Re: Follower abilities

From: ian_hammond_cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 14:33:34 -0000

As one of the instigators of this house rule, let me clarify. The major problem we were trying to resolve is that a player character can concentrate on buying one skill, without suffering the deleterious effects of being over-specialized by rounding out the character sheet with followers. The player only has to spend their points on the one ability, because the followers are based off the best ability, and provide the missing skills. The –8/-12 penalty is of little concern to the player because their primary ability has gone ballistic and the followers skills are as good as any other player characters. In addition, followers tend to use keywords, so they have a good package of skills at that level. The problem became untenable when these followers became better at their jobs than other player characters. I want the players to be the stars of the game, not a player's followers.  

At the point, I considered two `fixes'.

1. You must have the skills your follower possesses and the follower is –8/-12 to your skills. The idea here is a sort of masterapprentice relationship. I rather liked this but it seemed too hard to retrofit.

2:Forbid followers from being the actor in an extended contest. They can lend APs, but nothing else. They are AP batteries. The idea here was that followers are faceless minions, they never have a starring role, they are replaceable and without character. This means they can still help you in a contest, but you have to rely on your skills. If your warrior has a juror as his follower, that juror cannot do all the debating at the moot. The player character must do so, ably assisted of course by his follower whispering in his ear (providing AP). In a simple contest, followers can augment you but not be the actor. We bend this occasionally when a follower has a skill (like healing) that no player has, it is required, and the idea that the follower would do nothing is just too ridiculous.

In addition, if a supporting character has an identity, and you want them to be able to be the actor in a contest, take them as ally, not a follower. This allowed the conversion of some much-loved supporting characters to a more appropriate role. As such you have to roll for them appearing if you want them, and they may call on you with the same frequency. Allies are also, to my mind, subject to greater narrator fiat than followers. I can simply say X is busy, if I think their presence will unbalance the game, or that their attendance is just unlikely. I would like to drop the +/- 2 deviation for allies as well and fix them at an appropriate ability level (in future the skills they had when introduced to the game, but for existing allies at freeze point), but compensate by allowing players to spend HP on raising ally abilities. I have not broached this one with the goup yet, but I don't want to simply replace the follower problem with an ally problem.

We would rationalize the supporting characters on the BA sheets as an ally to get them to fit our model.

It is a fudge and as always, YMMV.

Ian Cooper