Re: Animism Rules

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_...>
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 12:53:23 -0000

Conversley, of course, the theist can't pick up a new feat, make it into a single use fetish and give one(or more) uses to every member of the party/heroband...

But yes, there should be a way of allowing more powerful shamen to take more powerful spirits without requiring that every attempt be played out in full.

A couple of thoughts
1) As with followers make Spirits start at a value related to the Shamen's highest score (If a "starting character" gets spirits of 12 and has a "best score" of 25 that suggests a -13...)

Of course this means that those non-shamen from traditions where ordinary members can capture spirits may be "over-powered" in that concentrating all your HP on "Close Combat" (or any other non-magical skill) will allow you to take ever more powerful spirits

so 2)Base the spirits score of the Characters "Tradition Knowledge" (similar to Wulf's suggestion) or best "Shamanic" Skill (You can justify this... Someone with a good "Spirit Combat" will be able to capture bigger spirts, someone with a good Spirit Travel will be able to seach further for them, and someone with a good "Shamanic Escape" can afford to take more risks)

3) As with Augmentation and AP loans, let the Shaman choose the power of the spirit and then roll (simple test) against the resistance to capture it. This is fine if it works, of course, but becomes trickier if it fails - this is (supposed to be) an "out of game" acquisition, so do you "charge" the HP before rolling? Do you penalise failure? Without at least one of these checks, what's to stop the Shaman picking a really high (but acievable) resistance because sooner or later the dice will favour them...

4) Allow the Shaman to spend additional HP when aquiring OoP Spirits to increase the power so if (and this is without reference to the rules, so please forgive me if the numbers are wrong) a "Spirit 12" costs 2HP to acquire unrealted to game play then 3HP will get you a Spirit 2W, 4HP a Spirit 12W and 5Hp a Spirit 2W2, (or if that's to high, 3hp = Spirit 17, 4hp = Spirit 2W etc - adjust to fit your preference for spirit strength and HP availability...) - Obviously in play the strength of the spirit is immaterial to the cost - the higher risk involved in dealing with the more powerful spirits has already been gamed out.

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