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Old 05-08-2022, 07:24 PM   #41
phiwum
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Boston area
Default Re: Environmental Talents

A boat without a sail isn't a real boat, Bill. Better to sit and listen to an old salt like me.

Honestly, my experience is quite limited, but I've thought a bit about sailing on rivers. In some areas I sail, the tidal current can reach close to two knots. That doesn't sound like a lot, but you have to think a lot more in those conditions. A river has a steady current. The Mississippi flows at about a knot at the headwaters and more than 2.5 knots at New Orleans. I guess that 1 to 1.5 knots is pretty typical for a calm river.

Going upstream must require efficiency and planning. Knowing the behavior of the current and being able to read it from the landscape in unfamiliar areas must be a skill.

But, as I said, I don't know much and I didn't grow up on boats. I'm a very casual daysailer.
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Old 05-08-2022, 08:31 PM   #42
Bill_in_IN
 
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Indiana
Default Re: Environmental Talents

Quote:
Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
A boat without a sail isn't a real boat, Bill. Better to sit and listen to an old salt like me.

Honestly, my experience is quite limited, but I've thought a bit about sailing on rivers. In some areas I sail, the tidal current can reach close to two knots. That doesn't sound like a lot, but you have to think a lot more in those conditions. A river has a steady current. The Mississippi flows at about a knot at the headwaters and more than 2.5 knots at New Orleans. I guess that 1 to 1.5 knots is pretty typical for a calm river.

Going upstream must require efficiency and planning. Knowing the behavior of the current and being able to read it from the landscape in unfamiliar areas must be a skill.

But, as I said, I don't know much and I didn't grow up on boats. I'm a very casual daysailer.
I didn't claim to be all that experienced with boats but even I could tell that being on a boat in a very large lake is different than being on a river. Therefore, I was compelled to concur with your assertion.

I'll let you argue with my stepfather about the definition of a boat. He grew up with the Ohio River literally in his back yard. The river bank was their backyard. He now lives along a smaller river in the area, The Where the Wabash and White Rivers fork together along the Indiana-Illinois border.

Last edited by Bill_in_IN; 05-09-2022 at 01:38 PM.
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Old 05-10-2022, 09:39 PM   #43
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Environmental Talents

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill_in_IN View Post
being on a boat in a very large lake is different than being on a river.
So we have multiple environments: small streams, medium-sized rivers, gigantic rivers like the Mississippi/Volga/Rhine, small lakes, huge lakes like the North American great lakes, harbours, enclosed waters like the Mediterranean, open ocean, maybe others. The question is how they should be bundled. Should Lake Superior be considered Sea, on the grounds the problems faced (big storms, etc., but not mud banks or getting tangled up in submerged trees) are similar? Or is this an example of an overlap of Seamanship with River?
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Old 05-30-2022, 02:07 AM   #44
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Environmental Talents

New draft of this idea. I cut the aquatic environments since they seemed to be more trouble than they were worth and had such a wide variety of narrow applications that they didn't make a natural group. I think I'll change the name of the proposal to Wilderness Talents.

The wilderness environments and their talents include
  • Cavern (IQ 10, cost 1) Natural underground caves (perhaps still containing fantasy cave fauna) not artificially excavated dungeons.
  • Desert (IQ 9, cost 1) Hot, dry and barren, covered in rock, pebbles or sand.
  • Forest (IQ 11, cost 2) Enough trees to limit how far you can see.
  • Ice (IQ 9, cost 1) Cold and covered in ice and snow.
  • Marsh (IQ 9, cost 1) Soggy underfoot, like a marsh or swamp.
  • Mountain (IQ 9, cost 1, usually requires Ice) Broken terrain (lots of ups and downs) and high. In a Europe-inspired campaign (e.g. Elyntia) mountains in winter will be icy, hence the Ice requirement. But in a campaign where this isn't true the Ice requirement is waived (and perhaps some other requirement is applied instead).
  • Tropical (IQ 8, cost 1) Hot and humid.
Specific campaigns may have environments not included here, for instance environments not found on our Earth, including magical ones.

Some environments will partake of two or more of these categories. To be fully comfortable in that environment the character must have all relevant talents. For instance:
  • A swamp requires Forest and Marsh. (A marsh is a wetland without trees, a swamp is a wetland with trees.)
  • A mountain in a desert might require Mountain and Desert, but the GM might allow the character to buy Mountain and Ice if these are the mountains she knows.
  • A jungle might require Forest and Tropical, if Tropical exists.
If a character has one of the talents needed but not both then the GM might give them some benefit, depending on circumstances.

When in an environment for which they have the relevant talent(s) a character receives the following benefits:
  • The abilities of Woodsman and Tracking.
  • When trying to notice something, including a trap that uses the local environment for function or concealment, roll one fewer die.
  • Those attempting to notice the character roll one more die.
  • If a feature of the environment inflicts a penalty then it is halved, and if appropriate rounded down. e.g. fatigue loss because of cold or altitude sickness, an MA penalty due to the soggy footing of a marsh, a DX penalty for using long weapons in tangled undergrowth.
  • If a feature of the environment requires a save then the character rolls one less die. e.g. falling down a mountainside. Note: If the save is required by some feature which just happens to be in the environment then the character receives no benefit: e.g. a character with Forest gains no benefit in an IQ roll vs madness of an alien creature which just happens to be in a forest.

When encountering something common in that environment (regardless of whether presently in that environment or not):
  • The abilities of Naturalist and Recognize Value.

If there is no relevant talent in your campaign for a reasonably common skill associated with a wilderness environment then that skill may be given to any character possessing the relevant wilderness talent. e.g.:
  • If there is no talent for snowshoes in your campaign then any character with the Ice talent will be familiar with snowshoes.

If there is a stress associated with the environment then the character may have a limited resistance to it, e.g.:
  • A character with Desert may tolerate thirst better than other characters.
  • A character with Tropical may have a resistance to tropical diseases.

Sometimes these abilities will stack with another talent. If each talent provides a -1 die modifier then in total they provide -1 die and +2 to the relevant attribute. e.g. a 4/IQ roll to notice something in a forest becomes 3/IQ with Alertness, 3/IQ with Forest, and 3/IQ+2 with both.

For all abilities the relevant question is not just whether the character is in the environment but whether the problem is characteristic of the environment. e.g.
  • A character with desert finds a desert fox in a cage in the city. They can use Naturalist abilities to see the animal is sick, even though they aren't in a desert. Returning to the desert the character finds an orchid but is unable to say anything about it, since the orchid is not native to deserts. Fortunately a character with Forest and Tropical tells him that the orchid is valuable.
  • In the ice cavern stands a temple of evil. The icy footing reduces MA by 2 and requires 3/DX rolls not to fall over when using more than half MA. A sickening discordance emitted by the temple makes all who come near it suffer -2 DX. The GM judges the footing is ice-related but the discordance isn't, and that just because it's called a "cavern" doesn't mean it's anything like a rocky cavern. So a character with Ice suffers -2 DX and -1 MA but rolls only 2/DX not to fall over, and Cavern doesn't help.
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Old 06-20-2023, 10:07 AM   #45
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Environmental Talents

David,
I am assuming this is meant to replace naturalist, woodsman and tracking talents, not in addition to them. The extra granularity you add with these environment based does make sense and adds realism to the game, for those looking for this. I would suggest a few changes since you are asking for feedback.

1) I don't like the line where some environments may be combined. If Forest and Tropical are two separate things (Forests vs Jungles), then it is cleaner to have just a single environment tag for each locale. If you need a new one for a unique terrain, it just cleaner to have a new tag than making it a combo.

2) Remove Tracking talent from this and still keep that as a separate talent. Just have this as a refinement of Woodsman & Naturalist. Seems to me to be a more one to one swap. Knowing how to survive an environment does not necessarily teach you have to read tracks. Everything in your set of talents takes from Naturalist and Woodsman, so it seems like Tracking was just thrown in.

3) Woodsman talent (ITL 41) covers foraging loosely. It suggests a Woodsman may find some rations each day but not how much. Clearly this would depend on the terrain. It also implies some such action may require an IQ roll of the Woodsman. You will want to have values for each of your terrains for each of these terrain talents. I do this myself since Woodsman leaves it undefined and while you are refining Woodsman, it would make sense to do it.

4) Woodsman talent (ITL 41) also covers exposure but a bit better than foraging. As long as you are defining each environment talent, you could list each's exposure value and even if the IQ role is different (some environments are harder avoid the damage while others are more damaging). Even if you don't change these values, good to have it clearly documented here. BTW, there is a difference between environment and terrain. That is, an environmental talent may cover more than one terrain (desert flatlands vs desert mountains). These may affect exposure values, encounter tables, encounter chances and more. But the flora and fauna will largely be the same, mostly, such that they would fall into the same environmental talent.

5) I don't see how you address Expert Naturalist. Will there be Expert talents for each environmental talent? If so, what are the IQ requirements & costs for each?

Good luck.

Last edited by Axly Suregrip; 06-20-2023 at 10:26 AM.
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Old 06-20-2023, 11:42 PM   #46
WFCoyote
 
Join Date: Jun 2023
Default Re: Environmental Talents

What is in ITL is the design philosophy, what you worked out is a variant or optional. Now what? Add fifty spells at IQ 8.
A thumb out of water is still a thumb.

What could be done ask the player where his character grew up and where he learned his woodsman talent, and if say on a mountain, then a minus -2 to IQ temporary in a swamp, yes might miss the giant man-eating tree plant, but up in the mountains they called it Yeti, and it could run faster than a human. Now how long is it temporary? well, a day a week a month, or use that thumb five times, literally five rolls of Woodsman in the swamp.
I don't know, but it is to have fun and not check the Body Fat table to see how much damage was absorbed, from taking the blow, physics you know, gotta be true. Be true to fun, not bookkeeping.
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Old 06-21-2023, 09:27 AM   #47
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: Environmental Talents

Quote:
Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip View Post
David,
I am assuming this is meant to replace naturalist, woodsman and tracking talents, not in addition to them.
Yes. You could also have them in parallel but this is the simpler idea.

Quote:
1) I don't like the line where some environments may be combined. If Forest and Tropical are two separate things (Forests vs Jungles)
Tropical is kind of optional. The idea is that Forest means you are comfortable with being surrounded by trees, and Tropical means you are comfortable with things being hot and wet. To be comfortable in a Jungle requires both. There might also be open tropical environments where you just need Tropical and not Forest.

Similarly there's Forest (trees) and Marsh (soggy). If you want to be comfortable in a swamp (trees and soggy) then you need both talents.

Quote:
Remove Tracking talent from this and still keep that as a separate talent. [...] Knowing how to survive an environment does not necessarily teach you have to read tracks.
It doesn't. But basically we have a choice:
  1. This proposal: The system is unable to distinguish between a woodsman who can track and a woodsman who can't track.
  2. RAW: The system is unable to distinguish between a person who can track in desert and a person who can track in forest.
  3. A hybrid: The system has two separate ways of describing tracking, by environment and by activity.

Of those, (2) seems much worse than (1). I'm largely happy tolerating (1) because I think the statement "I'm an expert in forests so I know how to track" is close enough to true in fiction and to some extent in reality.

Quote:
Woodsman talent (ITL 41) covers foraging loosely.
Better foraging rules are an interesting idea. But I'm not trying to do everything.

Quote:
Will there be Expert talents for each environmental talent?
Perhaps there should be.
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