Background Talents

There is another type of choice.

I believe this also affects Backgrounds or Paths that offer a choice of specific Talents. For instance, if the Talent parts says “Wary, Quick, or Stealthy” and your character only qualifies for Wary and Quick, can you take Stealthy also? This is one reason I feel that Option #1 is best, as really “Any Combat Talent” is equivalent to a choice of 1 from 3 specific talents in terms of choice. Going with the argument of what is critical, a choice of 3 means that none of them are critical.

John

Unless a Background or Path explicitly gives you Leadership, you couldn’t pick Leadership (II) with a “Choose any Skill Talent” from Background or Path. You must meet Tier restrictions (if stated as the Archetype errata).

John

My opinion (as supported by my read of the rule) is that if you are given an option of 3 NAMED talents, you do not need to meet requirements. Unless that talent is named, you must meet the criteria because otherwise that is way too powerful IMHO.

Can you give an example of too powerful? It can give a few options not otherwise allowed, but I haven’t seen any example that breaks the game.

John

If you start giving out powerful talents–and let’s be honest, everyone is going to take the most powerful ‘free’ talent that they can get away with–without meeting the prerequisites, it’ll lead to the 3.x situation where everyone is building towards the ‘perfect’ build rather than building a character. I love Arcanis for its ability for characters to be unique, instead of everyone converging on a single build. We thankfully moved away from that when the Massive Damage Rules brought Speed 5+ weapons back into the game.

For example, just in the Combat Talents that can be taken at Tier 1:

Cunning Opponent, ignoring 12 ranks in Melee and the Masterful Defence talent.
Mind Over Body, without Resolve 8 to switch your defences and min-max out your Discipline
Avoidance, able to basically run around the map at full pace without provoking free strikes
Rapid Recovery, makes Healing substantially more effective.
Unrelenting Valor, not having to take a flaw to get it and saves Fate Points.

There are many talents out there that I feel can really affect the system that “take any combat talent” can grant, with Cunning Opponent being a MAJOR one since it doesn’t specify you have to be unarmoured to use it (despite the Masterful Defence requirement).

Unrelenting Valour is a non-issue, as you’re roleplaying the flaw anyway to claim the Fate point from the GM (and its up to the GM if you get it; not the player).

Cunning Opponent does look good on paper; but you need more than one opponent and make an attack roll. Adding a Tier to the Requirements doesn’t work (which is the underlying discussion point).
It needs a 1/scene restriction to bring it in line with the majority of other talents that allow you to actively change something. Just on the same page of the rulebook we have: Counterspell (ta), Daredevil (ta) and Dedicated Defender (ta). They are all 1/scene.
It hasn’t seen a lot of campaign play as PCs are only just getting up that high.

Realistically speaking we’re talking about non-Martial characters gaining access to very nice combat abilities that they wouldn’t otherwise have and avoiding the opportunity costs at a minimum of needing to invest in stats such as might and quickness.

Here’s the list again taking out the unplayable options (Canceri, Ymmandragore):
Backgrounds
Elder Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Combat)
Former Slave (Skill)
Nomad (Combat)
Shaman Initiate (Combat)

Paths
Aspirant Knight (Learn Martial Technique)
Kio Duelist – Keeper of the High Blade (Learn Martial Technique)
Knight Errant (Combat)
Seasoned Veteran (Learn Martial Technique)
Sword Sage – Master (Learn Martial Technique)

Now, if we see a sudden influx of Former Slaves, maybe we need to revisit the discussion.

I’d like an example of a powerful talent? I would assume any powerful talent would have very hard prerequisite that you could bypass? The few I’ve heard of are:

1) Prestidigitstion without 3 ranks in Lore. Not really a big deal since most experts probably will have 3 Ranks in a lore skill
2) Sweeping Stike without a 6 Might. Not really a big deal since almost anyone has it anyways.
3) Quick without the Quickness 6. They move a bit faster.
4) Encyclopedic Memory without the 9 Ranks. Pretty underwhelming without those 9 ranks.
5) Quick Draw without Quickness 7. Not a huge advantage.

For Prestidigitation, the most common use to take that outside of the Expert’s 2 free Archetype Skill talents is for Martials. I can tell you getting to 3 ranks in a Lore skill can be challenging at times or comes with an opportunity cost of not taking a rank in the arcanum or weapon skill from race, if you even get 2. Vals only get 1 skill for example.

For stats above 4 or maybe 5 at character creation represents a huge investment. Many fighters never get to a 6 might because the weapons they use are quick or ranged. Sweeping Strike is one of the best if not the best T1 Martial technique in the game. I would argue it’s better than a number of T2 and higher techniques as well. Granting easy access to the better talents and techniques without meeting the requirements further erodes any benefit there is to playing a Martial Archetype.

Quick – they move a tick faster everytime they move. In a game where every tick is precious, Quick is substantial. It also means that a Quick 30′ move character keeps up with a non-Quick 40′ move character. That’s not insubstantial either.

Encyclopedic Memory – you are so downplaying the benefits. First you avoid another Talent that requires in turn 3 knowledge skills. Second it allows you to start seeing benefits for knowledge skill rolls as soon as a single knowledge skill hits 6 ranks. You can do that by 1.4 and it goes up from there. The fact that getting it allows you to also qualify for Secret Lore is valuable as well. Speaking of which…

Secret Lore – roll 2 attribute dice for a number of knowledge skills per scene equal to your passive logic. That’s pretty big to start.

Quickdraw allows you to draw a weapon as a trivial. It also opens up Draw on the Move allowing for a bow to be reloaded as a free action as part of a cautious advance. It further opens up rapid shot as a 0(+0) Base technique to reload a bow, decreasing the speed for a caster to make a physical attack while burning off strain. There are also weapon tricks like Twin Throw and Steel Rain that benefit from it as well. Not an insubstantial talent.

There’s Cunning Opponent which as written is broken. I ran Armand at the BI. I got an up close and personal look at just how jaw-droppingly easy that talent breaks encounters. It’s push 2 so faster than every possible attack. It’s against the opponent’s PASSIVE skill. So the attacker doesn’t get the benefit of any of their bonuses from tactical edge, weapon mastery, spells, runes, etc. while the defender with Cunning Opponent does.

Beyond all of the above, there is the law of unintended consequence. Even if you rebalance all Talents such that this ignoring requirements is not problematic which in and of itself is a big IF, you then have to look at every talent that enters the game in the future with that in mind. If you’re at all familiar with any of the various CCGs, each one had more and more issues as new cards were combined with the existing set in unexpected ways leading to more broken combos.

I’ll see about getting a hold of Pedro to provide an official response. I wouldn’t be surprised with him coming down on either side of the argument.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul