[DF] Talents for the Standard Templates

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I agree with those saying "The problem is IQ." In every one of my campaigns where wizards became the source of player-player friction over niches, the issue was less "Wah! She can cheaply increase her effective IQ for spells by getting Magery!" than "Wah! She has a huge IQ that helps her master spells and everything else mental!" In fact, the single biggest source of grumpiness was the IQ 18 sorceress who had Lockpicking-17, Poisons-16, Savoir-Faire-18, etc. . . . That she also had Magery 3 and was casting spells at 19 was neither here nor there in the dispute. Nobody much cared about the Magery.

So far, the best fix mentioned would be to schlep spells off onto a new attribute, which starts at 10 and can't be reduced for points. Keeping the cost at 10 points/level, like Magery, should be fine. That won't gimp dedicated wizards in the slightest . . . at magic. It will, however, mean that they aren't high-IQ, -Will, and -Per monsters who are better at all nonmagical tasks by dint of being smart. And if they want to be good at Hidden Lore, Occultism, Thaumatology, etc., they'll still need IQ. This will put them in the same boat as warriors who need ST [10/level] and DX [20/level] to do their job. (Everybody needs HT, IMO, so I'm not counting that.) If you really want to be mean, limit all spells to Thaumatology level, so that wizards need to up that or IQ to be effective.

Then you could simply make Magery 0 a switch – call it "Magical Awareness" – that lets people perceive magic and use this fifth attribute. Price it however you like.

To be fair, there are stories of dumb people who have magical abilities as well as the genius wizard types. What would you feel about clerics starting out with Power Investiture?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by b-dog

To be fair, there are stories of dumb people who have magical abilities as well as the genius wizard types. What would you feel about clerics starting out with Power Investiture?

There's even more evidence of dumb people with holy blessings.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There's even more evidence of dumb people with holy blessings.

In D&D they used wisdom for clerics instead of intelligence. Wisdom could be an understanding of what the gods/Divine wants as opposed to rational thought. Reason and logic vs. superstition and faith.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by b-dog

In D&D they used wisdom for clerics instead of intelligence.

Ignoring the spellcasting system for the moment, there's something to be said for the Int/Wis/Cha split in D&D; it's decently descriptive of fictional stereotypes. However, it's really best to not base spellcasting on any attribute -- if the attribute is balanced without spellcasting, it's too good with spellcasting, and if it's balanced with spellcasting, it's an underperformer without.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by b-dog

In D&D they used wisdom for clerics instead of intelligence. Wisdom could be an understanding of what the gods/Divine wants as opposed to rational thought. Reason and logic vs. superstition and faith.

Except that WIS is more reasonable and logical than INT ;)

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I agree with those saying "The problem is IQ." In every one of my campaigns where wizards became the source of player-player friction over niches, the issue was less "Wah! She can cheaply increase her effective IQ for spells by getting Magery!" than "Wah! She has a huge IQ that helps her master spells and everything else mental!" In fact, the single biggest source of grumpiness was the IQ 18 sorceress who had Lockpicking-17, Poisons-16, Savoir-Faire-18, etc. . . . That she also had Magery 3 and was casting spells at 19 was neither here nor there in the dispute. Nobody much cared about the Magery.

So far, the best fix mentioned would be to schlep spells off onto a new attribute, which starts at 10 and can't be reduced for points. Keeping the cost at 10 points/level, like Magery, should be fine. That won't gimp dedicated wizards in the slightest . . . at magic. It will, however, mean that they aren't high-IQ, -Will, and -Per monsters who are better at all nonmagical tasks by dint of being smart. And if they want to be good at Hidden Lore, Occultism, Thaumatology, etc., they'll still need IQ. This will put them in the same boat as warriors who need ST [10/level] and DX [20/level] to do their job. (Everybody needs HT, IMO, so I'm not counting that.) If you really want to be mean, limit all spells to Thaumatology level, so that wizards need to up that or IQ to be effective.

Then you could simply make Magery 0 a switch – call it "Magical Awareness" – that lets people perceive magic and use this fifth attribute. Price it however you like.

Do you think you would ever write a Pyramid article on this? Maybe a revised wizard template?

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Maybe a revised wizard template?

My answer would be drop IQ by 2 [-40], raise Magery from 13 to 17[40]. You're still getting Hard spells at 15 and Very Hard ones at 14 for 1 point, most of your IQ-based skills are still very respectable, your Per doesn't drop below 10, and 3 more levels of Magery as stated on your template brings you to 20...which is base Attribute+10, the usual cutoff for increasing them anyway.

[Anthony]

One thing I've considered is basing ritual and fatigue on points in skill rather than absolute skill. If Magery is separate it's easier:

Skill at Magery-2 or worse: as Skill 9 (words, hands and feet, double time)
Skill at Magery-1: as skill 10-14 (words, gestures, normal time)
Skill at Magery+0: ritual as skill 15-19; no effect on cost. Minimum for enchantment and ceremonial magic.
Skill at Magery+1: -1 casting cost; -1 per extra +2 skill.
Skill at Magery+2: ritual as skill 20 (none, half time); halved per extra +2 skill.

That makes it somewhat easier to be Johnny one-spell (to cast like skill-25 in RAW, you only need the skill at Magery+4, costing 20 or 24 points), though not much cheaper than in 3e (it was 10 points for -1 cost, half time in 3e; this works out to 8 points for -1 and half, and you only get +2 skill instead of +5), but means you don't just put one point in every spell.

[b-dog]

Some things that could happen with Magery being its own stat would be that some wizards may not have as high an IQ stat but maybe learning spells could be more difficult for wizards with low IQs so they would want to keep their IQs around 13. When a scroll is found in a dungeon it would need to be deciphered first before it could be used as would spell books. That would keep the wizards honest and make them have reasonable IQs so as to be more like the traditional fantasy wizard. But they need not be Scholars and Sages, they do not need to know how to know a lot of mundane mundane things as that would be the domain of the Scholars. Most of the IQ skills would tend to be related to understanding magic and reading magical material.

[b-dog]

Wizard

Attributes: ST 10 [0]; DX 12 [40]; IQ 13 [60]; HT 11 [10].
Secondary Characteristics: HP 10 [0]; Will 13 [0]; Per 13 [0]; FP 14 [9]

Advanatages: Magery 4 [45]

Primary Skills: Hidden Lore (Demons, Magic Items, Magical Writings or Spirits) and Occultism IQ [2] 13, Alchemy IQ[8] 13, Thaumatology IQ[8] 13.

Secondary Skills: Hazardous Materials (Magical); Research, Speed-Reading, Teaching and Writing all IQ-1 [1] 12


etc.