Well, really my take on the matter was "that's a problem?" Sorry, Nick, but your clever summaries of the text have little to do with what Peter or I actually said.
I can see a case for restricting the number of feats a player can use to "power up" before a combat (3 feats or so). Using more feats than that is special, and should (to my taste) require a ritual or ceremony of some kind. If that counts as "handwaving" in your estimation, then so be it.
I see nothing wrong with a clever character augmenting with everything under the sun. Okay, Master Death-on-a-Stick has a 20w6 Close combat. So my Lunar Mindblasts him. Or my Ernaldan drops him through the earth and chokes the life out of him. Or my Helerite knocks him to the ground with Call Hail and then drowns him with Call Flooding Rain. Or my Solar type hits him with a Sunspear equivalent, or my Odaylan shoots him with his Bear bow. or... Any one-trick pony can be defeated by another one-trick pony using the same tricks (tres boring, as you have stated several times), *or* by someone using something he wasn't prepared for. For my taste, it's more fun to defeat an opponent with something he wasn't expecting than to stand toe-to-toe with him and fight his battle. (Yes, I've been on the reciving end of that as well).
Do you want to play Odysseus, or Achilles?
> Me, I'll just say: "You can't augment twice off the same affinity."
>
> Difference in taste, I suppose. But which approach is easier to explain to
> new players of the system?
Explain, then, the difference between Initiate and Devotee as far as magic goes.
Maybe I'm prejudiced, but it seems to me that all the authors of the system intended that a Devotee could use an affinity multiple times for the same action.
RR
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