Templates in DF

[dravenloft]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

The point is then that how do you determine what is within a class for advancement. It was with the whole ridgid template that Pee Kitty was talking about that got me, how do you do advancement?

1) The stuff within that class' template that you didn't take.
2) advancing the things you did take.
3) other stuff that you think sounds neat that your character has an excuse to have figured out how to do.

[Kaldrin]

Originally Posted by dravenloft

"[R]elatively high powered"?

I use templates as a starting point, not the whole character. So, relative to most of my starting campaigns, 300-500 points is high powered.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by dravenloft

1) The stuff within that class' template that you didn't take.
2) advancing the things you did take.
3) other stuff that you think sounds neat that your character has an excuse to have figured out how to do.

Now that is not very ridgid.

[PK]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Now that is not very ridgid.

Disagree completely. The above boils down to "Only the things on your template, with rare exceptions if the GM is okay with it". That is significantly limited compared to GURPS' default of "anything whatsoever".

Compare it to going into one of those huge "Oriental Buffets" with 10 separate steam tables, and being told that you can only eat vegetable-based dishes from one particular table, unless you discuss your needs with the owner and he agrees to let you eat from one or two specific dishes that don't follow that rule.

[dravenloft]

Originally Posted by Kaldrin

I use templates as a starting point, not the whole character. So, relative to most of my starting campaigns, 300-500 points is high powered.

Oh. Sorry. I just see 150+ called "high powered" and other such things so often out of some notion that the game is centred on a 25 or 50 point level that I took it to be referring to that and finally just had to ask.

[PK]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

The point is then that how do you determine what is within a class for advancement. It was with the whole ridgid template that Pee Kitty was talking about that got me, how do you do advancement?

A template includes about 300-400 points' worth of stuff on it, of which you only take 250! That's 50-150 points' worth of advancement right there. Also, you can raise your attributes and raise the basic skills associated with your template, for unlimited advancement.

Also, DF3 has another chapter called "Power-Ups". Those are specific new abilities available to each template. Personally, I think if I ever ran a DF game, I'd give everyone 275-300 points, allow Mixing Professions, but then restrict Power-Ups to those who didn't multiclass. In other words, a "Barbarian-Barbarian" would be someone who chose to not mix their templates, and thus had access to all the cool stuff under Barbarian Power-Ups.

[Kaldrin]

Originally Posted by dravenloft

Oh. Sorry. I just see 150+ called "high powered" and other such things so often out of some notion that the game is centred on a 25 or 50 point level that I took it to be referring to that and finally just had to ask.

Yeah, I couldn't play 50 point games. I'd go crazy. If I wanted to sit down and hash out how a bunch of regular Joes acts in a given situation I'll write a short story. My minimum is 150 points. About half of my current possible campaigns run at 300 points.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

A template includes about 300-400 points' worth of stuff on it, of which you only take 250! That's 50-150 points' worth of advancement right there. Also, you can raise your attributes and raise the basic skills associated with your template, for unlimited advancement.

The problem is many of those advancements are branching out not increasing in power.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Also, DF3 has another chapter called "Power-Ups". Those are specific new abilities available to each template. Personally, I think if I ever ran a DF game, I'd give everyone 275-300 points, allow Mixing Professions, but then restrict Power-Ups to those who didn't multiclass.

And your whole point is that you where disallowing multiclassing.

And those suggestions are not really in the format of a template.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

The problem is many of those advancements are branching out not increasing in power.

... how is raising your attributes, levelled advantages, and skills, not increasing in power?

Originally Posted by blacksmith

And those suggestions are not really in the format of a template.

Correct. I'm not quite sure what your point is, however.

I'm getting the impression what you really want is templates like "Barbarian, Level 2" or "Advanced Barbarian" or something.

If that's what you're looking for, I suspect you won't find it in the DF line. GURPS allows you to improve things one at a time rather than having to buy a whole bunch of items at once, and that's sort of a core concept.