Player Chosen Ability Scores: Talent

Continuing my series on High and Low ability scores and how I used them in my games.  In addition to the four primary ability scores players could choose two ability scores that best reflected their character's quirks and virtues.    The most noteworthy aspect was that a low score was not necessarily a punishing score, instead a low score functioned in a complementary fashion to the boons of a high score.  In this series I'm going to take a look at each of these optional stats, how I want them to operate and how they were originally represented mechanically.  This time we're going to look at Talent.  Previous entries can be found here.

Talent
Sometimes you just have a knack for something, you have the good fortune to have a natural prowess with the things you know and for everything else you can easily get the hang of.  A talented character picks up on most things very quickly and can perform them adequately and often spectacularly.  An untalented character has to work much harder to keep up with others.

Trine and Cooperative Play (Wizard)

In the briefest windows in which I find free time I managed to sink another hour into a little game called Trine.  Trine is a platforming puzzler with the twist that you play as three characters in one and can rotate through them at will.  If you've ever played the Lost Vikings on the SNES/SEGA you'll be very familiar with the premise. The three characters represents your classic fantasy archetypes, Knight, Wizard and Thief.  Through a twist of fate and a magical mishap involving anartifact known as the Trine they have all been sealed into a single body.  This of course can lead to some fun tension and dialog but for the most part it leaves for a very satisfying cooperative single player experience.  Of course you can play with a friend on the same PC, or over the internet in the sequel but the game and its puzzles are obviously intended for a single player.

Tandem Monsters: Daigol and Ozmone

Two freak storms weekend after weekend knocking out power for miles around sure is making it difficult to maintain an regular update schedule.


One thing I've always found intriguing is monsters that work well in tandem, whose abilities complement each other (often in tactical ways) or a pair that mitigate the weaknesses of each other.  These can lead to some interesting and memorable encounters.  This time we're going to look at two monsters that are distinctly opposite and are quite capable of covering each others vulnerabilities.  In fact, the key to defeating them is to divide and conquer.

Demon's Souls Penetrator Sculpture by futantshadow