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Old 09-04-2020, 06:09 AM   #1
Calliban
 
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Default Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

I've got the core book a while ago (The Fantasy Trip/In the Labyrinth) and I'm currently planning on using it to run a campaign to my players.

I've been really enjoying reading it, but as a GURPS player the fact Wizards pay extra for talents while "everybody else" pays extra for spells seems like unnecessary.

I mean, I understand the "fiction" explanation that magic takes a lot of time to learn, so wizards don't have much time to learn talents whilst non-wizard lack the extensive study to learn spells. But for what I've been reading, there seems to be no mechanical reason for that that I was able to find.

Let's say in my campaign I remove the extra cost for figures learning stuff from the other group. What would be the implications in terms of game balance?
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Old 09-04-2020, 07:18 AM   #2
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

One of the core elements of TFT is 'choice'. You choose a character path, your initial attribute scores, your skills and abilities and those choices come at the cost of other options. If you make spells and talents cost the same for all characters, I think you remove an interesting distinction that creates a more diverse and dynamic world to play in.

That being said, no, it probably won't 'break' the game, but it will be a different game.
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Old 09-04-2020, 07:47 AM   #3
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

I don't think it irreparably harms the game if in your campaign setting you flatten the cost for talents and spells for everyone. If you want a world with warrior-mages and spellblades then go for it. But in general I prefer the separate approach that the rules embody. Same-cost-for-everything implies a world where magic is essentially mundane and one can pick up as easily as archery or baking. It might have some positives, such as every town guard being trained in the Drop Weapon spell, but then every cunning low-life is going to know Knock, too. The ramifications are a much different game world.
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Old 09-04-2020, 08:58 AM   #4
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

I've played a house ruled version of 'classic edition' where no distinction was drawn between 'heroes' and 'wizards', but I added several talents that acted as 'gate keepers' for spell learning, so that there was some capital cost to learning spells, but it was easy to create hybrid characters, a'la Elrik or the Grey Mouser. This was successful and never felt like a substantial change in the overall power or magic use in the campaign.

Another option I've considered but not used is to simply open the flood gates by allowing free learning of spells and talents at equal costs for all characters, with no new 'gate keeper' talents. I have not done this in practice, but I imagine the end result would be a campaign with some of the flavor of classic Runequest, where most or all characters know magic and have significant skills. It is difficult to say what this would do to overall power level and balance; I'm sure one can imagine 'white room' arguments for super characters that could be created by combining certain combat skills and spells. But I would not hesitate to try this. I suspect the real result would be a greater use of magic in the game, but not by orders of magnitude and with no major shift in power balance. Magic use comes at a cost and bears range and other restrictions that would prevent things from getting too crazy.

Perhaps the most important thing would be for the GM to have NPC's and intelligent monsters know magic much more commonly as well, so the players don't get special unbalancing abilities.
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Old 09-04-2020, 03:25 PM   #5
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

I prefer TFT with no "classes" so that all characters pay the same costs for talents and spells. The "gatekeeper" talent Larsdangly mentions is a fine idea and fairly GURPSy. Just create a Thaumatology talent at IQ 8 and you are ready to go. Or just dispense with that and let characters learn whatever they want. I've done this and everyone had fun. Interestingly, most people preferred to not mix it up too much with magic. If your group is more at the roleplay end, you might find similar results. Another thing that keeps too many warrior/wizard hybrids is the iron penalty. Unless you have a superb DX, you are unlikely to be a heavily armored warrior who can effectively cast magic, too.
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Old 09-05-2020, 05:57 PM   #6
Steve Plambeck
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

In my group we charged everyone the same cost for Talents from the day original ITL came out, and never had a problem or felt any game imbalance because of it. We'd already added what we called "skills" to Melee/Wizard in 1978, mostly utilitarian things like swimming, riding, climbing, and cart driving that traveling adventurers use frequently. We converted them to the official Talents when ITL came along, but didn't take those things away from wizards. We also didn't make wizards "forget" spells they already knew to make room for those Talents, but instead treated spells as a separate "memory track": an IQ 12 wizard still knew 12 spells, and had a separate 12 points to spend on Talents, although they did first have to spend 5 Talent points on our Wizardry Talent, which functioned as the gatekeeper to learning any spells at all.

All spells always cost 1, as we never allowed non-wizards to learn spells anyway. I always liked the distinction between wizards and non-magic users, the only actual "classes" that exist in TFT. I've heard the argument that introducing the Wizardry Talent undermines this distinction, allowing anyone to become a wizard, but strictly speaking that isn't true at all. Practically speaking, no 32 point PC could ever afford to add the 5 point Wizardry Talent if they didn't have it from the start. But the in-story reason was that you had to be born a wizard, and have years of training from childhood before earning the Wizardry Talent.

And of course the huge convenience that came out of all this is that every Talent had a single, constant price, without any other rules or exceptions to learn or worry about.
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Old 09-06-2020, 12:10 PM   #7
Terquem
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

I do like the Wizardry Talent idea
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Old 09-07-2020, 02:55 PM   #8
Skarg
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

IF you want to play "everyone is a wizard who can also do other things easily", and/or "fighters can pick up magic spells even more easily than learning another weapon skill", then yes you can do that.

It will alter the game play and type of world and situations and character types/designs a lot, though.

The system as written is pretty carefully designed, and playing this way will mix that up.

The game/roleplaying situation of "all sorts of people know all sorts of spells" also makes play situations potentially MUCH more complex and weird, too. Good luck maintaining law/order/sanity when most of the population know spells... or at least, it will require GM contrivances and/or not thinking about certain logical trains of thought.
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Old 09-08-2020, 05:59 AM   #9
David Bofinger
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

I played in a campaign like that. It was fun but the characters were all pretty powerful, it might not suit every game.
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Old 09-08-2020, 06:02 AM   #10
David Bofinger
 
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Default Re: Would it break/hurt the game if Talents and Spells cost the same?

You could also try a weakened version of RAW. Wizards pay 150% of normal cost for talents. Heroes pay 150% or 200% of normal cost for spells. See what happened.

I used to have a generalist class who paid I think 120% of normal cost for everything.
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