RE: Re: Magical Augments - A little extreme?

From: Terry Harvey-Chadwick <terryhc_at_...>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 20:59:17 +0100

The way I tend to use affinities and feats is that I will allow the use of an affinity to augment a skill, be it with an edge or bonus to the target number (eg. Combat: bonus, Death: edge). However, I like to use feats as special moves within a combat. Since the game designer has taken such pains to come up with all these lovely feat names, it seems a real shame, in a game like Hero Wars, to reduce the Deep Cut feat to a ^5 edge when it could be used to cut an opponents arm off, thus causing a much more dramatic effect.

I tend to have the effects of damage appear on player heroes' opponents straight away, for dramatic effect, and use the Hero Wars recommendations for describing what happens to the players themselves, ie. they only get the full effects if they are beaten (-ve AP's). This works well within my games, and also allows for much more dramatic fights. I don't like preparing a feat to take an unrelated action. In combat you don't have time for that sort of stuff. Most of what you do is instinctive, and you can do some pretty nifty stuff without even realising it until you've done it. If you've used an affinity to augment yourself already, you already have an open line to your god, so you should be able to use it. By the way, I'm a Dark Ages re-enactor, and a 13 year veteran of massed battles and duels (competitive combat, not scripted) so I tend to use my own instincts and experiences of battle when I run these things in Hero Wars. My players like it, and it fits within the Hero Wars framework.

This means that initiates get a general improvement to their skills through augments, but the devotees get to do some really nifty stuff, due to their closer relationship to their god. If an initiate was to try to use a feat then, yes, it would take an unrelated action, as he tries to figure out what he wants to do, plus an improvisational modifier, but devotees get to do what they want straight away with, hopefully, devastating results, which is the way it should be.

Terry