The problem with that is that affinities are then not worthwhile. They cost THREE times as much to increase as a simple ability. Allowing multiple augments is what players BUY for the vastly higher cost.
Is someone using 8 augments a problem? I don't think so. What matters is not the absolute rating of a character, but the rating of the character relative to their foes. If your Humakt Sword can power up to W6, so can your Tarnils opponent.
The rule that an augmentation requires an unrelated action is important. An extended contest should last about 7 rounds. Each round that a player spends augmenting is a 'free' attack for the opposition. The decision whether to make even one augment can be a difficult one. Only very rarely have I ever attempted 3 augments, and I usually don't bother doing any. A player attempting 8 attack augments (as in the example) is likely to run out of APs before they get to do an attack.
As Roderick has pointed out, the difficulty is if you allow 'free' augments before the action begins. I agree with him that this should be limited. IIRC, in our games the Narrators usually allow one or two free augments when there is surprise; we've never had a hard and fast rule, but I don't recall anyone abusing the situation to power up a long list of augments.
Let us return to the example character:
> Hu Devotee.
> Sword Affinity 10w3
> Death Affinity 5w2
> Close Combat 7w3
The concern is that this character is a power gaming monster. How was
it generated? Imagine the character started at the (medium power)
5W/1W/17/13 level, and then improve during play. The player spent the
following HPs:
Sword Affinity: (70-25)x3 = 135 HP Death Affinity: (45-21)x3 = 72 HP Close Combat: (67-21) = 46 HP TOTAL 253 HP
Note that the player has throttled back spending on Close Combat, to improve the affinities. The player COULD have chosen to spend all their points on Close Combat, in which case the character could have a rating of (25+253=278)= 18W13! So why are we worried about a pathetic W6 rating? ;-)
The character is, in fact, a model of restrained role playing, for someone who has had 253 HPs to spend on character improvement. Sure, its powerful, but 253 HPs is a vast number. That character SHOULD be powerful!
I think it is safe to say that the character did not start at the medium power level. My guess is that the character started with all their affinities at some high level roughly the same as their Close Combat (perhaps 5W2/1W2/...). I think that is the mistake here; the character generation did not take into account the much higher cost of affinities, so the character's affinities started too high.
For consistency with the character improvements rules, powerful characters should not, generally, excel in all their affinities. Their affinities should lag further behind their other abilities. The character generation rules for powerful characters should reflect this, and Narrators should bear it in mind when generating NPCs.
Now, it could be argued that, from a Gloranthan point of view, powerful characters SHOULD excel in their affinities. If so, the character improvement rules do not reflect Gloranthan reality. But that's a whole different different kettle of ball games.
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