Knight VS Fighter a battle of talents

As things stand now, the classes in Enchanted Kingdoms do not have the same balance, as far as talent progression go, when compared to the classes in Dungeons and Delvers: Dice Pool.  As such I am planning to work with David and Melissa, the creators of that game, to have conversion tables available so that their classes can be used in EK if desired AND so that the EK classes can be used in a Dungeons and Delvers game.

To illustrate this point I will compare the Knight from Enchanted Kingdoms to the Fighter from Dungeons and delvers.  They both have very similar concepts and fit the same role in each game: the armor wearing front line combatant.  In Delvers the Fighter starts with one talent and ganes a new talent at 3rd, 7th, and 9th levels. At 5th and 10th levels they gain the ability to make an additional attack, which is essentially a very good class specific talent for those levels.  The knight appears very similar at first glance, becaused it is nearly the same. It starts with 2 talents instead of one,  but matches the progression for the odd levels receiving one open talent at each of those levels. The difference is really apparent, though, when we look at the even levels. Where the fighter gets only one skill increase for each of those levels, the Knight gains a “Weapon Master” talent at each of those levels as well.  

The Weapon Master talent allows the fighter to take any talent related directly to a weapon regardless of class. This allows for a wider range of talent choices while simultaneously focusing their combat training.  One of the reasons for this is that early on in development it was noticed that if you wanted to focus on your Lineage talents instead of your class talents AND if characters got a talent at every level the fighter was the best choice by far because of their armor training and superior wound or health progression.  By limiting the number of unrestricted talents the class gets it helps offset that situation.

Interestingly enough as I write this it appears to me that only getting 4 unrestricted talents is actually more restricted than I was originally wanting for the Knight.  I may open up 1 or 2 of the Weapon master Talents moving them back to unrestricted tatlents. Here are their progression tables so that you can see what I am talking about side by side:

If you want to see the full level tables for each class they are listed a the end of the post. I am sorry the Knight table is a little harder to read. These 2 different talent progressions are equally valid depending on the power and complexity level of the game you are trying to run. Higher power and more complex games could be a hurdle for newer and/or younger players.

For me I want leveling up to be a big deal, a cool event. I am most definitely biased from my experiences in older tabletop games, but to me just gaining a skill rank is very boring.  I also chafe against first and sometimes second levels in most tabletop games as well because, in my mind, I want to play a full-fledged character concept from the start. Plus the lower levels are often brutally dangerous. This was one of the things I LOVED about 4th edition of D&D. The first level character felt like someone who actually had training in their abilities and could survive a goblin sneezing on them.

I want players to have a character that is already able to do at least some of the things that are important to their concept. This is why the classes in EK are all front loaded more than their Delver’s equivalents. I see the first few levels going quickly but then each level there after being a milestone. Perhaps I could include an alternative experience table to reinforce this as well. I feel like this works especially well in the Talent system that Dice pool uses as well because each talent can even have 3 ranks. This makes it easier for characters to have a number of things they can do pretty quickly but they still have to rank up those talents over time for them to become powerful.  

To see this in action let’s look at one of the example characters that we will be seeing throughout the Enchanted Kigndoms book.  Marina is a Merfolk Knight, and so she takes the Amphibious talent from her lineage which lets her breathe under water and change her legs into a tail. From fighter she chooses the Slayer talent which adds to her pool when attacking with a two handed weapon; because she fights with a trident.  Marina’s player is wanting to use the Dual Heritage talents from the Ancient Lineage to take Lightning attacks and be able to use that lightning through her spear.  At first level of Knight that means she will have the following talents:
Amphibious
Slayer
Dual Heritage-Minre Lineage- Lightning strike

She will have to wait until she levels up to take more talents to focus on lighting spear but at first level she is a mermaid Knight that can shoot lightning.  If we switch to the leveling speed of Dungeons and Delvers: Dice Pool she will have to wait until 3rd level to do those 3 things.  By level 3 in Enchanted Kingdoms leveling speed she would have 2 more talents to be able to cast lightning with her spear and maybe sense treasure or have a bonus when making an attack by charging at people with her spear.

Like I said in the beginning neither system is wrong, I am just a player who likes more powerful characters and more abundant magic. Should the game master prefer the slower progression they can use the conversion tables and run a lower power more simplified game. I guess a third option would be a hybrid of the two. Where you get the extra talent at first level from the Forgotten Kingdoms base and then have the Dungeons and Delvers progression.  That seems like a good compromise, I will include it too.   

Here are both level progressions fully side by side:

Again, sorry the knight is harder to read, it’s still in the rough draft phase. At first level the Knight chooses from one of the 3 talents listed, basically showing their fighting style, and one more talent that has no restrictions on it. Both of these talent number lists, from the knight and the fighter, do not take into account the first level talent you get from your race as well.  

This will be my last twice a week post for at least 2 weeks. Like I stated previously I will still post, just one time a week while we move and I take my Unit 1 exam for my class.  Also Monday is a Holiday so next week’s post will most likely be Tuesday or Thursday.  Have a great weekend.