>>For this reason, I heartily recommend the various suggestions made by
>>Wulf Corbett, David Dunham and others to increase the HP needed to
>>increase an ability score as that score gets higher; actual cost =
>>base cost + 1 per mastery seems popular.
>I did once support this, but unfortunately I'm now much more concerned
>that it takes too long to get a character up to anything like 'heroic'
>level. We have, I believe, exactly two double-mastery abilities
>amongst our entire group (barring a couple converted from RQ). I'm not
>SURE this is a problem, as I rather like the single-mastery
>challenges, but it is a limitation.
>
>The real problem isn't Abilities, it's Affinities. At 3 HP per point,
>they get left behind by cheaper, more useful abilities (low level
>augments, as has been frequently said, aren't much bang for your
>buck), and when you've got 2W2 Close Combat and only 17 Combat
>Affinity, why waste HP dragging the affinity up,when the CC will
>ALWAYS be cheaper? Same applies to other affinity types.
>
>Maybe if we did have the extra cost for higher level abilities, the
>abilities wouldn't outstrip them so easily, but that would also bring
>the whole process grinding down after one mastery.
>
>Wulf
My house rule is the standard each mastery costs an extra point, but that this doesn't apply to affinities. This means that at the W2 level, it is the same cost to raise an standard ability as an affinity (not that anyone has an ability at the W2 level yet) and from W3 it is cheaper to raise affinities. I like this as it promotes the concept that magic is the way the way to great power.
I did this as I run a quite low level campaign where the character's first adventure was their initiation into adulthood quest and I was finding that the players were advancing too fast for my storyline. I am reasonably generous with my HP awards though, so If I was stingier I mightn't have had the same problem.
Martin
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