Actually, I did have her in mind in particular (integrating gods seems like her style) -- but saying so seemed a little too much like outright suggesting it. ;)
> > For this reason, I heartily recommend the various suggestions made
> > by Wulf Corbett, David Dunham and others to increase the HP needed
> > to increase an ability score as that score gets higher; actual
> > cost = base cost + 1 per mastery seems popular.
>
> I did once support this, but unfortunately I'm now much more
> concerned that it takes too long to get a character up to anything
> like 'heroic' level. ... I'm not SURE this is a problem, as I
> rather like the single-mastery challenges, but it is a limitation.
Yes, it is. However, it is the only mechanic I can presently think of that addresses the problem that under current rules, the "proper" (i.e., most efficient) way to powergame is to have a character who has exactly one ability: Do Anything 10w9, and damn the improvisation modifiers, even if they're -150 or worse. I think we ought to do something to discourage that beyond simply saying "Your character is really just Deluded 10w9," or "You just can't."
> The real problem isn't Abilities, it's Affinities. At 3 HP per
> point, they get left behind by cheaper, more useful abilities (low
Yes, and grimoires even moreso, Malkion preserve us. Sorcerers who don't want to be completely outrun by everyone else will only ever improve one of their grimoires, and then once they hit 1w2 in it just invent all the other spells they might ever have wanted into that one book -- which, unfortunately for gameworld background, is the opposite plan from what some of the cultural material posted here suggests.
> your buck), and when you've got 2W2 Close Combat and only 17 Combat
> Affinity, why waste HP dragging the affinity up,when the CC will
> ALWAYS be cheaper? Same applies to other affinity types.
Yeah, that's one of the things I'd like to fix; increasing cost methods do that, if somewhat heavy-handedly. It also makes affinity-like theist secrets (e.g. Vanganth) slightly less useless: if for the same price as increasing one of your three starting affinities from 1w2 to 8w2 you could increase your secret from its measly starting 12 all the way to 10w, maybe it'd actually be worth spending points on it. It also makes the passion-spirit-type secrets more attractive, if it's actually cheaper to raise your secret from 12 to 16 than to raise the three skills you'd most like to apply it to from 1w3 to 2w3. [Footnote: yes, while in current rules the passion spirit secrets seem like a great deal compared to the deservedly-scorned mystic strike secrets, you have the strange effect that it takes one amount of HP to get a +3, but you need four times as much to raise that +3 to +4, if I'm reading it correctly.]
> Maybe if we did have the extra cost for higher level abilities, the
> abilities wouldn't outstrip them so easily, but that would also
> bring the whole process grinding down after one mastery.
That's the only drawback I see. And, as Oliver said, some groups are just "doomed from the start." They'll never learn their cult secrets playing only 10 times a year, unless they're really generous with HP awards.
Ryan Caveney
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