[DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

DF seems to be about optimizing points and one thing I think is strange is that the original templates wouldn't have the various Talents suitable for their classes right from the start. Theyy run about 5 points per level and can be bought up to 4 levels so it seems that any class would automatically buy the maximum Talent level possible even before he buys attributes or skills. The Talents are so much cheaper than learning individual skills or increasing attributes. So for this reason I think it would be interesting to see what the Standard Templates would be if the Talents were included to optimize the points.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

chi talent is 15/lvl. which would cost the player 60pts!

sure that is cheaper than spending 112+pts in the seven skills the template ask for you to choose, but I would rather spend 40 of those points in DX.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Yeah the buying of attributes is the cheapest way to go but it sort of goes against the whole niche protection thing. I mean DX increase helps you with everything not just skills for martial artists but also thief skills, knight skills and just about any physical skill.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

While the class templates are generally pretty optimized for what they're meant to do, leading a large number of a certain type of noobs to want to use them for non-DF, I would hesitate to say that's what DF is about...

Several of the standard templates do use Talents to optimize points, when it is actually optimal for their niche to do so. The Barbarian, for example, has Outdoorsman maxed out right from the gate, and the Knight has two levels of Born War Leader. The Scout and Holy Warrior get half of those, respectively, and the Artificer gets four levels in a custom "do what the Artificer does" Talent of his very own. The Thief gets a bunch of non-Talent advantages that add to his iconic skills.

What other classes would you like to see get Talents, and which Talents would you use?

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I've offered Knight characters a "Master of Arms" talent that applied to all melee weapons, shields, and unarmed combat for 10 points/level. Helps keep them out of the Swashbuckler/Thief niche.

Chi talent is good because about half the skills it covers aren't even DX skills.

Most of the other templates got their own talents in Powerups: Close to [Earth/Heaven/Hell] for Druids/Clerics/Evil Clerics, Allure and Craftiness for Bards and Thieves, Mr. Smash for Barbarians, etc.

Swashbucklers are the only people I can think of without a talent (well, other than Knights, see above) and I can't think of a good one for them.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

And let's not forget the Magery for spellcasters...

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

In the case of the Thief, I agree. The Thief in DF1 is very weak (in my opinion). The advantages are way over-priced, and the Thief's combat usefulness is over after that first sneak attack, which often ends him up in hot water behind enemy lines in any case.
The Craftiness talent from power-ups makes a big difference, and represents a big cost savings in the long term. I recommend offering it to starting Thieves.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I just don't know why there wouldn't be something like a Knight talent that include the skills under the wildcard skill Knight!. The same would be true og all the classes. And they should be maxed out at 4 levels to optimise point value.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

And why not just call Craftiness the Thief talent instead. It would be easier to remember and would include the skills that are a thief specializes in.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I thin k Magery is the least fair talent because it boosts all spells and spells are basically magic powered skills. It is sort of like having Awesome as a talent where you get to add a bonus to every skill you have cheaply. And you have no limit as to how many levels you can purchase unlike the other talents.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I'm not entirely sure you realise what "optimise" means. Yes four levels of a talent will likely get you the most bang for your buck, but that doesn't mean its optimised. If you only need one or two skills in the talent raised, whilst the others in the talent are just flavourful extras, infrequently used or simply don't require excessive skill level, then you're buying extra levels of that talent needlessly.

If you want to have a talent which has everything under the suggest wildcard skills, and focus towards maximising that talent before improving base stats and buying up skill levels... well then why are you not just using wildcard skills instead? What you're effectively doing is maintaining a very flat level of competency across all skills that are 'core' to your class, which wildcard skills handle easily.

Of cause I find that kind of play very bland, as distinguishing between characters becomes that much harder when all members of a profession perform identically in every task that profession could excel at. Although if your goal is that of an MMO styled class based system then perhaps this ensures your players don't mess up buying skills and can predict their foes capabilities once they've discerned their profession.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Couldn't you buy some skills that fall under your talent for 1 point and other skills at DX or DX+1, DX +2 and so on? That way you could customize your PC and not all of the skill would be the same level like with the wildcard skill.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Because Talents aren't just banch of skills which one likes to be together. They are consistent advantages with benefits being provided by their description as natural ability to some naturally close activities, not activities in one artificial field like Animal Handling (Equines), Lance and Tactics. This is the field of Wildcards which are the other side of Talents.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

But talents could represent training in a particular class. A ranger may learn hunting, tracking, bow, sword, silence etc. because he has undergone training as a ranger.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

There's nothing forbidding you to do so in your own game. But on the other hand GURPS is more than just DF, even if you do find DF awesome, so the name if the Talent needs to be somewhat generic.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Here is how I would fix Magery. I would say that the Wizard talent adds to spell skill levels and Thaumatology and Alchemy. This can be bought up to 4 levels just like other talents. Magery is just the power level for spells like fireball and lightning bolt and each level adds to the damage a wizard can do. But when Wizard talent is capped at 4 levels then even a wizard with high levels of Magery only can have a 4 point edge to skills due to talent. This makes it more fair fot thieves who also have a cap on their talent and that means a wizard with Lockmaster will not overshadow the thiefs Lockpicking skill. And the thief would be better because he can pick locks in a no mana zone .

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Honestly, if I did these, I'd make them really deliberate, but very tight, point crocks, based more on lenses than anything else.

So the Ranger gets his bonuses to Tracking, Stealth, Survival, Bow, and Camouflage while a Sharpshooter talent gives bonuses to Stealth, Bow, Fast-Draw, and Armoury (Bows). Just for example.

Then I'd restrict you to one of these talents. No Ranger/Sharpshooters or Cat Burglar/Assassins. Or say they don't add to each other, so you only get to best bonus from your various talents - like the idea on Power Ups 3 pg. 14 in the box.

That would mean you could get more specialization of the "classes" if you like that kind of thing. It doesn't matter if it's especially balanced if it further encourages niche specialization and makes characters a bit different. IMO.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I agree with you on this. I think that the idea of classes gives you an edge on the skill set you were trained with while other skills you learn just like a person without a class. Having a very specific skill set is also useful because your PC fits well into the concept you want. Rangers and sharpshoters are almost the same but aperson choosi g one or the other gets exactly what he wants.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Another thing having something like this could help would be with specialization of wizard types. A demonologist might instead have demonologist talent that he could learn up to 4 levels. So the demonologist would have IQ 15 and could have demonologist talent to boost his skill to 19 for casting demonologist spells. But maybe he could learn other spells based on his IQ 15. He woulld be less powerful with other magic but he could learn a few other spells. This way he specializes in certain spells which he can learn at a higher skill level because of his training but he could also learn a few other spells as well. In my experience there are alwayss players who want to learn a spell that is not on the list and with this concept he can do so but with no skill bonus.

The same could be true of other specialist wizards, that way they are focused on what they are trained in but still can learn a few general spells.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

You could even have racial talents. Say Dwarf talent might include some skill bonus to direction under ground, axe/pick combat, fighting goblin-kin, metalurgy, armory, etc. This way the dwarf might be it's own class just like in the old school days. These abilities woud be the result of the training they recieve in their dwarven culture.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Isn't that what Pickaxe Penchant and the like are supposed to be?

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Why DX? The martial artist already has great DX -- it's his other scores that need the help. The whole idea behind Chi Talent is that you can buy Chi Talent 4 [60] instead of having to buy IQ +4 [80] and HT +4 [40] for twice the cost, and then it also boosts the DX-based chi skills and the chi powers as well.

It's actually the best deal in DF as far as Talents, IMO.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

That fix isn't all together that different from how Magery works already, in fact if anything its adding more egg to the mix for free. Magery in DF is already limited to 6 levels, and its not unheard of for other worked examples to reduce it to 4 levels or less. That is one of the great things about GURPS, the ability to place caps on traits to ensure they remain within the bounds of the setting.

I quite like this idea, I'm not sure I'd find much need for it myself - but I'd consider it for specialised schools which either taught professions with a very narrow focus on one style - or as specialised training for a mastery of the arts.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Why should the wizard get to add 6 to his skill roll to the Lockmaster spell from Magery while the thief has nothing? This makes the thief pretty pathetic in comparison. The only time he is useful is when the DM hoses the wizard with a no mana zone or a meteroric lock.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Things are not that simple. As PK said, Chi Talent is the best deal in DF and is worthy of each CP. Is it costly? Costly as hell. But to me, the whole point of playing a Martial Artist is to make extensive use of all Chi Skills, and they are DX, IQ, HT, Will and Per-based. There's not a single non-usefull chi-skill.

Yet, anyone can have Chi Talent 4, as long as they have the Martial Artist lenses. But only Martial Artists can reach Chi Talent 6. Ok, that's 90 points, but that means +6 on all Chi Skills and Chi imbuements, since they're also Martial Artist power-ups.

And Chi Talent also works for Chi powered advantages... But honestly I don't know which chi-power advantage receive your Chi Talent bonus.

Would that stack with racial talent, Forest Guard? That would make Ranger elves uber-archers.

EDIT: By the way, I've said in this forum that Martial Artists really should have an official Talent in their new Power-ups (in DF 11) that includes Karate, Judo, Acrobatics and other two skills (maybe Jumping and another skill). And Kromm agreed.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I was saying that you could reduce the maximum level of Magery if you wanted without giving it anything else extra - plenty of other things are limited, like basic attributes are capped at 20 (+/- racial modifications and +5 in case of profession based exception).

Of cause, I banned the Lockmaster spell in my DF game for precisely that reason, it overshadows the thieves main skill set too heavily. I replaced it with a more personal utility spell called Passlock, which allows the caster (and only the caster) to appear on the other side of a locked door (well technically any door locked or not which has a key hole you can see through). This leaves the wizard in a bit of bother should they jump through to a room full of traps/hostiles, but also allows them to gain access to rooms which a thief cant unlock or isn't around to unlock.

It also prevents them from unlocking chests - which is something I also had a qualm with, as stealing loot that has been locked away is the thieves job. If you don't have one or they can't unlock it, then you smash it open and risk damaging the contents, you do not get a free pass with magic.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I feel that with each class having its own talent list the game becomes truer to the original concept of D&D. The class becomes more important and this allows the attributes to be able to be reduced. This way a Knight can have high skill in weapon and other combat skills but otherwise does not have exceptionally high DX. Thus the Knight would not be very good at other DX skills outside of his class but would be very good at his class skills. Sometimes from a point maximization standpoint it is better jusr to put a buncho of points in an attributetattribute than to put into individual skills. Talents seem to compensate for this to some degree.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I just have Low and No Mana zones, and the occasional Meteoric Iron lock.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Regarding the Martial Artist's Chi Talent, I don't think it's as good a deal as it's being put forward here.

First off, it doesn't do very much as their power talent. It adds to Danger Sense, if you take that, but that's not worth very much. Other than that, it doesn't do very much at all in that regard.


Second, its bonus to skills. For one thing, the starting Martial Artist only gets seven chi skills to start with, and each one only has two points spent on it. You could put two more points into each of those and get the same thing for about the same cost (fourteen versus fifteen points).

Also, the skills themselves aren't each equally useful. Look at these two sample selections:


Selection #1
Autohypnosis
Esoteric Medicine
Blind Fighting
Mind Block
Pressure Points
Immovable Stance
Push

Selection #2
Throwing Art
Mental Strength
Light Walk
Power Blow
Flying Leap
Kiai
Breath Control


The usefulness of those two selections is not the same. If you want to focus on the skills in Selection #1, then you should probably pay a different amount for skill increases than if you want to focus on the skills from Selection #2.


It's also the case that the chi skills are of varying usefulness at different skill levels. Mind Block at 13 isn't very useful. Mind Block itself isn't very useful when compared to Mental Strength or Will.

Each level of a skill isn't worth the same amount. You need to have Power Blow at a high level if you want to use it. Body Control wants a higher level than your HT score. The ones that are more useful---Throwing Art and Light Walk--are both DX-based, which the Martial Artist already has at a high level, and are both useful from the start. You can get one of the best ranged weapon skills in the game.

And you can add other skills after character creation, to purchase all of them, but the person making a Martial Artist will take the seven skills they find most useful to start, and so each additional skill is worth less to them.

I'm just not sure how Chi Talent is supposed to be worth more than a level of Will + a level of HT, which covers most of those skills that aren't already at high levels from the Martial Artist's DX. Or you could do a level of Per + a level of Will + a 5-point Talent (which could include those other skills).

This is the same problem the Barbarian faces. If Outdoorsman didn't have Fishing, it would be a 5-point/level Talent. And you could use those other five points to raise Per, which... raises Fishing. You're paying five extra points a level to raise Fishing. If it wasn't even in the Talent, it would only cost 4/level to raise.


There are seventeen skills in Chi Talent. You're paying five more points for the five worst skills on the list, whichever you consider those to be.

I don't see any reason not to allow them to have a 10/level Talent where they pick twelve that they want, with the option of upgrading to the full 15/level version.

Or even a six skill version for 5/level. They only start with seven chi skills! Right off the bat, they're paying a ton of points for increases in skills that they don't even have. They're paying a ton of points for potential increases later on to skills that, in character creation, they thought were worse than their top seven!

If I make a Martial Artist, how many more of those Chi skills am I actually going to want? If I don't take Autohypnosis and Esoteric Medicine and I don't want to sink points into Power Blow, then that's three skills right there that I might never take, yet that I'm still paying points for as part of Chi Talent. Add a few more in there that I never want, and we're already down to a 10/level Talent. Parry Missile Weapons is way overpriced, my concept doesn't call for Kiai, I didn't take Power Blow so I can't get Flying Leap, and now I'm only using eleven of the potential seventeen Chi skills.


So, while it is significantly less costly to purchase Chi Mastery than to get an equivalent increase in skill levels to those skills from some other means, it's not as effective as it could be if you only want six or fewer or twelve or fewer of those skills. Compare it to Ninja Talent, or the Strong Chi talent from Power-Ups 3. The Martial Artist doesn't have an option for raising a small number of skills like that. It's all or nothing, but I don't think anyone values all seventeen of those Chi skills equally.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

There are other problem spells than Lockmaster. What about a Scout trying to follow a trail? The wizard can do that with a spell with higher skill. What about fast talk or social skills? Magic spells have an edge because Magery adds onto the spell skill level. But if the mundane PCs can a talent add onto their skills too then it becomes more even and then the mundane PC has an edge in no or low mana zones.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Who are paying 5/level for their "class" talent and 5/level for their racial talent instead of 4/level for Bow? I'd say sure, be my guest.

The only issue for me is, Ranger (as I suggested it) has a serious overlap with Forest Guard, so the idea in Power Ups suggests that you shouldn't be able to get levels of both. You should just buy that up instead.

Most of the racial talents that duplicate these "class talents" are kind of like that - "elf scout" is probably a good subcategory of its own. They'll come out differently than a human scout anyway, so you don't need to throw talents at them to make them better.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Yes. And in GURPS, you're supposed to represent ranger training by putting actual CPs into each of those skills that ranger training consists of.

The RAW claims that Talents are meant for only those things that people can be born with natural aptitudes for, but even the examples in the core books make it clear that we're not supposed to take it seriously.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Yes it is. That's exactly what it is.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

At least in the case of the Barbarian, the Outdoorsman Talent is there specifically so that he can "get by" with an average'ish IQ, since (IIRC) many of the skills covered by Outdoorsman are IQ-based.

So in that case, the cheap Talent is there to make a character concept feasible, that of "not bright at all, but savvy in the outdoors, albeit primarily a strong warrior".

The Thief's (pseudo-)Talent, High Manual Dexterity, instead covers the template's main schtick, (many) thiefly non-combat skills, but note that it's not one of the cheap 5 CP Talents. It's also one of the Talents in GURPS that makes the most sense, in terms of something a person can actually be born with, as in genetic aptitude.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I don't think Magery is the issue here, but Magic itself. In cases like Lockmaster, a spell is functioning as a Complementary Skill (ie, roll at no penalty to give a bonus to another skill check) except that instead of giving +1 on success and -1 on failure, it gives +6 on success and no penalty on failure - and it can be tried again until it succeeds, at the cost of FP. A wizard only needs skill 12 or so to consistently benefit from Lockmaster, meaning for a point or two in a spell (even without Magery) he saves up to 24 cp in Lockpicking.

I agree with PseudoFenton that this particular spell should be limited or altered. But it works as an example of other niche-invading spells. The problem isn't that a Wizard can buy an extra 2 levels of Magery, the problem is that many spells are wildly inappropriate for Dungeon Fantasy.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

What makes you think the Thief gets nothing? The Thief gets both Flexibility and High Manual Dexterity, which combined give skill bonuses to Climbing, Escape, Erotic Art, Artist, Jeweler, Knot-Tying, Leatherworking, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Sewing, Sleight of Hand, and Surgery. That covers a large chunk of the Thief's core skills; pretty much all of them in fact. Yeah, they're not called a "Talent" in name, but the end result is very similar.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I don't mind if a wizard can use a Lockmaster spell as long as it is at a low skill level while the thief is the expert with a high skill level. The wizard having some way to unlock ordinary locks is not much problem but I feel if there is a really tough lock he needs to call the thief.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

This is one place where it's obvious how many options there are that could be applied to the magical spells, and where the reasoning behind the decisions that were made isn't obvious.

What if Lockmaster got two or three times the penalty from locks that the Lockpicking skill gets? What if it took ten minutes to cast instead of ten seconds? What if it cost ten energy to cast?

Any of those changes would make a big difference in how the spell is used. So why is it like it is, rather than how it could be?

Why not have a base spell: Three times the Lockpicking penalty, with a ten minute casting time, with a base cost of two energy? And then give the option of removing the penalty or reducing the casting time with additional energy?

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

That's Locksmith (Magic p. 143), not Lockmaster (Magic p. 144).

Lockmaster just picks the lock magically, at a penalty to cast equal to any difficulty penalty of the lock. Cost 3, 10 seconds to cast - that's pretty trivial for even a base-template Wizard (IQ 15, Magery 3 for a 15 for 1 point). That's a 15 or less for standard locks, and 50/50 on even pretty hard ones.

It's easy to get, too - Magery 2 and Apportation, and Apportation has no other spell prereqs (and it's damn useful in a dungeon!) Having a wizard with it, plus guys with Forced Entry and crowbars, has made a thief superfluous to my current group. They have two Scouts, too, in case you start saying "What about Traps?" - Scouts are plenty good at dealing with them right out of the box.

NMZs are an answer, but if you need to put up an NMZ on all the "hard" doors to make one template useful, I think the answer might be that the template needs some beefing up!

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Ah, I stand corrected. I was commenting based on the context of the thread, but didn't look up the spell again myself. Serves me right for assuming. I think my point still stands for Locksmith though.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

How is the wizard invading other character's turf and rendering them irrelevant not genre-appropriate to dungeon fantasy? It happened all the time in the games that are being emulated.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

In Dungeons & Dragons, at least, there was a limit to how often those spells could be cast, and when they could be cast. You didn't get those niche-destroying spells until higher levels, and even then you couldn't cast them a hundred times a day. All the DM would need to do in D&D is put lots of locks everywhere.


One thing I've considered doing to sort-of emulate this is remove the high-skill cost reductions and replace them with a rule similar to what's used for Imbuements: you can take a -5 to skill for each 1 point in energy reduction. And then add on top of that a rule that says when you fail to cast a spell that attempts such a reduction, you lose FP equal to the full energy cost.

That would keep them from casting the spells so often.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

That's because the "turf" of the Thief or Rogue in AD&D or D&D isn't to pick locks, but to deliver backstabs as often as possible. It doesn't matter whether the locks and traps are dealt with by the Wizard or the Rogue. Locks and traps are very, very tertiary to the important business of attriting the hit points of the opposition as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

GURPS, on the other hand, and this very much includes DF, makes the players of Thief template character spend precious character creation currency on skills to deal with locks and traps.

Also, the root cause of the problem is that GURPS Magic is stupid bad designed.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Why not generalize that, into a Do Skill spell?

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The same approach works in GURPS. Lockmaster has a cost of 3; that means you'd need skill 25?!?!? to cast it for free. By putting locks everywhere the Mage is going to have to make a choice between casting Lockmaster and casting other spells.

To me it just sounds like b-dog needs to work with enforcing the inherent limitations of Magic - the casting time, the energy cost (and subsequent recovery), and the mana requirements. If you move quickly from sneaking into a base, climbing a wall, picking a lock, then combat the Mage may very well be able to do any of those things with Magic but he will have serious trouble doing all of them with Magic. He will need to pick and choose when he casts spells and when he lets the Thief do the lockpicking or the Barbarian do the fighting.

You can also adjust or outright ban spells which you find too conveniently done by standard RAW Magic. If Lockmaster makes it too easy to your taste then adjust Lockmaster to increase the casting time or casting cost or simply ban it outright. There are a great many spells which are banned to Mages; most of them are Healing spells to protect the Cleric's niche, but other spells to protect other niche's are fair game too.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

My usual problem isn't that any one spell is too effective, it's that mages can be effective at too many things for too low a cost. A minimum cost of 2 per spell solves a lot of issues. Basing spells on 10+magery is also tempting.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Yes the thief has only few things he can do well and the wizard can do all of them with spells at a higher level and also do many other things too. This makes the Dungeon Master have put in no mana zones and meteoric locks to give him something to do.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

What would that look like? Would it be a separate spell for each skill?

The main reason would be so that you can price the skills differently. A spell that mimics the Lockpicking skill need not cost the same as a spell that mimics the Skiing, Knot-Tying, or Leatherworking skills.

With Lockpicking, you're always trying to overcome an obstacle placed by another sapient being. That's not true with Leatherworking. Or some spell that mimics, say, the loading part of the Packing skill, that allows you to efficiently Tetrisize loading cargo.

And there is a niche-protection aspect as well. A spell that cheaply mimics the Packing or Leatherworking skill doesn't matter much, since no one's dungeon-delving career is based around those skill. It's not someone's defining characteristic, at least not as Dungeon Fantasy handles things. The idea is to put players into roles the GM sees as useful for dungeon-delving. Having Lockmaster is about the same as having a Swordmaster skill that makes the wizard a better swordsman than the group's swordsman. And that's pretty much the only role the spells in Magic don't directly outshine on purpose.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I will say that for the PCs rarely go through a dungeon at a rapid pace. They tend to be careful and if they are injured or need to regain spell energy they securevthe dungeon doors and rest. So even if a wizard has to spend a couple of magic points to open a lock he has time to regain them before moving onto another difficult encounter.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I have to disagree with you here. It's easy enough to get the spell at skill 20, which reduces the cost to only one energy, which is easy enough to handle. Recovering energy is easy enough that this shouldn't be much of a problem for characters as capable as the wizards in Dungeon Fantasy.

You mention the casting time and the energy requirements, but those aren't different from what the Thief is doing with his skill. In comparison, they're rather generous. Can the Thief pick a lock more quickly than the wizard can in five seconds? The Magelock (Edit: I meant Lockmaster here) spell can be cast from a considerable distance for even a beginning Wizard, while a Thief has to get up close and personal with the lock and all the dangers that entails. That's certainly worth the single energy point (which can be distributed throughout the rest of the party with Lend Energy and Steal Energy).

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I am sort of curious as to why they had Magery add to the spell skill level. I mean a wizard in DF starts out with IQ 15 and if he buys Magery 3 then the base of spell learning is 18. Would a spell skill of 15 have been too low? Even if the spell skill was only 12 or 13 the wizard would have a good chance doing something no other PC can like breath underwater or be immune to fire. If spells like Lockmaster were known at 12 or 13 they would still be useful in a pinch but not be of a higher skill than the expert lock picker the thief.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

That is a spell skill of 15. For Very Hard spells with one point in them. And you get your Hard spells at skill 16--where the rule of 16 begins.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

But mundane PCs have to buy their skills off their IQ or DX with no bonus from Magery. That means they would have 1 point skills of 12 or 13 if their IQ or DX was 15.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Mundane PC have just as much assess to talent's as Mages do, it just an most settings Magery happens to be also required for Mages. There nothing privlaged here.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

This is why I haven't found "it cost fatigue" to really limit the low-cost utility spells. You can limit wizards in other ways, but that has issues:

NMZs? That's overkill, and if they occur so often that the mage can't use his spells to get past doors or other obstacles the correct player reaction is to stop playing wizards at all, not hire a thief.

Meteoric locks? Again, if you use a lot, it's overkill, and smacks a bit of "nerf the wizard." Plus then you need to make lots of invulnerable doors, because a +19 CF on a lock isn't peanuts, and I know my players would hack the lock out of the door to sell it.

Double penalties on Lockmaster? Possible, but then the wizard can't get past the tricky locks, only the easy ones - so the thief isn't much more necessary for easy locks, just for the really tough ones. Or, you could suck up the penalties and cast until you succeed, which isn't that hard or that expensive.

Hard to force doors? Hack a hole through the wall, or bash it down anyway - even the heaviest doors aren't immune to brute force at the DF level.

Take away Lockmaster? Great, the wizard can't unlock doors. ST becomes even more useful, because Lockpicking attempts take a minute . . . and failed attempts require a roll with a penalty.

I mean, b-dog (and I, upthread) just suggest making it cheaper and easier for Thieves (and other archetypes) to be better at their jobs. I find that a more attractive solution. If I could drop points into Cat Burglar Talent (5/level for +1 to Traps, Lockpicking, Stealth, Climbing, and Search), capped eventually at 6 levels (like most DF talents), that would go a long way to making a thief more useful. Sure, the wizard can still spend his point on Lockmaster, but the thief is also much better at all aspects of his job. Other talents for other types can go pretty far in making utility PCs better at their jobs than wizards, without having to nerf the wizard's ability to duplicate their skills.

Plus, like I said upthread, even for warrior types it can make them seem very different from each other - our "ranger" type Scout and "assassin" type scout don't differ that much from each other, but a pool of lens-based talents might really make them differ significantly. I think that could be very cool.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

In any case I can sort of see the futility of trying to make a GURPS Wizard like a D&D wizard. The D&D concept was that the wizard casted big magic and did not mess with lesser goings on of the campaign. A GURPS Wizard casts little magic and that is why he messes with genre protection. In D&D the wizard needed the others PCs to do the little stuff like kill goblins, open locks and heal the party. The wizard was at his best in the big showdown battles where he could unleash his terrible power. But with GURPS this is reversed and the wizard does a lot of the skills the other PCs also do but he is not dominant figure in epic combat. I still forget this.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The only thing I would suggest is that the talent and the class are the same. So for a Cat Burglar class I would suggest the Cat Burglar talent because it is difficult to keep things straight, at least for me. I mean there is Craftiness for the Thief but if it were called the Thief talent it would be much easier to keep organized and you would not have any trouble finding what skills are associated with the Thief talent.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The goal is to make the wizard able to pick locks, but not preferable to having the Thief do it. Here's what I think would do that, after giving it about twenty seconds' thought (so not very much):

Lockmaster

Regular; Resisted by Magelock

Opens locks magically. A Magelock
spell gets a roll to resist Lockmaster.
Any modifiers for the difficulty of the
lock that would apply to Lockpicking
skill also affect this spell, but doubled.

Duration: Once opened, a lock stays open until closed.
Cost: 4. Cannot be maintained. For each additional point of energy spent, the penalty for Lockpicking may be reduced by 1, to a limit of the original, before doubling, Lockpicking penalty.
Time to cast: 10 minutes.
Prerequisites: Either Magery 2 and Apportation or Locksmith.



Is that too generous? Too heavy-handed? I don't know, but I think it gets the job done. The wizard has to get close, he has to stand there for a long time, and he has to spend a considerable amount of energy if the lock is a difficult one. I would not mind being a Thief specialized in Lockpicking in a party where the wizard possessed this spell.

Hmm... maybe require the wizard to touch the lock with a lockpick?

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I think the middle ground is to have the wizard with Lockmaster be good and useful but the thief is the expert at picking locks. A talent for helping thieves that included picking locks would bring the thief to a much better standing with the wizard in all things lock picking. Thus people would have the thief pick the locks most of the time and the most difficult locks but the wizard could always pick the lock if he needed to but he would not be as good at it as the thief.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Oh, I agree with this for sure. I even like your idea of a Talent.

I look at it this way: what the Thief is already purchase--IQ--is a Talent, but a very costly one that covers lots of things that the Thief doesn't need.

I would prefer to replace some of his levels of IQ and DX with a Thief Talent. This is something I've done a lot of looking into with the Thief in particular when coming up with my skill repricing house rules, and the thing I noticed when trying to price each of those skills individually is just how arbitrary the Thief's skill levels actually are. He has a ton of skills at very high levels for no other reason than that he has a high IQ and DX, even where they're skills that don't need to be at that high a level, and where a level a point or two lower would suffice. It looks to me like he's carrying around a lot of extra baggage where his IQ and DX could be lowered and he could have a Talent that targets those skills that actually need to be higher.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I don't know how you can do that while leaving the only price for the wizard at three character points and one or two energy per lock.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Because GURPS Magic is a sacred cow legacy system? It predates 3rd edition and may go all the way back to 1st edition (I don't have 1e and very limited 2e), it's got visible similarities to the system in Wizard (TFT).

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The GURPS Wizard template has IQ 15 and Magery 3. The wizard has a lot of spells to learn so he probably only puts 1 point into it at that gives him skill 16 with Lockmaster. The GURPS Thief template has DX 15 and if he can get a talent of Cat Burglar for 5 prints per level he can buy 3 levels or more putting him in the same standing as the wizard in being able to pick locks. But since he has less skills to learn for his class than the wizard has spells to learn, he can focus more on the Lockpicking skill and maybe get it up to 20. He does not need to use fatigue and does not need mana to be abke to pick the lock so most of the time he is the one to pick the lock, especially if the lock is more difficult to pick. But the wizard can pick locks if the thief is hurt or if they want to open the lock from a distance.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Yes, he can do that and can do dozens of other options (like track down people).

Wizards speciality is to steal others job's niche (with the exception of the "meat shields"¹).


¹ - Actually they can do that if they have imbues.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I still prefer my method of solving this issue, with replacing the spell with a similar one that allows the wizard to gain access to locked rooms - but doesn't address the locked door at all.

Also, due to throw backs from D&D I always run Lockpicking as a DX skill, and have it take 1 min, with -5 seconds per MoS and +20 seconds per MoF (crit fails break picks and increase the penalty if attempted again). As I hate making players roll numerous times for the same repetitive task, once you've failed its not like you're going to be succeeding within "combat time" so just allowing one roll to cover picking the lock is much less intrusive to play. (unless you break your picks, but that's at least an interesting outcome). {I should point out that attempting to unlock something which you can only succeed at with a crit success just fails after 5 mins if you didn't roll a crit, rather than auto-succeeding just because you tried.}


Either way I agree that the problem of niche invasion from wizards is not from Magery making their spells too easy - but its more that Magic allows them to perform so much of what others can do, often in more convenient ways. Even if you allow everyone else to have massive skill levels, and force the wizard to exist in a perpetual LMZ, the wizard is still able to open locks from a distance (avoiding contact poisons and traps built into the locks at the same time) - something the thief will never be able to do!

The solution, imo, is to ban or alter spells which literally steal the limelight from other professions outright - and encourage party cooperation, pretty much the same way you keep D&D wizards from spoiling the party really.

It also helps to keep in mind all of the penalties wizards might suffer from, inclusive of counter magic - I mean Magelock does still resist Lockmaster after all, and it makes sense on expensive locks to have that built in to the lock or cast on every key for it. Reducing the cost of Magelock is more likely to have an impact on wizards than increasing the cost of Lockmaster, as it means they're more likely to run into that counter defence.


Sadly, and this goes for GURPS and D&D alike (and pretty much any other rpg system with magic in it too), often the only way to keep magic in check is with more magic to oppose it. I think its just due to the fundamental aspect of what magic is - its effectively the ability to overcome obstacles with a boxset of ambiguous power. So its only logical way to marginalise it in any meaningful way is to remove its source of power (NMZs) or make it oppose itself (with spells specifically designed to counter other spells).

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The real issue with fantasy magic is that gamers tend to want to throw it into otherwise medieval-looking settings "as is" and expect it not to affect the status quo of economics, politics, security, warfare, etc. Even DF (especially DF) has to think bigger. Of course all locks on anything important have one tiny meteoric iron part to mess with Lockmaster . . . all kings wear Crowns of Immunity to Charm . . . alchemy is flawlessly capable of testing for real gold vs. illusions . . . castles all take air defense and flying thieves into account . . . and so on. If you don't like that preponderance of countermeasures, then it's probably best to go the Conan route and say, "Magic is for villains!"

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

It's worth noting picking locks is DX-based in DF.

Yeah. It's scaled up fantasy, basically, not real-world middle ages plus magic.

I do think Lockmaster (and some other spells) really stamp on other people's niches pretty hard, though. And I'd generally rather nerf the spells directly than nerf them through extensive countermeasures. DF does scale back some spells which are just too game-changing. Lockmaster might have been another work looking at. I found I had to scale back Shape Earth just to force my players to stop trying to dig straight through walls instead of exploring the dungeon, despite extensive countermeasures.

On a broader scale, "harder locks" and "nerf Lockmaster" aren't going to make thieves more useful if they're having a hard time in your game. Even a lock with a meteoric pin in it isn't going to last long when the wizard can decide to throw an 18d Stone Missile (Magery 6 is possible for starting characters in DF) at it instead, or Shape Earth the door off its hinges, or have the barbarian rip it off the wall.

The thief must have more to do - places to sneak, things to climb, monsters to backstab, complicated traps to remove (or set), locks up on precarious perches or in tight spots, things to steal, and strange treasures to fence or identify. The wizard can try to cover all of that, but it'll cost more than throwing a point at Lockmaster, and it's usually easier to help the thief do that stuff via Invisibility and Dark Vision and such. Even if you don't customize the adventure to the adventures (I don't - I write my dungeon PC-neutral), it's worth including those kinds of obstacles.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

This doesn't seem altogether that different from what I just said of using magic to counter magic, removing the ability to use magic, or just all out right banning spells you dislike (even if that means all of them).

I understand what you're saying though, in that you cant just add magic to a 'normal' world and expect magic to not completely change the landscape of how things are dealt with. I'm just saying the way you often deal with magic is to either be immune to magic, remove mana so magic cant be used, or just use magic to counter magic. Which in DF requires either specialised (and restrictive in what other properties it can carry) parts/items, or more magic.

EDIT:
{scrapped incorrect rejection}
Nevermind, I just found it in DF2, yes you're right - I must have never noticed it due to running that way before adopting DF.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I think a book about how to construct dungeons that resist magic would be useful. The difference with D&D and GURPS is that D&D has memorized spells so that wizards don't do all of routine stuff like lock picking and this leaves the thief with stuff to do. But with GURPS the wizard can cast any spell he knows so when there is a lock he just casts Lockmaster while the D&D magic user might not have a spell that can open locks in memory. So this change in magic systems creates big changes in the way things work in dungeon delving. That is why I think a book on constructing dungeons that take into account GURPS Magic would be very useful. Dungeons also change with powers like Psi, Chi, Power Investiture and spirits.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Since it's hard to predict what specific PCs can do, I've found that the most useful "countermeasure" is to set the stage so that a specific chain of tasks relies on old-fashioned skill rather than funky powers and spells. You use a thief when the lock that needs opening is down a 100' duct that you need Escape to fit down, access to which is guarded by winged monsters with high Magic Resistance (so spells roll off) and good Dodge (so you need the sort of decent combat skills that come with high DX to manage the Deceptive Attack), preferably 100' off the ground along a narrow ledge (so you'll want Perfect Balance while sneaking and fighting). Opening the lock on the plain wooden door is beneath him . . . that's a wizard's job. Sure, the wizard could fly up there, shrink himself, and go open the lock without -33 for range or so, but the energy investment gets pretty huge, and then there's the fighting.

It's contrived, of course – but so are tight niches! And it's certainly no more contrived than justifying a force of armed, armored orcs standing around in formation, waiting to give the group something to fight. Or a labyrinth that exists solely to be raided.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Ultimately I think if that the thief were just better at picking the locks than the wizard it makes things work better. A player with a wizard with the spell Lockmaster is not happy if all the locks are meteoric but if the locks are really difficult to open and the thief is clearly better at Lockpicking then the player will not feel so snubbed. If things are contrived against the wizard then player of a wizard may not be happy because he feels that the DM went great lengths to hose him.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Well, Lockmaster does take all the same penalties that Lockpicking does . . . that's right there in the description of the spell. My experience as a fantasy GM is that wizards tend to have 50+ spells at the 1-point level, and that even those with IQ 15 and Magery 3 leave Lockmaster at 16. Thieves, whose main job this is, typically go for Lockpicking 20+, and at least when I'm the GM, I allow DX-based rolls that add High Manual Dexterity, which is why DF 2, p. 8 says "It's traditional in dungeon fantasy for lockpicking to be a fiddly physical task, so this skill roll is DX-based, and gets High Manual Dexterity bonuses." A DF 1 wizard with 1 point in Lockmaster has a 16; a thief built per the template is rolling at 17 using the rules in DF 2, and has more of an incentive to be good at that one skill.

It sounds to me as if a good part of the solution would be for the GM to point out to wizard players that they could spend points on spells that do stuff that other people can't do, and to crank up levels with spells that can't afford to fail even once, so that wizards mostly aren't kicking Lockmaster up to stupid levels. He could also enforce skill penalties on Lockmaster as well as on Lockpicking, and remember that the thief can bring DX and High Manual Dexterity into play. And he could remind the thief that HMD is a great investment that benefits all Pickpocket and Sleight of Hand rolls and (per DF 2) the majority of Lockpicking and Traps rolls, and can go up to six levels for thieves (DF 11, p. 35).

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The thing is, there's really nothing wrong, conceptually, with a character who uses magic instead of a lockpick to open locks, or really, any other role. The problem is that for a wizard the cost of being effective in many areas is only marginally higher than the cost of being effective in a single area, and thus the entire design of GURPS Magic encourages stepping on other people's schticks, because that's what magic is actually best at doing (well, that and casting Destroy Plot spells).

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

Two things I find useful for this sort of issue:

Thresh-Based Mana (I'm old enough to still think of it as "Unlimited Mana"): encourages wizards to focus on big flashy stuff or outright free stuff rather than the middle ground.

Make all magery college/school based, (or use powers instead of spells). The default use of GURPS magic is good if you want high-point mages to be able to do everything well.

The standardized "Class" talents approach bugs me for several reasons:

There are already enough class based FRPGs. I know this is a feature for some, but not for me.

It makes the difference between what you are good at and everything else a little too stark. I don't mind fence-protected niches, but the nuclear minefield full of hungry Rancors-protected niche may be a bit too strong.

It changes the way all the non-mage templates do things in order to deal with a problem that mages bring to the table.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

One thing I've standardized in my games when using GURPS Magic is that the mana level fluctuates - higher levels give a skill bonus, lower levels give a skill penalty, and it's a bit challenging to plan for.

The mage who uses magic to replace mundane skill knowledge is absolutely a viable character, but he has to be prepared to face penalties up to -6 on his spell rolls from time to time (and bonuses up to +6 from time to time as well). He's unpredictable but averages "as written". The mundane expert is consistent and is much harder to have his abilities interfered with.

Sometimes the wizard blows the door off. Sometimes the wizard waves his hand and has nothing happen but a fizzle of sparks and a comical sound. The thief is straightforward.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

OK, here is another idea for solving the Magery problem.

The first 5 points of Magery allows the wizard the ability to cast spells outside of a high mana zone.

The second 10 points is the power level as are each extra 10 points. They do not increase spell skill as all spells are learned based on IQ.

Then there are Talents for Magery. Each college has it's own Talent so the Fire college will have Fire Talent and this can be learned at 5pts/level, the Water College has Water Talent at 5pts/level and so on. Thus the wizard can focus his talent to become a Frire Mage or whatever. This allows spells like Lockmaster to be learned at lower levels unless the Wizard bought Movement Talent from the Movement College.

This way the wizard tends to specialize and have some spells known at high levels while other spells that are outside of his specialty are learned at lower levels.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

That was one of the cool things with DCC. The wizard spells function based on the amount of success the roll is made by. So if the wizard barely makes his roll then not much happens but is succedes by a high margin then amazing things can happen. If he fails then disasterous things can happen.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

This approach could certainly work. I'd probably combine it with ritual modifiers and other TDMs to help them bump skill a little (just as other niches invest in Good equipment and seek favorable conditions). Keeping Magery at [10] per level may be a bit steep; if all it does is serve as an Unusual Background governing spell access and how much energy can be spent on some spells, I'd consider dropping it to [5/lv]. Likewise, a single-College Talent should probably be [5/lv], meaning that for the same price as RAW Magery, a wizard can improve his potential spell-casting power and his skill within one College.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

The problem isn't that the wizard steals the thief's thunder. If there's a thief in the party, the wizard probably doesn't bother to buy Lockmaster, because he knows that the thief's got it.
The problem is that no one wants to play a thief in the first place, because he's weak compared with the other classes. In my play group, people decide together who's going to play what. I'll be the knight, you be the cleric, okay we need another front-line guy and a utility guy, etc. If anyone suggests thief, people look at the potential problems that may need solving in a typical dungeon crawl and say "Why not just be a wizard instead? You can still pick locks if needed, the cleric can already find traps with See Secrets, plenty of other guys have Stealth for scouting the enemy or making sneak attacks, and as a wizard you'll have much more effective ways to contribute to combat (e.g. Great Haste on the fighter)."
The thief seems like he could be fun, but he's really not that great at anything of essential importance. A powerful Talent could help with this by making the thief really awesome at what he does for fewer points.

Re: [DF] Talents for the Standard Templates
 

I agree with this. Either the other classes' abilities cost too little, incentivizing them, or the Thief's abilities cost too much.

I do think it is, in part at least, because of the fact that the Thief's abilities are so easily imitated. Most classes can sneak, and then the spellcasters can easily handle everything the Thief can. A Wizard has high IQ, and I've often put some points from Quirks into thieving abilities when I play a Wizard. If the Swashbuckler does the same with the DX abilities, then there's really no point to having a Thief in the party.

It's a matter of division of labor. It just doesn't make much sense, the way things are priced, to have someone that specializes in various IQ- and DX-based skills like that when you already have other party members with high IQs and DXs.

And that's before even getting into spells like Wizard Eye, Lockmaster, See Secrets, Body of Air, Ethereal Body, Invisibility, Mage-Stealth, Shapeshifting, and Shape Earth that so easily duplicate the Thief's abilities.

But I think there's another thing going on there: those thieving abilities just are not worth a whole character. They're worth a fraction of a character. And that's why people are reticent to play one. No matter how good a Thief you are, you still need something else on top of that. Like what we see with the Artificer or the Ninja or the Wizard. They can cover those Thief abilities to some degree, but they also get something else nice on top of it. I think 'Thief' is too narrow and needs to be expanded. Give the Thief something else to do. Now, it might be the case that this could easily be accomplished with the idea of a broad Talent, like what the Artificer gets. Lower the IQ to 12 and the DX to 13 and replace those with a Talent, then use the saved points on something else. Maybe make them very good at some combat niche, rather than still worse than the Knight or Thief. Or something.

Edit:

I would start with the following:

-2 DX
-1 IQ
+4 levels of Thief Talent

Thief Talent [5/level]
Escape, Climbing, Stealth, Lockpicking, Traps, Poisons

That saves you at least forty character points.