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Post by gaptooth on May 3, 2011 7:51:24 GMT -5
On a side note...has anyone ran or been in a game where attributes got that high? Not a solo game, and not via crazy magic, but through play? Not I. And with the 7.5 rules it doesn't seem likely-- the new advancement system yields diminishing returns for dumping additional AP into the same stat.
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Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
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Post by Hogscape on May 3, 2011 7:54:25 GMT -5
Skath, I played and ran a few gonzo games in the early 80s where stats like that were common place.
Additionally, my very first game of 7.0 delivered a serpent man wizard with an IQ in the 60s (that was just the initial fluke TARO). Snakey-boy blew the game out of the water and we started from scratch minus TARO but the experience left a nasty tang. We drifted back to 5.0 then 4.5.
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Post by gaptooth on May 3, 2011 9:10:01 GMT -5
Okay, I know I said I've never seen stats that high in actual play, but Hogscape's post reminded me that I do frequently see beginning characters with pretty high stats when using the 7.5th edition rules as written. When players combine a TARO with a high Kindred ability multiplier, you can get pretty spectacular results.
My daughter once rolled up a Dwarf with 64 Strength (a character who died in her first delve), and she is currently playing a Rock Troll that started with a Strength score in the 70s. This actually highlights something I like about T&T in general and about the 7th edition advancement system in particular: Unlike many other games I've seen, T&T supports play for characters that have wildly disparate starting abilities. The 7th edition advancement system evens out the playing field even more by slowing down stat inflation for high-powered characters, while characters that start at a lower level can gain ground relatively quickly.
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on May 3, 2011 9:14:47 GMT -5
Not I. And with the 7.5 rules it doesn't seem likely-- the new advancement system yields diminishing returns for dumping additional AP into the same stat. I don't have edition 7.5. How does it achieve that?
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Post by gaptooth on May 3, 2011 10:51:44 GMT -5
Instead of gaining levels based on the total accumulated AP, you use your AP to buy raises in your ability scores, and the highest ability score favored by your Type determines your level. I wasn't a fan of this idea at first, but it grew on me.
So those two characters I mentioned in my last post were Warriors, and Strength is a favored ability for Warriors. That means the Dwarf (Tyra) started at level 6 and the Troll (Erny) started at level 7. If my daughter wanted to raise Tyra's Strength to 65, she would have to spend 640 AP (the current rank x10). If she wanted to raise it again to 66, she would have to spend 650 more AP. Erny's Strength is 72, so she would have to spend 720 AP to raise it to 73. To get up to level 8, it would cost 6,040 AP (at minimum), and the player would probably want to raise other ability scores along the way. Meanwhile, her other character Natsumi, whose highest favored ability is just 13, would be able to advance much more quickly by comparison.
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kwll
3rd Level Troll
Posts: 248
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Post by kwll on May 3, 2011 11:09:52 GMT -5
Instead of gaining levels based on the total accumulated AP, you use your AP to buy raises in your ability scores, and the highest ability score favored by your Type determines your level. I wasn't a fan of this idea at first, but it grew on me. So those two characters I mentioned in my last post were Warriors, and Strength is a favored ability for Warriors. That means the Dwarf (Tyra) started at level 6 and the Troll (Erny) started at level 7. If my daughter wanted to raise Tyra's Strength to 65, she would have to spend 640 AP (the current rank x10). If she wanted to raise it again to 66, she would have to spend 650 more AP. Erny's Strength is 72, so she would have to spend 720 AP to raise it to 73. To get up to level 8, it would cost 6,040 AP (at minimum), and the player would probably want to raise other ability scores along the way. Meanwhile, her other character Natsumi, whose highest favored ability is just 13, would be able to advance much more quickly by comparison. Thanks Gaptooth -- so it's identical to v7. I am still at a loss here: a strength of 72, Erny will succeed almost all the time at L10SRs (even L12SR), where with an attribute of 13, there is very (very!) little chance to succeed with a L5SR. If a L1SR is "easy", what can be said of a L10SR? A L15SR? Even a L20SR?
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Post by ProfGremlin on May 3, 2011 11:59:02 GMT -5
Thanks Gaptooth -- so it's identical to v7. I am still at a loss here: a strength of 72, Erny will succeed almost all the time at L10SRs (even L12SR), where with an attribute of 13, there is very (very!) little chance to succeed with a L5SR. If a L1SR is "easy", what can be said of a L10SR? A L15SR? Even a L20SR? I would tend to view a character such as Erny as having Heroic strength but what are his other attribute scores? I doubt he has anything else even remotely equivalent to his strength. In all likelihood his other attributes are balanced with the rest of the party. So, while Erny will be able to lift draft horses over his head he may not be able to solve the puzzles left out on the tavern counter to amuse patrons. Sure, he's pigeon-holed and he'll blow through most of the strength encounters in a beginner dungeon setting and that could be fun to play for awhile, but remember, there's always the chance of a failure on the roll. You're still only rolling 2D6 and can still turn up a critical failure. In addition, T&T adventures don't always bow to the idea of balance. There are some adventures that teach delvers that there are times where discretion is the better part of valor - i.e. run away. In Erny's case, he may actually be able to meet that challenge head on and succeed, that would be a novelty for the player. So, yes, I think the character could be fun to play, he may unbalance encounters a bit but not every experience can be solved by whacking it with a meaty fist.
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Post by gaptooth on May 3, 2011 12:57:09 GMT -5
ProfGremlin lined up all the nails and hit them all on the head.* Like I said, Tyra was killed by rats in her very first delve. The only survivors of that near-TPK were a couple level one characters who managed not to get mobbed. And that was supposedly a "balanced" encounter. Mathematically, with a superhero and a magic weapon that could deal massive damage, the players should have had the upper hand. But in T&T, it's not just about the numbers on the page. As a rookie T&T GM, I had actually ratcheted up the difficulty of the encounter to accommodate the tougher character and magic weapon, and that was a huge mistake. Erny was originally created to run through City of Terrors. In CoT, all Saving Rolls are made at the character's level unless otherwise specified, which meant that Erny could usually ace Strength saves, but anything else was almost impossible for him. He survived one run by the skin of his teeth and "retired" from solo play. Now he's in a home-made dungeon with a lot of riddles, traps, and character-driven challenges. My daughter can still lean on his high Strength, but like the Prof said: it's no panacea. [/li][li] Edit: Fix syntax error.
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Post by mahrundl on May 3, 2011 19:32:56 GMT -5
On a side note...has anyone ran or been in a game where attributes got that high? Not a solo game, and not via crazy magic, but through play? Technically this was a solo game, but I have rolled 2 consecutive characters for Arena of Khazan that had, by virtue of the Arena's TARO special, Speed ratings of 94*. The dice weren't loaded or biased as far as I can tell (they never rolled like that on any other occasion, nor for any of the other attributes that I rolled for those characters). They just appeared to be having a freakish day for Speed. Of course, both characters died within their first couple of fights... In any case, the attributes weren't raised to that level through play, but had I been using the TARO rules to roll up starting characters for a game, they would have started ridiculously high. * And to make it even stranger, as far as I can recall the triples rolled for each Speed rating were identical. I don't remember the exact sequence (it has been more than 25 years since this happened), but there was at least one each of triple 6, triple 5, and triple 1 involved.
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devadasi
5th Level Troll
maiden voyager
Posts: 603
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Post by devadasi on May 4, 2011 5:32:09 GMT -5
One of the things I have really come to LIKE about TnT is that its hard to balance encounters. And since there are no "challenge ratings" ( one of the things i HATED with a passion about post 2e DnD) characters have to evaluate much more seriously the information that their senses ( and the GM) is giving them to decide to fight or not.
The possibility of death is one of the things that made old school gaming fun.
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Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
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Post by Hogscape on May 4, 2011 10:50:39 GMT -5
T&T supports play for characters that have wildly disparate starting abilities. I'm not sure the game supports this in any way Gappy, it just makes it possible for the situation to occur. The GM and the players have to 'support' it when it happens. In your case it wasn't an issue, in mine it was a game-wrecker.
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Post by gaptooth on May 4, 2011 12:26:40 GMT -5
The GM and the players have to 'support' it when it happens. In your case it wasn't an issue, in mine it was a game-wrecker. You're probably right. My instincts tell me that a gamism-positive dungeon fantasy game like T&T should be concerned with balance. Allowing for so much disparity between the stats of starting characters seems wreckless. I only have a few hairy notions about why it works for me, not a well-reasoned argument. The way the default combat system works, everyone who can make some dice hit the table will contribute to their side's combat point total, no matter how weak their character is compared to the monster, making combat more about the team effort than the stats of each individual. In 4th edition D&D, by comparison, a low-level character can't even land a hit against the armor class of an outclassing monster, no matter how well you work together with your team. The same holds on the other side of the table: A high-level delver may have a bit more grit in one-on-one combat against weak minions. But if she gets mobbed, she is just as vulnerable as lower-level allies, even if the monsters individually have low combat stats. I just created a magic item for the dungeon Erny and friends are exploring-- it's called the Quake Mallet. In combat, it works just like a war hammer, but it's true power is when you hit the ground with it-- it unleashes a shockwave that will knock your enemies prone. The exact number is based on the level of your Strength Saving Roll. Instead of assigning it a certain number of charges, I decided to require a Power SR every time it's used, starting at level 1 and getting more difficult each time. If the Saving Roll fails, the item's enchantment is spent. In Erny's hands, the Quake Hammer can knock a whole lot of suckers down in one stroke, but he is likely to use up its power in one or two uses. The party's Wizard, on the other hand, could nurse more uses out of it, but the results wouldn't be as spectacular. How they manage this item could have a big impact on a mini-boss in the same dungeon: There is a giant centipede whose hide can only be penetrated by spells and spite damage, unless he is knocked on his back. Sure, they can scheme up some other way to expose the creature's underbelly, or the Wizard could blow all his Power casting TTYF repeatedly-- heck, they could even run away --but Erny's brute Strength won't give them an absolute edge.
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quoghmyre
7th Level Troll
The Summer Troll
Posts: 1,048
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Post by quoghmyre on May 4, 2011 18:01:20 GMT -5
Ken has said on many occasions that T&T is not balanced, and is not intended to be a balanced game.
But I see one of the roles of the GM is to create a fair adventure. It is not a lot of fun to play a game where you feel crushed.
Yes, in my campaigns I often have characters who pass 60 on a stat point, but I run Heroic Fantasy adventures, that span months and often years. Looking through my current players files I see a L7 Rouge with a luck of 60 and a L6 Wiz with a Lk of 52. I match the game level to the character level, so at Level 4 at least 1 character in the party needs to pass a L4 SR. The players tend to develop there main stat, and the weakest, while I augment the others with Magic, potions, rings, weapons and armour.
In my experience T&T campaigns have 3 different stages, first the characters are discovered and struggle for survival, L1 to 3. Then they get into party play, knowing the strengths and weakness' of the other characters and playing to those, L4 to 5. Levels 5 on becomes highly strategic. The Wizards have a good arsenal and there are all manner of magical items. The players know their characters well. Lots of great role playing.
YMMV
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machfront
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
"Let's go dark!"
Posts: 2,147
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Post by machfront on May 4, 2011 18:41:13 GMT -5
I recall the thread in which porkbelly posted the portion of this so-called 'review', but in between then and now, I read the entire thing, but I can't remember where.
The person who wrote under the pseudonym "Lewis (or Lew) Pulsipher" (His silly play on Lucifer makes me roll my eyes every time I see it.), has actually written good deal of interesting and useful stuff for D&D in the early days of Dragon Magazine (and it would seem, for White Dwarf). Still, this is the most nose-in-the-air excuse for a review I've had the displeasure to read.
In the reviewers strange world, once there's already one version of something, there's no need for an alternative. Foolishness.
In his poor attempt to make a case for number of players available, he ignores the fact that one can create brand new players whole-cloth out of those who've never gamed before. (meanwhile he's still ignoring that some folks would indeed wish for a cheaper and easier alternative)
Considering that T&T is still around and relatively much unchanged, and still has a solid fan-base in this day of a billion free (and great) rules-lite alternatives all over the internet...I hope he's eating every last word of that review.
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Post by zanshin on May 5, 2011 7:50:26 GMT -5
I am pretty sure its his real name en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_PulsipherAgree with Mach that he did some good work for early D&D. His board game Britannia is also well regarded. Duff review though. Too many early roleplayers saw T&T as the poor mans D&D rather than a qualitatively different game.
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