Epic Talents

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

And there's no reason for not having both: a talent/spell point increase free with an IQ increase, and a talent/spell point also available as a separate purchase at a lower XP cost than an attribute.

Then the character that wants a talent/spell at or below their current IQ gets it cheaply, but the character that wants a talent/spell above their current IQ, while still spending more, doesn't have to pay twice (once for the IQ increase and then again afterwards for the talent/spell) which is not only way too expensive but takes infernally long.

And a figure wouldn't be as locked-in to the IQ they were created with as they are now.

That's one way to do it. I started with the first to Talent points only costing 250 XP instead of 500 XP. My house rule is now 250 XP per talent point period. That way, I'm just changing the cost but not the structure of the process.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

As long as you are using the same attributes, compatibility shouldn't be an issue. I wouldn't care if someone came into one of my games using a different XP scale... although mine is actually more generous than most so they might get a bump. ;)

I'm not as concerned about it now as I used to be. I haven't seen any PC movement between games.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

But it is both a character progression rules problem and an XP system problem.

I don't know what the difference is between those two, I'd use them almost interchangeably. The point I was trying to make is that the problem (character generation requiring a more sophisticated understanding of the game than we'd like) is caused by the experience system, the post-generation character development system, call it what you will. It's not really caused by the character description system, or more specifically the talent list, which is what this thread is notionally about.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I don't know what the difference is between those two, I'd use them almost interchangeably. The point I was trying to make is that the problem (character generation requiring a more sophisticated understanding of the game than we'd like) is caused by the experience system, the post-generation character development system, call it what you will. It's not really caused by the character description system, or more specifically the talent list, which is what this thread is notionally about.

True enough, if you liberalize the XP costs of everything then character progression becomes easier at least in most ways. That doesn't mean post-generation character development rules couldn't use tweaking, and initial creation rules made more transparent for new players. And to the extent we improve those last things, then XP costs would need less modification. Sure throw enough XP at the problems and they seem to go away or not matter as much, but it's a more balanced approach to adjust everything, and do so judiciously. "Oh wow, for the career I wanted I should have started with a higher IQ -- but no big deal, raising attributes is cheap anyway." Yes that works, but it is far from elegant.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

True enough, if you liberalize the XP costs of everything then character progression becomes easier at least in most ways.

You seem to be agreeing with me, but this isn't a statement I made, or even came close to making. In no way was I suggesting changing the rate at which XPs are awarded.

I was responding to this statement of yours:

TFT character generation is already a black art when using RAW. Those who want certain advanced characters are severely punished for not creating them as starting characters with builds optimized for the goal.

and I said that wasn't a problem with the generation system, it was caused by a broken experience system. Fix the experience system and the problem should go away. So don't see this problem as a reason to modify the generation system, or a reason to tolerate a more difficult and opaque generation system (e.g. by creating combo-based special powers in talents).

[davina23]

Thanks for information

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

You seem to be agreeing with me, but this isn't a statement I made

I'd spoken of character creation rules and XP costs in the same sentence, to which you replied "I don't know what the difference is between those two." I must have misunderstood to what you were replying.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

I was responding to this statement of yours:and I said that wasn't a problem with the generation system, it was caused by a broken experience system. Fix the experience system and the problem should go away. So don't see this problem as a reason to modify the generation system, or a reason to tolerate a more difficult and opaque generation system (e.g. by creating combo-based special powers in talents).

That wasn't my statement, that was Shostak's you were addressing.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

I'd spoken of character creation rules and XP costs in the same sentence, to which you replied "I don't know what the difference is between those two."

The line was "both a character progression rules problem and an XP system problem". To me those are more or less the same thing. Neither of them sounds to me like character creation rules. But maybe "progression" means something different to you.

So what problem do you see in the character creation rules? Because that's really the interesting question of this little subthread: will the problems be fixed if we fix experience, or is there also a problem somewhere else, say in character generation or in the way TFT describes characters. For reference the problem you identified was

Those who want certain advanced characters are severely punished for not creating them as starting characters with builds optimized for the goal.

but maybe you can also point to others.

That wasn't my statement, that was Shostak's you were addressing.

Oops, you're right, going back further it was Shostak.

[Steve Plambeck]

You quoted "Those who want certain advanced characters are severely punished for not creating them as starting characters with builds optimized for the goal" but again that wasn't mine either, although I do agree with it.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

So what problem do you see in the character creation rules? Because that's really the interesting question of this little subthread: will the problems be fixed if we fix experience, or is there also a problem somewhere else...

Let's look at a case. New player has a goal of creating a swordsman who will eventually become a Master Fencer. It's fairly obvious to the new player she can't just start off a character at that level with only 32 points to work with, but the obvious solution would be to at least start with the Sword and Fencer talents and devote future XP to reaching Master. She see's the build to start this way would be:

ST 9, DX 12, and IQ 11. That IQ and DX (along with the sword talent) satisfy all the requirements to take Fencer talent. That only leaves 9 for ST, but that's enough to take Rapier, the lightest fencing sword, so this looks like the way to go. If she's looked ahead at Master Fencer she can tell she needs 2 more DX and then 2 more IQ to reach it, and that doesn't look unobtainable if the character lives that long. But the fastest thing to do to enhance survival would be to cash in the first 100 XP on getting to ST 10, then upgrading the Rapier to a Saber which can deal out far more damage. She'll want the Saber eventually anyway when she does become Master Fencer.

A new player isn't likely to realize this isn't the optimum build at all -- it's going to end up costing 2800 XP to reach Master Fencer this way (1300 on attributes and then 1500 on the 3-point talent). She may well be dead before she earns that much XP.

The optimum build would have been to take IQ 13 in the first place, stick with ST 9 and the Rapier, and then (from a starting DX of 10) tough it out putting all XP on DX until it reached 14; only 700 XP gets spent on attribute increases instead of 1300.

That the obvious build is not the optimum build is the character creation side of the problem. But there's also a character progression side to the situation. One part of that is that a talent taken at character creation is free, but afterwards it isn't, even if you "left room for it" when you started the character. An IQ 13 starting character that takes only 10 points in talents at the beginning does not (under RAW) get to take a 3-point talent later, after earning the needed prerequisites, without spending 1500 XP on it. Nor for that matter would an IQ 9 figure that took only 8 points in talents at the start, then raised their IQ to 10, be allowed to take a 2-point IQ 10 talent without paying 1000 XP for it, on top of whatever XP it cost to get from IQ 9 to 10.

So yeah, I see problems.

[David Bofinger]

• I'm having a hard time understanding this example.
  • It seems like you spent one more attribute point, and hence 600 more XP, on the 9-12-11 because you wanted them to have sabre, but I'm not clear they needed sabre any worse than the other character did. So why did you buy it for one character and not the other?
  • Also the 9-10-13 character won't be able to buy Fencer at generation so will have to buy it later? Which costs 1500 XP?
• The case I'm bothered by is not so much your example but the character who wants Weapon Expertise but decides to just buy the Weapon for now and upgrade later. It's entirely reasonable and absolutely crippled by the experience rules.
• I don't think the list of talents available to a character is a problem here, which I thought was the subject of "epic talents", but I guess we left that behind a long time ago.