Starting Mage Talents

[si1vergecko]

I know this has already been discussed to a degree but I am trying to make a mage character, specifically a Human Circle Mage. The starting talents you can get at level 1 are Chirgury, Linguistics, and Lore. Now the solution that most people seem to go with aside from house ruling is simply if you don't fit the requirements, then you can't start with that talent.

Citing Chirgury in particular, you need Cunning (Heal) as a prereq. The problem is the only mage class that can possibly even get this is the Elf Circle Mage, it is not even listed as an option on the Human section of the table or as an option, and does not even show up at all on the Apostate. Now I can certainly understand if people rule if you don't have it you can't get it.

However, what is throwning me for a loop is in the Quickstart Guide in the back are a few pregen characters, one being a Human Circle Mage. It does NOT have the heal focus, but has Chirgury listed as a starting talent. Thoughts?

[Bardwulf]

Interesting. It would suggest that you don't need the pre req for starters, that or an oversight. Just follow your heart really, it doesn't make a lot of difference in the end.

[Elfie]

You definitely need the pre-req for starting Talents. Many GMs will simply allow players to pick Healing as one of the starting focuses they get to pick from in the "modify your character as follows" section that each background has.

[shonuff]

You definitely need the pre-req for starting Talents. Many GMs will simply allow players to pick Healing as one of the starting focuses they get to pick from in the "modify your character as follows" section that each background has.

And a lot also give one blank free focus, IIRC, because the same thing happened to Scouting for rogues, although that was changed in the errata.

[Loswaith]

I think either the errata or some discussion on that kind of thing for the dwarves rolling the axe focus even though they may not have axe weapon group, was that the dwarf got the weapon group instead.

You could always go the path similare to that in giving the Cunning(heal) focus instead of the Chirgury talent, though it means missing out on a talent.

I'm however more inclined to do much like the Scouting errata did and alter the prerequisite to simply Cunning 2+ because a character can still attempt to heal even without a focus normally, it's just that extra training above it when taking the focus (even if it does in this case make a thematic sence, though Scouting having the stealth focus did too).

[Alchemus]

One thing I recommend is changing Cunning(Heraldry) to Cunning(Healing) on the human benefit table. It never made sense to me that just because a circle mage is human they would automatically have a chance at knowing the different coats of arms.