New Skills

[tbeard1999]

While I'm a big fan of staying with the original IQ limit on talents (and NOT allowing them to be bought with XP), I'd like to suggest an alternative to the common "1.5 or 2 times IQ" system.

Why not allow starting figures to have their IQ plus (say) 2 in talent points? That gives a boost to starting figures without allowing massive increases in available talents.

I also like the notion of decoupling languages from talents entirely.

Or, I think that a starting package of free talents might be a good thing.

The equivalent would be giving a TFT character in a modern setting Literacy, Drive Car and (maybe) Use Computer for free.

In a fantasy setting, you might allow one free mundane talent, and a free one-point talent that fits the GM's campaign conception. Examples would be an extra language, Literacy, Knife, Small Ax talent, another 1 point mundane talent etc.

[Rick_Smith]

Hi all,
These talents (New Followers, Monster Followers i and ii) never really worked until I wrote a two page essay giving more rules for them. I wouldn't mind if these talents went away, perhaps to be expanded with more rules in some later supplement.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Steve Jackson]

Starting a separate thread for Unarmed Combat.

[Steve Jackson]

I don't know. 32/2 = 16, and giving 16 spells to every starting wizard seems as though it breaks one of the big tradeoffs of Wizard.

I know! We could roll two 8-sided dice . . . No, just kidding, put away that glaive-guisarme.

[John Brinegar]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I don't know. 32/2 = 16, and giving 16 spells to every starting wizard seems as though it breaks one of the big tradeoffs of Wizard.

I agree with Steve here, but this highlights what for me is the problem with using IQ as a point pool to buy talents/spells with: a system that works quite well for wizards leaves heroes with cramped development. One spell per IQ point gives wizards a fair amount of options while also forcing choices and ensuring that not all wizards will look alike. Heroes must often spend multiple IQ points to get a talent and must build up other attributes to be eligible for some talents; as a result, certain types of specialist heroes end up all looking very alike.

[JLV]

John brings up a really good point here. I wonder if there isn't a more elegant solution to determining how much in the way of skills and spells can be learned out there somewhere...

Maybe skills use the 32/2 = 16 paradigm, but IQ remains a rigid limit to the number of SPELLS you can learn as part of that "16" number...

(E.g., if my character has ST 12, DX 12, IQ 8, then he can learn up to 16 "points" of skills and spells, but since his IQ is only 8, then only 8 of those slots can be taken up with Spells (which means, if he's a Wizard, he gets 8 Spells; and if he's a Warrior he only gets 2 spells and has to raise his IQ by one to learn another one.)

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

I've had players who loved them... because it gave them henchmen. ...

We had plenty of henchmen and allies, but the rules as written seemed wrong to us in several ways:

* Taken literally, it says you can roll 4/IQ to commandeer any same-race NPC. GM either has to allow that or defy/rewrite that. And GM needs to catch & fix that before players invest/design a character thinking they're going to be able to go around enthralling NPCs the way it says.
* It's too simplistic and feels wrong the way it works, not taking anything into account but PC IQ and race.
* The whole "the player runs the NPC as another NPC" thing is under-explained/under-developed - what are the limits, etc. We preferred to have NPC followers/allies still remain NPCs even if PCs were allowed to guide and move them - that was usually/mainly a representation of the PC's leadership.
* Implies maybe you can't have followers without this talent, which requires Charisma, which is designed as charming, etc...
* Ends up needing a bunch of "memory" points from a PC...
* The Monster Followers version seems even more weird.

i.e. Our PCs had piles of NPC allies & followers, but we didn't require talents for it but instead used roleplaying & GM discretion.

Originally Posted by John Brinegar

I agree with Steve here, but this highlights what for me is the problem with using IQ as a point pool to buy talents/spells with: a system that works quite well for wizards leaves heroes with cramped development. One spell per IQ point gives wizards a fair amount of options while also forcing choices and ensuring that not all wizards will look alike. Heroes must often spend multiple IQ points to get a talent and must build up other attributes to be eligible for some talents; as a result, certain types of specialist heroes end up all looking very alike.

I agree that TFT wizards seemed to have a reasonable yet interestingly limited number of spells with the usual 1 per IQ and the AW spell list. I remember there seemed to be a reason to want more than 20 points of spells. If you doubled it, that would throw that off. Though again, if something other than IQ is used to learn more spells (e.g. EP, or significant in-campaign training downtime for student and a qualified teacher), that the effective limit could be similar, but it's harder to assist/playtest, whereas we're all used to thinking of progression in terms of IQ limits. Also, since TFT spells are magic/psychic things, I don't mind them being limited to IQ the way I dislike it for Talents (because I'm sure that isn't how talents really work).

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by guymc

...
** Half-points - yuck.

** I really like the idea of having talent “slots” equal to your (ST+DX+IQ)/2. Starting talents are limited by starting IQ, with multi-point talents costing more. ...

You have Talent/Spell SLOTS equal to your basic ST + DX + IQ / 2.
No matter how it is purchased, a Talent or Spell takes up 1 Talent/Spell SLOT. ...

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I don't know. 32/2 = 16, and giving 16 spells to every starting wizard seems as though it breaks one of the big tradeoffs of Wizard. ...

Hi Guy, Steve.
Guy, congrats on the new job! Best of luck.

Re: half points. You could say that the memory IQ is equal to 2 x IQ. But that is a funny rule people have to remember. Some talents that cost 1/2 a memory (mIQ) seems the lesser sin to me. Further, you would also have to double the cost of all spells for reasons discussed below.

But the problem with saying that mIQ = 2xIQ (or your idea that mIQ = [ST + DX + IQ]/2 ), is that both of these double the memory for EVERYTHING. Spells AND talents. We DO NOT need to double the space for spells, as Steve points out above.

The wizards get a decent amount of spells because every single spell costs one memory. An IQ 12 wizard can have 12+ spells (3 Hex Fire INCLUDES 1 Hex Fire). Whereas, an IQ 12 hero might get only 5 or 6 talents because most of the useful talents cost 2 or more memory.

Now if I understand what you were saying, UC i thru UC v would all fit into one slot. Thief and Master Thief would fit into one slot. The price to buy expansive talents is 2 or 3 times what it takes to buy a spell (we want wizards to rock compared to heroes after all). This helps but...

This helps ONLY if you are buying chains of talents. But if you want to get Boating, Seamanship, Climbing, Thief, Running, etc. (My Thief / Pirate duel class character discussed above), then this idea does not help because the variety of talents defeats you.

Look at my Caravan Master / Adventurer character. Instead of needing 21 mIQ, he would just need 20 mIQ (presumably Recognize Value and Assess Value would both fit in one slot). Your idea, Guy, does not really help.

***

The fundamental problem is that talents cost too much relative to spells. With spells, a character can get a decent number when mIQ = IQ. With talents, some pretty basic characters are just impossible. This is why I keep coming back to my point that talents are over priced.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Chris Rice]

There seem to be a lot of people saying that Talents are too expensive and the costs should be reduced so Heroes can have more Talents. I don't agree with this at all. As I've said before, to me the Talent system of ITL is the key feature of TFT and shouldn't be mucked about with much, if at all.

I like the way that you are forced to make difficult choices when you generate a character and those choices will define that character from then on. It may not be exactly possible for a beginning character to have all the features of a Conan or a Fafhrd or an Elric, but I'm fine with that. There are other rule systems that allow that level of detail and I don't like any of them.

I would ask that we don't change much for the new edition KS

[zot]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I don't know. 32/2 = 16, and giving 16 spells to every starting wizard seems as though it breaks one of the big tradeoffs of Wizard.

I know! We could roll two 8-sided dice . . . No, just kidding, put away that glaive-guisarme.

Originally Posted by JLV

John brings up a really good point here. I wonder if there isn't a more elegant solution to determining how much in the way of skills and spells can be learned out there somewhere...

Maybe skills use the 32/2 = 16 paradigm, but IQ remains a rigid limit to the number of SPELLS you can learn as part of that "16" number...

(E.g., if my character has ST 12, DX 12, IQ 8, then he can learn up to 16 "points" of skills and spells, but since his IQ is only 8, then only 8 of those slots can be taken up with Spells (which means, if he's a Wizard, he gets 8 Spells; and if he's a Warrior he only gets 2 spells and has to raise his IQ by one to learn another one.)

I agree. Here's a slight modification / clarification.

The rules for starting characters are the same as classic TFT and Wizard:

• You start with IQ talent / spell points (just like classic TFT and Wizard)

When you gain XP, you can purchase new talents and/or spells, subject to these limitations:

• The number of your spells can never exceed your IQ (just like in wizard)
• The total number of your talents and spells cannot exceed the higher of IQ and attributes / 2