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Old 06-29-2021, 10:57 AM   #1
Shadekeep
 
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Default Veteran Talent

Had this idea recently for a house-ruled talent to add. Don't know if similar has been suggested before, apology if it covers ground that's already been traversed.

This talent is most useful in situations where the GM conceals the attributes of enemies from the players. I assume that this is the dominant scenario, but have learned that my assumptions are often not accurate. Anyway, in those cases where attributes are hidden, it makes sense that an experienced fighter should be able to gauge the abilities of their opponent. To that end I offer this new talent.

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Veteran Talent
IQ 13 (2)
no prerequisites, but the GM may wish to require some kind of advanced martial talent, such as Tactics/Strategist, Weapon Mastery, Master Fencer, or UC III.

This talent is found among seasoned combatants. It allows them to use their extensive experience to gauge the abilities of their opponents. In practical terms, anyone with the Veteran talent gets a chance to learn one of their opponent's attribute values. They can make attempts to gauge a foe's strength, dexterity, or intelligence. Against familiar enemies (humans, orcs, common beasts, etc) this is a 3/IQ roll, for unusual enemies (dragons, octopi, etc) it's a 4/IQ roll, and for enemies that have never been encountered before or magical foes with a large attribute range (zombies and elementals can have almost any ST, for example) it's a 5/IQ roll. The GM may state that some enemies are so alien to the veteran that they have no chance of guessing the foe's attributes.

The gauging roll should be made by the GM in secret, and the accuracy of the analysis is based on how well (or poorly) the roll goes. A successful roll should give the veteran the exact attribute value sought or a close approximation, whereas a failed roll under- or over-estimates the attribute. Critical success might reveal more than one attribute, whereas critical failure would give such an inaccurate guess that the veteran is completely mislead about the attribute examined.

A potential further wrinkle of this talent is that a veteran may be able to determine a combat skill of an enemy, instead of an attribute. They could use their above roll to determine if an enemy is using a weapon in a skilled or unskilled way, or if they have some unusual talent like Two Weapons.

The assessment roll does not count as the veteran's only action during their phase. In can be used alongside other normal turn actions, including combat. In fact it is actually during combat that a veteran is able to most accurately gauge a foe's strengths and weaknesses. One roll at most may be made per turn, and that against one specific foe. There are no limits to the total number of rolls a veteran may make against a given foe over time, however.
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Old 06-29-2021, 12:16 PM   #2
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

I'd be inclined to let this fall under Tactics.
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Old 06-29-2021, 12:16 PM   #3
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

Wouldn't you want to avoid confusion with the old Veteran talent?

https://www.hcobb.com/tft/legacy_first.html#Talents
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Old 06-29-2021, 08:31 PM   #4
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

I'm all for interesting non-weapon talents for warriors (see my entries in the thread https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=166565), but I'm not sure I understand the advantage of knowing an opponent's stats. How does knowing the DX of my foe help me defeat them?

(and I fully admit that there may very well be an edge here that I'm not seeing)
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Old 06-30-2021, 10:14 AM   #5
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

Ha! I thought the talent name sounded familiar when I was writing it up. So it was in the old ITL. I shoulda drug out my copy of the Codex first.

Anyhoo, this is mostly a talent for folks who like to play a numbers game and find that knowing the stats gives them a tactical edge (should I go ranged or melee against this foe based on ST? or how much power should I put into this Lightning spell to deal with them?). Very possibly this is too niche to be of much general interest, hence why I offer it as a house rule. But it does seem like something an experienced combatant should be able to do, even if you just tuck it under an existing talent.
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Old 06-30-2021, 10:38 AM   #6
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

Quote:
Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
I'm all for interesting non-weapon talents for warriors (see my entries in the thread https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=166565), but I'm not sure I understand the advantage of knowing an opponent's stats. How does knowing the DX of my foe help me defeat them?

(and I fully admit that there may very well be an edge here that I'm not seeing)
Really? With my experienced players, trying to read what foes' abilities were like was thought to be one of the most important parts of play, and they would observe and study their foes before choosing when/where/how/whether to engage them, whenever possible, by taking actions and asking the GM questions about what they observed. The GM would consider how experienced the asking PC was, what they could see the foes doing, and then roll to see how accurate the information they'd give out would be. They'd start by asking about their equipment and armor and what its quality and condition seemed to be, and then ask for impressions of how strong, capable, experienced and tough they seemed to be.

We'd still always leave some vagueness to it, rather than outright saying what the stats were, not just because it seemed like too much accuracy, but because we preferred to talk in real-world terms rather than game stats whenever possible. Sometimes players could deduce what someone's adjDX or ST was if they thought about it and certain things came up in play, or we happened to see die rolls and results. But sometimes people would even try to avoid appearing as strong, dextrous, or as intelligent and experienced and well equipped as they were, because that would tend to attract unwanted attention in various ways.

We didn't make a talent for it in TFT, but as GM I would think about how experienced the PC. (In GURPS, I did house-rule in an extra skill or two about this, and the ability to be aware of what exactly was going on during combat, but that was for more detailed play.)

Last edited by Skarg; 06-30-2021 at 10:44 AM.
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Old 06-30-2021, 11:12 AM   #7
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

See, I get where Skarg is coming from... knowing that an opponent has FENCING based on their stance or being able to distinguish a 'sword for show' vs one that has been well-worn in deadly combat would be useful pieces of information. Knowing their attribute values, however, seems a bit meta-gamey to me.

I'm picturing something like that scene in The Bourne Identity where Bourne is sitting in the diner explaining his innate, but unexplicable, tactical awareness of everything around him in ("that guy at the bar knows how to handle himself").
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Old 06-30-2021, 11:25 AM   #8
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

I personally lean more towards the RPG aspects of the game than the stats side of things. But some folks prefer the mechanical side of the game and all that the stats entail. Knowing an enemy's numeric stat wouldn't necessarily work exactly that way in the game, even if it was conveyed to the player in that fashion. In game terms the character would be more likely experiencing an intuition that "this guy is stronger than that other guy by a good amount", or "that women with the throwing knives seems crazy dexterous". Telling the player the stat number is a way of conveying the level of significance of this intuition.

It's also useful outside of pure combat situations. For example if one character is considering entering a Contest with another, it could be useful to gauge their comparative ability first.

And of course the talent can used to guess enemy talents (or even exclusively used for such, if the GM decrees). That's in there as well.
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Old 07-01-2021, 07:03 AM   #9
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

Oh, and if folks want to house-rule this into their games and avoid confusion with the old Veteran talent, the other name I mooted for this skill is Gauge Opponent. That parallels Assess Value, as one lets you determine the monetary worth of an item and the other relative attributes of a person. Or you could use your own name, like Combat Sense or whatever is most descriptive to you.
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Old 07-01-2021, 09:29 AM   #10
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Default Re: Veteran Talent

Call it Death Stare and give it out free to any wizard with the Death spell.
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