I join you in favoring modifying the rules. Now I ask: if, for a moment, we assume they ought to be modified, what ought they become?
> PROBLEM WITH INTERPRETATION B
> The interpretation is unbalancing because the cost (1 HP) is
> independent of the reward. The unbalancing is subtly present even
> for feeble items (as shown in my Ken & Bob example).
This, then, is what we must design any new rules to cover. Somehow we must find a way to balance HP expenditure with reward.
A simple way to do it would be to say the number of HP you must pay is the same as what it would cost you to buy an ability up to that level, namely ability score - 11. Two problems: one, the 10w4 sword is prohibitively expensive, even for demigod-heroes; two, it doesn't address your example situation, in which the same item would improve one character much more than the other.
As for the prohibitively expensive bit, one thing that I think could be done for all abilities, not just items, is to make the score at which they start (or, for items in multi-HP cementing, the number of points you get "for free") dependent upon the hero's other abilities.
That is, once your salient skills are at 10w2, why on earth would you ever start anything at just 12? It will never be of any use to you unless you spend enormous numbers of HP on it. A less realistic but IMO more playable rule would be to start new abilities at something like hero's best - 20 (but never less than 12). The main drawback I see to this is that it rapidly increases development of all skills, even ones the heroes normally wouldn't raise at all, because presumably any time a skill falls more than 20 (or whatever the number is) behind your best, you can essentially buy the skill anew and raise the score up to best - X; I'm not sure that I'm really that bothered by this, as long as all the non-central skills are a mastery behind, but does mean that, if he decided to settle down, for just 1 HP Harrek could become overnight the best farmer/tailor/merchant in Sartar (but then, being a clever animist, he probably has a very high Spirit Combat, which already allows him to pretty much do the same thing via integration). Thus another thought along these lines is to reward those who work at being jacks-of-all-trades by saying that a hero gets any new ability at the level of his *lowest* existing one. I like this because it provides a game-mechanical incentive for our heroes to be good at the sorts of things their culture wants them to -- "Sure you can learn the Four Magic Weapons as independent feats at 20w for 1 HP each... as soon as you listen to your father and go spend a year or two working on the farm like he's always hoped you would." For theists, it also tops out at 10w (maximum of Worship Pantheon) unless you'd prefer to say that they shouldn't be punished for not being able to raise it; culturally, lay Malkioni are said to never raise their piety beyond 12 anyway, but then a caste-system society seems somewhat unlikely to produce people who want to do everything for themselves... Unfortunately, this seems to slow the advancement of such characters even more than normal play of a normally well-balanced hero would. Any comments?
The second problem, I fear, is thornier still, for determining how much a given item will increase a hero's power (to which the HP cost should be proportional) requires you to predict what heroes will try to *do* with the item. For weapons this may be fairly clear, but for others it may be very complicated -- but even for weapons, if Bob were to cement the Magic Sword 1w in your example, I see no reason he couldn't use it to augment his Relationship to Clan, too: "I took this powerful magical weapon from a thane of the Black Oaks (spit) on a raid; I gave it to the Chief to add to the Clan regalia, but he decided to gift it back to me, to bear proudly as a symbol of his favor! Listen to me, for my continued possession of this mighty artifact proves I am a man of importance."
I seem to have convinced myself that the reason HW doesn't have a rule on this is that it's very hard to come up with one that's both fair and widely applicable! On the other hand, more guidance would be greatly appreciated...
Ryan Caveney
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