Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bofinger
Some thoughts: - The main effect of such a system would be to make it possible, but very expensive, to be a real expert in a mundane talent.
- It makes it possible to distinguish between a person who is an ordinary farmer and a person who is known as a very skilled farmer. I'm not sure that's something people are clamouring to be able to do, though I guess it does no harm.
- It will tend to price PCs out of the mundane talent market. Instead of paying a small fee in talent points to be able to farm, it's now a small fee to be able to walk around behind a plough, and a more substantial fee to be a farmer. As it stands nobody much bothers to buy the mundane talents, so making them more expensive or less useful is almost certainly a bad idea....
- The example given for a farmer is probably not a good one. The 3-point farming talent doesn't describe someone who runs an estate: that needs literacy and some kind of administrator talent....
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As to #1 and # 3, perhaps you overlooked the part of the plan where I said these mundane talents points would be separate from and in addition to a PCs normal talent points. Spending the 6 mundane talent points wouldn't reduce the normal talents a character could choose.
Nor have I made mundane talents more expensive --
quite the opposite. Instead of each costing 1 point of the 1 point allotted, they would cost 1/6th point, 2/6th points, or 3/6th points out of the 1 free point towards mundane talents. Just so as not to introduce fractions, I multiplied everything by six. Now a "1 point" mundane talent costs only 16.66% of the mundane talent allotment (now 6), whereas before it cost 100% of that allotment when the allotment was 1. Thus a character could now have a little training at a few different mundane talents, or a lot of training at one single mundane talent. All without either choice compromising their combat and adventuring talents.
Agreed that "farmer" may not be the best example, but only because I don't have an agricultural vocabulary. I should have avoided the word "estate", perhaps substituting "plantation" or some other name. The point is there is a reasonable distinction I would think between the level of skill needed to keep a small family farm of a couple acres, and the skill needed to plan and direct the planting, care, and harvesting of several crops at once over a couple hundred acres. The latter needs to know a lot more about farming than the former. If "Master Farmer" doesn't sound right, another term could be found.