Immediate vs. delayed gratification

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Not if the average attribute point total is still 30, which the book still says it is.

It'd be pretty bizarre compared to the real world, too. All the professional athletes would be 50-year-olds...

The average 50 year old on Cidri would have died twice so that's 10 attribute points right there.

2-hex Flying Carpet: $10k, replace once a decade so weekly cost is $20
50 point powerstone $51k once a decade so weekly cost is $102
19 IQ wizard weekly wage: $350

At 8 deaths a weekday that's a sunk cost of $12 plus $250 to recharge the gem.

Add in the overhead of having apprentices around the city to create image of phoenix to fly into the sky as a beacon and the cost to the consumer to defeat death and cure all illness is $500, which is most likely included in the $25/week cost of not being dead.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The average 50 year old on Cidri would have died twice so that's 10 attribute points right there.

2-hex Flying Carpet: $10k, replace once a decade so weekly cost is $20
50 point powerstone $51k once a decade so weekly cost is $102
19 IQ wizard weekly wage: $350

At 8 deaths a weekday that's a sunk cost of $12 plus $250 to recharge the gem.

Add in the overhead of having apprentices around the city to create image of phoenix to fly into the sky as a beacon and the cost to the consumer to defeat death and cure all illness is $500, which is most likely included in the $25/week cost of not being dead.

Sounds like the expectations of the richest 1% in a dystopian campaign setting where insurance companies and their accountants and financial planners rule supreme. ;-D

I'm imagining healthy young warrior adventurers whose prime survival skill is stealthily avoiding flying-carpet-riding patrols of 50-year-old supermen with 50-point powerstones.

[ColBosch]

This seems to be getting into "piracy isn't profitable in Traveller" territory. My question is therefore: is this actually a problem in play, and is there a solution or is it just something long-term campaigns have to be aware of?

[hcobb]

Leaving aside the rules as written where the Revival spell isn't actually useful. (Compare "If an hour passes" on page 10 to "as long as death took place less than an hour ago." on page 33)

Back to skill points and XPs I can make the job progressions on page 58 work of moving up to the next job every five years and needing about five more skill points to qualify for the next job if each weekly job roll grants 10 XPs. The exponential attribute costs then give you 49 year olds who all have dozens of spells or talents.

[TippetsTX]

I think we may be straying a bit from the intent of this thread guys.

I was interested in what player behaviors ya'll are seeing around the expenditure of XP from actual gameplay using the 'Legacy' ruleset, not a bunch of mathematical extrapolation.

[larsdangly]

My results are very clear: Up through total XP awards of about 1000 pts, heroes start thinking about transitioning from stat rises to new talent buys at around 600-800 points, and start actually doing it around 800-1000, whereas wizards do something interesting: they transition from stat increases to putting ST in their staff after their XP total hits 400-600 (basically, as soon as a point of staff ST is cheaper than the next stat point). I didn't see this one coming, actually; I thought they would charge up their staffs a bit later. Everyone has their eyes on XP-based minor wishes, but is waiting until they have met some character goals first; I doubt I'll see that really happen until people have ~5000 XP total.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

My results are very clear: Up through total XP awards of about 1000 pts, heroes start thinking about transitioning from stat rises to new talent buys at around 600-800 points, and start actually doing it around 800-1000, whereas wizards do something interesting: they transition from stat increases to putting ST in their staff after their XP total hits 400-600 (basically, as soon as a point of staff ST is cheaper than the next stat point). I didn't see this one coming, actually; I thought they would charge up their staffs a bit later. Everyone has their eyes on XP-based minor wishes, but is waiting until they have met some character goals first; I doubt I'll see that really happen until people have ~5000 XP total.

That is very useful information, thank you. Are you doling out XP at the rates suggested in the new ITL?

[JLV]

Originally Posted by ColBosch

This seems to be getting into "piracy isn't profitable in Traveller" territory. My question is therefore: is this actually a problem in play, and is there a solution or is it just something long-term campaigns have to be aware of?

Personally I'd say, given the lack of time to have extensively played under the new rules, that it's more a "be aware of this possible issue" thing than an actual problem encountered in play. Obviously, one or two people might have some actual statistical analysis if they've got a large group and have been playing hard, but most of us don't have sufficient data to firmly declare "this is a problem" at this point.

[larsdangly]

I've been playing a roughly weekly campaign using the new edition RAW since it was released in pdf. And, I know the original game very well (pretty frequent play since it was published ca. 1980). I'm aware of the peculiar logical implications of a few of the rules re. magic item generation, experience, wishes, etc., but I haven't encountered any meaningful 'problems' in my campaign. And at this point I don't expect them to emerge. Because the power progression of PC's is pretty predictable and constrained in the new edition I doubt there are any nasty feedback loops I haven't encountered yet. I've tried most of the new talents on for size by giving them to NPCs and seeing how the work in play; they seem pretty good - useful but not fundamental game changers. Basically, it all seems solid.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Basically, it all seems solid.

Great to hear!

Are you doing RAW for the combat as well? Any observations there?