Leveling up skills

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

There's one mechanic among the choices at character creation, and another mechanic going forwards after creation. All my recent comments were specifically aimed at the workings of the latter.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about as well.

For a 32 point character a 2-point talent costs 1,000 XP and attributes cost 100 XP. There's no decision: attributes are clearly a better buy.

For a 41-point character a 2-point talent still costs 1,000 XP but an attribute costs 8,000. It's unlikely by this stage that anyone is buying attributes. Again, no decision.

In between there's a brief period where attributes and talents are both possible and there's an actual decision but it doesn't last very long, maybe only 1 point, maybe 2. That's why I say in principle yes, there's a decision, but in practice there isn't.

[timm meyers]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Yes, that's what I'm talking about as well.

For a 32 point character a 2-point talent costs 1,000 XP and attributes cost 100 XP. There's no decision: attributes are clearly a better buy.

For a 41-point character a 2-point talent still costs 1,000 XP but an attribute costs 8,000. It's unlikely by this stage that anyone is buying attributes. Again, no decision.

In between there's a brief period where attributes and talents are both possible and there's an actual decision but it doesn't last very long, maybe only 1 point, maybe 2. That's why I say in principle yes, there's a decision, but in practice there isn't.

I wonder if there would be any value to making the two factors of our PC, Attributes and Talents, share the same progressive cost in XP?
Or
Match the flat cost system of talents for attributes?

Obviously TFT has an exponential xp cost to discourage characters from becoming 40+ point super heroes so the 1st option would seem to keep the "tough decision" you wish to embrace while not breaking the original level cap as written.

A thought just occurred to me. What if talents (even spells?) did not have IQ costs of 1,2, or 3, but instead had xp costs? You keep the minimum IQ requirement and or ST,DX,Base Talent prerequesets but turn something like "chemist" into a 2k xp cost.
Not sure how you could marry this with character creation but maybe you get a value of "life skill" experience based on IQ to spend only on talents when designing a new toon?

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by timm meyers

I wonder if there would be any value to making the two factors of our PC, Attributes and Talents, share the same progressive cost in XP?

Absolutely. That was one of the primary drivers for my 'tiers' framework. I redesigned the XP progression scale so that attributes and abilities stay close (in XP costs) within their respective power levels or stages of gameplay.

Originally Posted by timm meyers

Obviously TFT has an exponential xp cost to discourage characters from becoming 40+ point super heroes so the 1st option would seem to keep the "tough decision" you wish to embrace while not breaking the original level cap as written.

I don't see any reason to discourage advancement beyond 40 TAP which is also reflected in my preferred progression scheme.

Originally Posted by timm meyers

What if talents (even spells?) did not have IQ costs of 1,2, or 3, but instead had xp costs? You keep the minimum IQ requirement and or ST, DX, Base Talent prerequesets but turn something like "chemist" into a 2k xp cost.

Not sure how you could marry this with character creation but maybe you get a value of "life skill" experience based on IQ to spend only on talents when designing a new toon?

You've clearly been tapping into the same divine source of righteous game design as me. ;)

In my game, all post-creation additions to the character are XP-driven. I did opt to replace IQ requirements for talents/spells w/ TAP-based milestones, but IQ costs/weights are gone once play starts. I'm fine w/ there being a different process for pre- and post-creation phases of the game.

So here's the framework I use...

TAP up to 30 - 50 XP per increase (this should generally only be applicable to characters brought back from death or otherwise dropped below their starting attribute level)

31st to 32nd AP - 100 XP per point (relevant for the above scenario as well as 'halflings' and other 30-point races)
33rd to 34th AP - 200 XP
35th to 36th AP - 300 XP
37th to 39th AP - 500 XP
40th to 42nd AP - 700 XP
43rd to 45th AP - 900 XP
46th to 49th AP - 1200 XP
50th to 53rd AP - 1500 XP
54th to 57th AP - 1800 XP
(progression past this point is possible, but unlikely)

TAP 31-36 represents the NOVICE tier in my system
TAP 37-45 is the VETERAN tier
TAP 46-57 is the LEGENDARY tier

Each tier (which is determined by TAP... see above) has two levels of talents; Basic and Advanced. In the NOVICE tier, for example, the talents in those groups roughly correspond to items that previously cost 1 and 2 IQ points respectively. Talents in the two VETERAN tier categories roughly correspond to talents that cost 2 and 3 IQ points respectively, but the IQ 'weights' are no longer relevant past character creation and I've changed and shifted around a decent number of the original RAW choices (as well as adding many new talents).

NOVICE Tier:
Basic = 250 XP
Advanced = 400 XP
(most are revised IQ 7-11 talents and spells)

VETERAN Tier:
Basic = 600 XP
Advanced = 850 XP
(many of these are new or expanded versions of IQ 11-14 abilities)

LEGENDARY Tier:
Basic = 1150 XP
Advanced = 1500 XP
(these talents are all new)

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by timm meyers

I wonder if there would be any value to making the two factors of our PC, Attributes and Talents, share the same progressive cost in XP?

That's more or less what mIQ does. It allows tradeoff of attributes against talents, the way most modern designs do.

RAW doesn't do this and it's intentional. SJ fears attribute bloat, which he defines, more or less, as attributes rising to such a level that the standard 3/whatever rolls becoming too easy. He therefore wants a limit on character attributes. But he doesn't see breadth as a problem in the same way, so RAW doesn't impose a limit on gaining talents and spells.

I have huge issues with RAW experience. The Great Talent Desert is a terrible consequence and I think it's unrealistic to expect every campaign to use the same attribute cap.

Plus worrying about those 3/? rolls is the tail wagging the dog: I want ST 19 to use a great sword in one hand, not to pass ST rolls. I want IQ 16 for three spells with "seven hexes" in their description, not to pass IQ rolls, I want DX 17 not to pass DX rolls but so I can have adjDX 12 in improved plate and a large shield. It's not the player's fault that acquiring those capabilities inevitably makes them breeze through attribute checks as well.

That said, the principle does have something behind it. An experienced character having a lot of breadth makes sense, whereas one with godlike attributes can easily get silly.

A compromise might be to make talents start cheap like attributes (maybe 50?) and go up like they do, but more slowly and cap the talent points at 500. That would at least address the Great Talent Desert.

[Steve Plambeck]

Amen to everything you just said David. That's actually a great "state of the union" address for where we're at with the Legacy version of TFT.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Plus worrying about those 3/? rolls is the tail wagging the dog: I want ST 19 to use a great sword in one hand, not to pass ST rolls. I want IQ 16 for three spells with "seven hexes" in their description, not to pass IQ rolls, I want DX 17 not to pass DX rolls but so I can have adjDX 12 in improved plate and a large shield. It's not the player's fault that acquiring those capabilities inevitably makes them breeze through attribute checks as well.

Why couldn't we have one simple blanket rule wherein all attribute check rolls are made against a fixed maximum attribute value, independent of any character's actual attribute.

Wait -- it occurs to me we already actually have that built into the Critical Success and Failure rule (ITL 9). Doesn't that alone vaccinate us against any ill effects of "attribute bloat"? If success rates for attribute checks are already capped by automatic failure, then higher attribute numbers can't really hurt the game, can they? What am I missing?

True it would be a pretty dull game if everyone could crank all three attributes up to 15. Every roll would have a 96-98% chance of success, and that may be the specific thing SJ was trying to avoid. But we do want some attributes to get well above 14 for purposes other than making attribute checks, as in all those good examples David brought up.

Now I wonder if lowering the threshold for automatic failure to 15 on 3 dice instead of 16 (or even as low as 14!) would so mitigate the effects of attribute bloat we could drastically cut the Experience Point costs of everything else, without any more rule changes than those.