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Old 07-01-2019, 12:31 PM   #22
zot
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default Re: Starting with a Mana Staff?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I can see several reasons to not allow starting PCs to start with Expert/Master weapon talents, and perhaps other combat-aiding talents.

1) It feels thematically off to me. What is a beginning fighter who's not as good as other beginners in terms of ST & DX, has had no adventures, and before being a master would not be a good fighter at all, but is already a master? How did that happen, and why did it only happen to the not-so-capable beginning fighters?

2) I want Expert and Master combat talents to represent people who have exceptional levels of experience and training. That doesn't match typical starting characters, or 32-point characters, or fighters with ST + DX totaling 20 or less. If people want to start as exceptionally trained weapon experts/masters, then I'd want those PCs to have appropriate backgrounds and higher attributes, too. In short, I think the listed requirements are too low and should probably include years of exceptional experience and training, like Captain and Strategist do.

3) For a game where PCs start as 32-point beginners, I want Expert and Master combat talents to be challenging goals that can be earned through much successful play. Something to strive for and to reward survival of the combat experiences that are what develop a superior fighter.

4) Using the Legacy experience/talent-learning system RAW, it's a bypass of what otherwise would be the need to spend 500 XP of actual play experience per talent point. i.e. In addition to my reason 3, if a PC starts with these talents by taking enough IQ and getting it for no XP, they avoid spending XP on the talent and so can just jack up their combat attributes, which is a big XP advantage of doing it this way that seems backwards and like an exploit to me.

Compare:

Mr. Normal Starting Warrior
ST 13 DX 11 IQ 8 Ax/Mace, Shield

Mr. BeginnerExpert
ST 9 DX DX 12 IQ 11 Ax/Mace, Shield, Ax Expert/Master

By the time they both advance through play experience to, say:
ST 13 DX 12 IQ 11 Ax/Mace, Shield, Ax Expert/Master,
both will have had to add 4 attribute points (for 700 XP), but Mr. Normal would need to spend 1500 more XP than Mr BeginnerExpert (total 700 vs. 2200, i.e. Mr. Normal needs enough XP that he could instead get to about 38 attribute points to get here).
Blades & Black Magic addresses exactly these issues:
  1. Starting characters cannot have expert skills
  2. Each starting character has the same number of skill points

But TFT (both original and Legacy) explicitly allows different characters to start with different amounts of talent points and has no restrictions about starting characters taking talents with prerequisites.

This sounds to me like TFT actually doesn't fit your concept of the rarity of expertise (but B&BM does). TFT does, however, support the concept of the cloistered warrior, trained from birth, who starts out as an expert, and that's a trope just as well-trodden as the know-nothing village kid who has to learn everything the hard way.

You could say that TFT supports both but given the simulation results, it seems to favor the experts.
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