Has anyone ever played a campaign of Numenera? Is the game any good? What's the consensus?

>Unlike

I like. Fat thumbs on a tiny phone.

Get thin, fatgutt

I don't type with my gut.

Then your basement-dweller techniques need improvement.

What do you like about the game system? Why choose it over True20 or M&M or d20 Modern or whatever else?

Degenesis is better.

But I'm not in a basement, I'm on a boat.

Ha!

The biggest reasons I like it are the way it handles resource management, and the difficulty system.

A problem I've had with a lot of systems is that the only resource to manage tends to be HP, possibly spells or rarer resources like 'bennies' or 'fate points'

In Numenera you have stat pools which you spend on every action, which means exploration and social encounters drain resources, just like combat. This lets me challenge my players and their resources without relying on combat.

The difficult system is; pick a number 1-10. The higher, the more difficult. This applies to skill checks, enemies, everything. You can make an npc on seconds, you can make a boss encounter in minutes. I've never worked with a system that's easier to run.

Looks like one big floating basement to me, son

It feels like one sometimes.

>consensus
You mean like climate changing?

Is that a motherfucking minion?

Word.

Don't know system wise because I never played it.
But the flavor, the setting, plots, adventures, everything not mechanical was written by Monte Cook so it is obviously overhyped fanboy-sustained shit.

basically
>3 pools
>basic 'thinky' 'smashy' 'tricksy' pools
>3 same classes
>get bonus to certain pools based on class, skills, etc
>use points from pools to do shit
>develop buffer on pools to offset damage to them
>hit 0 in a pool, you're in trouble
>hit 0 in all 3, you're fucked.

So it's a system in which as you get fucked a little you suddenly find yourself to be fucked a lot.

But pretty fun idea if you want a rules light system where the setting is pretty much "omni-punk medieval".

>light swords?
sure, but nobody knows how to fix 'em. You're not even sure they were supposed to be swords.

>mecha legs?
Yeah, I mean, we can try running these wire things through your spine or maybe you should just hold the remote in your teeth.

>gunpowder?
no. I think.

>8 stroke engines?
yes.... I think?

>nuclear rockets
yes but we use them as giant communal marshmallow roasters

>teleportation devices?
yeah but you gotta soak them with your blood to work

>What's the consensus?
Just as with most RPGs, there isn't one. The jaded system snobs hate everything except what they like, and that describes Veeky Forums in a nutshell.

>which means exploration and social encounters drain resources
Fuck yes. I love this aspect. You can argue whatever you want, but better be able to pay up those mental points!

>creates a "science fantasy" setting based on the premise of advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic
>everything just looks like advanced technology

Bravo Monte!

same classes
Cipher has five classes. And only shares two with Nume.

Just sayin'

Yeah I think it came in a happy meal.

I dont know why a grown ass man got a happy meal.

>I heard it uses d20 core mechanics.
It is a distant cousin in a different direction than True20, in that both start from the D20 engine then wander off into the trees.

Target numbers are always a multiple of 3, and so are the effect that skills have on those target numbers.
There are three skill steps: Practiced (no penalty or bonus), Trained (one step improvement, which drops the target number by 3), and Specialized (two steps, which drops the target number by 6). Assets (the right tools or favorable circumstances) and Effort (just like it sounds) are similar. There are a few modifiers that are only +1 or +2, but most of the system uses the +3/-3 steps.

Many personal tricks, "spells", or combat maneuvers draw from your three Stats directly as a representation of fatigue, while a secondary stat (Edge) attached to each primary represents your degree of "gut gud", and can make the cheaper maneuvers free. You increase each Edge over time as you advance.
In Cypher terms, the movie version of Legolas has a ridiculous Speed AND Speed Edge.

The Referee normally does not roll any dice. Players roll to attack on their turn, and to defend on the opponent or hazard's turn.

Skills aside from combat skills are loosely defined, which drives some people nuts in both good and bad ways.

I think he means each class uses one pool, but glaives can be either might or speed and Jack's can be either speed or intelligence.

Sometimes you just want a burger, some fries, and a small drink. Not everyone needs two Big Macs and a pound of fries washed down by a gallon of Coke per meal.

They do on tug boats.

It's not the D20 system, but a different system that also happens to use a D20 in its core mechanic. Basically the GM gives you a target number (based on a 1-10 scale, with the target number being the difficulty the GM picked x3. So a difficulty 6 would have a TN of 18). You then roll a D20 and try to roll over it. You can get a few modifiers in ways I honestly forgot, I think you get up to a +3/-3 on the roll based on your stat. But the main way to improve the roll is by spending effort, a resource tied to each of the core stats (Body, Speed, mind, if I remember correctly). For each point you spend the difficulty goes down one (so the TN goes down three). Additionally, you also have Edge for each stat, which automatically drops the difficulty of related rolls the same way.

There is more too it than that and a lot of it is probably wrong because I read it like a year ago and that's all from memory. It seems like a kind of neat system, but I can't see myself actually ever running it.

Character creation is fun though. You make your character with a short sentence "I am a ADJECTIVE NOUN, who VERBS". You pick from a list of concepts and shit to build something like "I am a hot-headed warrior who loves bitches"

Worth the read at least. But not Numera, the setting is kind of boring and the core Cypher system has more stuff in it.

A few items give +1, they usually come from foci. Also if you assist someone and you are untrained you grant +1. Almost everything else just reduces the difficulty by a step.

Might, speed, intelligence, are the pools.

Thank you for the correction. I did my best from memory. I was kind of trying to test myself.

From what I gather, the setting seems like Gamma World only taken seriously and with less mutant badger-men roaming around. So basically taking away half of what makes Gamma World fun.

>you will never play a Jiraskar, an internet-connected T. rex with tentacles for arms and whose brain sucks at everything BUT using the nanite-powered internet and wifi of civilizations past to hunt for prey in habitats

Bouts to kick off a Numenera game. The players have decided they're associated with a temple dedicated to dreams, and want to found an offshoot temple, maybe grow it into a city state. So I'm thinking phase 1 will be kind of an Oregon Trail journey and phase 2 will be them arriving at the site, a ruin with some kind of connection to dreams and stuff (probably a second site like the one in Nightmare Switch), and phase 3 is them doing and building stuff. I've never done an empire-building type game, though, you know? Does anyone here have any experience with that sort of thing?

YES
THIS
I own Numenera, but no matter how I stare at it and think about it, it just won't turn into Gamma World.

DriveThruRPG, OCR TSR Gamma World 4E POD when?

Both GW6e (d20) and GW7e (D&D 4e) are on DTRPG right now.

It's a letdown. It pitches itself as a Dying Earth/Book of the New Sun style post apocalyptic techno-medieval adventure game, but when you get down to brass tacks it's d20 with some shitty narrative mechanics bolted on. The core classes are reskinned fighter rogue and mage, and the setting is actually just generic fantasy schlock by another name.

There are plenty of mutants in Numenera though.

You haven't started that game yet?

>the setting is actually just generic fantasy schlock by another name.
The thing that sets Dying Earth apart from generic fantasy is tone and the rare hint of the origins.
Not running Numenera that way is your Ref's fault, not the game's.

Yeah but, Severian is totally a glaive.

No. Every time we try to resolve the Shadowrun game we're on, it turns into one more session. The one player who really isn't feeling SR keeps flaking, too; if she actually showed for once we'd have an excuse to start.

That and we're switching off with another guy running D&D5, too. It's a hot mess man

Well, yes and no. Whenever they had a choice to make the setting D&D pastiche or do something original, they chose the former. I mean, I don't think a feudal or semifeudal structure makes a whole lot of sense when wealth likely comes from tech access rather than land. I'm going to try and run it with more of a classical era vibe, Pythagoreans on steroids.

/tg hates it. I've run two successful long term games with my third starting. It's great for gm's who can improvise and fill in the world to add your own unique touches.

I think /tg is the only place on the internet that hates it this much. Your not going to get an unbiased opinion here.

It's my favorite system of all time. I've gm'ed a ton in my life as well and numerous systems.

It is weird how much Veeky Forums seems to hate the system. The Monte Cook hatred I get but a lot of the hatred seems to be ignoring him completely. It's not like it's popular enough to have a backlash.

>n-no, it's the GM's fault ;_;

No, it's a bad game. I understand that you feel the need to defend your poor taste, but you should know that this argument is always the first resort of someone trying to sell a bad product.

Well, it's from the guy who got all the credit for Planescape while doing none of the things that were memorable or worthwhile about Planescape.
And for some reason, he creates a system which is immediately used to make two different Planescape heartbreakers, neither of which have appreciably different art direction, or bother to hire Tony DiTerlizzi.
(Though, hearing that The Strange at least has different mechanics makes me feel better, like they didn't just waste everyone's time.)

The Strange actually has identical mechanics, except that the Jack is replaced with a social class and there's a subsytem bolted in for transdimensional travel

Systems where the GM doesn't roll always bother me, for some reason. Which is especially weird since I don't GM.

And Mr. Monte Hateboner has now checked in.

>The setting isn't as cool as they make it sound, and isn't really well fleshed out.

How can a setting be less cool than it sounds? How a setting sounds is usually what determines if it's cool or not.

Numenéra might have questionable mechanics, but I think the premise and the world seems pretty cool. I also like the premise of the character creation system, and how it's a "everyone is a snowflake, so nobody is a snowflake" kind of thing.

As someone that's usually a fan of more "down to Earth" settings (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, for example) that's a pretty nice change of pace, compared to many other settings, that can never find a balance.

People are usually bothered by a few setting things. The core book is light on details for much of the setting, making it useful for gm inspiration but not a full setting guidebook. They don't like the politicial structure of the Steadfast, which is mostly a renfaire, or they don't like how 'magic is technology' is handled, seeing it as either too magical or too technological.

Now, the book has guidelines on how to take the stuff as presented and run the game in either a more mystical or more technological direction, and you can focus on the areas outside of the Steadfast if you want to get away from the high fantasy vibe. The lack of 'depth' to the setting is likely to be unchanged.

I wonder how many people would have played this if Monte Cook did not create it.

>"The Strange" has better mechanics

If The Strange & Numenera use the same system (the Cypher System), how does The Strange quantifiably differ from Numenera?

>the world relies too much on Shock and "How Weird" setups to attempt to be interesting.

Sounds like a GM issue, I think. Weirdness shouldn't be more shock value than horror is shock value. I'm not that familiar with the game, but I think a consistent weirdness sounds pretty neat, and could be used to pull off pretty much any scenario.

The main issue I'd see with this is actually getting a sense of consistency, because without that, it's hard for things to continue being weird, I guess. Like, there's this floating castle, and you stop wondering why there's a floating castle, you just sorta accept it, and there's no need to investigate.

>I've just wrapped up a two year campaign that got to tier five, and have run about a half dozen one shots. Numenera is my favorite system to run.

6 one-shots to get to Tier 6 over the course of two years sounds like an insanely fast leveling pace (and a crazy low number of sessions). Is that kind of pacing appropriate for the game? I tend to prefer games that have very slow leveling, because spiking almost always feels incredibly out of place, unless there's significant in-character downtime and the player characters haven't met in a long-ass time (which I always find a bit hard to excuse as well).

The long campaign and the one shots are separate. The campaign was effectively every other week, and I think my levelling was a bit fast but not by much.

The main criticism of Numenera is actually that Fighters ("Glaives") only really get combat shit, but the game isn't really built around combat, but exploration and investigation, so they rarely get to use their shit, and when they do, they need to spend Stats/Effort (and thus what passes for HP), and their primary stat that they spend is also usually the first one to get hit by enemies.

So when in combat, they want to conserve actually using their abilities, so they don't even really get to shine then, and it easily causes a death-spiral.

The idea for the system (as I understand it) is that it's meant to entice and coax players into finding alternate solutions rather than relying on their pools (and I love that idea, and not having HP), but that works poorly with Glaives in mind -> "I hit them with my stick, I need to conserve my pools".

Is there any truth to that?

I haven't played the game, but if I do, I was considering maybe recommending that Glaives be banned (or simply not played), and that combat characters go for a Seeker or modified Seeker instead (possibly using the "Flavor" system from the Cypher System Core book).

Would love some thoughts from someone with experience.

>I'm on a boat
youtube.com/watch?v=avaSdC0QOUM

>But the flavor, the setting, plots, adventures

I like the flavor and the setting, other than the more ridiculous SJW shit that is poisoning the industry, so I can't fault Monte Cook for that, but I hear the adventures and the plots themselves are shit.

He should probably stay at a mechanical and supervisory level, and leave the actual writing of content to others. He seems like the kind of guy that if he gets too involved, it turns to shit, much like, say, George Lucas.

Glaives get better with Character Options 1, which presents more utility options for them. There's also all the great things one can accomplish with just a high might stat. Also, there foci can bring more utility if they choose. I had two glaives in my party. One was maximized for combat because that's what he enjoyed, the other Defended the Weak, which made him a good party face.

The game's presentation can be a bit disingenuous. Even with everything I said above, Glaives are designed around combat. The game assumes that the places your players are going will be dangerous, and that having people who can take hits and give them back will always be a useful skill.

That said, the idea that players should hoard their points in combat to avoid draining their pools is false. You want to spend points to kill your enemies as quickly as possible, unless they're so weak that they don't pose any threat... And if that's the case, why is your GM even having you fight them? Taking damage will send you down the death spiral much more quickly then spending effort.

Actually, Numenera has five classes; Glaive, Jack, Nano, Glint, and Seeker. The last two was added in the "Character Options 2" supplement.

Cypher System has four classes; Warrior (Glaive), Adept (Nano), Explorer (Seeker), Speaker (NOT Glint).

So if you're using both Numanera and Cypher System to play Numanera, you've potentially got 6 Types - Glaive, Jack, Nano, Glint, Seeker and Speaker.

Not to mention that these will be heavily modified by their choice of Descriptor and Focus, too. Some people bitch that Numenera only has 3 classes, but it's actually not true. A class should be considered the combination of *at least* Type + Focus (Descriptor being more of a character trait).

>That said, the idea that players should hoard their points in combat to avoid draining their pools is false. You want to spend points to kill your enemies as quickly as possible, unless they're so weak that they don't pose any threat... And if that's the case, why is your GM even having you fight them? Taking damage will send you down the death spiral much more quickly then spending effort.

Alright, thanks for the input. I can see how this might be a problem for an inexperienced GM, though, especially if you're used to play certain other things, where difficulties are not intended to be, let's say, "narratively pliable". A guard is always a guard in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, for example, and he's going to kick your ass and drag your face on the sidewalk if you pick a fight and can't defend yourself, and he's always going to fall to a knife in the throat from behind.

So the idea of having specifically "balanced" encounters might be a pretty hard thing to adjust to, and the players might have an equally hard time to adjust to the idea of having no clue how hard something is to kill (and thus prompt them to try to find alternate solutions).

Ah, alright. Well, a year-long weekly campaign (so, two years if every other week) with 6 or so extra one-shots sounds like pretty good leveling pacing to me, honestly. Of course, it depends on what happens in the game, but sounds about what I'd personally think to be perfect.

>The lack of 'depth' to the setting is likely to be unchanged.

Yeah, it's clearly meant to be filled by the GM and the players actions, and remain in a "static" sense. I can see how some people want more, but personally I like that. There's systems and settings that are extremely detailed with a lot of shit going on across a huge number of books, supplements and novels, and it sometimes gets annoying how "What year is it? Has the queen rebelled against XXX so the YYY has returned?" is a perfectly valid question.

Like, no, fuck you, I have no fucking clue what you're talking about, because I haven't read that, and we're doing this shit now and the leader of the guild you've never heard about is Marty McFuckface. Shut up and hit the goblin.

Numenera isn't exactly supposed to be 'balanced' either, and combat drains points much faster then most out of combat resolutions. So if you can avoid combat, that actually is better most of the time.

But still, at some point you'll have to kill something. That's when you want a glaive.

this is from sa so people don't like it here, but i still feel like this is a good summery of numenera
projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/tulul/numenera/
bottom line for me is i hate games where a natural 1 is punishable, and numenera takes that a step FURTHER so i don't really like it.
also for a game nominally about exploration and not combat, almost literally everything in the (massive) rulebook has to do with combat, and while supplements make the other classes SLIGHTLY more balanced its definitely a game of caster supremacy, just one in which you can be castery more so as a "martial" than 3.5 say.

Caster supremacy isn't an issue. Esoteries cost more points then maneuvers and there aren't stockpiles of scrolls and wands you can use to keep yourself going forever.

And cyphers tend to blow everything else out if the water.

IN COMBAT but combat is nominally not the point of the game

and for the record i LIKE numenera, or at least find it interesting.

How many new lines become popular without being attached to some prestigious name?

Esoteries cost points and effort and tend to be outperformed by cyphers out of combat. You also get a narrow selection of abilities, you don't have Batman wizards.

From what I understand, Numenera itself was mechanically fine. However, the Cypher System Rulebook came and wreaked havoc on game balance.

1. Intellect is clearly and obviously the best statistic of them all, covering all tasks of "intelligence, wisdom, charisma, education, reasoning, wit, willpower, and charm" (page 15) and even healing (page 210), looking or listening (page 212), social interactions (page 212), disabling devices and locks (page 213), gaining insights (page 217), and using most cyphers (page 241). Intellect covers an absolutely insane span of tasks. This might have been passable in a wilderness/dungeon-focused setting like Numenera, but in other settings, Intellect is king.

2. Ranged beats melee. In this game, if you want to both move and attack, you can move only 10 feet by default. If you want to move further than 10 feet and attack, you must succeed on a difficulty 4 Speed task (difficulty 2 if you purchase a specific special ability), and bad things happen if you roll a natural 1.

Also, ranged attacks made within 10 feet lower the difficulty of the attack by 1. Melee attacks do not have this benefit. Yes, ranged weapons are more accurate than melee weapons within 10 feet.

Similarly, most attacks in combat target your Might, so you will want to conserve your Might as much as possible rather than spend it.
Because of this, ranged weapons are simply better than melee weapons. (Consequently, Speed is better than Might.)

Under the "fantasy" equipment list, longbows are weaker than greatswords, but the movement restrictions and the point blank bonus still make a longbow preferable to a greatsword. Use Speed and Speed Edge to attack with a longbow, take Practiced in Armor to start with elven chainmail for free, and laugh at anyone who bothered with melee.

Under the "modern" and "science fiction" equipment lists, there are better ranged weapons available, so you should wield one of those and ignore melee. Take an unarmored ability.

(Continued.)

3. In various cases, "magic" accomplishes tasks far more competently and cheaply than mundane methods ever could. Here is a good example: boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/46672143/

4. Skills have no balance to them. Various options, such as the Calm descriptor, the Doesn't Do Much focus, and the Would Rather be Reading focus give you a blank check on selecting skills. However, page 20 gives us a sample list of skills like "deceiving," "intimidation," "metalworking," and so on, then tells us:

>You could choose a skill that incorporates more than one of these areas (interacting might include deceiving, intimidation, and persuasion) or that is a more specific version of one (hiding might be sneaking when you’re not moving). You could also make up more general, professional skills, such as baker, sailor, or lumberjack. If you want to choose a skill that’s not on this list, it’s probably best to run it past the GM first, but in general, the most important aspect is to choose skills that are appropriate to your character.

Why would you ever choose "deceiving" or "intimidation" when you could choose "interaction"? Why would you even bother with "hiding" when you could take "sneaking" instead? What is the point of telling a player to select X number of skills when those skills could be as narrow as "hiding while not moving" or as broad as "social interactions"?

Even worse are the abilities like:
>Investigative Skills: You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two of the following: identifying, perception, lockpicking, assessing danger, or tinkering with devices. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills. Enabler.

"Lockpicking" and "tinkering with devices" are good and all, but are we really to believe that either is as broad as "perception"?

(Continued.)

5. Descriptors and foci have flimsy balance.

For example, the best descriptor in the entire game is Foolish, because it has this ability:
>Carefree: You succeed more on luck than
anything. Every time you roll for a task, roll
twice and take the higher result.

This is a d20-based game wherein 1s are critical failures and 17-20s are varying degrees of critical success, so rolling twice and taking the higher result is a stupendously strong benefit. The descriptor comes with some downsides that fail to balance out rolling twice on all rolls. For example, Foolish characters have 1 higher difficulty for all Intellect defense tasks and tasks that involve seeing through deception, illusion, or traps... but rolling twice still makes them better at such tasks than a regular character.

Foolish is a supremely strong descriptor, and it gets even better if you can immunize yourself against all mind-influencing effects, such as the Slays Monsters focus's tier 2 ability.

Another example is the Travels Through Time focus (which, sadly, does not synergize well with Foolish). This is the broken part:
>Tier 1: Anticipation (1 Intellect point). You look ahead to see how your actions might unfold. You have an asset for the first task you perform before the end of the next round. Enabler.

This is an enabler. If you have Intellect Edge 1, then congratulations, you have an asset on every single task you could conceivably perform, lowering all difficulties by 1. Monte Cook did not think this through.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, some foci are awful at various tiers.
Masters Weaponry's tier 1 ability is laughably, objectively worse than Slays Monsters' tier 1 ability.
Infiltrates' tier 1 ability is likewise totally worse than Doesn't Do Much's tier 1 ability and Would Rather be Reading's tier 1 ability, especially since the latter two let you choose broad skills like "interaction."

(Continued.)

6. Spending XP on short-term benefits simply is not worth it unless you are using 1 XP to reroll a roll that will spell death and/or calamity should you fail it.

4 XP is enough to earn you a major, permanent ability for your entire career, and once you purchase four of those (16 total), you advance a tier and reap all of the benefits for doing so. 1 XP rerolls in anything but life-or-death scenarios are thus a trap.

2 XP for short- or medium-term skill trainings are a complete and utter ripoff when all a skill training grants is 1 lower difficulty. 2 XP is half the price of gaining a permanent major ability, and delays you from gaining tiers.

On a tangent, speaking of spending 4 XP for a permanent, major ability, this is perhaps the best of the lot:
>Add 2 to your recovery rolls.
Recovery rolls are the key to resource management. A +2 bonus to such rolls gives you a massive, flexible boost to the resources available to you.

That is all I can think of on the topic of Cypher at the moment.

1; intellect is overpowered, no argument there. I suggested some fixes to my players but they say they don't see an issue with it.

2; a 1 is bad but 19's and 20's are good, so more rolls isn't exactly more chances to fail. That said the point blank bonus is dumb.

More might pool is more might pool. The idea that a speed character is somehow secretly tougher then a might character is absurd. And there are plenty of damage sources that go for the other pools.

>Numenera isn't exactly supposed to be 'balanced' either, and combat drains points much faster then most out of combat resolutions. So if you can avoid combat, that actually is better most of the time.
>But still, at some point you'll have to kill something. That's when you want a glaive.

>IN COMBAT but combat is nominally not the point of the game

Don't make a combat class in a game that's not supposed to be about combat.

The game should not discourage you from using your character's abilities. That's just shit design.

Far step is a particularly overpowered ability, but I haven't seen nanos outshining the rest of the party.

That said, far step as an ability requires more character investment then the jump skill, so it's not entirely sure fair a comparison. A fair comparison would be something like a glaive ability that lets you doubke your jump distance. This doesn't exists but I could easily see it existing. It would be a shit ability, because Monte is bad at balance.

4: the descriptors and foci often hand out broad and powerful skills, which is fine. The suggested list is what I go off of as far as how broad 'make your own' skills should be.

5: yes, the balance is terrible between foci and descriptors, and it only gets worse with later books. Monte claims this is because don't need to be balanced, Monte has his head up his ass. Luckily, the game is very easy to alter without worrying about fucking balance up, at least he made it flexible.

>at least he made it flexible

No, he didn't.

He just did little enough work that the game happened to end up relatively easy to fuck around with because a lot of the moving parts don't touch.

>2; a 1 is bad but 19's and 20's are good, so more rolls isn't exactly more chances to fail.
You do, in fact, have a chance to fail at moving if you want to attack in the same turn. If that roll is necessary and you fail it, then you cannot bring your melee attacks to bear.

>More might pool is more might pool. The idea that a speed character is somehow secretly tougher then a might character is absurd.
If you are a Might-focused character, then you will be spending points from your Might pool to fuel your attacks, which means less Might for actually absorbing attacks.

>And there are plenty of damage sources that go for the other pools.
This has already been covered in previous threads:

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47452111/#47454131
In the Cypher System Rulebook, there are 10 enemies that can damage Speed or Intellect, 2 enemies that can damage Speed or Intellect only sometimes, and 56 who can damage only Might.

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47452111/#47454344
In the Strange core rulebook, there are 4 enemies that can deal damage to Speed or Intellect, and 42 that can deal damage only to Might.

My players spent about a quarter of their XP on short and medium benefits, mostly the ones who had managed to get more XP slowing down to let players with less catch up (missed sessions, uneven intrusion XP,.)

That's said I'm looking at houserules for this, a lot of people have split intrusion XP from exploration XP, I'm just looking at requiring players to spend XP on non-long term benefits before they can level up.

>Add 2 to your recovery rolls.

About as good as getting +6 to a pool since the recoveries take increasing amounts of time. That said, you normally add +4 (IIRC) to a pool as you tier progress, so, the recovery boost is definitely broken.

1: You also have a chance to get an extra action from the attack, or a recovery roll, or to stun another foe.

2: and he can spend those spoints to kill people, or hold onto them if he's going to be taking lots of damage. The speed character doesn't have that option. He's going down the damage track.

That said, you want to spend points. Killing people takes less points then getting hurt.

>Bestiary #'s
My first campaign someone ended up with five armor at first level, I started putting in ways to get around his armor right away. And while 'you're can homebrew it's isn't supposed to be an argument, it's such an easy system to make stuff up in.

Well then trust me, rolling dice is hella fun, yes. But it would certainly lighten the load not having to do 100+ simply math equations during any game you also have to juggle a handful of nattering goblins (the PCs).
Speeds things significantly up. Significantly.

Bear in mind that I am speaking of the Cypher System Core Rulebook, adepts, and warriors here. I am *not* referring to Numenera, nanos, and glaives.

In any case, Far Step is worth a single talent. Being trained in "running" and "jumping" is also worth a single talent, and it is several orders of magnitude worse than Far Step.

That said, if you would like to get into anecdotal evidence, I have, in fact, been able to compare an adept, a warrior, and an explorer in actual play. My adept was Calm/Would Rather Be Reading and heavily abused the acquisition of broad skills, because Monte Cook is stupid for allowing players a choice between "intimidation" and "all social interactions." My character was far more capable than the others outside of combat, and only somewhat worse during combat.

>4: the descriptors and foci often hand out broad and powerful skills, which is fine.
The problem is that some descriptors and foci allow you to write in your own skills, which can be something narrow like "intimidation" or something broad like "all social interactions."

Yes, the recovery upgrade being better than a direct pool upgrade is what makes it so cost-effective.

Fair enough, I haven't tried the generic system out.

I'd say your GM fucked up by allowing you to pick such broad skills, and that is one of the issues with Numenera. It's so reliant on the GM to tune the balance, and to handle the intrusions. I love it, but I can see how some GM's just wouldn't be able to run a good game with it.

>1: You also have a chance to get an extra action from the attack, or a recovery roll, or to stun another foe.
This is when you roll a natural 20. You get just about the opposite when you roll a natural 1. You can roll a natural 19 for a minor benefit, or you can fail the roll outright and *not* get to use your melee attacks. The downsides outweigh the potential rewards here.

>2: and he can spend those spoints to kill people, or hold onto them if he's going to be taking lots of damage. The speed character doesn't have that option. He's going down the damage track.
>That said, you want to spend points. Killing people takes less points then getting hurt.
Well, you have vindicated my point for me. The Speed-focused character with the firearm keeps spending Speed points on attacks, the Might-focused character with the melee weapon spends Might points on attacks, and in the end, both wind up with roughly the same durability against Might-drainers.

>'you're can homebrew it's isn't supposed to be an argument
It really is not supposed to be an argument.

>But still, at some point you'll have to kill something. That's when you want a glaive.

I'm not disagreeing with you, necessarily, but the issue here is that arguably, you need everyone else all of the time.

Ideally, everyone should be able to contribute meaningfully to most situations in some way, and I can see how it's a legitimate complaint that Glaives can only contribute reliably in combat, which has been stated numerous times to not be the main focus of the game and, in fact, from a point-for-point perspective, it's something you usually want to avoid entirely if at all possible.

I just think they should've made Glaives a bit more like Seekers, or maybe something in-between, from the beginning. Martial explorers with utility, rather than such an emphasis on combat. Or less narrow abilities that more clearly could be used outside of combat, like, I dunno, backflip up on ledges or something, fuck, I dunno, punch consoles really hard?

Glaives can contribute out of combat though, either through speed or might, and their foci. Their abilities in the core book are too narrow a selection, but glaives can absolutely be helpful and essential outside of combat.

Meanwhile, Intellect and Travels Through Time...

For anyone interested, almost complete Numenera, the Strange and Cypher System collection:mega.nz/#F!YUASyAxb!Q7ZlQBKo_bzgDu5WxAtrDw

Yes, but more or less in the same capacity as anyone else - they can do that in spite of being Glaives, not because they're Glaives.

Or, at least that's my impression, based on what little I know and what's been discussed.

Oh, man, it was actually uploaded. I remember asking someone to do it in the PDF thread yesterday. Someone's been awesome!

Even properly ordered and everything. Fancy.

You're welcome, uploading as I get more stuff

>If The Strange & Numenera use the same system (the Cypher System), how does The Strange quantifiably differ from Numenera?

I'd still love an answer to this.