04-21-2013, 03:14 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Another factor in talents is the amount of downtime/study experience likely to be given out in a campaign. A campaign that never uses those rules will find talents much less valuable than a campaign that is spread out over twenty years and uses the training rules.
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04-21-2013, 07:05 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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Hot Pilot adds its' level to Gunner (Any), Navigation (Air or Space) and Pilot(Any). It does not "replace" _anything_. It only adds to what you otherwise have. If your IQ and SX are low and you have no pts in those Skills you're not going to be a very good gunner or pilot at all. Now let's do some math. Say that the character in question is going to have at least DX12 and IQ12 as a base for his other Skills and abilities no matter what. The question then is if Hot Pilot is a fantastically good deal when comparing Skills+Talent v. Skills alone. Let's say we start out looking at 1 Gunner specialty, Navigation(Space) and 1 Pilot Specialty. Our hero spends 1 pt on each Skill (3 total) and 5 pts on Hot Pilot I. That's 8 total. He could have the same Skill levels by spending just 6pts on the Skills alone (2pts each). He's only broken even on the Talent if he considers the learning benefit and the Reputation worth 1 pt each. That doesn't look abusive. It might not even be a good deal. Even if he needs 2 Gunners, Nav (Air) and Nav (Space) and 2 Pilots he's 11 pts for 1 level of skill +Talent and 12 for the Skills alone. this is about the first place Hot Pilot is a good deal. The more Skills you need that the Talent covers the better the deal is and the deal becomes better at higher levels. For example for our second guy who needs 6 Skills under the talent and takes 4 levels. It's 26pts for minimum pts into Skills + max level of Talent and 72 pts for all Skills. For the first guy who only needed 3 Skills it's 23 v. 36. However, Skills Only guy has bought 3 levels of 4 DX-based Skills at 4 pts/level. That's 48 pts out of his 72 and he could trade those 48 pts + 12 more he spent on levels in Guns and Karate in for +3 DX and improve all his DX-based skills and his Move and Dodge (probably). This is what things look like for Hot Pilot which is pretty close to the king stallion of all Talents. Business Acumen probably never makes sense. That's 10pts for 8 Skills with no multiple Specializations and characters aren't all that likely to even want all 8 Skills, much less at an equally high level. You could buy the Reputation separately. So Talents just don't work out for all character concepts and modest levels seldom make sense compared to maxed levels. 10 and 15 pt Talents are closer to being a dead issue rather than a major Munchkinism.
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Fred Brackin |
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04-21-2013, 10:38 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Dreamland
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
I have ever only taken talents to flesh out a character idea. I don't think I've ever had a talent be more useful those points in attributes or skills directly. I usually take them for something specific about the talent (reaction bonus from Beastmaster, specific feel of Allure vs Appearance, faster times on skills, etc...)
Even Mr. Smash, a very combat based talent, doesn't seem in anyway broken. |
04-21-2013, 10:46 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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04-21-2013, 11:22 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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04-21-2013, 11:38 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Dreamland
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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04-21-2013, 11:50 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Defaulting out of your talent is terrible anyway, since you don't get the talent bonus to the default, and there aren't any interesting defaults within the talent except the merchant default.
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04-22-2013, 04:08 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
B89, the first benefit of Talent: "A bonus of +1 per level with all affected skills, even for default use." (emphasis added)
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04-22-2013, 04:45 AM | #19 |
Dog of Lysdexics
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
Yes default use, if the skill you are defaulting is part of the talent. but no benefit if the default skill is not part of the talent.
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04-22-2013, 07:00 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Are Talents overpowered?
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All the Skills in Business Acumen are IQ-based. Like I said, 10 and 15pt talents are basically a dead issue.
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Fred Brackin |
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Tags |
gm advice, talent, talents |
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