Noob Question about Karma

[FrozenVomit]

I can't find the info...

Adept can only spend Karma on "talents" from his discipline. I get it.

Does "talents options" count as disciplines talents?

noob here...

[Mataxes]

Yes. "From their Discipline" in this case refers to things they learn as part of their Discpline, both Discipline talents and talent options.

It does not include talents learned through other means. For example, if a windling picks up the astral sight talent through their racial ability, or a human learns talents under Versatility.

[Lursi]

Ouch, I just realized I did not read the rules thoroughly.

Thanks for this "noob question"

I have played it so far with Karma only on discipline talents and not on options.

OK... that changes a couple of things...

Thanks.

[Mataxes]

No worries.

(Previous editions had different restrictions on Karma usage, but we relaxed a lot of those for ED4.)

[Lursi]

I just wondered:
What is the benefit of a discipline to have talent X as a discipline talent? Now it is more a burden, because with talent options you have the choice whether you really want it and also a little bit when you want it.

You could have abolished the idea entirely and just put discipline talents to the pool of talent options.

A discipline talent used to be something your character had to give him an edge over other people with the same talent not being core to their discipline.

The next implication is human versatility. It gets eaten as a real advantage over other races more and more.

The talent options devalued versatility the first time
The questor talent like abilities devalued it the second time
Being able to even put Karma in talent options but not into versatility talents push it back a third time.

Each of these measures alone would be bearable, but together the uniqueness of versatility compared to the mountain strength of an obsidiman and the flight of a windling is quite a bit diminished.

[Bonhumm]

I just wondered:
What is the benefit of a discipline to have talent X as a discipline talent? Now it is more a burden, because with talent options you have the choice whether you really want it and also a little bit when you want it.

You might be seeing this backward. It's not a question of what 'benefit' is there to a discipline talent. The discipline needs to have a core of talents that define what is at the hearth of that Discipline (no matter what is your approach to being an Archer, it HAS to have Missile Weapons at it's core), the optional talents are just a way to vary this a bit as many people would approach a discipline with different outlooks. Is my Archer a 'ranger', a 'spy/assassin', a pure soldier? There is many ways of seeing this (and indeed they even included some variations even if first edition with the specialization paths) and I don't think it takes so much away from Versatility, in fact it helps a lot with overlapping stuff rolling a windling scout (yay! I got climbing AND Astral Sight, that's helpful).

Karma was just supposed to be a bonus/focus mechanic they wanted to give in to use in case of an emergency but my guess is that they took a long time to find a way to make it work in a simple way. They used to have to stack so many rules/mechanics over it to prevent abuse that it was a pain to run (I remember my very first GM just completely ignored Karma in his games). I mean remember:

- Karma ritual was a Talent (e.g. you were spending LP and 'wasting' a 'Talent slot' for it).
- Karma points themselves cost karma (so had to keep track of it)
- Limited amount that could be replenished every day (another thing to keep track of)
- Different dice depending of the race (hey, more stuff to keep track again)
- Some talents could USE them, some did not (more tracking? yes sir!)
- Oh hey and make it so that some talents NEED to spend karma to work at all, oh, but better yet, lets make that optional depending if it's ALSO a discipline talent.

Man, keeping track of all this was a pain for the players, just image the GM. So they decided to streamline the game by simplifying it a lot. Which is pretty much what the whole 4ED did.

Now it's just:

- You want to use Karma? Is it a Talent? Yes? Then do it.

The way I see Karma is that the energy comes from the Discipline part of your Pattern so even if you have a talent as Versatility, your 'Archer core' would not 'power up' the talent Emotion Song. However I would see Karma working on an (hypothetical) future 4ED version of the Journeyman Discipline.

[Lursi]

I clearly acknowledge the simplification aspect.
Well done.

I disagree with the necessity of a 20 talent “core” for a discipline.
A circle 5 adept has 10 core talents and 5 from his pool.

3-7 would be core IMHO.

But hey, no need to disagree, this is something easily houseruled.

Regarding Versatility one could declare it a free talent, as a small nod towards other races coming with so many different talents as well.

[ChrisDDickey]

I disagree with the necessity of a 20 talent “core” for a discipline.
A circle 5 adept has 10 core talents and 5 from his pool. 3-7 would be core IMHO.

I tend to agree with this. Often, to me, this because of disagreement over what the developers think is "core" vs what I might. That is why I like the "using all Talents to Advance" optional rule.