04-22-2013, 08:03 AM | #21 |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Unless their skills use more than one attribute?
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I have Confused and Clueless. Sometimes I miss sarcasm and humor, or critically fail my Savoir-Faire roll. None of it is intentional. Published GURPS Settings (as of 4/2013 -- I hope to update it someday...) |
04-22-2013, 08:36 AM | #22 |
Banned
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Bristol
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Talents are the best thing in 4th.
IQ vs Talent. IQ can be used for everything. Does make much of a character though. Talent adds depth to the character. I agree with a max of +4 no more. Talents can be abused for selecting 1-5 skills when there could be more. GM to watch. Talents ought to be built around the 15pt marker with less as the exceptions. IQ +4 = 80pts Talent +4 = 20-60pts Even with knocking down will and per can bring IQ cost down to 40pts. However talent also lets you learn more quickly and if people see that you have talent you can gain some influence. There is nothing to stop a talent being used for dex too, as in conjunction with IQ, and yes could knock off points for move and dodge, manual dex etc. In short the long way around for what Talents do brilliantly. |
04-22-2013, 09:34 AM | #23 |
Banned
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
I don't think Talents are necessarily overpowered, but they are a sub-optimal and abusable patch for the problem of overly-broad basic attributes.
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04-22-2013, 12:17 PM | #24 | ||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Such metatrait only exists if you allow it. It's definitely a houserule.
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04-22-2013, 12:19 PM | #25 | |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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04-22-2013, 02:23 PM | #26 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Give me the page reference for IQ!. It isn't in the rules, it was something Henry Cobb made up based solely on the pre-release hype for 4e. It is absolutely not in the published rules.
In particular, allowing characters to take reduced secondary characteristics when they buy up attribute levels in-play is absolutely not supported in the rules. The only way this works is if you let them take it as a metatrait, which means you need to allow that metatrait in the first place! Quote:
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04-22-2013, 02:49 PM | #27 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Dreamland
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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Back on topic, where talents shine the most is when they have a collection of different attributes. I'm pretty sure Outdoorsman has skills across DX, IQ, Per, and HT. Talents being weak is a byproduct of DX and IQ not being defined as their own talents, not a weakness of talents themselves. I've already come up with some talents worth more than [20], since they cover so much (Omnitalent I have squared at [40], while you could make an Adventurer's Talent worth [25], and shoving about 100 useful skills in it, putting it on board a similar level as DX and IQ). In all honesty, if I had built talents my self from the ground up, I may have used the fact that Foo+1 is effectively IQ (Only to increase Foo -80%) [4], and made talents taking that into account. It's finicky and complicated, though, so how talents are being treated right now is fine (If someone wants more details, I can post it or start a new thread or something). |
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04-22-2013, 02:50 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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Disad Limits are an optional rule and not mandatory. I never use Disad Limits. It encourages people to take more Disadvantages because they think they are "supposed to". I use the GM Veto instead.
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Fred Brackin |
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04-22-2013, 02:55 PM | #29 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
You can't normally choose to take disadvantages willingly in-play and you do not normally get points back for disadvantages gained in-play. It can't work except as a meta-trait.
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Last edited by sir_pudding; 04-22-2013 at 03:01 PM. |
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04-22-2013, 03:35 PM | #30 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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It is not labeled "Optional" but neither is it made mandatory. B.11, last sentence of the first paragraph under disadvantage Limit says 'In practice, most GMs will want to set a limit on the amount of Disadvantage points a PC can have.". That's more of an observation on GM desires than a Commandment. It also doesn't tell you what a Disad Limit should be if you set one. It suggests 50% but in my experience 75 pts of Disads for a 150 pt character tends to be crippling. Even back in 3e, 40 pts of Disads on a 100pt character could be overkill. 500pts of disads on a 1000pt character might not even be theoretically possible. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a good level for balance. So, GMs are not commanded to set a Disad Limit nor are they told what that Limit should be. More than anything else it seems to be a suggestion on common practices rather than even an endorsement of good ones. That's a little bit less than advice much less a _rule_. No one says "You might want to charge twice as much for DX and IQ as you do for ST and HT". Much more positive verbs are used in that case and for other rules in general.
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Fred Brackin |
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Tags |
gm advice, talent, talents |
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