Can you choose a talent option multiple times?
Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2019 3:10 am
for clarity, i'm mostly looking at spell matrix talents. there may be some other situations where it might be potentially useful (perhaps for some talent that just straight up gives you a thing, rather than an ability... although astral pocket, for example, explicitly says you can only have one, so maybe there aren't others), but i think by far the most common talent that i'd expect people to want multiple copies of would be spell matrix talents.
i normally wouldn't ask... i got my first look at earthdawn years ago and i'm pretty sure in those earlier editions, you quite explicitly could not choose a talent twice unless it was listed twice. with that said, i've gone back and checked those books, and it really feels like magicians got more spell matrixes back then (or, i suppose, *could* get more, since it wasn't required iirc, just as it isn't strictly required for a magician to take spell matrix talent options in 4th edition).
looking at the elementalist, for example, it has 2 at circle 1, another at circle 2, and another at circle 4. they do have to wait until circle 7 for their next one, which is their first enhanced one, but they still got theirs earlier, and go higher at 7th and more so at 8th, placing them 2 above their 4th edition counterpart. at 9th, they're still one up as they get their first armoured matrix, then go back up to having more matrices at 12th. they go even at 13th, because their shared matrices aren't until 14th and 15th respectively, but still wind up with more total matrices. (note: this is comparing the max that could be gained in their respective editions).
(it gets a bit more wonky with multi-discipline because iirc if the talent came at a different circle, even if it was the same talent you could still take it... so an armoured matrix at 11th like the illusionist got was not the same as the armoured matrix an elementalist gets at 12th... but that's a pretty niche scenario i would think. maybe that was just a human versatility thing).
now, that changes if a magician can choose spell matrix multiple times. i don't think it's explicitly mentioned anywhere, possibly because nobody thought to mention it (as i mentioned, i'm pretty sure the rules were quite clear on that in the older edition i have, though i don't really care to scour the whole thing just to find it... in which case, the designer may have just forgotten to make it explicit). on the flip side, it may change rather more than i would have ever thought would be intended; in theory, a magician could have circle + 2 matrices, which seems rather much. then again, maybe the assumption was that any given magician would likely have at least a *few* talents they'd be interested in from their talent options that aren't spell matrix (or upgraded version of it) - most of the defensive talents available to magicians are talent options for example, and you'd think magicians like not getting stabbed as much as anyone else.
anyways, my gut feeling is that the answer is no. magicians just get fewer matrices in this edition than were possible to get in prior editions. but i figured i'd ask in case i get pleasantly surprised
your thoughts?
i normally wouldn't ask... i got my first look at earthdawn years ago and i'm pretty sure in those earlier editions, you quite explicitly could not choose a talent twice unless it was listed twice. with that said, i've gone back and checked those books, and it really feels like magicians got more spell matrixes back then (or, i suppose, *could* get more, since it wasn't required iirc, just as it isn't strictly required for a magician to take spell matrix talent options in 4th edition).
looking at the elementalist, for example, it has 2 at circle 1, another at circle 2, and another at circle 4. they do have to wait until circle 7 for their next one, which is their first enhanced one, but they still got theirs earlier, and go higher at 7th and more so at 8th, placing them 2 above their 4th edition counterpart. at 9th, they're still one up as they get their first armoured matrix, then go back up to having more matrices at 12th. they go even at 13th, because their shared matrices aren't until 14th and 15th respectively, but still wind up with more total matrices. (note: this is comparing the max that could be gained in their respective editions).
(it gets a bit more wonky with multi-discipline because iirc if the talent came at a different circle, even if it was the same talent you could still take it... so an armoured matrix at 11th like the illusionist got was not the same as the armoured matrix an elementalist gets at 12th... but that's a pretty niche scenario i would think. maybe that was just a human versatility thing).
now, that changes if a magician can choose spell matrix multiple times. i don't think it's explicitly mentioned anywhere, possibly because nobody thought to mention it (as i mentioned, i'm pretty sure the rules were quite clear on that in the older edition i have, though i don't really care to scour the whole thing just to find it... in which case, the designer may have just forgotten to make it explicit). on the flip side, it may change rather more than i would have ever thought would be intended; in theory, a magician could have circle + 2 matrices, which seems rather much. then again, maybe the assumption was that any given magician would likely have at least a *few* talents they'd be interested in from their talent options that aren't spell matrix (or upgraded version of it) - most of the defensive talents available to magicians are talent options for example, and you'd think magicians like not getting stabbed as much as anyone else.
anyways, my gut feeling is that the answer is no. magicians just get fewer matrices in this edition than were possible to get in prior editions. but i figured i'd ask in case i get pleasantly surprised
your thoughts?