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Re: (TFT) Wizard mods - out of balance?



At 13:51 -0400 3/20/11, TFT Digest wrote:
It just grumbles me a little when I see people making TFT talents out to be
some kind of 'entry-level' barely can hitch a plow kind of skill, that is in
need of buffing.

My thoughts on this series:

1) There are cool spells, and cool talents, written into the books that are simply out of reach for 32-point beginning characters. Greater Magic Item Creation, Unarmed Combat V, Summon Dragon (realistically), etc. I think it's pretty natural (and I certainly have always felt that way) to wish we could see that cool stuff in action, and therefore to wish we had characters good enough to use them. So that's an emotionally compelling argument to *sometimes* use higher level characters.

2) On the other hand, IMHO, it's way more powerful to assemble teams of characters than to try to turbo-boost a single character. Examples;

	1 crossbow/missile weapons guy
	1 Halberd guy
	1 chainmail, tower shield, rapier guy

or

	1 ST10 DX12 IQ10 wizard (knows AID, trip, speed, etc.)
	1 ST8 DX10 IQ14 wizard

the combined arms effect can be really massive if employed properly. In addition, you get to double the number of actions your side gets. So, teamwork and diversity is where it's at in creating powerful parties. For my money, the combat strength of a party is more or less proportional to taking the total number of optional character points (whatever is added to the basic ST8, DX8, IQ8) and dividing by 8. So 4 32-pointers is more or less equal to two 40-pointers, one 56-pointer, etc. This breaks down eventually, and I don't have a good grip on the effect of magic items. This is where I see the real answer to the "wimpy beginning character" perception.

3) DMG2's comments both on role-playing making a character more fun and on the amazing flexibility of the TFT system deserve repetition, but I can't say it more eloquently than he already did, so I'll just add "hear, hear!". You absolutely do not need a UCV martial arts master with a few magic spells thrown in or an IQ-20 master wizard to have a whole lot of fun.


	And my attempts to apply the principles, in the last adventure I ran:

Characters start at 32 points, but get to "work" on the jobs table for 6 months (if they die, they get another character, but only what's left of the 6 months). That put some scatter into the point totals, encouraged players to come up with back-stories, and pushed the inclusion of non-pure-fighting talents. I also Extended "builder" to include mundane talents, with salary

$40/week plus ($5/week * (IQ spent on mundane talents)).

I was also pretty insistent that non-combat talents would come in handy (and put the appropriate hooks into the adventure).

The best couple of moments of the adventure were direct consequences of the resulting back-stories and excellent character playing.

--
						- Mark     210-379-4635
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