Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

Hi all,
This thread makes certain assumptions.

-- While the memory for wizards is fine, memory for heroes is too little.
-- We would like to have some cool talents for heroes. (Steve is working on this. Thanks!!!)
-- Wizards get all the breaks compared to wizards and something should be done to equalize things.

And I would like to make a special nod to what JLV posted in another thread...

Unless I am misremembering, he has had a long running campaign where there are no memory limits, and talents and spells are bought for experience (XP). These costs are high enough that people get new spells / talents slowly. This gets rid of the mIQ economy, but has one problem, discussed later.

***
FIRST POINT

Let us think about new TFT, with the current rules (memory IQ (mIQ) is strictly limited). We want to make a high DX, high ST tank. Assuming that you can pick your IQ worth of mIQ for starting talents, we might have a guy that looks like this:

Groo the Wanderer, ST 12, DX 12, IQ 8. Skills: Sword, Knife, Brawling, Shield, Running, & Horsemanship. mIQ spent = 8.

We decide that Groo is a dumb fighter and gleefully buy up his ST and DX while leaving his IQ low. Lots of 'Groo is dumb' and 'cheese dip' jokes.

Eventually Groo becomes:
Groo the Wanderer, ST 16, DX 16, IQ 8. Skills: Sword, Knife, Brawling, Shield, Running, & Horsemanship. mIQ spent = 8.

What does Groo spend experience on now? Wizards can put attributes into raising their Staff's mana attribute. But Groo is done. He can't spend any more experience.

This is an extreme example. But it can come up quite quickly for low IQ figures.

In the new TFT, using the current, strict, mIQ rules, characters can max out and have no legal places to spend experience on.

I am bothered by that. If wizards are able to spend extra experience for their staves, it would be nice if heroes could spend experience on something (call it the X factor) other than just talents and attributes. Heck, given that theme that wizards get all the breaks, I wouldn't even mind if wizards can spend experience on the X factor as well.)

EDIT: I remember that Groo can buy some Karma to get out of a bad situation. But my understanding is that you can only get a bit of Karma at a time.

Warm regards, Rick.

Re: Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

I agree that I don't want a "memory cap." It's fine as a way of limiting and defining beginning characters but in a long running campaign it should be possible to go beyond these restrictions without necessarily raising IQ.

There are various ways to do this. I split attributes into their component parts (based on the David Dunham article in Different Worlds magazine that I mentioned in another thread). This solved the problem for me. Characters could use XP to increase their "Knowledge" stat, allowing them to buy new Talents without changing other attributes. But you could keep the 3 attributes and allow direct purchase of Talents with XP. To me, this is a bit less elegant but does work.

As to what the Hero can spend XP on? I agree some advanced combat Talents would be nice, as long as they are well balanced and fit the system. A certain amount of Attribute increase is also fine. But I think Karma/Luck/Fate points would be a useful spend for a Hero. After all what's a Hero without luck: a dead Hero!

So I think between extra Talents, Attribute increase and Fate points there will be enough for a Hero to spend XP on.

(PS. Rick, if you'd like to see a copy of that article by David Dunham, send me your email and I'll forward you a copy.)

Regards. Chris

Re: Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

What about this?

• Characters start with IQ points for talents and spells
• Characters can only have a number of spells equal to their IQ
• Characters can spend XP for more talents (no limitations)

What's that killer problem?

Re: Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

SECOND POINT:

To cast a spell you have to pay it's cost. This cost is measured in fatigue ST (fST) for all spells (except the Death spell which you pay in ST damage).

IMHO these costs are pretty good. Each spell is an independent little package, it gives you a benefit, and the appropriate cost is built in.

But with talents, there is no cost for using the talent. So the old TFT prevented you from buying all of them by the amount of mIQ they took up.

This is weird. Really quite strange. If I learn how to ride a Horse and I'm IQ 10, then I've filled up 1/10 of all I can learn???

It is not the only way to do things. Many RPG's allow you to master many skills. Let us look at Serenity RPG. Given enough time, what stops you from mastering every skill in the game? Nothing. Except time. It take time (a lot of it) to gain the experience to raise these skills from a d4 to a d12. If you are tracking game time, the character would get old and die before all talents were maxed out. And if you are in dangerous adventures, you are very likely to die first.

As a nod to JLV, he has run a TFT game with this mechanic. Steve was thinking about doing this a while ago... I was shocked but got used to the idea. But Steve changed his mind back.

Now TFT (even using this no memory system) is more restrictive than Serenity, because of attribute prerequisites. In TFT, some talents require a high IQ, others a high ST and others a high DX. With the absolute attribute limit, TFT is more restrictive than Serenity - you can't get all TFT talents, in Serenity you could.

But Steve wants to apply an additional cost to talents. What can this cost be?
It can't be fST. So it has to be... ?

-- It could be learning time.
-- It could be XP needed to buy it.
-- It could be prerequisites. (Example the long lines of dull spells in GURPS magic before you get to the cool ones.)

But the key cost for talents is memory.

This is the solution to the killer problem mentioned above. If you have awesome talents, which everyone would like, you need to have a non-trivial cost to keep them exclusive.

Re: Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

THIRD POINT:

The decision to use mIQ as a gate keeper of how many talents you can learn is kind of a strange one, but it can work, so long as you have room to have a good number of talents. People want to eventually get capable characters with a realistic number of talents.

Being a precious resource you need to be able to forget talents you don't want, and other strangeness.

I've written else where that I think that the memory is too short, especially for heroes. Wizards get a decent number of spells. But spells are strange things. Who the heck knows how much room they take up in your mind? Can an IQ 10 person really only learn 10 spells? Why not, who knows? The system worked in the micro game wizard, so Steve used the idea for talents. But in my opinion he made the talents too expensive

Now talents map to skills in the real world. We know highly skilled people who have done multiple jobs, with many skills, & who know several languages. Read biographies of interesting, successful people and then think about what TFT talents should they have.

My opinion is that if talents cost about 1/2 as much as they do in old TFT, things would be better. A long time ago, I decided talents were too expensive, so I reduced their prices. But how do you reduce the price of a 1 point talent like Swimming?

I have 1/2 mIQ talents in my campaign and no one has complained. But Steve really dislikes the idea, so I'll leave it to him to find some solution which works for him.

Re: Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

FOURTH POINT:

David Bofinger has argued that we would like to avoid high attribute limits for talent prerequisites. To (over) simplify his argument, this forces characters into narrow patterns. The current version of UC v requires a high DX. But what about a character with a lower DX and this talent. Wouldn't it be fun to have a someone who knows the skill, but actually fails 1/3 the time?

This is worse in the new TFT with very, very tight attribute limits. If you want a UC expert you must have precisely these attributes with small variation. This makes all martial artist seem 'samey'.

(Likewise the high memory cost means that if you have UC v, you have darn few mIQ to spend elsewhere. This makes all martial artists seem 'samey'.)

But we would like to make powerful talents hard to get. We would prefer to make it so that beginning characters can't get the kick butt talents right off the start. So we need some clever design to make this work they way we want.

***

These four points summarize the key interlocking problems facing TFT design. I'm going to talk about solutions in later posts.

Warm regards, Rick.

Ways to gate keep powerful talents.
 

David suggests we would like to avoid high attribute prerequisites for talents if possible. What else is there? (These ideas are from many people.)

-- Time in game spent doing something. (e.g. 2 game years in the army.)

-- Talent prerequisites.

-- Equipment limitations. (UC v is less attractive if you like to wear half plate.)

-- Attribute total. (You must have 35+ attributes to buy this. Gamey, but simple.)

-- Attributes with boolean gates: ("Running requires ST above average for your race, or a DX 11+.") (Still uses attributes but gives more character variety.)

-- Look at Lowest, Middle or Highest attributes: (Charisma requires the Lowest attribute to be 10+.)

-- Costs Karma. To gain the Luck (0.5) talent, requires the sacrifice of 3 Karma points.

-- Memory cost. This talent fills up your brain bad.

-- Sacrifice of magical in game resource. "To learn Astral Awareness (0) talent, you must sacrifice a Greater Wish and 500 XP."

I'll add more as I think of them or as I see suggestions by others.

Re: Costs of spells and talents - requirements.
 

Some other costs:

• Attack drawbacks
  • Minus to an attribute when using the talent (like kick for lower UC talents)
  • Cannot attack this turn
• Defense drawbacks (Using this cool ability creates an opening)
  • Increases damage taken
  • Increases chance to be hit (+ to attacker's DX or increase rear / side hexes)
  • Cannot defend or dodge next turn

Talents which INCLUDE each other.
 

This post will suggest ways to lower the mIQ cost for series of talents.

Notice that series of spells fit into one mIQ. (e.g. 7 hex shadow, includes 3 hex shadow, which includes 1 hex shadow.)

Let us consider the idea that talents work the same way. So if a talent includes another talent, they both fit in the same memory slot(s). If the better, higher IQ talent requires more memory, then the mIQ difference must be paid when upgrading. The XP cost to buy does NOT get a reduction for the lower talents. (This represents the time to learn the improved talent.)

An example:

IQ 9 .. Acolyte (0.5) ...

IQ 11 .. Priest (1), Includes Acolyte. ...

IQ 14 .. Theologian (2), Includes Priest. ...

So if you only know Acolyte, it costs you 1/2 of a mIQ. When you get Priest, you now know both and they fit into 1 mIQ. (You must pay 1 XP block to upgrade.) And when you finally gain Theologian, all three talents fit into 2 mIQ. (You must pay 2 XP blocks to upgrade.)


***
If you want to have a high mIQ as the gate, you can do this...

IQ 14 .. IQ Unarmed Combat v (11), Includes UC iv. ...

Here the designer does not want to have ANY savings. By darn this talent is awesome, and it is going to take those 11 mIQ to learn.

***
On the other hand, a higher level talent might give a small bonus. So you could do this...

IQ 10 Trained Will i (2) Basic mental defence vs. mental attacks, battle of wills, and psionics ...

IQ 16 Trained Will ii (2), Includes Trained Will i. Advanced mental defence vs. ...

In this case the designer does not want the higher talent to take more memory points, but it will give a bonus as a reward for the higher IQ. It would still require 2 XP blocks to buy the talent.

***

Consider this series of talents:
IQ 9 .. Awesome Fighter one (4)
IQ 11 .. Awesome Fighter two (4), Includes Awesome Fighter one.
IQ 13 .. Awesome Fighter three (4), Includes Awesome Fighter two.

Compared with these:

IQ 9 .. Awesome Thief one (1)
IQ 11 .. Awesome Thief two (1), Includes Awesome Thief one.
IQ 13 .. Awesome Thief three (4), Includes Awesome Thief two.

Both require the same mIQ footprint for the final talent, but the first is much more expensive to buy. It costs 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 XP blocks to learn. The second costs 1 + 1 + 4 = 6 XP blocks to learn. Even tho both series eventually fill same number of mIQ slots, the designer has the ability to make some talent series easier to learn than others.

***

For completeness, there is another form of talent...

IQ 9 .. Missile Weapons (1+) (From 1 to 3 mIQ can be spent on this talent.) ...

or

IQ 11 .. Tactics (1+) ... +1 to initiative .. For every mIQ spent on this, you gain +3 IQ in Tactics contests vs. other commanders with Tactics. ...

This would be an inexpensive way (in terms of column inches), to allow characters to specialize more. Someone with Tactics (4) is a better commander than someone with Tactics (1), even tho they both get only a +1 initiative.

***

The system suggested above would be consistent, and give the designer much more flexibility to manage how talents relate to each other, and their final mIQ costs of the series of talents.

Warm regards, Rick.

Zot has new costs for talents.
 

Hi Zot,
I had a hard time at first following what you were suggesting. If I understand you correctly, we might make a talent like this.

IQ 11 .. Attack of Awesome Damage (0) Requires 1 year training at a suitable academy and 300 XP. You may declare a SMASH attack doing +2 damage with a one handed weapon or +5 damage with a two handed weapon. For the rest of the turn Melee attacks from adjacent figures get +3 DX to hit you.

Is this the sort of thing you were thinking of? The cost of the talent is baked into how it is used.

Warm regards, Rick.