Hello all,

Today in another post I have revived my non-solved problem regarding talents. I come form the first and second edition of the game where talents were, as skills are, always available. First I tried the 3rd edition as it is and shortly after I start to develop my house rules to best fit the system to my taste and that of my players, no problems up to now. The thing is that I haven been able to come with a nice house rule for talents. For many of the talents It is just not possible to justify (for my idea of game) the switching on/off of talents neither the aptitude loss that characters suffer when they change careers.

I have been reading alot the forums and I have found some nice rules about the socketing, but still, soketing means talents go on/off which I don't find it "realistic".

I have found in some post by Emirkol that he does not socket talents, they are just active always! I would like to know from those players and GM's that use this house rule how the balance /mechanics of the game have been affected.

I was thinking that if this house rule holds well within the game I will adopt it with a few more things:

-Characters don't socket talents, they are always active (Emirkol).

-You only socket talents on party sheets (meaning that a PC is taking the role of the leader) and these talents affect the whole party as usual.

-You can only buy talents that match the sockets of your career, or increase the price from 2 to 3 or 4.

-You can buy a maximum of 1, 2, 3 ... talents per character rank.

To make clear the aim of this post, I would like to know the experience of those players and GM's that use the rule of no-socketing talents.

Thanks all

I had to house rule a couple of careers dependent on talents and the issue of disease has unchanged (It covers one of your talents). Disease is slightly less powerful in that regard so you could cover two talents if necessary just to keep up the potency.

The dwarf engineer and/or runekeeper have specific things that matter with talent slots that require some individual attention.

I still like the idea of socketing to the party sheet, but it's just so darned "mechanical" and "powergamerish" that it leaves a little too much Nurgle spittle in my mouth to mess around with yet.

So far, the only broken things that I've seen have nothing to do with talents and everything to do with ironbreakers, swordmaster actions, and two-handed-weapon action cards.

jh

Yepesnopes said:

I'm lucky enough to get to play in Emirikol's game and I really like the "no-socket" rule. I agree with your original post that turning various talents on and off doesn't make sense. The scout I play has "cat-like reflexes," " keen eyes," and "I seem to recall." To me it doesn't seem to upset game balance all that much. It saves me from unnecessary fiddling with my components. In combat I would obviously take cat-like reflexes, searching or scouting calls for keen eyes, and in any situation where intelligence checks might be important--I seem to recall. But really? Can't I just assume my character has all those talents "on" all the time. My GM allows for talents like Keen Eyes and I Seem to Recall to be used once per encounter which seems fair.

In another campaign I play a Sigmarite Disciple and we do use socketing. I find it a pain. In combat situations I plug in Righteous Servant. Then depending on what's happening I use others. I already have enough to keep track of--especially with favor, recharging abilities, cards, etc.

As a player I really appreciate no-socketing. It reduces my "book-keeping." Since I don't GM I'm probably not the best to address game balance issues.