Forum

The players guide states on page 33:

At the start of the game, you get a number of talents
that depend on your kin, your profession and
your age:
✥✥ Your kin talent
✥✥ A profession talent of your choice
✥✥ A number of general talents of your choice
depending on your age (see below)

Thereafter it also states:

MAGIC TALENTS: A special category of the
profession talents are the magic talents. These
are needed to cast spells and are generally only
available to Druids and Sorcerers.

Ok right? This means a starting Adult character gets 1 Kin Talents, 1 profession talent and can choose to get 2 more General Talents. HOWEVER, right at the bottom of this very page it then gives an example of a player making a character where the player uses her 1 of her General Talent picks to select ANOTHER Profession Talent:

EXAMPLE
Josie’s character gets the PSYCHIC POWER
kin talent and chooses the PATH OF BLOOD
professional talent. As an adult, she gets to
choose two general talents. She uses one to
increase her rank in PATH OF BLOOD to 2,
and the other to get rank 1 in LIGHTNING
FAST.

This is causing no end of confusion at my end. Why are they using confusing language by saying a certain age group can choose 2 GENERAL Talents, when they should say an Age Group should be able to select 2 Talents of any category? (well except a Kin Talent but since each race only gets 1 anyway the point is moot)

The same page explicitly mentions "Every talent has three ranks. You normally start the game with rank 1 in each talent, but you can choose to forgo one general talent for starting the game with rank 2 in another", it's directly below the passage you are quoting!


It doesn't have anything to do with Age groups, in fact even a Young character can forgo his sole general talent to get a second rank in his profession talent (as for Kin Talents, they do not have ranks and doesn't make sense anyway to be "more elvish" or be an "elven dwarf").

So, I think the wording is pretty spot-on  

The same page explicitly mentions "Every talent has three ranks. You normally start the game with rank 1 in each talent, but you can choose to forgo one general talent for starting the game with rank 2 in another", it's directly below the passage you are quoting!


It doesn't have anything to do with Age groups, in fact even a Young character can forgo his sole general talent to get a second rank in his profession talent (as for Kin Talents, they do not have ranks and doesn't make sense anyway to be "more elvish" or be an "elven dwarf").

So, I think the wording is pretty spot-on  

You misunderstand what i am confused about; Age Group talents state you can only pick extra GENERAL Talents. Yet the example on the same page shows you can use the selection choice to choose a PROFESSION talent(s) instead of GENERAL Talent(s).

That's a pretty big difference, and I am confused if the char gen example is incorrect; if not, why did they not flat out say you can use Age Group talent choices to pick any Talent you qualify for.

Well I'm not sure if you understand the bolded part in my first post.

For me it is clear that not only you can forgo general talents and buy up either a profession talent or (if your age group gives more than 2 bonus general talents) buy up your preferred general talent as well.

Well I'm not sure if you understand the bolded part in my first post.

For me it is clear that not only you can forgo general talents and buy up either a profession talent or (if your age group gives more than 2 bonus general talents) buy up your preferred general talent as well.

Ok now that I read what you wrote more carefully I get it. BUT it could also be construed to apply that you give up a rank 1 in a General talent to gain a Rank 2 in another General Talent so some clarity on this would still be good.

Another thing: You can give up a rank 1 in a General talent to get a rank 2 in a Professional Talent; this means you can not take a rank 1 in a Professional Talent using this selection NOR a Rank 3?

The books only mentions rank 2 so I assume that if you have 2 bonus general talents in character creation (like when you belong to an adult age group) you can't use all of your general talents to buy up to rank 3 in your profession talent.


The way the rules are written for me it is clear you have the following choices

Young Age
1) profession1/general1
2) profession2

Adult Age
1) profession1/general1/general1
2) profession2/general1
3) profession1/general2

Old Age
1) profession1/general1/general1/general1
2) profession2/general1/general1
3) profession2/general2
4) profession1/general2/general1

The books only mentions rank 2 so I assume that if you have 2 bonus general talents in character creation (like when you belong to an adult age group) you can't use all of your general talents to buy up to rank 3 in your profession talent.


The way the rules are written for me it is clear you have the following choices

Young Age
1) profession1/general1
2) profession2

Adult Age
1) profession1/general1/general1
2) profession2/general1
3) profession1/general2

Old Age
1) profession1/general1/general1/general1
2) profession2/general1/general1
3) profession2/general2
4) profession1/general2/general1

I would agree that this is the correct interpretation of the rules and the example.

Correct.

It's interesting to consider the benefit in terms of XP points. I'll mark the cost as A/B, where A is the total xp when developing from nothing (point buy, if you will) and B, if we consider the first level a freebie (=0 xp) and decrease from the total (rank 2 cost * no# of rank 2 talents) the 3 xp for each Talent lowered to rank 0 to be used on something else, so as to even out the actual xp benefit.
The magic ones are calculated with the assumption of NOT having a teacher. With a teacher, just look at the non-italized numbers with Profession listed.

Young Age
1) profession 1/general 1 (6 xp/0 xp)
2) profession2 (9 xp/3 xp)
1) Magic 1/general 1 (9 xp/0 xp)
2) Magic 2 (27 xp/15 xp)

Adult Age
1) profession 1/general 1/general 1 (9 xp/0 xp)
2) profession 2/general 1 (12 xp/3 xp)
3) profession 1/general 2 (12 xp/3 xp)
1) Magic 1/general 1/general 1 (15 xp/0 xp)
2) Magic 2/general 1 (30 xp/15 xp)
3) Magic 1/general 2 (9 xp/3 xp)

Old Age
1) profession 1/general 1/general 1/general 1 (12 xp/0 xp)
2) profession 2/general 1/general 1 (15 xp/3 xp)
3) profession 2/general 2 (18 xp/6 xp)
4) profession 1/general 2/general 1 (15 xp/3 xp)
1) Magic 1/general 1/general 1/general 1 (18 xp/0 xp)
2) Magic 2/general 1/general 1/general 1 (33 xp/15 xp)
3) Magic 2/general 2 (36 xp/18 xp)
4) Magic 1/general 2/general 1 (21 xp/3 xp)

From this we can see, that the benefit for going on an additional rank in a starting Talent is relatively small and can be achieved in a few sessions. Depending on party size and story events, spreading out talents at the beginning can be well worth the slight increase in xp buy-in later on. It's also worth noting, that putting an xp cost to the loss of 1 or 2 attribute points is difficult to measure, since there is no way to grow them later and the character's overall durability will forever be lowered for the lowered stats.
Because the additional rank in Magic is much more expensive, players should definitely invest in that rank 2 from the start, unless they can be certain they can get a teacher by the point they've got 6 - 18 xp to spend.