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Old 07-03-2019, 05:36 PM   #1
TippetsTX
 
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Default TFT Character Tiers

Spinning off from the "Starting with a Mana Staff" thread...

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
I can see several reasons to not allow starting PCs to start with Expert/Master weapon talents, and perhaps other combat-aiding talents.

1) It feels thematically off to me. What is a beginning fighter who's not as good as other beginners in terms of ST & DX, has had no adventures, and before being a master would not be a good fighter at all, but is already a master? How did that happen, and why did it only happen to the not-so-capable beginning fighters?

2) I want Expert and Master combat talents to represent people who have exceptional levels of experience and training. That doesn't match typical starting characters, or 32-point characters, or fighters with ST + DX totaling 20 or less. If people want to start as exceptionally trained weapon experts/masters, then I'd want those PCs to have appropriate backgrounds and higher attributes, too. In short, I think the listed requirements are too low and should probably include years of exceptional experience and training, like Captain and Strategist do.

3) For a game where PCs start as 32-point beginners, I want Expert and Master combat talents to be challenging goals that can be earned through much successful play. Something to strive for and to reward survival of the combat experiences that are what develop a superior fighter.

4) Using the Legacy experience/talent-learning system RAW, it's a bypass of what otherwise would be the need to spend 500 XP of actual play experience per talent point. i.e. In addition to my reason 3, if a PC starts with these talents by taking enough IQ and getting it for no XP, they avoid spending XP on the talent and so can just jack up their combat attributes, which is a big XP advantage of doing it this way that seems backwards and like an exploit to me.

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
Blades & Black Magic addresses exactly these issues:
  1. Starting characters cannot have expert skills
  2. Each starting character has the same number of skill points

But TFT (both original and Legacy) explicitly allows different characters to start with different amounts of talent points and has no restrictions about starting characters taking talents with prerequisites.

This sounds to me like TFT actually doesn't fit your concept of the rarity of expertise (but B&BM does). TFT does, however, support the concept of the cloistered warrior, trained from birth, who starts out as an expert, and that's a trope just as well-trodden as the know-nothing village kid who has to learn everything the hard way.

You could say that TFT supports both but given the simulation results, it seems to favor the experts.
I have been considering a similar framework, because I also believe that certain abilities should not be available to starting characters. Advanced talents or spells should only be achievable after the character has earned the right to have them through experience, preferably in-game experience. To this end, I am experimenting with the idea of 'character tiers' in my campaign.

When I look at the typical character lifecycle in RPGs, regardless of the system, I can usually break it down into 3 stages of development:
Novice
Veteran
Legend

Sometimes there will be a fourth stage for 'mythic' or 'epic' characters, but for me, that level of play is less critical to maintaining the players' engagement and enjoyment of the game.

Now what if those 'tiers' could be applied at the talent-level (or spell) as prerequisites or a threshold of experience that must be gained before certain abilities can be acquired?

For example, for the sake of argument, let's assume I am using the 40-point (ugh) cap from LE. This would mean that most characters will have a 9-point progression range that can reasonably be achieved during their 'lifecycle' so the tiers would be defined as follows...

Novice - 32, 33 or 34-point characters
Veteran - 35, 36 or 37-point characters
Legend - 38, 39 or 40-point characters

Then I could establish rules using that framework to dictate that, say, only Staff I and II can be selected by a starting 'novice' wizard. To aquire Staff III or IV, you must first reach the 'veteran' tier and finally Staff V is only available to a 'legendary' character. In this way, the GM controls when certain powerful spells or talents can be aquired, preventing 'gamey' character builds and applying some logical structure to the pacing of character advancement.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:09 PM   #2
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

P.S. In my own campaign, I prefer a broader range of character potential thus the 'character tiers' would be structured as follows...
Novice - 31 to 36 points
Veteran - 37 to 42 points
Legend - 43 to 48 points
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Old 07-04-2019, 01:36 AM   #3
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

I mean, sure, I guess you can do this. But TFT isn't a 'leveled' game, so I don't understand the desire to force it into that structure. It's a point buy game which allows multiple different character 'builds'. If there were certain combos that were absolutely OP, I could understand it. But Weapon Expert, Fencer, and Staff III aren't exactly game breaking.

Why not just cap IQ at 10 for starting characters? That seems to accomplish the same thing, and is much less work than going through every spell and talent and deciding what is a level 1, 2, or 3.
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Old 07-04-2019, 09:36 AM   #4
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

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Originally Posted by Tywyll View Post
I mean, sure, I guess you can do this. But TFT isn't a 'leveled' game, so I don't understand the desire to force it into that structure. It's a point buy game which allows multiple different character 'builds'. If there were certain combos that were absolutely OP, I could understand it. But Weapon Expert, Fencer, and Staff III aren't exactly game breaking.

Why not just cap IQ at 10 for starting characters? That seems to accomplish the same thing, and is much less work than going through every spell and talent and deciding what is a level 1, 2, or 3.
While I will admit that the proposed framework is 'level-like' in form, it's function is more organizational. On their own, the 'tiers' have no inherent qualities or benefits. They simply serve to manage character progression in a way that (hopefully) reinforces the heroic narrative... namely that certain milestones must be achieved before the hero can unlock their true potential.

Additionally, it still allows for a great variety of initial character builds. A goblin wizard with ST 8, DX 10 and IQ 16 is still a 'novice' (at the top end) as is the reptile-man with ST 14, DX 12 and IQ 8.
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Old 07-04-2019, 09:51 AM   #5
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

I don't think this is a problem that needs rules to address.

If you really want to run a "zero to hero" campaign, give your players a list of "starting talents" to choose from ("You're all from a tiny village in the mountains, here's what the locals can teach you"), and then allow them to learn anything they want during the course of the campaign.

This way, seeking out training will become a really powerful motivation for most players, and we can always use more good quest hooks right?
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Old 07-04-2019, 11:47 AM   #6
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

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Originally Posted by Anomylous View Post
I don't think this is a problem that needs rules to address.

If you really want to run a "zero to hero" campaign, give your players a list of "starting talents" to choose from ("You're all from a tiny village in the mountains, here's what the locals can teach you"), and then allow them to learn anything they want during the course of the campaign.

This way, seeking out training will become a really powerful motivation for most players, and we can always use more good quest hooks right?
Based on some of the more extreme starting character builds that I have seen on these forums, I would disagree, but at the same time I don't see it as a problem so much as an opportunity. Character tiers are simply my way of formalizing the 'hero's journey' that you describe above.

But there is also a secondary purpose to the design and that is to provide a guide for creating appropriate challenges and scalable XP awards in my games. I only have the broad strokes so far, but basically each creature or encounter would be assigned a 'tier' as well. The designations will then help GMs to balance the challenges faced by the characters as well as provide a reasonable method for adjusting the rewards earned from overcoming them. For example, say a starting character (Novice) takes on a more experienced Veteran opponent. Then whatever you decide your baseline XP award should be, you multiply it by 2 to adjust for the level of difficulty. Whenever you fight something on-level, the multiplier is only 1, so you only get the baseline XP. On the other hand, a Veteran taking on a challenge rated as 'novice' would only get half of the baseline XP.
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Last edited by TippetsTX; 07-04-2019 at 03:01 PM.
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Old 07-04-2019, 10:23 AM   #7
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

I too tend to think of characters in terms of how much experience they have had and what level of ability they have gained from that, and think that some talents might only be available from having a certain amount of experience.


I also tend to think of attribute totals in a similar way for typical humans - most non-combat types are 28-32 points, capable but not very experienced people I tend to expect to be 32-34 points, experienced capable people 35-36 points, very experienced and capable people 37-38 points.

After that, as TippetsTX mentioned, there's a divide between the old XP system and a system that like the new XP system tends to top out at about 39-42 points. In that case, the most experienced and capable people are 39-42 points.

In the old system, there were higher and higher tiers, which got more and more excessive and overpowering of the lesser tiers, and our groups' experience of that tended to be an unhappy one, though like TippetsTX I see some room to stretch a bit higher than 40-42 without the worst problems (and magic items tend to be a greater problem anyway, but that's another topic).


I notice though that I tend to think of experience as only one thing that could give someone high attributes. I think different people have different gifts as well, and so I don't see attribute totals as a direct indicator of experience level.

And so I'd tend to want something else to determine what certain experience-requiring talents took something other than starting IQ or XP and/or time to achieve.

Two existing talents: Captain and Strategist, have prerequisites listed in terms of years of appropriate experience. I think I'd tend to want something similar for talents which seem to me to represent abilities that would take experience and/or special training to develop.


In practice, what I do is make NPCs that have talents I think are appropriate for their experience. And an alarm light goes off when some people start suggesting characters that look weird to me (e.g. hcobb's "typical" expert 32-point javelineer or knife hobbit who are doing other cheesy attempts to find annoying counterintuitive tactics).


However as I keep thinking about it and Tywyll's thoughts about Weapon Expert and Fencer, I think I have separate qualms about that talent. One issue is just the way it combines with a 32-point character to mean that starting characters can be experts, but all such characters must be ST 9 or less... that mainly bothers me because that filtering for weak experts only seems like a weird gamey effect.

And the whole effect on XP costs, though it sounds like no one on this thread is actually using the new 500 XP cost to learn a talent point thing.


Spells I tend to want to address on a case by case basis and think about whether they're known and taught by and to whom and in what versions with what modifications, and I don't know that I'd need/want more than that... but maybe I would if I had spells I felt represented a lot of experience rather than just high IQ.

And again, I find some new additions might be most likely to bother me in that way. Especially the new Staff spells, which I want to mess with anyway. Those do seem to be written with a notion that they (and the staff mana stat) are supposed to reflect wizardly experience somehow (e.g. you can only buy staff mana with XP). As such it does feel a little cheesy/gamey/off to "rush" the high staff spells at creation... though I sort of see Tywyll's point that it doesn't really gain that much, especially if staff mana cannot be bought without XP (and as always, if the new 500 XP advantage is house-ruled away).

I think my main annoyances with the new staff spells are actually about combining zap powers into the same spells most wizards will want in order to get staff mana. If I house rule those apart, that reduces my concern...

Comparing to check for a similar sort of issue as I feel with Weapon Expert. For example, if I compare two 32-point wizard PCs, one IQ 12 who can't learn Staff III, and one IQ 13 starting with Staff III, I see that as they both gain experience, the IQ 12 one will need to learn Staff III before they can put XP into staff mana... hmm... I think that shows me where the "edge" of the problem is for me. It's about a beginning character starting with a magic IQ number enough to start with a talent/spell that represents being much less of a beginner (moreso than I think would be accounted for naturally by the higher IQ score). With Staff III I don't see it actually being that much of a big deal though because the main benefit is being able to spend XP at 200 XP for one staff mana, which isn't even very efficient until you're a higher-point-level wizard anyway).

Last edited by Skarg; 07-04-2019 at 10:30 AM.
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Old 07-05-2019, 02:17 AM   #8
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
However as I keep thinking about it and Tywyll's thoughts about Weapon Expert and Fencer, I think I have separate qualms about that talent. One issue is just the way it combines with a 32-point character to mean that starting characters can be experts, but all such characters must be ST 9 or less... that mainly bothers me because that filtering for weak experts only seems like a weird gamey effect.
To me it just means that the only 32-point characters you'll find who are experts are those who concentrated in IQ and DX. Stronger ones have to spend time strength-training so higher-ST beginners haven't had enough time to become experts.

One thing that does bother me about the expert and master talents is that they have that annoying IQ + DX prerequisite pattern which limits the practical ST to 13, so the current system limits you to bastard sword or morning star. A Great Sword Master at 40 points ought to be at least a possibility.

I think the IQ requirement should be much lower (like 10) and there should be another way of limiting the talent, like maybe one of these:
  • Two attributes must total at least X
  • Two attributes must be higher than X
  • Attribute total must be X (34, 36, 38, etc.)

Personally, I'd make Expert an IQ 10 talent requiring DX 13 and one other attribute of at least 13 and Master also an IQ 10 talent but requiring DX 14 and one other attribute of at least 14. The IQ 10 requirement limits the options a bit and acknowledges that experts and masters have to be of at least average intelligence but it doesn't prevent mastery of higher-ST weapons.

This allows for Sword Masters with Great Swords starting at an attribute total of 40. Note that this also allows elves, goblins, and halflings to start out with Expert.
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Old 07-07-2019, 04:19 PM   #9
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Default Re: TFT Character Tiers

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
One thing that does bother me about the expert and master talents is that they have that annoying IQ + DX prerequisite pattern which limits the practical ST to 13, so the current system limits you to bastard sword or morning star. A Great Sword Master at 40 points ought to be at least a possibility.

I think the IQ requirement should be much lower (like 10) and there should be another way of limiting the talent, like maybe one of these:
  • Two attributes must total at least X
  • Two attributes must be higher than X
  • Attribute total must be X (34, 36, 38, etc.)
I agree and I see 'character tiers' as a possible alternative to what you are describing here. Regarding the 'expert' and 'master' talents specifically, I would also be willing to lower the IQ requirement in exchange for reaching the Veteran or Legend tiers before they can be aquired (in addition to finding a willing weapon-master to train them).
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Old 08-09-2019, 02:03 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by TippetsTX View Post
P.S. In my own campaign, I prefer a broader range of character potential thus the 'character tiers' would be structured as follows...
Novice - 31 to 36 points
Veteran - 37 to 42 points
Legend - 43 to 48 points
FYI, the specific XP progression model that I am using to support this concept in my games can be found here...

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...6&postcount=55
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Last edited by TippetsTX; 08-09-2019 at 02:08 PM.
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