strength Batteries (and yes, I too prefer the "power stones" terminology -- more on that in a second), I always felt they were too hard and too expensive in the game. I would like to see them changed in some way to either justify that expense (maybe they DO "self-recharge"), or their cost lowered.

On the Power Stones terminology -- I really just prefer the cooler name. It seems more evocative of how a pseudo-medieval society would think of them than "Strength Batteries" does. I know that Cidri is actually a post-Apocalyptic society (minus the actual apocalypse; the Mnoren simply left -- they didn't destroy the world), but I figure the term "battery" must have fallen into disuse by a society that reverted to medieval agriculture and trade levels. Sages might know the term, but not too many other people, and "power stones" is probably how they would think of even a conventional battery.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

This is a wonderfully insightful piece of thinking by JLV, and demonstrates what I refer to as: Thinking Through The Game To It's Manifest Conclusion. I personally find it most beneficial to think of Cidri as a real place, and when I do, my thinking properly follows suit. Even the term *strength* is awkward, insomuch that the player pays the spell cost charged against the value of the ST Attribute of his figure, but the wizard *character* draws on, manipulates, and expends power when manifesting his magics on Cidri.

It's the same difference in quality of thinking and attitude between a GM who informs the players what is happening with their characters by saying: "A large burly ruffian, who looks like he could beat the whole lot of you with the heavy wooden table you are sitting at, approaches your party at the tavern,..."; and the GM who says: "A large burly ruffian, with a ST of 25, and a DX of 13, approaches your party at the tavern."

It is the difference between playing a fantasy game, and experiencing a fantastical alternate reality.

A most well thought-out and *thought-through* reasoning on that one JLV.

JK

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Just thinking on a different tangent....what if a Wizard was allowed to fuel spells with all 3 Attributes?

This would largely solve the "Conan the Wizard" problem as a spell caster wouldn't get a huge benefit from pumping his ST up just to be able to cast more spells. But he'd have to think carefully about using his DX as fuel as this would reduce his future casting odds. Using IQ to fuel spells could reduce the difficulty of the Spells he could use.

Obviously this idea would need some development, but on the face of it has some promise.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I have always thought that it was okay that a high-level wizard was very powerful. Fits the genre. A combat wizard takes a lot of chances, and spends a lot of time as Target Priority 1, in order to get to that stage.

GMs who want their fighters to be more formidable can always let them come upon highly enchanted gear for sale, to soak up that gold they've been hoarding.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Here's another wizard talent to help wizards with their ST:

Catnap Sleeper (1): You can sleep whenever you want and intersperse normal activity in between; as long as you get enough total sleep hours, you're fine. This allows you to recover an extra 34 - ST in fatigue during sleep if you can intersperse activity among your sleep hours. For example just before the group goes to sleep for 8 hours, a ST 10 wizard can cast all the way down to ST 2, sleep for 2 hours to recover 8 ST, wake up, cast more down to 2, etc. every 2 hours. If casting time is negligible, this allows that wizard to recover an extra 24 ST in addition to the 8 ST which would have been recovered. Wizards pay the stated amount for this talent, the cost is not doubled.

Note: 34 - ST assumes the wizard casts down to ST 2 before the initial sleep period.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Something I really like about Catnap sleeper is that it makes a qualitative lifestyle difference between wizards and heroes. Wizards gain an identifiably weird habit.

You could conceivably just declare that your character is a catnap sleeper without even having this talent but I made it because it does provide a mechanical advantage when it comes to daily magical activity. For instance, it lets you charge a ST battery during your sleep period -- sleep an extra 15 minutes and you can use that 25 ST to store 5 ST in your ST battery.

Re: Conan the wizard, Groo the Genius.
 

Too late for my input to be useful to the update...

But I think this is a problem that is easily fixed by role playing.

I had a character who was your basic strong, dumb, fighter. Ultimately, he reached the point where his strength was high enough to wield a Great Sword one handed. He ended up with a middlin' high IQ (around 17, IIRC) in order to have the talents he needed for all the weapons skills and such he had picked up during play.

But I didn't play him as a genius. I argued that in his case, a high IQ was more indicative of a sort of high animal cunning, rather than intellectual achievement.

Most of these stat issues in ITL can be "fixed" with role playing. The character isn't his stats. The character is what you role play.

Re: Conan the wizard, Groo the Genius.
 

I actually agree with that viewpoint. In reality, a character is only as smart as his player. But I am curious...When "The Rock" had to roll against IQ to notice traps, detect lies, disbelieve, etc. did he roll against 17? Whether did or didn't, I can see good arguments for either case.

You mentioned "animal cunning" which sounds very good. From the few Conan stories I've read, Conan had this "high animal cunning" even though he wasn't a "learned man". My dog is somehow very good at detecting my attempts to trick or trap her. Then again, any human that knows me will tell you I'm a terrible liar. Animals are smarter than most people think. The problem is, they have severe physical handicaps in a world designed for humans. Plus, they pretty much suffer from severe ADHD. I've seen arguments that opposable thumbs and language are what sets humans apart from animals. I think it's really more basic than that. Animals can't formulate long-term goals/plans and stick to them. They pretty much live in the moment.

Re: Conan the wizard, Groo the Genius.
 

That is how I did it. I imagined what kind of character I wanted. When my character got up to the IQ level I thought he should act at, I capped my Reaction rolls to that. I continued investing in IQ, but didn't roll that higher level for attempts. IQ 12/16 12 being the rolling level for activities, 16 being the investment level. 16 counted towards the 42 point character total.

That handled the character bloat for me. I could do that for ST the same way for wizards. Wizbang is ST 12/16. 12 for purposes of taking damage & 16 for fatigue/damage. Yes, I penalized myself out of 4 damage, but it felt right for the character.

I don't recall if I did the same for Dex. I guess I only went real high if I was compensating for armor or if I wanted a fast bowman.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Now you've got the Mana hole to dump XPs into.

The seasoned barbarian needs at least IQ 11, say....

ST 13, DX 14(12), IQ 11
Bastard Sword 1-h(2d+1), Dagger(1d-1), Small Shield(1+1), Leather Armor(2), Toughness(1): Stops 5 hits total
KN 16: Tactics(1), Expert Horsemanship (2), Shield Expertise(2), Acrobatics (2), Toughness I(2), Climbing(1), Alertness(2), Sword(2), Shield(1),Horsemanship(1)

Re: Conan the wizard
 

These sorts of character design discussions are fun, but I think we'll find even 42 points is higher than people are actually going to reach in normal play - we should be thinking more about characters with 36-38 stat points, as above that it starts to get obscenely difficult to rise further.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Unless you plan to throw out the revised stat advancement schedule and stick with the original (or something close to it) which is probably what I'll end up doing.
;)

Re: Conan the wizard
 

This will be the biggest divide between groups (and even official products, if Tollenkar's Lair is any indication): do you follow the official experience rules and therefore have a setting where normal humanoids generally have stat totals in the 28-40 range, or do you follow old practices and let the upper end of the range drift up to 60 or so. Your answer to that will have a huge impact on what your campaign is like, how fights work, etc. I don't have an opinion about which is best (well, that isn't entirely true because I prefer the new one), but clearly it won't be possible to move back and forth between groups or materials that take alternate views on this. This is why I find it so odd that TL presents a bunch of NPCs that blow the doors off the stat totals PCs can reach.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Assuming a 30 year adventuring career at 50 XP and 1% mortality per month.
Year 1: 600 XPs gives 35th Att 200 XP change, 89% survival.
Year 2: Another 600 XPs gives 37th Att, 79% survival.
Year 3: Another 600 XPs gives one skill slot 100XP change, 70% survival.
Year 4: Another 600 XPs gives one skill slot 200XP change, 62% survival.
Year 5: Another 600 XPs gives one skill slot 300XP change, 55% survival.
Year 6: Another 600 XPs gives one skill slot 400XP change, 48% survival.
Year 7: Another 600 XPs saved up for 1000XP change, 43% survival.
Year 8: Another 600 XPs gives 38th Att, 38% survival.
Years 9 to 14 gain 6 skill slots, 18% survival.
Years 15 and 16 gain two more skill slots and 200XP change, 15% survival.
Years 17 to 21 gives 39th Att, 8% survival. (Character is at starting IQ plus 12 skill slots.)

The next ten years aren't enough to get to 40th Att.

IQ 15 wizard would take five years to fill his Mana under this system while gaining nothing else.

Of course true adventures should be much more deadly than this.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I agree. And while I also think 60 points is probably higher than should be reasonably possible for a player character to achieve, a top end from 45 to 51 points should absolutely be viable. As written, however, the current advancement rules are a serious barrier to this level of play.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I almost posted earlier to say I agree with Lars - I prefer the new experience rules - but the costs need some tweaking. My thinking on the 'but' clause pretty much agreed with yours. 48 should be obtainable but difficult/time-consuming.

I was also going to say that post that an error corrected, update layout/type-setting reprint of the original rules would have been hunky-dory with me as well. I've commented in another thread that the IQ-slots system was weird (and still is) to me but that doesn't mean I hate it. It was well done. But I prefer the XP-buy system for talents/spells. Again, the XP costs of stats (and possibly talents/spells) DO need some tweaking.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

At 600 XP per year, if every talent/spell point can only be earned during play with 500 XP, then every point you can stand to put into IQ as a starting character will put you almost one year ahead of this curve (at least, in years where you would otherwise buy talents with XP). e.g. You could be 38 points in year 4 rather than year 8 if you already got your talents/spells for free during character creation.

The years also may be divided down by groups that meet more often and/or get given more XP per meeting.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

My calculation is in game years. Real years should go by about four times as fast.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Ive bought into the logic behind the ~40 point cap (and really you would be better off stopping stat advancement around 38): A score of 16 nearly saturates the 'value' you get out of a stat, and 20 clearly gets you to effective maximum useful value. So, a character with 48 points has probably distributed them pretty evenly across all three stats (as this is going to provide maximum value per point assigned). Therefore, every 48 point character is going to be something like 16-16-16. So, everyone is basically the same and basically perfect at everything. I don't find this sort of play very interesting.

A 40 point limit is a very different situation. You still have the drive to get one of your stats to 16 or so, which leaves your other two averaging 12 each - meaning you will often be out classed at either one. Or maybe you are 16 in two stats and take an 8 on the third - meaning you spent your adventuring career truly deficient, almost handicapped, at one of the three spheres of human capacity. And what if you reach for the stars and want a 20 or 22 in one stat (super genius wizard, most dexterous thief in the world, a fighter like The Mountain)? That's cool, and achievable, but leaves you with an average score of 10 or 9 in the other two stats. You are paying a price for that singular gift. Very different trade offs; very different sorts of characters that interact with each other in a wide variety of ways. Much more interesting game.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Mana had a chance to give us the traditional squishy quadratic wizard, but the cost is way too high.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I suppose if you are only interested in adventures that pit you against humans, orcs and the occasional ogre, 40 points is plenty. I want my players to face off against demons and dragons eventually, however.

Stats don't define the characters, players do that by making choices.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Conan the Chemist: ITL page 146 lists no ill effects from quaffing Increase ST potions all the time.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I think the ill effects are the $ you lose to make or buy them.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Yes, that 16 16 16 is how I chose 48. I did say "obtainable but difficult/time-consuming". This is how difficult I'd like that to be:

Increase / XP cost
1st / 100
2nd / 200
3rd / 300
4th / 400
5th / 600
6th / 800
7th / 1000
8th / 2000
9th / 3000
10th / 4000
11th / 5000
12th / 6000
13th / 7000
14th / 8000
15th / 9000
16th / 10000

Re: Conan the wizard
 

So here's a question that haven't seen addressed among all these XP-related threads... how long should it reasonably take a player to advance to this level?

ITL provides some guidelines that characters could earn anywhere from 25 to 100 XP per game session. Doing a bit of math then (which I really dislike), a player would probably earn 3000-4000 XP playing once every week for a year... or up to around 5000 XP if the GM is really generous. So, while the first few stats can be raised over the course of a few months, it will take years to build up a 'Conan' anything. That seems like an awful long time to me, especially for a game system that was originally designed around a much faster advancement schedule.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I'm comfortable with that theoretical time-frame. If the GM and players are not, there's a simple solution: GM gives out more XP. I would actually expect the GM to start giving out a little more XP per session as the characters progress (assuming the obstacles they face become more difficult).

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I feel like these issues overwhelm campaigns and are better just killed at the source. Classic Traveller effectively had no advancement after character generation (at least in its original, purest version!). Bushido has 6 levels. You want your samurai to reach 7th level? Well, tough $&!#, you can't: there are 6 levels and that's that. These sorts of games are surprisingly liberating as they shift your attention away from perfecting your build and onto other things that are more fun.
The new TFT clearly joins the ranks of these sorts of games, if you play it RAW. Sort of. You can keep chipping away at talents and spells ad infinitum, but I think the rules really steer you toward a character who just might live long enough to have ~36-38 stat points, perhaps 15-20 equivalent points in talents and/or spells, and does his or her best to always have a limited wish stashed in a back pocket.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Love both of those games (still have my original, and mostly hashed, boxes), but that's not what I'm expecting from TFT. I get that games change and rules evolve, but character progression was one of my favorite aspects of Steve's original design. A 'Conan' may take time to build, but I still want to know that he's a possibility.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

My experience with advancement systems is that players like to have something tangible every 2-3 sessions; the difficulty with classic TFT is that there wasn't an available 'something' other than stat bumps. New TFT has other uses for exp, which helps, but the trouble with assigning high cost to attribute bumps is that you need to spend a lot of sessions without any advancement to afford the actual bump.

I'd be tempted by a prerequisite system for high stats, where you need a certain number of talents/spells from a particular list before you're allowed a higher stat.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

That's true (both points), but I always felt there was a lot of value built into those stat boosts. And character progression was also available in other forms besides XP and stat increases... I really enjoyed creating magic items (or earning funds to pay for custom items if I was a 'hero').

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I agree with that. I like the new XP system but the costs seem too darn low for the first couple of stat increases and too darn high for new 2 or 3 point talents and stat increases after the 6th.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

I think the stat advance progression is unusual but good. Basically, the new rules encourage PCs to undergo a quick blossoming of stats, as they morph from near-normals into gifted but generally unskilled adventurers over the course of a few sessions of play (sort of like an extended DCC 'funnel'), after which the correct move is to sink XP into talents and spells, fleshing out the character's skill set. Once these effectively saturate, XP becomes a mechanism for keeping a Minor Wish in reserve, so your character can survive the occasional bad roll. The idea of a D+D-like indefinite ascent in core stats is not really possible, but I'm down with it.

Edit: I also think the new system contributes an increased feeling of realism (or at least versimilitude). Michael Jordan took a couple of years to blossom from a guy who couldn't make the basketball team to one of the most physically gifted players in the world. This progression in fundamental gifts didn't continue - he never quite reached the point where he could jump up, over and through the hoop. Instead, the next few years saw him develop and refine skills. And then he peaked and experienced a couple of years of great accomplishments and transcendent moments (and some big losses), but you couldn't really say he was improving any element of his abilities or skills over that period. And then age and the rest of the field caught up to him. That is the kind of arc the new TFT experience rules steer you toward (unless you get killed in your first couple of fights, of course).

Re: Conan the wizard
 

There is. Take two equal high-level characters, give one of them one more adjDX than the other, and they can act first and possibly take the other one out before they can do anything, especially if they know a spell which does that, such as Sleep or Freeze.


Yes. Though we both enjoyed this and found it a bit much, even when there was a much flatter XP curve and no limit on attributes. That is, who can kill whom can start to be more about who has the better toys. Now there are no unlimited-power missile spells nor double-damage polearm charges, there are fewer ways to deal with people who stack armor with magic protection.



I like most of the intentions of the character improvement changes, e.g.:

* Reduced "all my stats are great" characters.
* Reduced "I am superhuman" characters.
* Less difference in attributes between the most experienced characters and typical NPCs and starting characters.
* Improvement in talents/spells via XP rather than just attributes.
* Other things you could do with XP besides forever increasing attributes.

But I'm concerned with many of the details:

* Speeding through the fun/tense/challenging lower attribute ranges at 100-200 XP per point.
* XP awards not based on needing to take more risks to earn more XP, combined with the low XP costs for the first 3-4 attributes, offers a clear temptation to do as much danger avoidance as possible and advance to be 35-36 point characters anyway. It could almost seem foolish and unnecessary to try to do anything particularly dangerous until you get to 35-36 points, since it will happen just by showing up for enough sessions.
* The doubling curve gets prohibitive at the high end... seems like a smoother curve that's a bit less ridiculous at the top but a bit more expensive lower would work better.
* The 500 XP fixed cost per talent point is no good as the only way anyone learns any talent, in a system where the supposed average point total is 30 points and attribute gains there cost only 100 XP.
* The 500 XP cost for talent points (and staff spell level upgrades) combined with no other way to learn talents AND free talents on creation gives a huge incentive to take as much IQ as you will want and can get away with at start, and a huge penalty for not doing so. This greatly messes with the previous balance of varied wizard creation choices.
* It no longer feels to me like the character improvement system is meant to be used as a guideline for NPCs and what populations are like.
* The XP system seems only tuned for 32-points and breaks down for giants, reptile men and gargoyles, and a bit for halflings or hobgoblins.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

How about tying lower level Learning New Spells/Talent costs to Total Attribute Points as a way of inspiring purchase of talents at the lower levels.

Instead of 500XP all the time, how about:

"Each new spell or talent learned costs as much as if you were raising your attribute points [or double if the talent is marked (2)] until you reach level 36, at which its 500 XP – or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on. As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard."

But perhaps using this method will only accelerate talent buying when its cheaper?

Re: Conan the wizard
 

Currently there is an overwhelming advantage to buying IQ at start.

So just give a bonus skill point each time a character spends XP to raise IQ. The exponential increase in attribute costs will keep seasoned characters from abusing this while allowing all types of initial character designs to be viable. It simply removes the when of IQ increases from the balance. You can increase IQ at start or during play and you get exactly the same final result and cost.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

IQ is no longer a 'dump stat' for starting heroes. I feel like '10' is the new '8' when it comes to writing up a fresh hero sort of character, almost irrespective of what direction they are going to go. You pay a significant price in initial combat ability, but also have access to the more competent talents and can begin well on your way to the sort of character you want to be.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

TBH, one of most original aspects of TFT was that there never really was a 'dump stat' for any character. Sure, a wizard needs IQ for the best spells, but he is just as dependent on a decent ST and DX to be effective at casting them. The reverse is true for heroes.

Re: Conan the wizard
 

In my experience, most combat-oriented heroes started with IQ 8 or 9 in the old edition, whereas now its pretty tempting to have 9 or 10 or even 11 be typical because of the talents you get access to. ST for wizards feels pretty much unchanged from the original to me: sure, you always want more, but when you first start out that extra point of DX or IQ is much more valuable than 1 extra point of ST. So, wizards with starting ST of 8, 9 or maybe10 seem to be what my players have in mind.