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

[Mark Tapley <mtapley@swri.edu>]

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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