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Old 04-20-2021, 01:40 AM   #11
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

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Originally Posted by Skipper2921 View Post
Under Learning New Spells and Talents, the last paragraph on ITL45 states " When you add a new ability (spell or talent), you can use it immediately. It is assumed that you were practicing. . . ".
I agree that is not the way to encourage good role-playing. For one thing, the assumption of practice doesn't commit you to a specific new talent or spell in advance, it becomes a choice after the fact. Under original ITL the things you were learning were part of the character for weeks, months, or even a year if it took that long to reach the required IQ. You couldn't say you'd been practicing swimming however long that took, and then just switch it to literacy instead on the day you earned the last XP point you needed. Of course the GM still doesn't have to allow that, and I'd suggest they shouldn't, but it was nicer having that in the rules to back up the GM, and let any player reading ITL know what they should expect.
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Old 04-20-2021, 05:37 AM   #12
phiwum
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

Think of a 40 attribute point wizard. In First Edition, to get a memory point required an IQ increase, which cost 1000XP. In Legacy, a memory point costs 500XP, no matter the attribute point total.

So, "the" advantage of first edition is that extremely experienced wizards gained new talents and spells more slowly, says Henry. Of course, the exact same calculation applies to any character with 40 APs.
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Old 04-20-2021, 07:20 AM   #13
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

1st edition hammered wizards with expensive and hard to qualify for talents under a tight memory cap. If a wizard needed a thief then he should go shopping for Muggles in the Shire.

Under legacy there are more talents, but the core talents have increased uses, reduced costs and qualifications. Instead of having buy all of THIEF a wizard can now pay for just the thieving talents that don't overlap with his Lock/Knock and Reveal/Conceal spells. And choosing these talents won't shut down his spell learning forever, just until he's reached the point when adding DX is too expensive.

The same applies to heroes as they can now potentially learn all the spells in the book. However this is at tripled cost (rather than doubled), they can't use books and scrolls, and there are several "Wizards only" perks they can never achieve, including Mana.
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Old 04-20-2021, 02:58 PM   #14
Steve Plambeck
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

I'd forgotten spell costs for non-wizards had gone from 2 to 3. I wouldn't say that tilts things to any significant advantage for wizards. 6 points of memory now buys a non-wizard 2 spells, or a wizard 3 points worth of talents. True under original ITL the non-wizard could have afforded one more spell, but the wizard comes out the same either way. Learning just a small number of talents still cuts very deeply into a wizard's arsenal of spells.

In my circle we not only didn't let the muggles use scrolls and spell books, we didn't let them learn or use spells, period. We preferred that sharp delineation between those who were magical and those who were not.

Going back to Hrothgar's original post, any new player comparing Wizard to ITL will also find a wizard built under the former rules cannot keep all its learned spells while adding any talents under the latter rules. For a particular wizard PC you've had around awhile playing significant roles in a campaign, how the heck do you retcon that going forward??? This transitional problem is the same under original and Legacy ITL. (And as I've whined about for decades, that doesn't sit well with me.)

Later addendum:
Here's a suggested fix for the "transitional problem" mentioned above. This wasn't possible under original ITL but could be done under Legacy's new use for XP:

With the GM's permission, the veteran wizard under the Wizard-only rules could transition to being an ITL wizard by being granted a boon of XP equal to the wizard's IQ times 500XP (the XP value of that many spells when learned by a wizard). This boon would have to immediately be converted to talent points and spent on talents, or lost. So a veteran IQ 12 wizard under Wizard rules could start play under the ITL rules with a 6000 XP credit (12 x 500) and choose 6 points worth of talents (because for ITL wizards each talent point costs 1000 XP).

This would just be a stop-gap measure to allow a player to bring an existing wizard PC that had been created and used under Wizard rules to join a campaign in progress running under the full ITL rules.
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Last edited by Steve Plambeck; 04-21-2021 at 01:51 AM.
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Old 04-20-2021, 05:42 PM   #15
TippetsTX
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
I'd forgotten spell costs for non-wizards had gone from 2 to 3. I wouldn't say that tilts things to any significant advantage for wizards. 6 points of memory now buys a non-wizard 2 spells, or a wizard 3 points worth of talents. True under original ITL the non-wizard could have afforded one more spell, but the wizard comes out the same either way. Learning just a small number of talents still cuts very deeply into a wizard's arsenal of spells.
Legacy didn't change these costs, though. Heroes paid 3 IQ points for spells in the classic rules as well (original ITL page 9).

TBH, I think the old rules allowing characters to forget TALENTS or SPELLS probably benefited our wizards more than heroes back in the day. SPELLS seemed to become targets for replacement far more frequently than TALENTS.
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Old 04-20-2021, 05:52 PM   #16
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

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TBH, I think the old rules allowing characters to forget TALENTS or SPELLS probably benefited our wizards more than heroes back in the day. SPELLS seemed to become targets for replacement far more frequently than TALENTS.
Yes, can't cast Naturalist from a scroll or book.
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Old 04-20-2021, 09:31 PM   #17
PBarone714
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

On p. 45 of In the Labyrinth Legacy Edition, it says "Each new spell or talent learned costs 500 XP -- or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on."

A new spell costs 500 XP. You must qualify for each new spell with having the appropriate IQ for the new spell.
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Old 04-21-2021, 01:10 AM   #18
Steve Plambeck
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

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Legacy didn't change these costs, though. Heroes paid 3 IQ points for spells in the classic rules as well (original ITL page 9).
Well well, here I thought I was miss-remembering original ITL because of this:

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Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
The same applies to heroes as they can now potentially learn all the spells in the book. However this is at tripled cost (rather than doubled)
I took that part in bold as an old-cost/new-cost comparison, which made me think I wasn't remembering the old cost correctly. Whereas I now see it's actually a spell-cost/talent/cost comparison.

So my memory is still intact (thank the gods!), it's just my reading skills that are woefully inadequate!
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Old 04-21-2021, 01:25 AM   #19
Steve Plambeck
 
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

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Originally Posted by PBarone714 View Post
On p. 45 of In the Labyrinth Legacy Edition, it says "Each new spell or talent learned costs 500 XP -- or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on."

A new spell costs 500 XP. You must qualify for each new spell with having the appropriate IQ for the new spell.
Importantly it goes on to say:
"As when your character was created, spells cost triple for a non-wizard, and talents cost double for a wizard."
Thus a spell costs 1500 XP for a non-wizard. and each 1-point talent costs 1000 XP for a wizard.

Or, for 3000 XP: a non-wizard can learn two spells, or a wizard could learn one 3-point talent.
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Old 06-21-2021, 11:58 PM   #20
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Default Re: Effects of Increasing Intelligence

"Each new spell or Talent learned costs 500 XP - or 1,000 for talents marked (2) in the listing, and so on." ITL Legacy Ed. p. 45
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