> The Cult of Yanafal Tarnils (barest bones, sans even the marrow!) in
> G:CotHW Carmanian Charcter's previous experience said that Yanafal was
> like Humakt save that he was resurrectable but has one-use of sever
> spirit. Seeing that the Lunar Empire can whip any army of Humakti
> warriors, yes it does appear that ressurectable Humakti are obscenely
> unbalanced ;). Seriously, what I was arguing was that the resurrectable
> Humakti could still get the re-usable sever spirit but that he will have
> to give up Something Else (like no healing of wounds whatsoever or
> something like that). Or the Humakti could become illuminated and I
> haven't heard about people complaining that Illumination is Obscenely
> Unbalanced.
Before I go into a diatribe about party balance, I should probably point out that I don't play RQ3, but I have played RQ2 for 15 years and I don't believe the principles of party balance have changed much. Having said that:
Both being Illuminated and/or being a member of Yanafal Tarnils have a built-in disadvantage: lots of people don't like you. If you're playing in a campaign where the entire party is of a Lunar bent and is based in peaceful Lunar territory, then this is not really a problem; but for some reason, parties full of Red Goddess worshippers adventuring in the Lunar interior just don't seem to get a lot of action. So this means that the average Yanafal Tarnils adventurer is either (A) adventuring with other Lunars in "frontier" areas where most of the locals hates his guts, or (B) adventuring in a party of non-Lunars, who probably hate his guts. A Humakti adventurer, on the other hand, is hated only by people who belong to cults who hate pretty much everyone. If you are an Illuminated adventurer in a party of non-Illuminates, then every day is a struggle to keep your secret safe. An Illuminated adventurer cannot use their Illumination to excess without compromising themselves. If the entire party is Illuminated, on the other hand, there isn't a balance problem because everyone can join a dozen cults and be gross (I wouldn't want to run such a party, but at least it would be balanced).
Humakt has always been, in my experience, far and away the most popular cult for players. I can't recall a campaign I have ever run or played in that did not have a Humakti character at some point. I can't speak for RQ3, but it seems to me that, if anything, limiting the use of Shield to specific cults and fixing Truesword have only increased the Humakt cult's role as the most powerful combat cult for non-Trolls. As such, it draws players who are predisposed towards game-dominating behaviour (note that I am not saying that people who chose to play Humaktis are always this way, but that people who are this way tend to chose Humakt; an important distinction). If all your players are role-playing maestros without a power-hungry bone their bodies, then I congratulate you (and pity you...); but if not, then allowing Humakti resurrection is a mistake. It is not fair to make your Stormbull, Orlanth, Yelmalio, etc. players into second-class citizens. If you were to implement this and immediately start a brand-new campaign, I wonder how many of your players would chose to play Humaktis?
P.S. I don't have the Wyrm's Footnotes in front of me, but I am 99.9% sure that the gate to the Hero Plane in the Rubble is in fact near the Old Flintnail Fort on Blind King's Hill, not the Old Pavis Temple in Real City. In my campaign, this gate is in fact in the bowels of Blind King's Castle.
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