08-27-2020, 06:14 AM | #11 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
Tiers... Novice, Veteran and Legend. They're more broad than the current IQ-based structure since they use the character's total attribute value. It reinforces the 'heroic journey' aspect of RPGs that my players and I prefer.
P.S. TFT already has 'levels'. They're just represented more abstractly in the form of ST, DX and IQ.
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos Last edited by TippetsTX; 08-27-2020 at 06:29 AM. |
08-27-2020, 09:11 AM | #12 | |||
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
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The system of IQ prerequisites forces characters into molds and thus discourages diversity. Consider a character intended to be just a really good soldier: the system pretty much forces them to be have IQ 13 and ST & DX 14 each. If the IQ requirement were lowered, you could have figures with average IQ still being skilled swordsmen who could fight well from horseback, and without being necessarily good at all mental tasks. |
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08-28-2020, 01:52 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jun 2019
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
Ah, I agree you've spotted a problem and proposed a viable solution. Adding character tiers to the game seems like a drastic step though in terms of TFT's "flavor", so I was just musing aloud about other possible approaches.
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Anywhere the RAW use any attribute level as both a gatekeeper to qualify to try some thing, as well as the stat tested to succeed at doing that very same thing, we're stuck with a tautology! A system that could avoid these tautological problems would be a better system. My little proposal to raise the ceiling on IQ would only aggravate the trouble with this. Actually this specific case doesn't bother me so much. A 50% chance at something really, really hard that you're really, really prepared for doesn't sound too unreasonable. But yeah, 90% on 3d6 rolls is getting ridiculous! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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"I'm not arguing. I'm just explaining why I'm right." |
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08-28-2020, 06:12 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
I was looking at it from the other side: a 50% success rate on tasks for which the character is totally unprepared and has little or no experience with.
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08-28-2020, 06:25 AM | #15 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
The way to prevent Mollies is to eliminate spellcasting vs IQ rolls and make ST count for something. Then characters will need to invest in all three stats under the 40 cap.
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08-28-2020, 08:02 AM | #16 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
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I've been thinking that the sum of all three attributes to set prerequisite levels is a better way to ensure that some talents are simply not available to beginning or mid-level characters, but perhaps better yet would be tracking XP in two says: Total Earned and Available, and use the Total Earned as the prerequisite. I'm happier with keeping spells with IQ prerequisites, though I'm not convinced that the existing levels work well with the new XP system. |
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08-28-2020, 09:18 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: New England
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
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08-28-2020, 11:56 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
Which common character concepts are unsupported in Legacy TFT? Fictional characters who are very strong, very agile, and very smart are noted in their sources as being very very exceptional.
The main limitation TFT has is that we can't do the knight in plate armor who is an effective fighter and instead wind up with the clumsy French buffoons of Agincourt .
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08-28-2020, 02:05 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: An Alternate Approach to Talents
I wholeheartedly agree that TFT provides the simplest path to the greatest diversity of character types of any game I can easily think of; you can do anything from Elric of Melnibone to Aragorn to the Grey Mouser to Tarzan to Ged to Conan and on and on without a single house rule.
But I do disagree re. the supposed problem with knights. The following character is clearly a knight, clearly hard to kill, easily achieved after moderate amounts of experience, and not a baffoon: ST 13 DX 15(11) IQ 10 Armor: Fine plate, small shield (+expertise), Toughness I: 9 pts of armor, -1 to hit in melee Weapons: Lance, Bastard sword, Dagger Talents: Sword, shield, pole weapons, toughness, shield expertise, horsemanship You could come up with pretty good versions like this at 35-37 points as well. A decent 32 point 'knight-like' figure might be: ST 10 DX 14(10) IQ 8 Armor: Fine plate, small shield: 7 pts of armor Weapons: saber, dagger Talents: Sword, shield, horsemanship |
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character generation, character points, prerequisites, progression, talents |
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