Setting the time it takes to max out a character

zot · 07-17-2018, 02:24 AM

To me if you can get a group to play TFT for a whole year, it's a victory! You want stories of incredible things to come from players. The game needs to be fun at the start -- and it is -- but after a whole year of dedicated play, the players need to end up with something much greater than when they started.

I think much more than a year to max out a character will just end up with few players ever getting there. But then, where will the gaming stories come from? Will they only come from groups that have house-ruled XP and advancement?

With that in mind, I think the rules should make it easy for the GM to set the time it should take to "max out" a character (e.g. get it to D&D 5e level 20):

Fast: 50 sessions: a bit more than a year (roughly like D&D 5e)
Medium: 100 sessions: 2 - 2 1/2 years
Slow: 150 sessions: 3 1/2 - 4 years

Right now, it takes 9300 XP to gain 8 attributes and, at the 300XP I'm advocating per talent point, 4500XP to gain 15 talent points (roughly 50% of attribute advancement). Rick Smith's Ranger Prince and Grey Mouser look like good maxed-out characters, so I'm using them as example characters. They needed to gain about 15 talent points to get to where he had them.

Going with these numbers would put the XP rates roughly at:

Fast: 300 XP / session
Medium: 150 XP / session
Slow: 100 XP / session

Once the dust finally settles on XP for attributes and talents, we can recalibrate these numbers. If the standard rate takes much longer than 150 sessions to get to 40 attribute points and 15 extra talents, we might need a fourth "standard" category after "slow" :).

07-17-2018, 02:24 AM	#1
zot Join Date: May 2018	Setting the time it takes to max out a character To me if you can get a group to play TFT for a whole year, it's a victory! You want stories of incredible things to come from players. The game needs to be fun at the start -- and it is -- but after a whole year of dedicated play, the players need to end up with something much greater than when they started. I think much more than a year to max out a character will just end up with few players ever getting there. But then, where will the gaming stories come from? Will they only come from groups that have house-ruled XP and advancement? With that in mind, I think the rules should make it easy for the GM to set the time it should take to "max out" a character (e.g. get it to D&D 5e level 20): Fast: 50 sessions: a bit more than a year (roughly like D&D 5e) Medium: 100 sessions: 2 - 2 1/2 years Slow: 150 sessions: 3 1/2 - 4 years Right now, it takes 9300 XP to gain 8 attributes and, at the 300XP I'm advocating per talent point, 4500XP to gain 15 talent points (roughly 50% of attribute advancement). Rick Smith's Ranger Prince and Grey Mouser look like good maxed-out characters, so I'm using them as example characters. They needed to gain about 15 talent points to get to where he had them. Going with these numbers would put the XP rates roughly at: Fast: 300 XP / session Medium: 150 XP / session Slow: 100 XP / session Once the dust finally settles on XP for attributes and talents, we can recalibrate these numbers. If the standard rate takes much longer than 150 sessions to get to 40 attribute points and 15 extra talents, we might need a fourth "standard" category after "slow" :).