Reviews of Talislanta D20?

[Sleepy Voiced]

I was just wondering if anyone knows of any reviews out there of Tal20. I noticed there aren't any here on EnWorld, and a google search didn't turn up much. Anyone who has it want to give a mini review? I have been curious about Talislanta for several years, and if the D20 version looks good, well, I'm in. Thanks.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, if they send one my way, I'll get working on it right away.

 

[Sleepy Voiced]

Anyone with a copy willing to give a general impression? I don't need anything in depth, but I am very interested in knowing how it turned out, especially the magic system.
Morrigan Press, how about sending Joe a copy (or Psion, or any of the reviewers here at EnWorld)? I 'd be interested in their opinions as well. Apologies if you have already done so.

 

[Jai Kel]

I have the Talislanta d20 (d20Tal) book right here in front of me, and we will be starting our campaign this Sunday...

I've been a fan of Talislanta (Tal) since Middle School back in the early 80s, and ran a small newsletter for awhile in support of Tal about 10 years ago. So, I may be a bit biased toward the game/setting.

I could ask if you'd like the good news or the bad news first, but we'll just do it my way anyway...



THE NEGATIVE

typos - the booke is absilutely full of 'em. if That type a thang bothers you overtly much, stay aay from this une. -Ugh, that hurt. Anyway, the 4th Edition (Tal4) had a problem with this, too. It may just be an inherent problem with small press.

d20 - It is Talislanta for the d20 System, and many "purists" cannot stand what they consider to be an abomination. I do not share this viewpoint, but I can relate. When Tal4 was released I was some sort of purist and was grumpy about that book. I guess we all get testy about change every now and then... That being said, there were some dramatic compromises made in order to make d20Tal. But only if you are a diehard previous fan will these changes really grate on you much.

limited content - This isn't a real biggie, and it is an easy complaint to make. The book could only be so big, and there were some things not included with this main sourcebook. Fortunately, it looks like the publisher has a decent release schedule for additional material.

magic spells - It's hard to explain why this could be a negative... You see, there are no "spell lists" in Tal. Magicians will only know a few select spells, and then these spells can be modified during casting. The result is that what you have are some charts used to calculate a DC for a skill check to actually cast the spell. More on this below... Is this really a negative? Well, if you're lazy it can be.

THE POSITIVE

The Publisher - Morrigan Press is very responsive to customer feedback/questions. They released an errata within hours of some rather large errors being pointed out to them. Kudos to them!

Organization - I think the book is very well organized. You can find exactly what you're looking for very quickly. This was not always the case in previous Tal versions.

Uniqueness - d20Tal manages to capture the uniqueness of the Tal setting and "archetypes" very well. (Archetypes is a holdover term from earlier Tal days when race & class were basically a single entity called an archetype.) Equipment, regions, history, cosmology, feats, skills, races, classes, and everything else are all very unique to Tal.

Magic System - I think I am in the minority of Tal fans that like this new magic system. It is based on feats and skills.

Here's a quick and dirty breakdown on the system:

There is no separation of Arcane and Divine magic in Talislanta. Almost anyone could take the feats and spend some skill points in order to cast a spell. As a character class, spellcasters are called Magicians with a variety of sub-classes (kind of like wizard specialists). Each sub-class is good at a particular Order of magic like Mysticism, Withcraft, Invocation, Wizardry, etc. Orders are actually feats that can be taken by any character, but Magicians get one for free. There are then 12 different Modes of magic that can be used with each Order. Modes are spell types such as Attack, Heal, Illusion, Reveal, etc. These are represented with skills, and you'll need to invest heavily in skill ranks here if you want to be an uber-Magician. As spells are made more powerful, the DC to cast said spell increases.​

PCGen - I am also a PCGen user, so I have been making my own personal Talislanta files to use with PCGen. So far, I have found nothing with d20Tal that I have not been able make work in PCGen. I think this is a good test of the game/rules design as it rapidly points out errors in math and references when you go to code a bunch of list files with data.

CONCLUSION

d20Tal is good. Go get it.

Actually, it's growing late on Friday night and I'm tired of typing. I need to go and grab a Tazian Fire-ale or two... If anyone has specific questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Thanks,

Jai Kel


Links:

http://www.talislanta.com

http://www.morriganrpg.com/gm-talislanta.html

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/talislanta-l/

 

[Sleepy Voiced]

Thanks so much Jai Kel! Looks like I'm going to have to get this one. Numerous typos drive me nuts (having been an editor), but I can live with it as long as the meaning is clear.
The magic system sounds interesting, I'm looking forward to tinkering around with it.
I think what I was mainly hoping for was something that felt different from D&D, and this should fit the bill.

 

[SimonMoon5]

I just bought the pdf. Here are a couple of thoughts. (This is not a review.)

(1) They admit that they're not interested in game balance, and boy does it show. Still, I don't mind too much. Sure, there's a large PC race with like a +8 strength and only minor penalties, while there are also races that are near-human with not much of anything special. I can live with that, since the original Talislanta was sort of wacky like that.

(2) The magic system is wonderfully inventive. However, I'm not sure how "fair" (I'm trying to avoid the word "balanced") it is, compared to 3.0/3.5. For example, the simple version of a magic missile spell does a d6 damage (never more, unless you change it on the fly, in which case it can still only do 2d6 damage) and it also has a Reflex save. It's not trivial to cast because it *does* always hit (except for the Reflex save). And it's not a "Reflex half" spell. One save and you take no damage. Spells that might be effective in combat (like equivalent to a 2nd or 3rd level D&D spell) are very difficult (or difficult-looking) to cast, with casting DCs in the 30s (you need to make a skill check to succeed).

(3) And most importantly, it seems that there's an important chunk or two of rules left out. Perhaps they will come out with a DMG, because that's what I need. For example, there are no item creations feats in the list of acceptable feats that one can take. This is reasonable, since you can't very well use "Craft Wand" when spells aren't categorized by levels. On the other hand, this means that there are no magic items in the rules... well, okay, there are a few trivial talismans and what-not... but there are no +1 swords, no cloaks of protection, no rings, no wands, no staves, no weapons, no armor, and almost no miscellaneous items.

And yet, the rules do mention what items can be created by different schools of magic. Necromancers might create weapons that harm opponents. But how? Those rules aren't given to us.

And, of course, this means that you can't *buy* the items you need (apart from a few useless trinkets), since there is no such list of items.

So, that's a pain and it's what effectively makes the rules useless to me.

Of course, other opinions may vary.

(4) There are some typos. There are also what appear to be rules left over from a previous incarnation of the game, that make no sense in d20 rules. (Something like "Monsters summoned by such a spell will be Ability Level 7 or below.") And under some of the schools of magic, the rules say that certain abilities that casters have are spells that are listed below... but they're not listed below, leaving me to think that these were spells in a previous version of the game that got cut for this version. In other words, we're missing another chunk of the rules.

And I've really only looked at the magic system and character races, since those were the reasons I bought this version of Talislanta. There may be some exceptionally good stuff in some of the other sections. I just haven't read them all yet.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I've had Tald20 since hit hit the street. All in all, it's a pretty good book. Some of the annoying things are the typos and no LA's for any of the races (there are a couple that really could use them). The magic system works pretty good, but keep it to itself. Don't mix it with D&D magic, since they don't really mesh well at all. It's a little rough around the edges, but I'm happy with it. I'm hoping Morrigan will put out more Tald20 material in the future.

Kane

 

[Mouseferatu]

(1) They admit that they're not interested in game balance, and boy does it show. Still, I don't mind too much. Sure, there's a large PC race with like a +8 strength and only minor penalties, while there are also races that are near-human with not much of anything special. I can live with that, since the original Talislanta was sort of wacky like that.

See, that was my one huge complaint with what was otherwise a solid effort. I don't care that the original system wasn't "concerned" with balance. Most of my gamers like to start on a relatively even playing field, and D20 has rules for that sort of thing. Not including Level Adjustments was, IMO, lazy design; after all, they could just as easily have included them, and then said "Those who aren't worried about balance can ignore these." If you're going to convert to D20, convert to D20. (This is particularly annoying because it makes it impossible to borrow these races for non-Talislanta games without massive work.)

Other than that, though, I agree with what's been said. The book has flawed, but is overall pretty good. I don't feel I wasted my money.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I don't know that using TalD20 races in other D20 games will require massive amounts of work. The Karkharkan (sp?) Giants need to be retooled a little bit, but they're hardly broken so much that it would take a lot of work. Mostly it would be assigning LA's, which most people can eyeball and get close.

Kane

 

[Mouseferatu]

I don't know that using TalD20 races in other D20 games will require massive amounts of work. The Karkharkan (sp?) Giants need to be retooled a little bit, but they're hardly broken so much that it would take a lot of work. Mostly it would be assigning LA's, which most people can eyeball and get close.

Kane

Actually, I've found that LA is one of the few things I can't eyeball with more than a modicum of accuracy. If I sit down and really make an effort, take some time, compare it to other races, I can come up with a pretty fair estimate, but it does take a little while for me to be sure. And LA is one of the most important details to get right. If I mess up a challenge rating, it impacts the game for one fight. If I mess up an LA, it impacts the game for the life of a PC.

But the point is, even if I can, I shouldn't have to. LA is part of the D20 system, and any D20 conversion with new races should include it.

As I said, it didn't ruin the rest of the book for me, but it is a pretty big flaw, IMO, and it does interfere with one of the main things I wanted to use the book for. (Even if I had no intention of using some of the material outside of Talislanta, however, they still should have included said info. Some people do care about balance, and the tools exist in the system.)