Re: Animism Rules from Ian Cooper on 2002-10-15 (HeroQuest-Rules)

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 12:22:57 -0000

Hi Wulf,

> How have you (or has the player) found this to be competitive with
a Theist's bag of magic tricks?<

This is our experience and interpretation:

Advantages:

A shaman gains AP from his fetch as a follower (and access to its abilities), which theists have no equivalent of within their magic keyword

A skill spirit gives both an ability (or augment) and APs; this is better than a feat which gives no APs.

Passion spirits are equivalent to feats for augment, but do not give an ability, so they are not as good as feats, which can balance above but... Those skill spirit APs can really tell, as a contest progesses a shaman can bring in new spirits and get a second wind. We have noted this as a significant advantage (does not apply to talents, true)

An animist can bind a spirit with a higher ability than his spirit combat or bargain (or whatever). Hero points really tell here, especially as we do this as a simple contest usually. For a one-off expenditure you can bump the roll and get a tough spirit or multiple uses. The shaman spends points on Spirit Combat or Bargain which are cheaper than Affinites, but gets access to powerful spirits. I have not sat down and done the math but the point for Spirit Combat, point to bump the binding roll, and point to fix the benefit equal the cost to raise an affinity, and have greater power potentially for higher risk. Seems like a reasonable and interesting in-game choice to me.

Disadvantages:

I see your point about not improvising but in practice we tend to be generous with how skill and passion spirits are used, as we are with feats (in the Sunseat Leap tradition). People tend to have a spirit that is applicable, if a at minus, and if not it just goes to balance some of the advantages above. Shaman tend to suffer, when you do something unusual in your game, where a theist might have a feat they have never used, but had been raised for free, an unprepared shaman might not. Give the shaman time to prepare though. I would not be as generous with sorcerors spells, which are much more fixed IMO (and I have not really studied up on mystics).

Note that for the above reasons, I would be very hesitant to introduce too many 'spirit followers' as this is effectively what a fetish is.

Guy was really hesistant to play a Kolating, but, I think, we are really getting into it now.