And once in a while a cruel narrator may set up a situation where Kareth is seperated from his guards and forced to defend himself without help. I would not do this regularly but it can be interesting occasionally to force heroes to act without their followers. It can prevents the just another boring combat feeling (along with wind, rain & mud; darkness; water; terrain; buildings... which I find are much easier ot factor in in HW)
>While I can see many situations where the follower support the
character with this ability, I can also see some where the character
has no appropriate ability and using the follower's ability is the
only viable option.<
I agree, though we're bound to agree we play together :-)
The 'followers stands alone' is almost a cliche in episodec TV series like Buffy or Xena now, and a good model (even ST:NG had Lieutenant Barclay) for this kind of event. Because followers are based on your stats they grow with you, so that by the time you are thane level they are fairly competent, by the time you're leader level they are thane level themselves. When you're clan champion, your followers are weaponthanes. Likewise in episodic series we tend to find as our hero gains in power so do her followers. It has not come up yet, but I guess if a hero's follower became so significant that we all knew who they were and it seemd likely that everyone else would as well, then the narrator could suggest that the follower has become an ally (the stats rise, but you can't be so sure someone else won't require their commitment). On TV, Willow is the most obvious example I can think of, of this phenomena. Once Buffy's sidekick, she is now within Buffy levels of ability. She has changed from follower to allied witch. Giles seemed to go the other way, from patron to ally, to follower, which may also be a way of handling supporting characters who fade from view. After all the 'words' cost of ally,patron and follower is the same, and their ability levels are compensated by the chance of their showing up.
In Wolf's case I would be tempted to rule that the follower has become an ally.
> And it should be obvious by now that I can be an outrageous minimaxing
powergamer as much as a storyteller or roleplayer! ;-)
Don't put yourself down, you spent that HP on a Relationship to Biturian Varosh <g>
Ian Cooper
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