Necropus speculation
 

When we finally see the Necropus in an adventure she will be revealed as:

• An IQ 19 Octopus with a fascinating backstory of where she got the 130 million XPs.
• The IQ 19 Octopus, but the writer didn't do the math.
• A Halfling using 10 ST boosting wishes and a shapeshift.
• An IQ 10 Octopus using a nifty animate skeleton item.
• An IQ 10 Octopus acting as a front for the real necromancers.
• An illusion of an Octopus cast by the real necromancer.
• Something else?

Re: Necropus speculation
 

I'm hoping for:

* Explanation of how non-humans have at least slightly different mechanics for using XP to adjust their attributes, rather than basing everything on the same human-oriented experience table.

The new rules have clear issues with all the characters who don't start at 32 points and who don't max out about 40 points, as well as having information gaps and causing logical inconsistencies for NPCs, gargoyles, dragons, etc.

It seems to me the needed thing is to make corrections, not to apply the letter of the rules and suffer the weird consequences.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

How to get 130 million XP:

Have a complete gaming session each weeknight where you earn 100 XPs.

Meet 250 times a year for 25k XPs a year.

In your day job start construction of Stonehenge and you'll have the 130 million XPs now.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

I very much like how the new XP rules work for humans, but agree the broader implications for other beings either hasn't been thought through or hasn't been explained. A related issue is the difference between PC's and NPCs from exotic races (e.g., reptile men) - it just isn't clear why it exists or how PC's are supposed to evolve to be like their NPC counterparts.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

I have a house rule that works for this case:

The 54 point Octopus is then only 108,000 XPs over a 45 point Octopus. If we add 500 XPs for at least one spell and say 38 mana the total is 116,100 XPs which is only 194 years at 600 XPs per year. Round up to an even two centuries with a handful of additional high level spells.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

It seems to me that the issue, however, is that some races have different proportions of ST to DX to IQ, so using a table that only takes into account attribute total is weirdly charging astronomical XP to increase any attribute based on how amazing a human would be if they had developed super-human abilities. But superhuman ST (for example) is just average for an octopus, giant, reptile man or gargoyle, so unless a race is supposed to have a hard time developing other attributes (e.g. giants, gargoyles), the high-for-humans-but-normal-for-other-races attribute totals shouldn't be making them pay many times more XP to develop themselves.

It seems to me that non-human races with non-32-point-starting-PC's and non-base-8 attributes and/or maximum attributes should have adjustments to the XP needed to improve their attributes, proportional to those values.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

But it ought to be hard for a giant or gargoyle to increase IQ, because otherwise IQ 10 would be common for both.

On the other end of things, what's the max ST for Halfings and how do you make it difficult to get there?

Finally, are Dragons all on the exact same growth schedule of fixed attributes for a given age?

Re: Necropus speculation
 

There is a good system to be crafted somewhere in there; it shouldn't be hard to engineer something that respects the rights of normal giants to be gigantic, and allows for increases of 8-10 stat points over a normal adventuring life. A simple rule would be to read the XP table as being costs for ADDING stat points equal to the listed thresholds - 32, so everyone is getting better at basically the same rate. And then you sometimes impose some racial maxima (like IQ for ogres and giants). The end result might be unfair to the poor humans (boo hoo!), but life isn't fair.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

The way I house rule it is that giants and dragons simply add ST as they grow up.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

What if attribute costs were not based on total sum of attributes, but the current attribute value, and whether that attribute is favored (1/2 XP cost), disfavored (double XP cost) or neutral for that species/individual? So for example, reptilemen could gain ST easily but IQ slowly; hobbits gain DX easily but ST slowly, etc.

To illustrate the idea, on the current rules, the following 40pt PCs cost more or less the same (8300XP for humans, 8500XP for hobbits)
ST14 DX14 IQ12 human -- balanced human
ST10 DX18 IQ12 human -- superhuman DX human
ST10 DX18 IQ12 halfling -- quick hobbit
ST14 DX14 IQ12 halfling -- muscle hobbit

Under the proposed system, a 10/18/12 human costs more XP than a "balanced" 14/14/12 human (the DX is 10 points rather than 6 above baseline). Because hobbits get DX at 1/2 cost and ST at 2x, a hobbit with high DX is cheaper than one with high ST, and cheaper than a human with the same high DX.

The XP table on p45 would have to be changed to reflect attribute difference from a baseline. Haven't thought that through yet.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

Thanks to the exponential attribute costs in the new TFT, treating Halfling ST increases as if their attribute totals were 2 higher quadruples the XP costs. Then if they advance the other two at normal cost they will always be two ST below human at the same state of advance.

Re: Necropus speculation
 

Right, that's why I wrote "unless a race is supposed to have a hard time developing other attributes (e.g. giants, gargoyles)".


There's no defined maximum, but a GM can define one. My suggestion above is about making them proportional to the relative difficulty. i.e. One simple way is to modify the costs for each non-human-like attribute for each race. The most basic version would be a straight multiplier/divisor, but personally I might give it a little more thought.

As a starting point I'd use basic proportions, but the question becomes what values do you want to equate proportionally. Because humans have no stated maximum attribute values, though their effective maximum is about 24. I tend to think there are _many_ more IQ 10 giants and gargoyles than there are IQ 24 humans, so I wouldn't make those proportional. Instead I'd make the proportion to the description, i.e.:

Giant IQ ranges from 7 to 10 (described as "genius").
Gargoyle IQ ranges from 8 to 10 (described as "brilliant").

For Humans, there are no such adjectives used, and the meaning of IQ section in new ITL is not really updated from the original. IQ 14 is the max prereq for any Talent... I tend to think that an IQ 10 giant or gargoyle corresponds to about maybe IQ 16 in terms of how remarkable/common it is.

So I'd try to make the costs for raising a max-IQ-10 race's IQ to 10, proportional to raising a human IQ from 8 to 16.

That's especially easy if, like me, you house rule that something like Steve's original XP proposal is what you use (where costs scale per individual attribute). If you want to stick to attribute totals as the basis for XP cost for raising an attribute, then you can assign weights to each attribute.

Use the race's minimum value for each attribute as the zero point for comparison, not zero itself.

A giant's IQ ranges from 7 to 10, or 4 possible values.
A gargoyle's IQ range is 8 to 10, or 3.
Above I chose to say a Human range was equivalent of 8 to 16, or 9.

So using basic proportional math, that gives us:

Giant IQ has a weight of 9/4, or 2.25. That implies a starting suggestion that giant IQ be weighted about 2.25x compared to humans.

Gargoyle IQ has a weight of 9/3, or 3.

Giant ST ranges from 25 to 40, a range of 16 improvement points above their minimum. So proportionally the factor would be 9/16, or about half.

Giant DX is either 9 or 10, a range of 2, suggesting a weight of 9/2, or 4.5.

For GMs who can't stand decimals, or who don't like the numbers they get, they could fudge the proportions up or down, but the basic idea is the proportion should be something like the differences in the attributes compared to humans.

For example, a GM might say that Giant attribute weights are simply:
ST: half
DX: 4x
IQ: 3x
So those would be the adjustments to the XP costs for a starting giant compared to the XP costs for humans. It would also be the weight of those attributes for purposes of buying the next attribute point.

The starting point for a non-human PC is another GM choice - the more human-like races seem to start as above-average members, like humans do. But some of the new entries start powerful races off at 32 points for some reason, which seems to mean a juvenile, so the GM would (I'd think) want to account for that, I would think by setting the 32-point point to the average for the race, unless he wants the race to develop more slowly.

Which brings us to another unanswered question, being what rate different races typically develop at, which would tend to be another factor. In original ITL, it was half-rate for certain powerful races such as Reptile Men.

But I see it's probably more math than most TFT players want to do. I guess I should do the math at some point when I have more time, and post a proposed house rule.


Good question, a version of which was run by Steve and he didn't have an answer at that point (how old dragons of different sizes would be).

It seems to me like another case where we get various versions of stats for the same race at different levels of development.

ITL actually just says they "come in different sizes" and lists examples. So in theory it might not even be age that determines size, and the stats could just be one suggestion, too.

There were a couple of articles people published in Interplay with suggested dragon variants including a point system for dragons getting to distribute their points on various stats besides attributes, which was interesting.

I would assume that dragons mainly grow with age, that it takes a very long time to become very large, and that each individual dragon also can have varied attributes, talents and stats, but that age would be the one that gives them their size which in turn gives them at least some minimum ST, MA, and damage. Gaming out 100 years of XP rewards would be extreme, so maybe it's more like minimums per age, with extra options available on top of that, with more points based on the lifestyle/experience they had over that time. (Again, perhaps something like that second Interplay article.)

Re: Necropus speculation
 

Okay, starting the write up for Curse of the Necropus online adventure.

Warning: This is a lot more storytelling than Safari so the PC is defined down to the last silver piece before play starts, with a very plot relevant backstory.