I'd just like to make one very important observation about high level Hero Wars that probably has implications for this.
At high power, Augmentations become very important. A high powered augment can get quite powerful, and make a big difference. This means that when it comes to big direct confrontations in HW, having high powered friends around to augment you makes a big different. A Wx3 augment is easily adding +10 or so, half a level of mastery, a big advantage. So at high levels of power, having a few mates to back you up makes a difference. Onslaught (who certainly seems like the sort who has no mates) has to work that bit harder.
Also, at high power changing the abilities used to your advantage becomes more and more the best tactic. Sometimes, you get little choice, but I can bet the practical response to Onslaught in many high powered games it going to be to talk him in circles, out run him, confuse him, or anything but fight him. Another reason why big heroes have a lot of friends is so that even if they are out manouvered, one of their companions will be able to salvage the situation. Again, Onslaught severely suffers from a lack of mates here, and is unlikely to ever be really able to take on the big names with much success (who do have large warbands of minor heroes) - but if he wasn't such a loner, he'd make an ideal heroes warband member.
NB - in my comments on augments, its probably worth noting that while I like using Augments a lot, this is definately an area in which I would be fairly conservative in which abilities I allow as valid augments (at least, not without huge appropriateness penalties). I wouldn't, for example, allow you to simply augment your close combat with your 'strong' all the time.
More on Onslaught as a hero
Martin
>>But this isn't a free (will) lunch, it has an otherworldly cost:
>>you're lashing yourself to the mast of the roles you adopted in those
>>quests, to a greater or lesser extent.
>
>Here I disagree. Greg has shown that you can actually do "other" things on
>your HQ. You can, at each station, do something different. You do not have
>to tie yourself, action wise and personality wise to the quests you've been
>on. The mundane people do, IMO the hero is the individual who breaks the
>mold.
If you depart significantly from the standard quest role, you tie yourself to that too. Its not that you are losing free will in the modern sense, but you are tieing yourself into a role in that the consequences of going back on the role are very serious.
Look at gifts and geases - gifts and geases, particularly for Humakti, can be thought of as little heroquest powers. You tie yourself close to the Humakt role, you get extra benefits. But in doing so, you do restrict your own actions - not in an absolute sense (you are free to break your geas at any time), but in a practical one (the consequences of breaking your geas are bad). And the more gifts you have, the more you stand to lose.
>The problem here Alex, is that there bugger all mythich precedents for
>Humakti heroes.
Or at least, bugger all exploration of what it means to be Humakti hero. Remember, its quite possible that Onslaught is a perfectly mythically valid Humakti hero, AND that most of the Humakti in the world think he is a dangerous, deranged, and somewhat heretical fool.
I think Jar-Eel appears so much richer as a hero than Onslaught for two reasons. One is that we have known from the earliest we have known about her that she is a person who occupies more than one role, a warrior, a seductress, a musician, a poet, a religious leader, a friend. Onslaught can't even manage to be both a warrior and a friend. The other is that as Glorantha has grown, we have learnt so much about Jar-Eels culture, much of it information that gives us an idea how she fits into it as well. We know a fair bit about what being an Orlanthi hero means, and the huge number of roles open to Lunar heroes to explore (all the parts of the goddess, for a start), while we know less about Humakti and Humakt.
But mostly, its the first reason. Jar-Eel is known to be have many notable capabilities, Onslaught is known only for killing stuff. Of course he seems like a less interesting person. He is.
Eric
>> its not that hard to construct more complex situations, given edges and AP
>> bonuses, and differing bonuses for different abilities, and so on, so that
>> your players will find it a little more difficult to calculate the odds.
>
>only if you keep the actual numbers away from them, which is probably
>how it should be anyway.
You should keep some numbers away from them, but most people are unlikely to be able to calculate the odds given only a few seconds to do so. OK, so they have a higher target number than I do, but less APs and I have an edge - whats my optimum bet, and would changing to using magic (with a different, potentially larger, TN bonus, but no edge) increase or decrease my eventual chance of winning? Difficult.
>Best to describe opponents in visual rather
>than statistical terms.
No arguments there, however. Cheers David ------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #427
Powered by hypermail