Yes, this is precisely the case. The augments Make a huge difference and O is restricted in what he can do and the time he can do it in. Also, due to the nature of ritual preparation and community support, against a truly heavily prepared hero, O can have problems because he lacks this support in most cases, though not all.
>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.
Exactly, or have a trickster hero steal his sword or armour which would severely weaken him. One of the players in the Gwandor saga (session 35 to be played tommorrow) is Sigmund the Hedkoranthi. He has a huge skill with his super-thunderstone - Little Weigthy, but if that stone were lost to him, he would be weaker that many characters he would normally blow away. Anyone fighting him should try to remove this weapon if possible.
>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) -
Exactly. The hero band is kind of like a ombined arms force, combined arms forces opponents to move into the kill zone of differing weapons. This is the effectiveness of the hero band - it has a plethora of skills and abilities.
>but if he wasn't such a loner, he'd make an ideal heroes warband member.
Yes, and he has been part of said group and will be again no doubt. He just doesn't stay long, he's too disruptive and too odd.
> 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.
I would, but with a penalty. I also think if you had Dex, Strength, Tall, you should use all of them as all of them are related to physical combat. But thats in my Glorantha.
> 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.
Yes, I believe this is the case. Most Humakti would not like O very much, but I've said this from the start.
> 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.
He's Death. He heroforms Humakt.
>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 have? There has been bugger all published on the Lunar Empire and Jar-eels place in it. A few snippets in GCotHW and side mentions in Lords of Terror and Dorastor and er... If you mean works in progress and fan stuff, then yes there is more but even here there is really very little on her. Certainly nothing to explain her rise to Superhero status other than the fact that she was bred to be a hero - but where did her skills come from? Greg has hinted to me that a large part of her status is due to support and items she uses but the bedrock of her skill must be from living life and HQing. The other option is that she is infact heroforming Natha. This is something I considered early on and was going to run past Greg.
>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.
Agreed. This is what I'm trying to explore with O, because I've played in a campaign with 3 Humakti swords, all were as different from each other as I am from the people I work with. Same job, very different people. This is something I profoundly believe in as being very, very important to think about.
> 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.
Hmm, disagree, but then lets look at the abilities you mentioned about Jar-eel and see my view of heroics to find out why I find the extreme more interesting.
>a warrior,
This is good, fighting and killing, but O does that all the time.
>a seductress,
So? Next you'll be asking me to go and watch "The End of the Affair" and other notorious chick flicks! How is this even remotely interesting? It doesn't get anyone killed really violently now does it? Come on David, get real man! Where are your priorities?
>a musician,
I suppose she could belt someone with her harp or join Oasis and beat up her fans. Frankly a musical hero is about as interesting as elevator music to me.
>a poet,
Her poetry is probably related to Seduction and Music - I refer you to the above dismissals of such a specious argument! Now, if her poetry was something like this:
Kill, kill, kill
Blood, Blood, Blood
Kill, kill, kill
Blood, Blood, Blood
Kill, kill, kill
Then the girl might show promise. But I suspect not.
>a religious leader,
Religion is dull, lots of guys in robes and praying and stuff. Sheesh, reminds me of being back in school and having to go to chapel. Aaargh!
>a friend.
Kryten: "You're a rich man if you have three friends" Rimmer: "Only poor people say that!"
You see the problem? To you Jar-eel is more interesting because she is diverse and has cool social skills. To me she's dull because most heroes are like that, I like the extreme, arbitrary dudes like Harrek best of all, or selfish bastards like Ethilrist or nutcase demons like Death on a Horse.
Its a matter of taste as to what is interesting.
Martin Laurie
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #428
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