You describe much more what I had in mind than I did -- you have a carpenter who is the leader, and everyone else augments with their Strong, Hard Working, Cut a Straight Line (Humakti very useful here, ahem), or, in a pinch, Relationship to Clan against whatever resistance a barn has. I don't think you need a Barn Raising feat, skill, whatever to help build a barn.
>Secondly, I think a lot of common magic is potentially availabe, but
>cultures have only found, made common, and retained, those abilities
>that seem relevant. But there is no mass church in most cases
>saying "we will teach the "find lost child" feat but not the "make
>beer more potent" feat. Rather it is a much more informal network of
>people teaching others what they know that the others also want to
>know. So my grandfather knew how to sacrifice to Mr. Toad to learn
>the "make beer more potent" feat, and he passed it on to me one day,
>and I taught my buds tom, dick, and harry, cause they are good mates
>and deserve to enjoy life too. Which is not to say my grandfather
>couldn't have also taught me "find lost child" and that I might not
>teach my mates if we had to all go out and find some lost child. But
>most of them are probably less willing to go out of their way to get
>me to teach it, and to go wait on a hill on the right day until
>midnight when Five Stray Winds comes to court Three Ripe Berries, and
>is willing to accept a sacrifice to teach the feat.
Oh, exactly. Which is why I think Heortling common magic tends to be clan-based. You'll save your best tricks for the family. And I think it mostly gets taught in the steads rather than sending the new initiates off to Wilmskirk for "Common Magic School."
>Actually, I would say that the combat god devotee who has sunk 100 HP
>into various combat abilities should outstrip the CM user who has
>sunk 100 HP into combat abilities. (abilities = mundane skills +
>magic). A devotee with 10W2 in Humakt's Deat Magic will probably
>beat someone with almost no magic and 10W2 in sword and shield, but
>one would certainly hope that this is the case, since it took far
>more HP for the devotee to achieve that level.
But if they are a CM concentrater with Avoid Death 10W2, it won't be so easy. I agree with your analysis -- CM should be generalist, "a bit of this and a bit of that" rather than a patchwork expert in a field. What makes CM useful is that it can fill in the gaps and you can pick it up as you go along, rather than being locked into the path of a god, spirit, saint, or whatever. Good points about advantages to theism, even if I snipped them.
Peter Larsen
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