Need for a skill point term

[hcobb]

What the rules have is the term "IQ point", except when it isn't an IQ point.

ITL 16: "Each starting spell requires 1 IQ point. ... Each spell he starts with costs him three IQ points."

ITL 17: "The total IQ cost of all a starting hero’s talents may not exceed his IQ. (This is really the same system used for spells. The IQ cost of any spell is 1 for a wizard, and 3 for a hero.) Therefore, if a hero learns a spell, it is considered a
talent with an IQ cost of 3. Wizards can also learn talents – but the IQ cost is doubled."

So up to this point the term IQ point is sufficient to define the total "cost" of a character's talents and spells. However a character may purchase additional "IQ points" above his total number of points of IQ.

ITL 45: "Each new spell or talent learned costs 500 XP – or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on. As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard"

Except of course that some talents don't cost double for wizards, including languages (which are talents, except when they aren't).

Which is why I use a single term "skill point" and define a character's skill points as the total number of XPs spent to learn new talents, spells and languages divided by 500 plus their current points of IQ.

What do you call this number?

[oldwolf]

I've never called it anything, so I guess skill point is as good a term as any.

[Chris Rice]

Surely "Talent Point" makes more sense, as it's used to purchase Talents. Calling it a skill point is introducing an additional and unnecessary term.

[TippetsTX]

This is the sort of nonsense you get by mucking around with a perfectly good system. Justice for IQ! IQ for all (...talents and spells)!
;)

[Chris Rice]

Also, see page 42 of the Companion for another solution to the IQ for Talents issue. This is what I used to do.

[Barantor]

Dunno, I'm new to the system and didn't find it at all confusing.