Epic Talents

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by timm meyers

swimming+ Diving+ Area Knowledge = gives "Naturalist" for underwater flora and fauna only.

The problem with letting talents bleed like this is that when you give a character these abilities for free you are creating a disincentive for buying the Naturalist talent. Which might well have been a path they wanted to follow, and might seem quite natural.

On the other hand if the game didn't have the wilderness talents (Naturalist, Woodsman, Tracking, etc.) and instead had talents related to specific environments (Forest, Desert, Sea, etc.) then this problem goes away. This is my preferred solution: instead of having characters who can track in a forest or desert, but don't know anything about the wildlife of either, have characters who can track and know the wildlife of deserts, but don't know anything about forests.

Starting as or becoming a Queens guard that grants you (over time) a free talent like Courtly Graces or Expert Horsemanship is a great idea imho. This validates the cultural/political world build and gives PC's more goal choices or background adherence.

I don't see the advantage over letting people just choose talents. I mean, even in the Queen's Guard there's going to be a few guys who just don't get talking to the nobs and make the other soldiers face palm when they try. Saying everyone in the guard has that talent cuts into player agency and I find the sentence which explains the advantage hard to understand.