(TFT) Re: TFT Digest V4 #253

[David Bofinger <bofinger.david@gmail.com>]

>> Who thinks that Illusion, at IQ 11 and ST cost 2, is overpowered?

Agreed. It's such a workhorse. And I've always thought the reports of
an illusory scout should be plausible lies. :-)

A possible downgrade would be to give the target an automatic
disbelieve roll when damaged by an illusion. Perhaps the cheap/low-IQ
version of illusion has that drawback and the more expensive version
doesn't.

Illusions also shouldn't block missiles - if the arrow passes through
the illusion and then its master, both are damaged. Though the
master's damage would not be immediately visible.

>> It occurs to me that magic must have developed after agriculture. In
>> order to have a wizard per the TFT system, it seems that you have to
>> have a special wizard school, which means a social structure that
>> supports that kind of thing, which means a city, which means agriculture.

I think you get shaman-style magic before cities, then the magic
coevolves with civilisation. That's on the magic-using worlds Jen
Mnoren found. On Cidri, of course, there was no evolution of anything,
they just imported the finished product.

Speaking of agriculture, how do dungeons and dwarf cities feed
themselves? Is it trade, with farmers outside, or do they have a food
production method that works underground? I think I prefer the latter.

I once had a theory of dungeons that they are places of leakage
between worlds. Nobody built them - the rock just leaked away. And the
wandering monsters are just arrived in our world without benefit of
ecology. It explains a lot.

> Staff
> Fire
> Aid
> Lock/Knock
> Rope
> (Fireball/Lightning/best missile spell you can take)
> Weapon/Armor Enchantment

These are all useful but are they all must-have? Staff is an auxiliary
attack you may not use all that often. Fire and Rope are weapons
amongst others, you may prefer, I don't know, Sleep.

I might add Reverse Missiles in many campaigns. Though it's better for villains.

I've always thought Trail Twister deserved more attention than it got.

Telepathy, of course, is a plot killer. The game needs a talent, "lie
under telepathy" or at least, "implant false memory".

>>> If your enemies realize or guess that the figure you summoned is an
>>> illusion, and they have people who would otherwise have nothing
>>> better to do than disbelieve it, then your wizard just wasted a turn
>>> and 2 ST.

We had a case like that recently where one character was a drakyr
(looks like a lizard-man) and a wizard was summoning lizard men.
Enemies would stare at the PC, scrunch up their face in concentration
and look frustrated. Handled well by the GM, kind of funny.

But your enemies may have an IQ of 7.

>>>> IMHO, in order for an illusion spell to work, you need a "victim."

Isn't there a rule that an illusion can't hurt someone until the
target knows the illusion is there?

I think generalised spells are more interesting from a role-playing
point of view. They would also tilt the balance further in favour of
the wizard over the warrior, but I'm sure something can be done about
that. Magic resistance talents, for instance.

Have people experimented with the class system? Perhaps ditching it in
favour of enabling talents. Or just ditching it. Or introducing a
hybrid class to represent part-time users like RuneQuest nomads
(talents cost x1.25, spells cost x1.25, -1 DX all spells ... Excel
analysis suggests it's about fair). Or a scholar class.

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