I've Got One – A Talent for Tunnels & Trolls

November 17, 2009 3 comments

A few days ago I rolled up a Tunnels & Trolls character so I could play though and review some solo adventures. Being an Old School type game, I knew that having good equipment (weapons and armor, primarily) was going to be important. Sadly, I rolled really, really poorly for starting gold. Now, I could have cheated and just given myself more gold, or good gear, but I’d know even if no one else did. I also figured that anyone who saw the character would figure I was cheating anyway, due to a couple of amazing attribute rolls (I got triples twice — three 4′s both times, netting me a 25 and a 26 total; I also got a 15 and 16, which I put into STR and CON, which doubled because my character was a dwarf, so I had STR 30, CON 32, INT 25 and WIZ 26. I could have put the 25 and 26 into attributes that doubled and had STR 50 and CON 52, but I wanted a dwarf rogue rather than a warrior, and I’m the kind of idiot that won’t tweak a character concept to fit the numbers even if it means missing an opportunity to min/max).

T&T also being much like a story game, I figured I could “cheat” creatively by coming up with a useful Talent. With those rolls, I got a 2nd level character so I got a Talent other than Roguery. What I came up with is a Talent called “I’ve Got One”, which works like this:

I’ve Got One

The character is a packrat, and tends to have useful items stashed in their stuff. Affiliated attribute is Luck. When in need of an item, make a LkSR. The SR level is the cost of the item divided by 100, minimum 1. If the item is magical, add 2. If the item is large (i.e., a two-handed weapon), add 1. If the item is small and concealable (i.e. easy to have stashed in a loot bag), subtract 1. If the save is successful, the character has the item. If the save fails, he doesn’t.

Now, to offset the fact that this might still be seen as cheating, consider that my character had a starting Luck score of 7. I wrote to Ken St. Andre to ask if Roguery could be substituted for attributes in Talent saving rolls, but as of press time I hadn’t heard back, so I assumed no. I rolled by d6 and got a 4 (these dice like 4′s), so the Talent rating is 11. I made saving rolls for armor and weapons I liked (getting my 4th and 5th choices), and viola, my character was equipped even without money.

As a gamemaster, I probably wouldn’t allow this Talent to be used in gearing up. Then again, I’d probably assign the player characters a base level of equipment so they wouldn’t have to sweat it. Where I see this Talent as being useful is when the characters are deep in a tunnel and suddenly need something. “Oh crap, vampires, did anyone bring garlic?” “Hold on, let me looking in my bag.” Roll dice. “Yup! I’ve got some!”.