Fast Learner in AToW

[thepromethean83]

I asked a question about Slow Learner and now I have one about the Fast Learner trait. Anyone else find it to be broken? As a friend of mine said on Facebook: "Level-Up Faster Abilities are almost always awesome (outside of a system like, say, Fallout3, which has a level cap) and there's rarely any excuse not to take them as early, and often, as possible. Spending xp so you can spend more xp is broken in and of itself, functioning on the concept of compound interest. It's amazing to me when people don't take such abilities."

I think that sums it up nicely. Anyone have a fix for Fast Learner aside from barring it from the game? The first AToW game I ran everyone took Fast Learner and now that I'm ready to start a new campaign, I'm planning to just disallow it, but I'd prefer a workaround that isn't broken. Thoughts?

[StCptMara]

Honestly, it is not really that broken. The discount is very small. While it does mean you will level up the little skills faster,
the big ones are still going to take a while, and, you know what? I have the progression for the regular pretty much
figured out into a nice, neat formula..I don't take Fast Learner because...I have to actually check the chart, and it makes
everything less neat and tidy during the optimization stage...

[Cannon_Fodder]

300 XP for a 20% bonus is good but not broken. You need 1,500 XP in skills just to break even. 1,500 XP in skill you USE. Otherwise you are better off putting the 300 XP into skills you will use, traits or attributes. I have 2 characters in the same campaign. One has Fast Learner the other isn't. The Fast Learner started father behind  the non-Fast Learner and he may not survive long enough to catch up.

[guardiandashi]

slow learner makes skills cost 20% more for -300 xp
fast learner makes skills cost 20% less for +300 xp

base skill cost is:
20 for 0
30 for 1
50 for 2
80 for 3
etc

slow learner turns it to
24 for 0
36 for 1
60 for 2
96 for 3

fast learner is
16 for 0
24 for 1
40 for 2
64 for 3

basically the base is 20 then plus 10 x the new level

when you realize most chars are going to 0 out in skill targets at between 7 and 9 IE 300 and 470 per skill fast learner is only going to save between 60 and 94 xp per skill which means 5 lvl 7 skills or ~3 lvl 9 skills just to break even

and if you get attributes with benificial modifiers in there ...

I honestly wouldn't say it is broken there are other things that feel a lot more broken that have been around a long time NA gunner anyone?  sure it costs a lot but what happens when you have a player that can "fudge" the rolls so that they can fairly consistantly get (unloaded standard dice) to come up 5's or 6's roughly 50-70% of the time and he now gets to roll 3 and take the best 2...

[thepromethean83]

300 XP for a 20% bonus is good but not broken. You need 1,500 XP in skills just to break even. 1,500 XP in skill you USE. Otherwise you are better off putting the 300 XP into skills you will use, traits or attributes. I have 2 characters in the same campaign. One has Fast Learner the other isn't. The Fast Learner started father behind  the non-Fast Learner and he may not survive long enough to catch up.

My players min-maxed the hell out of their characters and ended up with +6s and +7s in combat skills. All I'm sayin'.

[Paul]

there are other things that feel a lot more broken that have been around a long time NA gunner anyone?  sure it costs a lot but what happens when you have a player that can "fudge" the rolls so that they can fairly consistantly get (unloaded standard dice) to come up 5's or 6's roughly 50-70% of the time and he now gets to roll 3 and take the best 2...

? So because a player can do something funky while rolling dice, the rules are broken?
Here's a solution: give him a dice cup and tell him 3 shakes minimum.

My players min-maxed the hell out of their characters and ended up with +6s and +7s in combat skills. All I'm sayin'.

Do you reckon they would've been at +6 and +7 without fast learner? Since they focused on only a handful of skills (I presume 4) I'm disinclined to believe they broke even on their investment.

Paul

[Tslammer]

My players min-maxed the hell out of their characters and ended up with +6s and +7s in combat skills. All I'm sayin'.

Did you set guidelines and character creation caps? We cap starting skill at +4. Also attributes are more important for our MW4 Solaris combat mod.

Also do you ever have them fight out of mech? Its a great equalizer for the min/MAX top gun mechwarrior.

[thepromethean83]

They weren't mechwarriors. One was a cop and the other was a hitman for the mafia. The tech and the social character also had high scores in their respective skills. I honestly wish I still had those sheets right now so I could figure out how they did it. Those +6s and +7s were in addition to bonuses from link attributes. They really only needed one combat skill (Small Arms) as opposed to the two or three you need as a mechwarrior. I also think the spreadsheet we used was a bit broken and I have since cleaned it up.

A skill cap would be the best solution I think. Will do next time.

[guardiandashi]

paul I am not argueing that NA is broken, just that in some instances if FEELS more broken than the fast/slow learner feel to me

[Cannon_Fodder]

The +5 TP Natural Aptitude Gunnery/'Mech does balance out a bit when you consider EDGE recovery. The primary source of EDGE recovery in our group is when you roll double 1s or or double 10s (we use 2D10). The most common skill rolls we make are Gunnery rolls. The balance for NA Gunner is you only recover EDGE on triple "1s" or "10s."

I am in T-Slammer's group and the +4 Skill limit does seam to work well.

[Bluemax]

Broken is when every character at a table must take something to keep up.

At my table that is Fast Learner.  But its *Not* Fast Learner that is broken, its our own chosen lack of focus on the attributes. 

To take Fast Learner and load up on skills, the PCs stats hardly break average.  When they are not flat out deficient.

On a well rounded character, Fast Learner is an investment for the future.
On a disembodied specialist, its wonderfully broken.

BlueMax

[Tslammer]

Our group decided to make attributes matter more bringing some MW1 feel back. Rather than the 4's that seem to be the choice of choice in most ATOW examples I have seen. We modified our MW3 Solaris 2D10 rules to fix some of the MW3 exploits. While the attributes link is helpful when making skill rolls it does not aid defense. Your core attributes affect how hard you are to hit with formula's for walking / run jumping. Plus your piloting skill up to the number of hexes crossed. This helps make a really good pilot in a smaller mech harder to hit. It also helps simulate things like the fluff of an Awesome pilot that always seems to dance out of the way.

Making attributes worth more and upping our starting points to 5500 reflects this. The extra 500 does not provide enough to +1 all the attributes but helps with the overall cost. Making players choose more carefully between attributes and traits.

The last bit is upping an attribute is not nearly as costly as MW2 so you can dump stat one attribute and raise it later.

[Jackmc]

You don't need Fast Learner to produce uber characters (during the Beta, I was abel to come up with an IS Sniper with a +11 in small Arms/Rifles on 4500 pts) and in fact all Fast Learner tends to do is make more well rounded character because it elevates the ancillery skills up a bit.

Also, if you were to dump that 300 points into a single skill, you're going to see massive gains anyway.  A competent character typically has around a 4 in a skill, but that 300 points will raise it to a +9(with specilization) and leave you 20 pts to spend on another skill.

-Jackmc 

[monbvol]

It kind of depends mostly on how much you pay attention to the training rules.

[Bluemax]

Could you flesh out this statement?

BlueMax

[monbvol]

Well I know my group really does not pay very much attention to the training rules.

As they are presented in AToW if you learn on your own it actually costs double the listed amount, with a trainer there are rolls involved and a fair amount of mess that frankly I don't blame people for not always paying attention to.

The advantage becomes much more pronounced once you start considering the doubling.

Heck the guideline of 1/2 Intelligence per month for extended down time being doubled isn't anything to turn your nose up at either.

I Have thought about Fast Learner for my house rules.  I have decided to make some modifications to it for my campaigns.  I even have it in my House Rule Emporium thread if you want to check it out.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Our groups modification to training rules

Character Advancement:
New Basic Skill: Just Pay XP Cost

New Advance Skill/Tier Skill Switch:
w/ Trainer*: Normal XP Cost and Normal Training Time –
   
w/o Trainer: Double XP Cost and Double Training Time

Improving Advanced Skills:
Primary Career Skills: Skills in primary career can always be improved by spending normal XP. You must wait one adventure between each level of improvement for a skill, no need for trainer or successful usage.

   Non-Career Skill w/ Trainer*: Standard XP Cost and Standard Training Time

   Non-Career Skill w/o Trainer: 4 Weeks Self study or 3 “Uses” and 1.5 times XP Cost

*For trainer bonus to apply you must improve the skill at the same time you are undergoing the training. Otherwise the XP from the guided training is banked.
Skill Usage Credit: You only receive credit for one successful usage per adventure. Meaning Advanced Skills need to be used successfully in 3 different adventures, not 3 times in one adventure.
For INT+WILL Skills proper study materials can replace trainer.

[Tslammer]

Per Cannon Fodders notes.
Fast learner Slow learner does not half or double the training time. Like the XP bonus its a +/- 20%.