New Talents

[Donny Brook]

Here's a couple I just came up with:

That Would Be Kewl talent:

Stealth, Power Blow, Body Language, Fast Draw, Lariat, Sex Appeal


What This Character Needs talent:

Leadership, Ship Handling, Fast-talk, First Aid, Swimming, Diplomacy, Fast Draw, Observation, Climbing, Savoir Faire.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Here's a couple I just came up with:

That Would Be Kewl talent:

Stealth, Power Blow, Body Language, Fast Draw, Lariat, Sex Appeal


What This Character Needs talent:

Leadership, Ship Handling, Fast-talk, First Aid, Swimming, Diplomacy, Fast Draw, Observation, Climbing, Savoir Faire.

Those are thematically rather problematic.

Specifically, Talents are not meant to be a list of skills that a character wants bonuses to. If that is allowed, spending points on skills and Attributes is definitely suboptimal and there is a perverse incentive for all characters to be mechanically the same (with a Talent for every skill they need). Also, to me, a character that can't meaningfully be described in real world terms (i.e. 'has high emotional intelligence' or 'good hand-eye coordination'), is less interesting, so I prefer Talents that believably group together tasks that correlate with each other.

[Phantasm]

Some talents from the Marvel Reboot thread/document/not-a-wiki:

Classic Homemaker: Animal Handling, Artist (Pottery), Cooking, Gardening, Housekeeping, Professional Skill (Brewer), Professional Skill (Distiller), Professional Skill (Dyer), Professional Skill (Tanner), Professional Skill (Vinter), Professional Skill (Weaver), and Sewing. Reaction bonus: Folks that value "traditional family values" and clean homes in general. 10 points per level. (Intended for a low-TL world, TL0 to 2.) (Originally built for Athena.)

Gamecrafter: Connoisseur (Games), Current Affairs (Sports), Gambling, Games, Mathematics (Applied and Statistics), Professional Skill (Game Designer). Conditional Bonus to Body Language, Carousing, Computer Programming, and Writing when dealing with making, modifying, and playing games. Reaction Bonus: Gamers, fellow game/sport enthusiasts. 10 points per level. (Originally built for the Grandmaster.)

Martial Artist (Military): Broadsword, Judo, Karate, Knife, Shield, Shortsword, Spear, Staff, Stealth, and Wrestling. Reaction Bonus: Military leaders. 10 points per level. (Intended to represent combat training for low-TL soldiers and some special forces. Originally built by someone else whose name I can't remember for Red Guardian, also useful for Captain America.)

Natural Swordsman: Broadsword, Force Saber, Force Sword, Knife, Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, Shortsword, Smallsword, Two-Handed Sword. Reaction Bonus: Swordsmen, swashbucklers, swashbuckler wannabes, sword-fighting movie enthusiasts. 10 points per level. (Originally built for my Ranoc setting, used by Matador and will eventually see use on Swordsman.)

Perfect Throw: Bolas, Dropping, Innate Attack (Projectile), Lasso, Sling, Spear Thrower, Throwing, Throwing Art, Thrown Weapon. May also give a conditional bonus to various Sports skills that use throwing, such as Sports (Baseball) and Sports (American Football). Reaction Bonus: Sportsmen, fans of sports involving throwing, warriors of pre-TL4 cultures. 10 points per level. (Originally built for Bullseye.)

Psychotronicist: Electronics Operation (Psychotronics), Electronics Repair (Psychotronics), Engineer (Psychotronics), Expert Skill (Psionics). Reaction Bonus: other psychotronics experts. 5 points per level. (Originally built for the White Queen.)


Several of these should probably have alternative benefits.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Some talents from the Marvel Reboot thread/document/not-a-wiki:

I think a lot of those would really better be covered by Wildcard skills. Supers and other comic-book characters who are just arbitrarily really good at everything within their theme, with little logical justification but buckets of “because it’s what they do”, are really what Wildcards were made for. Whereas Talents are at least sonewhat realistic.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I think a lot of those would really better be covered by Wildcard skills. Supers and other comic-book characters who are just arbitrarily really good at everything within their theme, with little logical justification but buckets of “because it’s what they do”, are really what Wildcards were made for. Whereas Talents are at least sonewhat realistic.

I agree that they probably can be made Wildcards with a little elbow grease. The Natural Swordsman one could easily just be Blade!, after all. (And while it's a house rule, I let Talents work as conditional bonuses to Wildcards; someone with Inventor! and Psychotronicist can invent anything, but is better at inventing psychotronics that project illusions into a mind at a distance than a new radar-absorbing completely non-ferrous jet plane.)

IMO, the Classic Homemaker one is a case of "Job Training", with the "job" as "doing low-tech housework". Natural Swordsman is just as useful in a low-tech swashbuckling or swords-and-spaceships space opera game as it is in a superhero game.

All that said, I think they have a better unifying theme for games that permit Talents but not Wildcards (I've been in a few of those) than some Talents in this thread.

[Astromancer]

One use for Talents is to emphasize style issues. Example: I could see separate Talents for Hard-boiled Detective and Country House Detective. After all, Mike Hammer and Miss Marple do things differently. If you throw in Superhero Detective, to allow Batman in the group, the three could spend most of their time driving each other nuts.

Still, the separate Talents would allow the characters to be in genre and work together.

[Donny Brook]

The Kid From Around the Way talent:

Bicycling, Games, Area Knowledge, Connoisseur (e.g. candy, kids shows), Diplomacy


Inner City Teen talent:

Streetwise, Area Knowledge, Heraldry (Gangs), Sports, Current Events (e.g.Pop Culture), Fast-talk


Homeless Wino talent:

Urban Survival, Streetwise, Filch, Panhandling, Connoisseur (e.g. cheap booze, restaurant dumpsters), Scrounging


Alpha Ape talent:

Area Knowledge, Survival, Intimidation, Brawling, Leadership, Brachiating

[stranger38]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Some talents from the Marvel Reboot thread/document/not-a-wiki:

Classic Homemaker: Animal Handling, Artist (Pottery), Cooking, Gardening, Housekeeping, Professional Skill (Brewer), Professional Skill (Distiller), Professional Skill (Dyer), Professional Skill (Tanner), Professional Skill (Vinter), Professional Skill (Weaver), and Sewing. Reaction bonus: Folks that value "traditional family values" and clean homes in general. 10 points per level. (Intended for a low-TL world, TL0 to 2.) (Originally built for Athena.)

Gamecrafter: Connoisseur (Games), Current Affairs (Sports), Gambling, Games, Mathematics (Applied and Statistics), Professional Skill (Game Designer). Conditional Bonus to Body Language, Carousing, Computer Programming, and Writing when dealing with making, modifying, and playing games. Reaction Bonus: Gamers, fellow game/sport enthusiasts. 10 points per level. (Originally built for the Grandmaster.)

Martial Artist (Military): Broadsword, Judo, Karate, Knife, Shield, Shortsword, Spear, Staff, Stealth, and Wrestling. Reaction Bonus: Military leaders. 10 points per level. (Intended to represent combat training for low-TL soldiers and some special forces. Originally built by someone else whose name I can't remember for Red Guardian, also useful for Captain America.)

Natural Swordsman: Broadsword, Force Saber, Force Sword, Knife, Main-Gauche, Rapier, Saber, Shortsword, Smallsword, Two-Handed Sword. Reaction Bonus: Swordsmen, swashbucklers, swashbuckler wannabes, sword-fighting movie enthusiasts. 10 points per level. (Originally built for my Ranoc setting, used by Matador and will eventually see use on Swordsman.)

Perfect Throw: Bolas, Dropping, Innate Attack (Projectile), Lasso, Sling, Spear Thrower, Throwing, Throwing Art, Thrown Weapon. May also give a conditional bonus to various Sports skills that use throwing, such as Sports (Baseball) and Sports (American Football). Reaction Bonus: Sportsmen, fans of sports involving throwing, warriors of pre-TL4 cultures. 10 points per level. (Originally built for Bullseye.)

Psychotronicist: Electronics Operation (Psychotronics), Electronics Repair (Psychotronics), Engineer (Psychotronics), Expert Skill (Psionics). Reaction Bonus: other psychotronics experts. 5 points per level. (Originally built for the White Queen.)


Several of these should probably have alternative benefits.

Help me on this. I`ve read somewhere that combat skills cannot be part of talents, but in DF 3 we have Forest Guardian for elves and that talent has Bow.

In our games, i like to play some scoutish type characters and i just take forest guardian and name it Natural Born Hunter.

So i guess, combat skills in talents are ok?

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by stranger38

Help me on this. I`ve read somewhere that combat skills cannot be part of talents, but in DF 3 we have Forest Guardian for elves and that talent has Bow.

In our games, i like to play some scoutish type characters and i just take forest guardian and name it Natural Born Hunter.

So i guess, combat skills in talents are ok?

Well, GMs can do what they like in their own games. Combat Talents have been disfavored for two reasons that I know of, first being that they are kind of munchkinny, second being that they are hard to characterize as a discrete aptitude distinct from general DX.

My opinion is that there is room for allowing a combat skill within a Talent if it fits with the concept of whatever "natural aptitude" comprises the Talent. On the other hand, I find many of the newer published Talents are nothing like a natural aptitude, so I'm a bit old school.

[Flowergarden]

Originally Posted by stranger38

Help me on this. I`ve read somewhere that combat skills cannot be part of talents, but in DF 3 we have Forest Guardian for elves and that talent has Bow.

In our games, i like to play some scoutish type characters and i just take forest guardian and name it Natural Born Hunter.

So i guess, combat skills in talents are ok?

I give my players to choose 4+ weapon skills as a talent. Most of the time as a style. Just so they would have different skills that don't cost a fortune without dx 15+.
It won't let you have sword skill higher, it would just put more skills for a little bit more points. Most of the time people use one skill anyway.

But at the same time I treat talents as some skills learned together, like your education, fighting style. Not as some innate ability to do N.

In the end of the day, there are many book talents with weapon skills. So ask your GM.