A Wizardry Talent (unpublished 1982 Interplay article)

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I also did away with the artificial distinction between Heroes and Wizards by creating two new Talents. Apprentice was an IQ8 Talent that allowed a character to learn any spell from IQ8 up to IQ13. Wizard was an IQ14 Talent that allowed spells up to IQ20.

I use a variation on that from someone's house rules:
Apprentice 2-IQ 8-11
Mage 2-IQ 12-16
Mysteries 2-IQ 17+

[Skarg]

A campaign-logic/situation side-effect of having wizardry be a talent, is that it implies anyone could train in it.

So for example, an organization (guild, military, slaver, etc) could in theory train any number of wizards, which potentially has huge implications for how common wizards are, industrial magic, ubiquitous magic, etc.

Also, in the context of the new XP system, it also implies that in games where a lot of XP is given out, high-level fighters with a bunch of XP wondering what to do with it might want to consider becoming wizards . . .

(Of course, to some players, that might sound interesting or cool, but some of us might rather like campaign worlds where only 1 in 300 people are wizards, and it isn't just something a person can pick up through study.)

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

A campaign-logic/situation side-effect of having wizardry be a talent, is that it implies anyone could train in it.

So for example, an organization (guild, military, slaver, etc) could in theory train any number of wizards, which potentially has huge implications for how common wizards are, industrial magic, ubiquitous magic, etc.

Also, in the context of the new XP system, it also implies that in games where a lot of XP is given out, high-level fighters with a bunch of XP wondering what to do with it might want to consider becoming wizards . . .

(Of course, to some players, that might sound interesting or cool, but some of us might rather like campaign worlds where only 1 in 300 people are wizards, and it isn't just something a person can pick up through study.)

In ITL Legacy, organizations should already be training their members in spells, since the new ITL gets rid of the -4DX for non-wizard spell casting. The only disadvantages for non-wizards I see, besides the increased cost to learn spells, are that they can't use books or scrolls and they can't learn the Staff spell. From what I read, non-wizards are able to create magic items other than staffs so mass production should already be under way.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

In ITL Legacy, organizations should already be training their members in spells, since the new ITL gets rid of the -4DX for non-wizard spell casting. The only disadvantages for non-wizards I see, besides the increased cost to learn spells, are that they can't use books or scrolls and they can't learn the Staff spell. From what I read, non-wizards are able to create magic items other than staffs so mass production should already be under way.

In original TFT, we did have quite a few non-wizard NPC spellcasters (often with a status of apprentice or servant or slave or similar) trained by wizards and militaries and guilds, most commonly in the Aid spell, despite the -4DX penalty (you'd just wait for them to make a roll - they weren't needed for many other tasks).

Fortunately, there may still not be all that many non-wizards with IQ 14 (for Weapon/Armor Enchantment, or more IQ for higher enchantment spells), and fewer who are going to choose to go into enchanting, but yeah, the lack of a -4 DX penalty in Legacy Edition, and the lack of an IQ limit on learning, does imply more people would learn at least some spells.

The main difference with a wizardry talent is that more people could learn large numbers of spells - you could have as many full wizards as you could organize to get into training.

If Wizardry costs 5 learning points, and NPCs learning it is as easy as learning 5 talent points, it seems like society might tend to have an awful lot of wizards, especially if spells were researched that could effectively replace mundane talents.

And games with highly-experienced characters would I think also have many more wizard/warriors, and even a kind of "why aren't you a wizard?" expectation for more experienced people, as it'd become quite a "good deal" compared to going for a 40th or higher attribute point.

[TippetsTX]

Skarg beat me to it... I also think that wizardry as a talent that any anyone can learn would create a society with far more wizards than the default assumption for Cidri. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but I prefer the rarity currently implied in the rules.

In fact, I have further expanded on the idea "wizards are born, not made" by establishing that, in my campaign, the ability to perceive and influence the forces responsible for 'magic' is a genetic mutation found sporadically throughout the diverse races inhabiting Cidri. Individuals w/o this marker can never learn how to cast spells, though there is a segment of the population who may, with difficulty, unlock a latent predisposition for magic use (i.e. heroes who pay a higher 'cost' to learn spells).

TBH, though, doesn't the ability to aquire spells or talents independent of IQ increases remove one of the justifications for such a rule?

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Skarg beat me to it... I also think that wizardry as a talent that any anyone can learn would create a society with far more wizards than the default assumption for Cidri. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but I prefer the rarity currently implied in the rules.

In fact, I have further expanded on the idea "wizards are born, not made" by establishing that, in my campaign, the ability to perceive and influence the forces responsible for 'magic' is a genetic mutation found sporadically throughout the diverse races inhabiting Cidri. Individuals w/o this marker can never learn how to cast spells, though there is a segment of the population who may, with difficulty, unlock a latent predisposition for magic use (i.e. heroes who pay a higher 'cost' to learn spells).

TBH, though, doesn't the ability to aquire spells or talents independent of IQ increases remove one of the justifications for such a rule?

There's no rarity of Wizardy in TFT at all at the moment if you follow the RAW exactly. In any case, just because a Talent exists doesn't mean that it will or should be be readily available to NPCs. Is your campaign world overrun with Alchemists, Boomerang throwers, etc? I doubt it.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

There's no rarity of Wizardy in TFT at all at the moment if you follow the RAW exactly. In any case, just because a Talent exists doesn't mean that it will or should be be readily available to NPCs. Is your campaign world overrun with Alchemists, Boomerang throwers, etc? I doubt it.

True, but like Skarg, I prefer it when rules can be applied equally to PCs and NPCs... it makes encounter and world-building more consistent and logical. And the IQ requirement along with the substantial XP cost for the Alchemy talent is more than sufficient to keep those nuts to small numbers (and prevent them from blowing up half the empire).

BTW, the odds of being born a wizard is only slightly more than a human on Earth being born with 11 toes or fingers (1 in 500 apparently).

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by Skarg

A campaign-logic/situation side-effect of having wizardry be a talent, is that it implies anyone could train in it.

So for example, an organization (guild, military, slaver, etc) could in theory train any number of wizards, which potentially has huge implications for how common wizards are, industrial magic, ubiquitous magic, etc.

Also, in the context of the new XP system, it also implies that in games where a lot of XP is given out, high-level fighters with a bunch of XP wondering what to do with it might want to consider becoming wizards . . .

(Of course, to some players, that might sound interesting or cool, but some of us might rather like campaign worlds where only 1 in 300 people are wizards, and it isn't just something a person can pick up through study.)

I feel like something got lost in translation....

My Wizardry Talent as proposed in my article and used by my group, or the Apprentice+Wizardry talents combo Chris invented and shared with us, are the most expensive Talents in the entire game. Nothing else costs more than 3, few cost more than 2, but these cost 7, 8 or 9 with prerequisites. The only way to make anything "rare and unusual" in this game is to make it expensive, and these talents cost way more than all the others. The talents needed to become experts and masters in all the other fields don't cost as much as we charge for someone to be a starting wizard. How is that encouraging all the common NPCs in our worlds to become wizards?

Besides that, the proportions of wizards to everyone else in any campaign world isn't determined by any rule anywhere, it's entirely up to the GM -- that's the final authority on anything like that.

Player characters on the other hand are built by the players. Some players only build wizards, some heroes, and some both. These proposed wizardry talents aren't making it any "cheaper" to build a wizard, but rather more expensive in its way. Under the RAW it's free to make your character a wizard, not something you have to spend half or more of your talent points on. And to maintain the original balance of power, with my Wizardry Talent the other talents no longer cost wizards double so that it all evens out. It's just less rules for the same effect.

If you're worried about a non-wizard player character choosing to change careers and become a wizard sometime after they were built, you (1) aren't going to see any stampedes, the Wizardry talents are too expensive for that, and (2) nobody can just say hey, I've decided to spend these 8 talent points I haven't been using, tomorrow morning I'll wake up as a wizard. No GM would allow that, would you? That would be like allowing the desert nomad player character suddenly becoming a Seaman+Shipbuilder overnight! No, no, nooooo. The hero character who wants to change and become a wizard has to find teachers, a school of magic, get accepted by the Guild, go off to study for years -- all things totally under the GM's control.

There is nothing to be afraid of here!

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

My Wizardry Talent as proposed in my article and used by my group, or the Apprentice+Wizardry talents combo Chris invented and shared with us, are the most expensive Talents in the entire game. Nothing else costs more than 3, few cost more than 2, but these cost 7, 8 or 9 with prerequisites. The only way to make anything "rare and unusual" in this game is to make it expensive, and these talents cost way more than all the others. The talents needed to become experts and masters in all the other fields don't cost as much as we charge for someone to be a starting wizard. How is that encouraging all the common NPCs in our worlds to become wizards?

I don't think it is the initial cost that potentially alters the wizard-to-hero balance in the world... it's the exchange rate. An IQ 12 starting wizard pays 5 points for the Wizardry talent, has 7 points left over for other talents at the 'muggle' rate and also now has 12 points for spells. If I understand the proposed rule change correctly, isn't that the equivalent of a 19 IQ? A starting hero with the same IQ on the other hand only gets 12 points for starting talents. So in addition to a bias towards maximizing starting IQ, in the long run it seems like wizards will become much more versatile than non-magical types (having equal access to talents and spells) and therefore should be the default career choice of any intelligent sentient being.

But as I said before, there's nothing wrong with that if it creates the kind of game that you and your players want to play. And to be clear, I'm honestly not trying to be patronizing. I think it is very interesting proposal that you have obviously put a lot of time and playtesting into... much more than my own controversial rule changes.

P.S. I often have a tendency to over-think these kinds of meta-game design elements so 'your mileage may vary'. ;)

[warhorse11h]

Over the course of an adventuring wizard's career, the Wizardry talent approach would allow a wizard a greater selection of spells as a beginner and a few talents as well. Beyond the startup advantage, every advance will have to be paid for with experience points, just like any other character, so he won't be gaining talents or spells any faster or slower than he otherwise would. New IQ would have to be gained to gain higher levels of spells or talents, just like anyone else. In addition, as I understand the system, there are other, expensive advanced talents to act as shiny items to attract the wizard's attention. In short, beyond a short term advantage in the number of spells, beyond startup, there is an advantage that declines in extent as the character develops.
As the author of the talent said before, "There is nothing to be afraid of here!"