Learning a Talent by Simply Doing It

[FireHorse]

Say you're a passenger on a ship, and you don't have the Seamanship talent, but it's a fairly long voyage. How long until you get over the puking, get your Sea Legs, and lose that -2 DX penalty?

Or is it not enough to passively grow accustomed to it? Does it take more deliberate, active effort?

Suppose the Captain can't stand the sight of idle sloths lounging around on his decks, so he insists that you help the crew. How many days of that work does it take to confer the talent?

[hcobb]

Three months per skill point.

[larsdangly]

However you codify it, there is a ton of space for house-ruling character advancement (stats, talents and spells). The new edition is very OSR in its approach to most things, but it presents a very loose vibe about experience and advancement. I have been doing it RAW and liking that, but I'm curious to see what other groups cook up. My guess is that most of them will amount to 'grade inflation' (just making it easier to generate highly competent PCs). But somewhere out there is a group that will build a better XP system mousetrap

[Skarg]

I'm currently thinking my favorite simple house rule for learning talents is:

* many talents require appropriate conditions and/or teachers etc (e.g. you need to be on a ship at sea to get all of Seamanship)

* 3 months per talent point, if you have "empty" memory points (no XP required)

* If you don't have "empty" memory points (talents > IQ), it takes at least twice as long to learn a talent. (no XP required, but see below)

* some talents may have their own exceptional rates or conditions

* spells and expertise/mastery-type talents cannot be learned in excess of your memory points, but memory points can be bought for 500 XP as in the new ITL.



But that said, I think Firehorse is asking specifically not just about acquiring the Seamanship talent per se, but about if there are some other appropriate systems or guidelines to use for landlubbers who go to sea, at what rate getting over their sea symptoms.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Skarg

But that said, I think Firehorse is asking specifically not just about acquiring the Seamanship talent per se, but about if there are some other appropriate systems or guidelines to use for landlubbers who go to sea, at what rate getting over their sea symptoms.

I think you are exactly right. When does one gain one's "sea legs" and become able to use one's already existing talents (Sword, say) without a DX penalty, on board a ship?