[no subject]

[raito@raito.com]

So, now that we're in the new house, I can finally access my copies of 
TFT, et al. 

So how many points does an 'average' character accumulate in their 
lifetime? Mostly, it depends on what you consider average. For this 
analysis, I'm going to consider characters who have enough skill to get 
3/18 jobs. Note that there's only a single job that one can have with a 
3/18 risk and an 8 IQ, and that's translator. Still, we want some 
favorable ability to survive bad weeks, so we'll assume an 8 IQ. We'll 
also assume that a character begins adult life at age 16 (only because 
that's what I do in my campaign, TFT says 20), and is 12 ST 12 DX. We 
also assume that a year is 52 weeks. 

So a character is not going to suffer aging effects until he is 50. 
That gives him 34 years of time, which is 1768 weeks. Divide that by 
216 (a 3 or 18 on 3D6) and you have a little over 8. So, if he 
survives, he's going to add about 8 points to his attributes, while 
also having to make 8 rolls for bad weeks. Now, he does have a 12 DX, 
so he's got about a 3/4 chance of making his saving roll on a bad week, 
assuming he doesn't add to his DX with the good weeks. And if he misses 
his roll on a bad week, he's going to take an average of 14 points, and 
is going to die anyway. 

So it sure looks like the average Joe isn't going to set the world on 
fire with his 49.9 year old, 40 point badass self. 

But if he's a little smarter, he can have one of those cushy 4/18 jobs, 
but those take a bit more IQ. However, the rewards are pretty good. 
1768 / 216 * 3  is about 24.5. And again, if he's got a 12 DX, he's got 
about a 3/4 chance of not dying those 8 weeks when things go bad. 56 
points isn't bad for a character, and if he bumps his DX and ST, he 
might just survive a bad week, even though it'll take a few weeks to 
recover. And he's going to live a lot longer, too. 

40 point Joe is going to lose 20 points by the time he hits 70. But 
that's also another 10 years of work, which is 520 weeks -- enough to 
get him another 4.8 points. He's going to start having trouble with the 
bad weeks, though. But if he survives, he'll be 24 points at 70. 70 to 
80 starts looking bad. He's going to lose 20 more points, and if he 
keeps working, gain 2 (we'll call it 3, using the fractions). So he'll 
be 7 points at age 80. That's hardly enough to keep working (though 
we'll say he doesn't go under 8 IQ, and thus lose his job) until the 
end. At 7 points, and not working, he's not going to make it to 82. 

Things look rosier for 56 point Jim. When he hits 70, he'll have lost 
that 20 points, sure, but he'll have gained back 14.4. So he'll be a 
strong 50 pointer at age 70. At 80, he'll have lost another 20, but 
gained back 7, so 37 points (with just about enough fractions for 
another point, so we'll call it 38 at 70). Now we start losing 3 a 
year, so that'll put him at 82.3 when the sands run out. But that's 12 
years of work, and until his IQ drops below what he needs, he can still 
get another point or 2 in that time. If we assume he needs ST 1, DX 1, 
IQ 8 to function, he can lose 28 points before having real trouble. 
That's still 9.3 years, in which time he'll get another 6.7 or so 
points, good enough for another couple years. So Jim is now 89.3 and 16 
points. Pretty robust. He'll keep working another 2 years, not enough 
to guarantee another point, before he can't work anymore at 10 points. 
So, he retires at 91.3, and lives another 2.6 years, shuffling off the 
mortal coil at 94. This is assuming he doesn't lose out on any of the 
bad roll weeks. 

I'll note that the jobs table doesn't have any risk 5/18 jobs. 

So what does a 56 point character in his prime look like?

If we divide the points evenly, he's 18ST, 18DX, 18IQ, with 2 points to 
spread around. That's not bad for a 50 year old geezer. And even with 
an unequal distribution, still nothing to sneeze at. But even at 56 
points, you just aren't going to be able to take every skill there is 
to take. Not even close. 

All things considered, I'd rather be an Elf if I wanted to live a long 
life. Not only do they double the age at which losses occur, they have 
twice as much time to accumulate points before going senile. Sure, they 
take twice as many XP to go up a point, but there's nothing about that 
affecting risk rolls. 

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"