Hi all; let it never (again) be said that I'm to blame for _all_ the 150 post threads on this list...
I think the oddest statement in this thread has been that Wesley's example character represented "power gaming". Isn't it a longadvertised _virtue_ of HW(/Q) that it's scaleable, that it allows you to play Capital-H Heroes? Let's not be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
> Here is the situation:
>
> Hu Devotee.
> Sword Affinity 10w3
> Death Affinity 5w2
> Close Combat 7w3
>
> Given time to prepare the Humakti can raise his close combat to
> 18w6!!!
First of all the really bad news: you're just at the bottom of the _really_ steep part of the augmentation curve. At 20W3 the net benefit per augment is +15 -- eight of those will really change your day; or end it. (To say nothing of your entire God Plane, if you take the numbers remotely seriously in "simulationist" terms.) Incidentally I posted an analysis of this yonks ago: see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hw-rules/files/augments.txt
for the gruesome details.
> Now, we can't decide if this is a true depiction of how deadly a hero
> that has time to prepare can be - or if this represents a broken system.
> For the time being we are assuming the former.
How much "preparation time" are you taking a quadruple augment (or indeed an octuple one) to correspond to? It would be more than a little odd if such "preparation" were entirely out of line with the rules _specifically_ designed to represent time and other resources being expended to enhance your chances of success, to wit the rules for ritual magic.
Aside from "world modelling", the reason this is bad form is that it's damn awkward in what RR might call "Yes, but..." style of GMing. If the difference between "yes" and "no" is a +15 (per go, with an essentially open-ended number of goes), and the reason for the yes or no seems marginal or arbitrary (sorry, no more from that affinity; that's "too similar" to one of the ones you've already used) it starts to be annoying for the players, and an interruption of suspension of disbelief. (That combat might have turned out entirely differently, if only... well, not at all sure if only what...) Yes, the "but..." could be a jolly stiff penalty to the aug. attempt, but it would have to be _huge_ to actually make much of a difference in the above case.
An ideal mechanical solution, IMO, would be an augmentation mechanic that gives 'diminishing returns' rather than 'escalating returns'. That would be a pretty major thing to do, though, and I don't have a rule I'm 100% happy with even for my own purposes, so never mind...
Cheers,
Alex.
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