3 Character Types: Fighter, Wizard, Mixed (Bard, Cleric, Monk)

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Shostak

A Wizarding talent does not, by itself, contradict the desire to have wizards “born, not made.” while one could say that it is a talent like any other, and one could easily declare that it represents learning allowed by some kind of genetic disposition. Furthermore, it is up to the GM as to whether or not to allow anyone to take this talent after character generation.

The point of the talent is not to create baked-in assumptions about the difference between wizards and mundanes, but to add a bit of balance to create better (or at least desired by some people) balance for those with the ability to cast spells.

Thank you Shostak, I was just about to say most of that.

I see this is a very old thread I never saw, slightly predating my joining the forum. What's so ironic is the very first thread I ever started was on this very subject, and I ended up defending the concept of a Wizardry talent in several places soon after against all the same assumptions popping up in this rekindled debate. Guess I'd better get back to work :)

TippetsTX brought up one of the points I've rebutted in the past, about his desire to keep wizards something that are "born and not made". I prefer to keep it that way too, but there's no reason a Wizardry talent has to contradict that.

In my rules I simply have an age prerequisite. Training in my Wizardry talent has to begin before puberty (before 12) and last continuously for several years, because children born with the psychic ability to focus and use Mana lose that ability if training hasn't started before all those hormones kick in.

What that translates to is that any adult PC, at character creation, has finished learning Wizardry or not, and if they haven't then they can't start learning it now or add it later, period. Problem solved.

[Helborn]

One of my house rules allows a wizard to learn talents at Hero cost during character creation. This allows them to be much more of a "mixed" type.

Another one is that talents and spells cost X times IQ of each; X being variable with the campaign - anything from 10 to 50. (e.g. at X=25, a 1 pt IQ 8 talent costs 25 x 8 = 200 XP, while a 3 pt IQ 12 talent would cost 900 XP; at X=50, it becomes 400 and 1800)
This also allows for variability with Heroes and Wizards having different "X's".
This would be a headache if I didn't have a spreadsheet with everything factored in.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

I understand why some folks want to turn 'wizarding' into a talent-based ability or create a set of mage-friendly talents, but each of those solutions have undesirable effects IMO. The first creates a talent (or talents) that don't function like any other talent in the game; talents that gatekeep an entirely different framework of abilities

I don't see what these undesirable effects would be. "Gatekeep" is not a dirty word. Most if not all TFT talents are gatekeepers in several ways. Any prerequisite talent is the gatekeeper for the next talent in the sequence. Other things that aren't talents themselves require a talent first. The sword talent is a gatekeeper for using many different swords. Bard is a gatekeeper for learning a variety of songs. What could be more consistent with how we do everything else in TFT than to first require a spellcasting talent, of fixed memory cost like all the other talents, in order to use many different spells?

[David Bofinger]

Does nobody know the history of TFT any more? We know what caused the wizard-hero distinction, it's driven by Melee and Wizard being different and independent games, not by D&D. And by a key decision when ITL came out, that skilled people would be grouped with warriors and not with wizards.

[David Bofinger]

I have thought of a truly terrible way to implement the spell-talent trade-off.

Imagine that talent points are the x-axis and spells the y-axis. Wizards give us a line through (IQ/2, 0) and (0, IQ) and anything below-left of that line is a legal character. Heroes are the same except the points are (IQ, 0) and (0, IQ/3). We can imagine other classes that fill in the envelope, in combination giving us a curve rather than straight lines.

Those of us who remember original TFT might also remember the fad for "string things", which made curves by the envelope of straight lines. These produced curves like sqrt(x) + sqrt(y) = 1.

We could if we wished implement a curve like this as the limit on talents and spells. In a computer game it might almost be a good idea.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

I don't see what these undesirable effects would be. "Gatekeep" is not a dirty word. Most if not all TFT talents are gatekeepers in several ways. Any prerequisite talent is the gatekeeper for the next talent in the sequence. Other things that aren't talents themselves require a talent first. The sword talent is a gatekeeper for using many different swords. Bard is a gatekeeper for learning a variety of songs. What could be more consistent with how we do everything else in TFT than to first require a spellcasting talent, of fixed memory cost like all the other talents, in order to use many different spells?

Except songs don't cost additional XP to learn. Nor do each type of sword, dagger or knife covered by the SWORD talent.

I didn't mean 'gatekeep' to be negative (and I apologize if it came across that way). It was simply the most descriptive term I could think of to illustrate the function of these talents. In my mind, a 'prerequisite' is a rung on a ladder while a 'gate' grants entry to a new environment. A WIZARDRY talent literally opens the door to a wholly different ability framework which makes it unique among all other talents in the game.TBH, though, of all the approaches proposed to eliminate the hero/wizard distinction, yours is probably my favorite. The problem (which I understand that not everyone shares my opinion about) is that I don't actually want to remove that aspect of the game. I see it as a desirable feature.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Does nobody know the history of TFT any more?

Indeed I do -- I was there when the Microgames came trickling out, one at a time. I suspect us old-timers likely comprise the majority of folk on this forum.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

We know what caused the wizard-hero distinction, it's driven by Melee and Wizard being different and independent games, not by D&D.

Yes they can be played separately (I even played Melee before Wizard came out), but they are truly building blocks to the same game. Before you even open either rule booklet, note the first line at the top of each cover. They both say The Fantasy Trip. That's the name of the game. It has been a single game, albeit evolving and published in modules while it was still being written, from Day 1.

The evidence they are the same game is in those two early texts. Subtract the Weapons Table from Melee. Now subtract from Wizard Option (c) CAST SPELL, the Spell Table and the explanation of how the spell types differ and work. Compare the two remaining texts and you'll note that they are almost 99% word for word identical. That's because they really are the same game. Except for one other tiny thing: Wizard has a 3rd Attribute: IQ.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

And by a key decision when ITL came out, that skilled people would be grouped with warriors and not with wizards.

It worked out that way, but not quite so intentionally I think. The number of spells any wizard could know had to be restricted. If every wizard could use any and every spell, they'd be balanced against each other but they'd make mincemeat out of the figures from Melee. The real purpose of the newly introduced stat called IQ was to limit the quantity and effectiveness of the spells any one wizard could have, making things a fair fight when wizards confronted non-wizards.

Talents hadn't even been invented yet, so there was no group of skilled people from which to exclude wizards in the first place. When ITL came along the same problem occurred again, these Talents that were being introduced also had to be limited and regulated. It had to be a simple decision to just press IQ into service again, rather than reinvent the wheel. The side-effect though was that the "skilled" group of people (all the non-wizards) only needed IQ for buying one thing, Talents, whereas the wizards now needed to spend IQ for two things, their original Spells, and now Talents too. Thus the distinction was born. To have done otherwise would have called for a 4th attribute, but SJ was committed to keeping TFT as simple as possible.

My estimation is that Wizards and Heroes became separate classes for purely practical reasons, not because they were meant to be separate subspecies of sentient life.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Talents hadn't even been invented yet, so there was no group of skilled people from which to exclude wizards in the first place.

Not only that, but the implication from Melee is that non-wizards will have an IQ of 8 (24 points in ST and DX leaves only 8 for IQ), not the “average” IQ of 10 discussed in Legacy Edition ITL.

[hcobb]

You can still make an IQ 8 warrior, it's just that Legacy makes that very suboptimal.

[Terquem]

This very simple statement is profound.

There is, "what is optimal," from a mathematical success rate perspective but, in my opinion, role playing games are about the play itself and never need to be optimal in any aspect other than resolutions of actions are accepted by the group.