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> Latent Talents, Do your players spend the feats?
The Dread Morg
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 06:02 AM
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Ok, I'm arguing (debating perhaps is a better term) with a friend over the Latent Feats. He says that they should come with some perks so that players will actually spend the feat slot on the prerequisite feat, otherwise no one will want to ever play a Dreamer.

I of course, say no. The Latent Feat Prereq keeps the power rare, the way it should be.

He of course, says it'll be too rare.

Round and round we go.

So, what sort of experience have you all had with the Latent feats? Does anyone play them, or does *everyone* play them? blink.gif


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KSBsnowowl
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 11:53 AM
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I my opinion, the extra feat you have to invest is worth it. The insane advantage you have for communication and spying capabilities with the dreaming abilities is well worth two feats. Heck, the only time I've ever actually gotten any of the lost ability feat for a character was Treesinging for an Ogier; I wouldn't say Treesinging is overly powerful, but I'll still pay two feats for it without question.

Fear not, you are in the right. (and I agree with your reasoning too)


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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 12:30 PM
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You are right. Those Feats are more powerful than a standard Feat so you are basically paying for it with two Feat slots. Plus, like you said, it is supposed to be rare. How rare? Very. I mean of all the countless people in the WoT series, how many are Sniffers? Does your friend realize how awesome some of these abilities are? Dreamers can make awesome scouts. Sniffers can track most any of your baddies regardless of terrain. Viewing, can you say Darkfriend detector? Yeah. Don't worry, dude, you have the right of it.


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drothgery
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 02:14 PM
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FWIW, there are six or seven known living dreamwalkers (Amys, Bair, Melanie, Egwene, Moghedien, Cynfear, and maybe Moridishy), at least two known sniffers (Hurin and another in Fal Moran), at least three known Wolfbrothers (Perrin, Elyas, and the one who Perrin ran into on the way to Tear and who had lost his humanity), and only one known Viewer as of the most recent novel.


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Talan
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 02:24 PM
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I think it depends on the sort of game you are playing. I have given my players a free - yes free - ability, chosen by me (one is a Wolfbrother, one is a Sniffer and another has the Old Blood). I think these abilities are cool and is something thats special for the WoT - but i would like my characters do do other things as well. Two of the Players haven't read the Novels, so it was very fun to introduce their Character's ability, without them realizing why they remembered things that happened 1000 years ago or why this or that room smelled so bad biggrin.gif
In my campaign the Characters are very special (minor Ta'veren), so they should be compared to the Two Rivers crew, where special abilities aren't exactly rare (Ta'veren, Dreamer, Wolfbrother, Old Blood).

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Zarozynia
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 02:41 PM
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I think that I agree with both side of this arguement. biggrin.gif Just to be difficult. The problem that I have with having to take a second feat is that your character cant be shown or learn how to use this talent until they have said feat availible. And that seems kind of weird to me. The way that I played it with my three characters were this applied (latent dream/wolfbrother, latent sniffer and latent channeler) was that in all three cases something started to happen to them that they didn't understand. The dreamer (like the rest of the party) was pulled into a forsaken dream, only he could walk around and do things in it; the sniffer had to make a fort save against becoming violently ill on the day that he ended up in a room with an especially vile darkfriend, and I was channeling for that channeler before he took a level in it so that things were HAPPENING around him that he didn't understand. The second feat (and in one case the class itself) allowed them to control this ability, so I forced them to practice, and they were only able to take the feat when I thought that they had some idea of what they could do and some semblance of control. In the case of my wolfbrother/dreamer he actually received the feat free from me because I gave all of my characters a free feat of my choosing, and after some careful thought I decided that that one made the most sense for his character since he'd actually been in the world of dreams a few times and Rhavin showed him a little bit of how things work in there (before trying to kill him tongue.gif ).


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tam al'moff
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 03:02 PM
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QUOTE
The way that I played it with my three characters were this applied (latent dream/wolfbrother, latent sniffer and latent channeler) was that in all three cases something started to happen to them that they didn't understand.


I like the idea that latent talents could be given for free. Perhaps it could be part of the character creation process. A roll for a latent talent that is then kept by the DM and slowly revealed / hinted to the player.


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The Dread Morg
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 05:10 PM
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THanks for the responses everyone. The point my friend in crime is trying to make is that by having a prereq feat that doesn't offer anything in itself, means that as a DM, you'll rarely get a chance to run a character with that power.

In essence, he says "What's the point?" Everyone will take blind fighting or Improved Initiative instead of a "useless" feat that offers nothing now.

I can see his point in that respect, but I think the real solution is to offer it (with the leatent feat requisite) to keep those "power mongers" from taking Dreamwalking and Blindfighting. IMO, if your camapign requires it, then you could give out the latent feat for free, and thus be able to run some powerful folks and thereby open a few new doors to explore. If not, then I'd keep the latent feat requisite to keep the powers rare. If a player wants to spend a feat slot and wait for 3 levels (while the rest of the party gets fancy super powers), then they deserve the spotlight and more power to them. (BTW, I like the way you handled the maifestations of these powers Zarozynia. I think I would do something similiar.


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The Great Gray Skwid
  Posted: Apr 13 2004, 05:10 PM
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I feel like a character that has taken the Latent Feat should get occasional hints to the full-blown feat...but hints that rarely give an in-game advantage.

Latent Sniffers find foul odors associated occasionally with NPCs who are red herrings to the main story.

Dreamers have a dream that doesn't really help them, but maybe is vaguely interesting to the character.

Wolfbrothers have strange encounters with wolves.

There's only one Latent feat that I feel should have direct, repeatable advantages, for the simple reason that it's done that way in the book.

You'll know what it is soon enough. tongue.gif


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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 06:09 PM
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Sure there is the whole ta'vern route. I've done that myself, and the RPG has a sidebar about it. But I don't let a player tell me, "I'm going to be a ta'vern and I'll be taking this feat for free." I just say, "You are playing a minor ta'vern. You have this Feat because of it." Basically what Talan said.


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LuciusT
Posted: Apr 13 2004, 07:41 PM
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QUOTE (The Dread Morg @ Apr 13 2004, 05:10 PM)
In essence, he says "What's the point?" Everyone will take blind fighting or Improved Initiative instead of a "useless" feat that offers nothing now.

Actually, I think that is the point.

If, as a player, you are trying to maximize your characters abilities at every step (and I don't mean that it in "bad" way) than you probably don't want to take Talents. OTOH if, as a player, you are interested in exploring one of the Talents, at the cost of being a little less effective in short term than the you will take the Latent Talent feat.

It's a little like having a player who puts ranks into Craft (cooking). As things go, there are definately skills to put ranks in that would be more "useful" in an adventure... but plain dry rations, day in and day out, get a little old after a while. smile.gif
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Posted: Apr 14 2004, 01:19 AM
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when my characters did this I did hte same thing as Skwid, they had random hints that weren't usefull in game but were fun and added to the rp. the viewing talent for instance they started seeing things but they never understood what any of it was until after they had the full feat.
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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Apr 14 2004, 01:33 AM
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Well said, LuciusT. I think that you've hit at the heart of the matter.


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Targul
Posted: Apr 14 2004, 03:05 AM
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In my game only one person has read any part of any of the books, other than myself of course, so I decided to give them each a Latent Feat or something similar. The problem was that even so they were all so busy with having to take feats for prerequisites for a PrC or with taking other feats they didn't have any that they felt they could spare until lvl 12 or above, essentially making my giving them the feats useless. I ended up giving them the ability feats for free instead, so that they could play with them and get a better idea of what the world was capable of and some of the flavor of the world. So far it has worked out well and I don't feel the free feats have made them overly powerful.


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Two Rivers Wolfbrother
Posted: Apr 14 2004, 03:03 PM
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One way I make the latent feats "useful" is I give the players traces of their future abilities. For example, someone who takes the latent wolfbrother feat will hear voices warning him from time to time, latent old blood will give the character strange insights she can't figure out the source for. Latent viewers will see hazes they have a strange idea means something. Sniffers will will smell faint traces. Foreseers will say things (unimportant and trivial things, or extremely rare things) that will come true. Treesingers and Dreamers can have similar things as well. This way, the feats are kinda useful, and the future benefits are awesome.
Another thing you might consider is giving them a very weak ability, like +1 to a skill, a very specific and not-very-useful combat ability, etc. For example, a future sniffer might get +1 to Defense when something violent has happened in the area recently, or a future viewer might get +1 to diplomacy checks when talking to someone they just saw a strange haze around that they can't figure out what it was, yet have a funny feeling it means this. Latent wolfbrothers might get +1 to Listen checks.
Despite all this, I actually agree that the feats, even though they in and of themselves give nothing, are great because of what they'll give in the future. They're all quite awesome.


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MagusRogue
Posted: Apr 14 2004, 04:06 PM
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I don't know, i kinda agree with everyone else. It's not that bad. My only gripe is that there isn't a Dreamer feat, one that does like the books do and gives you info through your dreams.


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Two Rivers Wolfbrother
Posted: Apr 14 2004, 05:02 PM
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I'm agreeing with them too, but I'm also just presenting options for people who wanna reach a compromise.


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Targul
Posted: Apr 14 2004, 08:08 PM
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Oh no, I completely agree that the required feat is great, however I do require permission to take any of the Lost ability feats, plus my players are coming off of a very high power D&D campaign, which one of them runs, so they don't see the usefulness of some of the Lost Ability feats and don't know the world yet. I'm planning on using the NPC I posted to the "NPC" pinned topic and showing them the true power of dreaming and the Conjunction talent, which happen to be the two feat/abilities that they make fun of or see as the most useless.

Peace Out,
-Targul


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Wait, if I DID evil, and you guys here ARE evil. Then shouldn't you be showering me with rewards and concubines, etc.?
This is Hell we're big on irony here.
Then I'm sure you'll appreciate what is going to occur.
I'm dead, so this is some egoscopic projection of myself?
Correct, but I hardly see what...
So without any fleshy meats to slow me down, how long do you REALLY think it'll take for me to usurp your entire kingdom?
I have the entire legions of Hell at my command
Enjoy it while you can, Skippy.

-Black Mage in Hell (8-bit theater style)
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Kathax Mosail Rishaem
Posted: Apr 15 2004, 06:38 AM
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i'd just like to add that i've given the latent feats as freebies to my players and give them "hints"... the dreamer had a weird dream that, the sniffer smelled a murder (didn't know what that terrible stench that made her gag was), the viewer saw some things, the foreteller knew something about someone. but after the first time or two it happened, it never came up again. three of the players went on to get the true abilities, having their characters explore what was happening, trying to understand and make sense of it. the others blew it off. but that's cool. it makes it a bit more normal. a couple of special people in a hero campaign? hey, birds of a feather and all that. a group of six and every one of them has an ability that might pop up once or twice in an age? a bit much, in my view...


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Zarozynia
Posted: Apr 15 2004, 03:08 PM
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I like the idea of giving characters that have never played in the Wheel of Time world latent talents so that they get a full feel for exactly how crazy this world can be. biggrin.gif The only problem for me would be that I didn't want an entire party full of characters that started out being special, I even made my male channeler take one level in another class before he cross-classed into wilder so that he would LEARN to channel during the game itself. I guess that since they're all latent talents people cant really do anything with them in the first place, but then I would be especially careful about how and when I let them take the actual talent feats. Dreaming, for instance, is something that you could have the latent talent for for your entire life and never understand that you ever entered the world of dreams; even though you may have every night. So in less my character some how came across a dreamer who explained to him/her what was going on, I would be hard pressed to let them take that talent.

There are others that would be easy to gain understanding of, like sniifer...you could catch on pretty quickly that you have a nose for evil and voilence. And treesingers aren't unheard of in Ogier society (though they are a bit uncommon at this point) so an Ogier would already have an idea of his potential to do this and be able to practice.


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