05-15-2019, 05:30 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: FL
|
Re: Combat Mastery Talent
Quote:
The claim that the skills should be "believable inborn aptitudes" doesn't say much to me... Taken particularly literally, I'm not sure I believe in those. Taken less literally, I think what we generally call talents in real life are a combination of intense interest/obsession and a very mild kind of aptitude which may easily not be inborn (or more like, "I have high IQ/DX and this was the first field that found application" or "I have a need for physical activity/mental stimulation/rest/socialization that this set of activities was the first to meet" and stuff). Of course, that's my odd little view of human psychology and such, so you could place emphasis on the believable bit, but that leaves a lot open depending on who needs to be able to believe it. Is a talent with computers plausibly inborn? I doubt it, but it seems like a perfectly fine Talent. On the other hand, Smooth Operator, though canonical, doesn't strike me as a plausible inborn talent (perhaps just because of how broad it is--but really, how many people are good at all those skills?), and Green Thumb seems a bit broad (Biology and Gardening might be related, but both being inborn?).
__________________
Formerly known as fighting_gumby. |
|
05-15-2019, 06:46 AM | #32 | |
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
|
Re: Combat Mastery Talent
Quote:
The problem with custom Talents that perfectly match a character's skill list is that it messes with balance between characters and forces decisions into a narrower band. Forest Guardian is an example of a Talent that can potentially produce this problem. If I'm making a DF Scout, I'm stabbing myself in the foot by not making him a Wood Elf with max levels of Forest Guardian. This creates less variety among characters, which is my opinion is less fun. In DF, which is about munchkinism, it's especially important that players have options, since part of the fun of munchkinism is figuring out unique ways to be awesome. If every Scout looks exactly the same, the munchkin feels less like "wow, I figured out this totally OP build" and more like "well, I guess I have to make the obvious choice, since no other choices will ever be as good as this one." I think this is what I mean when I describe a "point crock." A build that's so much better than rival options that everyone will want to use it. Some "point crock" advantages, like Combat Reflexes, are ok because they do less to pigeonhole or define the character. Even if every fighter type has CR, they can differ quite a bit. But Talents come with lists of skills, which will naturally go well with certain attributes, advantages, etc.; pretty soon, the whole character has been prescribed. Meanwhile, the Martial Artist is saying "why can't I have a cheap Talent that includes only the skills I want? How about a "mini-" version of Chi Talent that includes only Blind Fighting, Power Blow, Light Walk, Mental Strength, Parry Missile Weapons and Throwing Art? Those are the only skills I want after all..." Now, as GM I suppose you could just say "yes" and allow everyone to invent Talents as they see fit. If everyone gets the point crock it's no longer a point crock! But some character types will benefit a lot more from this type of point crock than others, and so I think you still might get complaints... |
|
05-15-2019, 07:12 AM | #33 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Nashville, TN
|
Re: Combat Mastery Talent
Quote:
This is how I described my own touchstones for talents a million years ago: Quote:
__________________
I didn't realize who I was until I stopped being who I wasn't. Formerly known as Bookman- forum name changed 1/3/2018. |
||
05-15-2019, 11:35 AM | #34 | ||||||
Join Date: Nov 2016
|
Re: Combat Mastery Talent
Quote:
Quote:
Businessman class, human race. You are talented in finance, graphic design, running, boxing and saxophone.” “You are a young businessman working in wall-street, you have to catch the metro every day because you live far from the station. You were raised in a family of pugilists; also, you mother was a musician. You took a degree in economics, even if you loved design since you went to a graphic design expo held at times square (when you were 12)." Quote:
So, I do not believe that talents work like Tetris: Tetris blocks have a variety of shapes which you can place on screen as long as there’s room, But you can’t change the shape of a Tetris block. The better they fit, the better the results, Yet sometimes you end with blank spots which don’t let you score. If the shape exceeds your room, you cannot use it, then it is game over. So, for talents, my approach is “tagging”. Players can tag up to 5 skills and they can also remove the “unneeded skills” from the talents in the books. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
IMO, GMs should not be limiting the system. What GMs should do is correctly defining the setting pro-people. I do not ban “system stuff”, instead I define the settings general approach and play towards it.
__________________
- 画龍点睛。Hide。 |
||||||
05-15-2019, 07:35 PM | #35 | ||||||||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
|
Re: Combat Mastery Talent
Quote:
Quote:
By doing so you're literally opening up the playing field. Instead of every Survivor having First Aid, Knot-Tying, Naturalist, Scrounging, and Survival; that might describe one, but the next one might have First Aid, Naturalist, Navigation, Survival, and Tracking! Literally broadened the field! Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Except the 'point crock' nonsense. Quote:
Okay, I suppose the Character whose build precludes ever having skills might not benefit... but I've also never seen that Character. And there are drawbacks to bumping up skills using Talents, but that mostly falls onto combat skills. I've been trying to think of ways to get the same desire to get to "Attribute +2" with non-combat skills but I'm been coming up pretty dry so far. * ST 27 Longbow? Yeah, that person in the back knows what I'm talking about. |
||||||||
Tags |
combat talent, talents |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|