> Yes, these are disadvantages, but they are small. Much smaller than
> the effective change from 13 to 1W.
>
> > 1) He has an easily removable (well, removable...) Magic Sword
ability
>
> Not true. Abilities are abilities are abilities. Hero Wars is not
> Champions: there are no rules for the item being an Obvious
> Accessible Focus. And introducing an OAF rule means opening a can of
> worms (including evil simulationism).
That's a funny narrative you've got there, when a sword suddenly isn't a sword any more, it's an ability... There ARE OAF rules, they're called Cementing... Magic Swords aren't Followers (well, they CAN be, but even then they're unique, and irreplaceable), you don't get another one if you lose this one.
> > 2) It only works on one weapon/style
>
> Not a disadvantage at all. But if you insist, imagine the item was a
> Torq of Authority instead of a Magic Sword, and the roles are
> reversed. No styles for Clan relationship, so the issue becomes
> irrelevant.
There are if you write it into the item description ("Badger clan Leadership 5W"). And if you DON'T, tough luck for being a poorer GM than the player...
> > 3) he cannot learn new styles at this level (and you MIGHT say he
> > can't improve the new ability either)
>
> Its not that difficult for a clever player to justify increasing the
> ability rating of an item. See the recently posted descriptions of
> game world justifications for how an Item of Great Power might still
> have a rating of 12, for examples.
He cannot justify it if the GM says "It cannot be raised".
> > 4) He can't easily improvise from it
>
> No need to improvise WITHIN combat. As I've mentioned elsewhere, a
> clever player can improvise use of an ability in a surprisingly wide
> array of situations.
Good, that's what he's supposed to do. But it is still a disadvantage WITHIN combat, which is where it's meant to be used (you could also stipulate "works only in mortal combat").
> > 5) Being magical, he can't augment magic with it (OK, so it
doesn't
> > count as his sole mundane augment either)
>
> Well, augmentation isn't all that worthwhile anyway. Some Narrators
> allow augmentation of magic with magic (I do). But imagine it was a
> Well-crafted Foreign Sword instead of a Magic Sword.
'Well-crafted Foreign Sword' wouldn't be much of an ability, really. He could use it to augment his Wealth I guess, but that's another thread...
Wulf
Powered by hypermail