Leveling up skills

[timm meyers]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Yes, that's what I'm talking about as well.

For a 32 point character a 2-point talent costs 1,000 XP and attributes cost 100 XP. There's no decision: attributes are clearly a better buy.

For a 41-point character a 2-point talent still costs 1,000 XP but an attribute costs 8,000. It's unlikely by this stage that anyone is buying attributes. Again, no decision.

In between there's a brief period where attributes and talents are both possible and there's an actual decision but it doesn't last very long, maybe only 1 point, maybe 2. That's why I say in principle yes, there's a decision, but in practice there isn't.

I wonder if there would be any value to making the two factors of our PC, Attributes and Talents, share the same progressive cost in XP?
Or
Match the flat cost system of talents for attributes?

Obviously TFT has an exponential xp cost to discourage characters from becoming 40+ point super heroes so the 1st option would seem to keep the "tough decision" you wish to embrace while not breaking the original level cap as written.

A thought just occurred to me. What if talents (even spells?) did not have IQ costs of 1,2, or 3, but instead had xp costs? You keep the minimum IQ requirement and or ST,DX,Base Talent prerequesets but turn something like "chemist" into a 2k xp cost.
Not sure how you could marry this with character creation but maybe you get a value of "life skill" experience based on IQ to spend only on talents when designing a new toon?