It was intentional that no rules were written to raise Keywords (other than the very loose "advanced experience guidelines" on page 178).
As far as number of abilities, remember that keyword abilities are inclusive, not exclusive. Each keyword has an infinite number of abilities "contained" in it. A Homeland keyword, frex, has a busload of "relationships" and "common knowledges" implicit in it that an occupation or magical keyword wouldn't have. So keywords with fewer abilities just means that the authors didn't want to list *everything* that the keyword could possibly encompass. (lazy b*****ds!)
> I would reckon though that Affinities would have to be divorced from
> the magic keyword as they are more expensive (3 or 6points) to raise
> in one go.
*All* magic is expensive. Yet I wouldn't bother to "divorce" magic from it's associated keyword.
Basically, I wouldn't bother writing rules for Keywod advancement, and especially not for purchasing it with Hero Points.
But if you really need what level a characret might improvise, I'd work on a more "average ability level" or "improv. off a suitable ability" mechanic. It doesn't make sense that a "Grazer Warior 17" who has most of his Grazer and Warrior abilities in the 15W range would not be able to use "Keep horse quiet" at some higher-than-17 ability level. So you can decide that this is a simple use of "Horsemanship", an improvised use of "Horsemanship", or an average of some set number of Grazer+Warrior abilities (though this would more likely be for something that makes sense within the keyword, but isn't closely linked to another ability). The collolary is that after a while I wouldn't even bother with the actual keyword ability rating written on the character sheet - the keyword *name*, yes, but not the rating. Remember that keywords are meant to be shortcuts to indicate a general range of abilities, not a straitjacket.
RR
C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du pr�sent a
fait ce qu'il a fait.
- Richelieu
Powered by hypermail