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Old 08-15-2012, 06:02 AM   #11
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

Thanks a lot for the in depth explanation of Bardic Talent and Bard Song Terror.

Cheers

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Old 08-15-2012, 06:20 AM   #12
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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You might notice that the Bard-Song abilities in DF 1 lack all modifiers but the power modifier. There's a good reason for this! DF 1 is meant to be simple and not require things like Powers to use.

Also note that dramatically speaking, Mind Control tends to be subtle and Terror tends to be overt. You sing the song of Mind Control to one person. You scream the song of Terror to a mob. You could certainly reverse this, but adding area to Mind Control and single-target focus to Terror does mean modifiers, and as I said . . . those aren't cool for DF 1.
And yet Holy Might is chock-full of modifiers...
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Old 08-15-2012, 08:14 AM   #13
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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Not actually . . . DF 1 and 2 were two parts of a single DF proposal, broken up for ease of production and to offer the near-universal players' guide/GM's guide structure found in fantasy RPGs. DF 3 was what happened when somebody said, "Wow, these are selling well! Want to write another?" There was no secret series plan or canon bible behind it.
As evident by the failed provision to allow for species template CP in the DF1 occupational templates. For that reason, I've always assumed DF3 and later were add-ons that had not been planned initially.
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Old 08-15-2012, 08:18 AM   #14
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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With 20/20 hindsight, would you change things in how you organized or considered DF? Would you have taken the Player's Guide/GM's Guide/Monster Manual trinity as a model?
I'm not Sean Punch, but what I'd have done, in hindsight, if I had been in his position, and could travel back in time, would be to decide on a value of X (35 or 40, probably), and then assign each occupational Template a Special Package worth that many CP.

You then use those X CP to buy your species template, and if the species template costs less than X, then you have extra CP to buy other stuff with, usually from your occupational template's list of recommended advantages, but potentially also Lenses like Humans Are Special (+1 IQ, +1 DX, 40 CP) and so forth. Maybe Background Lenses a bit (only a bit) like the ones in GURPS Action.

If X is 40, then any species template that costs 15 CP could have recommended Lenses costing 25 CP each, plus pointers to a list of general-purpose 25 CP Lenses.

It's not changing much, and it'll add to the page count (about 2 pages, would be my not-very-qualified), but it will make it less awkward to create a non-human adventurer, points budget-wise.
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Old 08-15-2012, 09:39 AM   #15
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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And yet Holy Might is chock-full of modifiers...
Sure, but they don't require Powers to understand. The only concession was Turning, for True Faith, which is really vital to the subgenre. Whereas Active for Terror isn't particularly vital to bards in fantasy RPGs. Generally, music that scares away bad guys affects all the bad guys in those sorts of games, and adding Active, Area Effect, and Emanation would be taking that away and then adding it back at shorter range merely to give power Talent something to do, which would be a game-mechanical justification rather than a genre justificaition.
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Old 08-15-2012, 09:57 AM   #16
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post

As evident by the failed provision to allow for species template CP in the DF1 occupational templates. For that reason, I've always assumed DF3 and later were add-ons that had not been planned initially.
Nonhumans were in the cloud of ideas for possible follow-up volumes if the first two sold well, but we couldn't plan around them in DF 1 because there was no guarantee that DF 3+ would ever exist.

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I'm not Sean Punch, but what I'd have done, in hindsight, if I had been in his position, and could travel back in time, would be to decide on a value of X (35 or 40, probably), and then assign each occupational Template a Special Package worth that many CP.
Early attempts to do things that way with profession-specific abilities (not even getting into races) failed, because the archetypes varied too much in terms of number, type, and thus cost of special abilities. Casters vs. non-casters, power-users vs. non-power-users, cinematic fighters vs. quasi-realistic fighters, etc. were all over the map. On the advice of my reviewers, I arrived at the result you see today: Points allocated as needed to give decent archetypes, rather than held rigid to hammer square pegs into round holes.

Which isn't to say that I don't feel the pain of those trying to play nonhuman delvers! That's why there's about a page of advice on this spread over pp. 4-5 of DF 3, and why p. 39 of DF 15 offers the option of 250-point PCs built as 125-point templates plus a racial package. It's also why most common PC races (dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-orcs, and halflings) are affordable on even the smallest discretionary advantage budget.
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Old 08-15-2012, 11:13 AM   #17
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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Which isn't to say that I don't feel the pain of those trying to play nonhuman delvers! That's why there's about a page of advice on this spread over pp. 4-5 of DF 3, and why p. 39 of DF 15 offers the option of 250-point PCs built as 125-point templates plus a racial package. It's also why most common PC races (dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-orcs, and halflings) are affordable on even the smallest discretionary advantage budget.
Increasing the amount of discretionary points of the tighest occupational templates would have helped. That'd also facilitate multiclassing better.
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Old 08-15-2012, 04:51 PM   #18
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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Increasing the amount of discretionary points of the tighest occupational templates would have helped. That'd also facilitate multiclassing better.
That's just "Well, give more points" in a pretty dress. Which works, of course!

I've been in several games where we've been given between 20 and 30 extra points (divided up one way or another). Gives you the wiggle room to just drop Dwarf on there or whatever.
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Old 01-26-2013, 02:22 PM   #19
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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Sure, but they don't require Powers to understand. The only concession was Turning, for True Faith, which is really vital to the subgenre. Whereas Active for Terror isn't particularly vital to bards in fantasy RPGs. Generally, music that scares away bad guys affects all the bad guys in those sorts of games, and adding Active, Area Effect, and Emanation would be taking that away and then adding it back at shorter range merely to give power Talent something to do, which would be a game-mechanical justification rather than a genre justificaition.
Now I have a question. I am playing a DF Bard and getting into combat for the first time with the character...and I have some reservations about Terror. Terror says that *everyone* must roll a Fright Check. Terror doesn't have selective. So--doesn't that mean that *everyone* includes the other PCs as well? If so, Terror seems like a power that one can't really use in a party context, because you're just as likely to mess with your Allies as well as your Enemies. Am I missing something?
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Old 01-26-2013, 02:52 PM   #20
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Default Re: [DF] Bard Song Terror - does Bardic Talent help?

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Now I have a question. I am playing a DF Bard and getting into combat for the first time with the character...and I have some reservations about Terror. Terror says that *everyone* must roll a Fright Check. Terror doesn't have selective. So--doesn't that mean that *everyone* includes the other PCs as well? If so, Terror seems like a power that one can't really use in a party context, because you're just as likely to mess with your Allies as well as your Enemies. Am I missing something?
Yes. Earplugs.
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