The one talent wizard

[stefanj]

Now imagining wizard home upgrades: A wing full of small rooms, with a sturdy lockable door, with a "gate starter," to act as a secure ante room in cases where open access is allowed.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by hcobb

The leave one (or more) half-gates at home.

Very good!

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Can a gate be used to connect to multiple gates and thus have the gate rules determine where you go? If so, then the wizard merely needs to set up one gate at home and connect all gates to it.

Each gate half connects to one other and it is unclear if a caster can have more than one hanging gate halves at any one moment.
The usual means of space saving is to have multiple gates stacked within inches of each other with password selection of the gate to activate.

[Axly Suregrip]

Originally Posted by stefanj

Now imagining wizard home upgrades: A wing full of small rooms, with a sturdy lockable door, with a "gate starter," to act as a secure ante room in cases where open access is allowed.

As seen on WHGTV, "Wizards Home & Garden Telepathicvision network". Wizards are taken about town and shown various stone towers, isolated mansions and the like. Which one will they buy? Having a wing of "gate-rooms" is often a dealmaker!

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Shostak

The Wizard Tax punishes imaginative builds like these, which is a real shame. Having a wizard centered on a talent like Animal Handler, Scholar, Naturalist, Bard, a Mundane Talent, etc., only makes the game richer. The same can be said about the Hero Tax.

These can still be done, but they are costly and hence rarer. I kinda like that. Heroes are a dime a dozen, but a hero who can cast Magic Fist or Aid is something to notice. Wizards are, I guess, $30 a dozen, but one who is also a Physicker or Animal Handler is special.

In fact, I have a few NPC Wizards with non-mundane talents and one or two NPC Heroes with a spell or two. They will be noticeably interesting characters, I think. More so than if we did away with the spell or talent tax.

[Axly Suregrip]

How do your heroes that cast magic handle the DX -4 from carrying iron? ITL 140 says a having iron or steel weapons/armor leads to DX -4 when casting. So, these heroes do they only cast spells after dropping all their metal objects? or do they only use silver items, quarterstaffs and clubs?

Just curious how it works out.

Real PC heroes using magic. Did it work out for you? What was the trick?

[hcobb]

One of my favorite builds is a wizard with a steel light crossbow and a quiver of silver quarrels. After paying for ST 12 there's not going to be a lot of spells at 2 or more IQ points down, so they're not casting anything while holding anything but their staff in hand. Hence there is no penalty in dropping the crossbow before casting.

Having both hands free to do casting is why you see mystic martial artist heroes rather than spell blades in TFT.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

How do your heroes that cast magic handle the DX -4 from carrying iron? ITL 140 says a having iron or steel weapons/armor leads to DX -4 when casting. So, these heroes do they only cast spells after dropping all their metal objects? or do they only use silver items, quarterstaffs and clubs?

Just curious how it works out.

Real PC heroes using magic. Did it work out for you? What was the trick?

I can only recall one NPC built as a hero, but with a couple of spells. He was a young Hero who had been recruited as a late blooming apprentice to his uncle. Obviously, he had almost no talents -- it would have been cheaper for him to be built as a wizard, but I didn't do that because I thought of him as unskilled in magic.

He used a silver hammer.

It would be easier to build a more experienced Hero with only one spell, obviously. But you're right that iron is a real issue. For certain spells, it doesn't matter much, since they are cast in leisure time or in a safe area. (You could certainly do a Hero with Scrying pretty easily.)