Leveling up skills

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Drakenbow

The Legacy TFT rules seem to suggest to me that once a character is made, all new spells or talents cost 500XP per point.

I give some leeway. If the character's IQ is raised, that will include 1 point for talent or spell purchase. The player can always purchase points at 500 XP per point, but they will always get a point through raising IQ.

Removing the connection between IQ increases and the acquisition of new talents is one of the few LE changes that I have embraced. Initially, I was against the idea and allowed a hybrid approach like yours, but over time I realized that it undermined a key aspect of learning (or, more specifically, the in-game simulation of learning)... skills shouldn't be harder (or easier) to learn based on the changeable value of an attribute. For example, using the 'classic' model, a talent like HORSEMANSHIP has a variable (potentially drastically so) cost depending on when in the character’s lifecycle it is purchased, but in Legacy (or my game) the XP required to learn that skill is the same whether the character is 30-points or 40.

That really makes alot of sense to me.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Which is why you have to modify attribute progression as well IMO.
;)

The key (for my table, anyway) was in keeping the choices at each 'tier' balanced. XP costs for talents or stat increases should remain close enough for it to make the choice difficult or at least require careful consideration on the part of the player.

In my normal style, I did a simple change to the XP to Attribute cost. It follows RAW up to 38 points. After that, each attribute is 300 points more than the prior point. So, 1,000 for 38, 1300 for 39, 1600 for 40, etc.

Changes like this keep my house rules for a topic down to one sentence or two.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by timm meyers

Sorry I am unfamiliar with the "TAP" reference, could you elaborate? (I just know I am going to slap my forehead in embarrassment the minute you reveal the meaning...)

TAP = Total Attribute Points (i.e. a starting human character is 32 TAP)

So in the context of my response, rather than using a framework where the character’s IQ score alone qualifies them for better talents, my system puts talents (and spells) into broader buckets based on TAP. Beginning or Novice characters (TAP 30-36), for example, have access to all of the same talents regardless of their IQ.

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by timm meyers

What if?
Talents were tracked and given a progressive cost the same way as attributes.
This could be done in several ways, but the goal is to give learning new skills the same lowered XP costs for the PC early in their careers just like the hard Stats of ST, DX, and IQ.

Wouldn't the simpler way to get the exact same effect be to just revert to the original ITL rule? Where every "talent point" came with an IQ increase, but that IQ increase always came with the progressive cost of increasing an attribute in the first place. Seems a complicated way to come full circle back to how it originally worked.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Wouldn't the simpler way to get the exact same effect be to just revert to the original ITL rule? Where every "talent point" came with an IQ increase, but that IQ increase always came with the progressive cost of increasing an attribute in the first place. Seems a complicated way to come full circle back to how it originally worked.

I've said since I became knowledgeable of Legacy TFT that they could have kept the original XP to Attribute cost chart and added the newer option of spending XP on Talents. In Classic TFT, the hero types would increase in ST and DX until they were reasonably able to successfully attack and do damage. Then they would focus on raising IQ to obtain for more talents. Thus, the old joke, Conan the Librarian.

The Legacy XP to Attribute cost starts easier than Classic TFT but quickly becomes prohibitive to get past 38 points and nearly impossible to reach 40 points. I ran an analysis of Classic XP to Attribute cost vs Legacy TFT and added my previously mentioned system that kicks in after Legacy at 38 points. It is still more restrictive than Classic but moves toward the Classic TFT scale above 40 points. It's still takes a lot of game time to reach 40 points with my scale but is no longer outright impossible by design as it is in Legacy TFT.

[timm meyers]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Wouldn't the simpler way to get the exact same effect be to just revert to the original ITL rule? Where every "talent point" came with an IQ increase, but that IQ increase always came with the progressive cost of increasing an attribute in the first place. Seems a complicated way to come full circle back to how it originally worked.

That is an excellent point.
However, the old system does fail at giving a PC the ability to "broaden" their skill sets without turning into some weird, expanded IQ bobble head.

Myself I still adhere to the free talent point when my players increase their IQ stat. This is important to me because I think the skills define a PC as much as attributes.
RAW will only give a player 5 to 7 gained attribute points before the XP needed basically stops progression. So, IQ gain usually is only going to offer a few "free" talent points for any PC build.

Obviously, there is a balance we all seek in our games to make advancement of our toons fun. Gaining skills or attributes needs to be hard enough to evoke a sense of accomplishment but not so hard as to feel unattainable.

[Shostak]

Having the cost of learning talents close enough to the cost of an attribute increase that it provides a choice that is less of a foregone conclusion only adds interest to character advancement.

I like the idea of a more elegant character advancement system than either Classic or Legacy provide--or any of the various house rules that cling to an XP chart. To that end, and as discussed in other threads, if I were redesigning the XP/advancement system, I’d consider an approach along these lines:

Make each additional point of an attribute cost XP equal to the new attribute value (e.g. increasing from ST 10 to ST 11 costs 11XP). To keep talents in line, determine the cost, multiply a talent's (or spell's) point value by 10 (e.g. Crossbow and Slippery Floor cost 10XP, and Alchemist costs 30).

[Steve Plambeck]

And then there's this little conundrum that came new with Legacy's RAW: you can't aim to acquire a new talent (which would cost XP) if it's above your current IQ, without increasing IQ (which would also cost XP). So you end up with the two things necessary to reach your goal are now competing with each other. You'd get more bang for your buck increasing ST or DX instead, so why bother trying to broaden your character anyway?!

That alone is the reason to keep awarding (at least one) memory point with every IQ increase, as it was in Classic.

It's like the Legacy rules for adding talents have a multiple personality disorder. Something changed to make it easier to buy new talents, and something else changed to make it harder.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

And then there's this little conundrum that came new with Legacy's RAW: you can't aim to acquire a new talent (which would cost XP) if it's above your current IQ, without increasing IQ (which would also cost XP). So you end up with the two things necessary to reach your goal are now competing with each other. You'd get more bang for your buck increasing ST or DX instead, so why bother trying to broaden your character anyway?!

That alone is the reason to keep awarding (at least one) memory point with every IQ increase, as it was in Classic.

It's like the Legacy rules for adding talents have a multiple personality disorder. Something changed to make it easier to buy new talents, and something else changed to make it harder.

Great observation.

The one thing about Legacy that I do see in a positive manner is the ability to spend XP on talents as opposed to just Attributes. However, I have seen the competing conundrum for XP expenditure with respect to specific advancement goals. You need two IQ points with XP cost to be able to get Master Fencer that costs three IQ points. Spending XP to get the IQ first only helps you on IQ rolls but you have to do that before you earn and spend XP to get the talent. The trade off is, "To heck with IQ/Talent advancement. I'll just boost DX or ST to get more immediate benefit."

[JohnPaulB]

Originally Posted by Bill_in_IN

What I noticed was that at even at 250 XP for the first two IQ Talent/Spell points used, there was still a reluctance to vary from bumping up attributes that were getting more expensive. It seems that there is still a natural tendency for PCs to progress toward 37 points before spending XP on talents/spells.

There is a solution to this 'everything goes into Attributes before it goes into talents'.

When you create your character, don't give them any weapons talents. It guarantees that the first thing you spend your XP on is a weapon.

Also there are published rules for discounting the RAW 500XP costs for talents.

The Fanzine Trip 1
• Discounting Talents Learning Talents Through Books by John Paul Bakshoian……..p 43

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

And then there's this little conundrum that came new with Legacy's RAW: you can't aim to acquire a new talent (which would cost XP) if it's above your current IQ, without increasing IQ (which would also cost XP). So you end up with the two things necessary to reach your goal are now competing with each other. You'd get more bang for your buck increasing ST or DX instead, so why bother trying to broaden your character anyway?!

That alone is the reason to keep awarding (at least one) memory point with every IQ increase, as it was in Classic..

I consider the IQ level as a threshold of capacity to learn. If you have IQ 11, you have the capacity to learn those IQ talents and below. You don't have the capacity to learn higher than that yet. There are a lot of talents there to learn at each level. But sometimes you want to be represented by something higher than your IQ 11. So your character has to raise his capacity to that level so he can learn the thing. Then he can buy that Talent on the next XP exchange.
I don't think that spending XP on an IQ Attribute equates to getting the Attribute AND the talent.
That would lead to the case where Players could start with IQ 8 figures and in three attribute exchanges get to IQ 11 And have an 9IQ Talent, a 10IQ Talent and a 11IQ talent at the same time.

Originally Posted by Bill_in_IN

The one thing about Legacy that I do see in a positive manner is the ability to spend XP on talents as opposed to just Attributes. However, I have seen the competing conundrum for XP expenditure with respect to specific advancement goals. You need two IQ points with XP cost to be able to get Master Fencer that costs three IQ points. Spending XP to get the IQ first only helps you on IQ rolls but you have to do that before you earn and spend XP to get the talent. The trade off is, "To heck with IQ/Talent advancement. I'll just boost DX or ST to get more immediate benefit."

And this can go back to "How Do I Envision The Character?"
If the player says "I see Kurt as a Merchant. Average ST, Average DX, Above Average IQ, then ST=10, DX=10, IQ=12 would start him out.
If you never envision Kurt being strong, you won't have his ST go above 11. If you envision that he could dance pretty well, you might have his DX go to 11. You might even consider his becoming bright enough to reach IQ 13. You might start with raising Kurt's IQ to 13, buy some more Merchanting worthy talents, socializing talents, then possibly put a point into ST to help him survive an extra point of damage. And if Kurt was going to learn a spell or two, that would go under the category of XP=1500.

Sure, there may be life-changing events, both good or bad for the character that would change "his" envisioning, so there can be alterations to this viewpoint.

The characters don't have to be worked up into graceful tanks.