Are Talents overpowered?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

While that's definitely true in play, without a disadvantage limit and/or a GM saying 'no', it is completely allowed. You are allowed to buy those secondary attributes down. (One of the reasons I separated them from IQ in my housrules).

No, you are not.

Originally Posted by B290

If you improve an attribute, secondary characteristics and
skills based on that attribute improve as well.

Originally Posted by B291

Similarly, when you acquire a disadvantage this way, just write it
down and lower your point value accordingly. You do not get any extra
points for it – that’s just the breaks of the game!

You can't just "Buy up IQ, while 'selling down' Will and Per" by the RAW. No rules exist that allow this. You can't sell down Will and Per and get points back at all, that's a disadvantage, and you only normally get points back for disadvantages taken in character creation!

The only way to have Henry's "IQ!" is to make it a metatrait and allow characters to purchase the meta-trait just as though it was a basic attribute increase.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Who said you were lowering your Per and Will in play?

Henry, when he invented the thing? IQ! isn't really a thing if you couldn't buy it in play.

It suggests 50% but in my experience 75 pts of Disads for a 150 pt character tends to be crippling.

Not in my experience. Five of those points are quirks. Five to Fifteen of them tend to be selling Basic Speed down to a round number. If you go and lower Per and Will by four each, you've basically used the whole thing up.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Henry, when he invented the thing? IQ! isn't really a thing if you couldn't buy it in play.

Not in my experience. Five of those points are quirks. Five to Fifteen of them tend to be selling Basic Speed down to a round number. If you go and lower Per and Will by four each, you've basically used the whole thing up.

It's 9 years since Henry started talking about it. Who remembers exactly what he said?

I certainly wasn't using it in the sense you seem to be insisting on. I was very definitely talking about initial builds as was anyone else discussing the purchase of Talents.

I've seen people screw up characters thinking they "had" to have 5 Quirks. As to the rest of it you've come up with 45 to 55 pts in "disads" that don't screw up the character or make the GM's life harder. Why should they be limited?

Second paragraph, first sentence under the previously discussed section says "The purpose of a disadvantage limit is to prevent the game from becoming a circus.".

I believe that the GM Veto does this much better than any simple mechanical pt limit, especially one that includes non-circus creating Secondary Attribute adjustments.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I believe that the GM Veto does this much better than any simple mechanical pt limit, especially one that includes non-circus creating Secondary Attribute adjustments.

If you allow it, then it doesn't make any sense to then complain that it is "broken" compared to Talents or whatever.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You can't just "Buy up IQ, while 'selling down' Will and Per" by the RAW. No rules exist that allow this. You can't sell down Will and Per and get points back at all, that's a disadvantage, and you only normally get points back for disadvantages taken in character creation!.

B16;

By default, Will
is equal to IQ. You can increase it at
the cost of 5 points per +1, or reduce it
for -5 points per -1. You cannot raise
Will past 20, or lower it by more than
4, without GM permission.

(the same thing is said under Per)
If IQ is 14, then IQ! is completely allowed by RAW. I'm not saying it should be allowed. I even use a house rule to negate it. I'm just saying it is allowed and was probably merely an observation Henry had made.

As for disad limits, I do have a couple of players who sometimes think they should hit that limit, but these are the same players who would keep taking disadvantages for more points.

On the note of talents, if I wanted it, are the non skill bonuses benefits of talents worth a point each? I know you can buy them in PU3 up to the level you have, but what if I wanted to have someone only get the faster learning benefits, dropping the skill bonus and reaction bonus? Or, more realistically, are all the reactions bonuses able to be as Reputations? I don't think Allure or Beastmaster's can be.

One sad point when it comes to talents are when they are mostly composed of only Will or only Per skills. Then again, Will is both a common resistance attribute and is the basis for (I think) 20~ skills.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

(the same thing is said under Per)
If IQ is 14, then IQ! is completely allowed by RAW. I'm not saying it should be allowed. I even use a house rule to negate it. I'm just saying it is allowed and was probably merely an observation Henry had made.

You are allowed to reduce secondary characteristics (subject to limits) during character creation. You aren't allowed to "Buy up an attribute while simultaneously selling down secondary characteristics (or in the case of HT! taking Easy to Kill)" which is what the bang attributes would be, if they were an actual thing.

One sad point when it comes to talents are when they are mostly composed of only Will or only Per skills. Then again, Will is both a common resistance attribute and is the basis for (I think) 20~ skills.

Don't forget that you can (and should) "float" skills to other attributes. Having a high IQ and low Per isn't better than Business Acumen when you need to roll Per-based Merchant!

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

No more than any other rule. It isn't specifically called out as "Optional" like Bleeding or the Harsh Realism rules.

Incorrect, disad limits are explicitly identified as optional, or, more precisely, as a likely GM choice for which some guidelines are given for GMs who do want to use them:

Originally Posted by Basic Set, p. 11

In theory, you could keep adding disadvantages until you had enough points to buy whatever advantages and skills you wanted. In practice, most GMs will want to set a limit on the disadvantage points a PC may have.
[...]
A good rule of thumb is to hold disadvantages to 50% of starting points [...] although this is entirely up to the GM.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

Incorrect, disad limits are explicitly identified as optional, or, more precisely, as a likely GM choice for which some guidelines are given for GMs who do want to use them:

Which describes all the rules to some extent or another. There's also "Optional" rules that are labeled such (and in a box usually), so there's clearly a difference between (optional) rules, Optional Rules, and guidelines.

At any rate, if you don't use a disadvantage limit, can you really still complain that it's broken if you can get HT! for 1 point or that IQ! breaks Business Acumen or whatever?

[smurf]

IMO the only buying up of IQ whilst not raising secondaries is actually a better way of development. Of course sticking within restrictions (IQ-4 to 20).

The otherside is the non talented and talented with the same skill the talented is the one that will get noticed more. That dude has talent!

[Mathulhu]

Originally Posted by smurf

IMO the only buying up of IQ whilst not raising secondaries is actually a better way of development. Of course sticking within restrictions (IQ-4 to 20).

Better in what way?

It feels that if I were to let someone buy IQ! it would be munchkin bait and nerf talents.

Now that I think about it I do let people buy parts of stats but not disadvantages in play.

So for ten points
[10] +1 Per [5] +1 Will [5] = +1 IQ [20]
is ok

[10] =+1 IQ [20] -1 Per [-5] -1 Will [-5] = +1 IQ! [10]
is not