If one wanted to be an ueber-stickler, one might argue that in such cases "stand-alone feats" ought to act like 'restricted affinities', to wit, would still take the -5 imp-mod, _under all circumstances_. However that grates badly as a game mechanic, so let me sidle slightly to the left of that observation so as to not be too closely associated with it. A somewhat cleaner variant would be to have the feat start at some rating < the standard 13, but I'm not sure how aesthetic that is, either.
> If I either put them in her 100 words, or "buy" them with a HP in
> play, she can learn stand-alone feats from any other sub-cult of
> Vinga, or of Orlanth (and possibly of other cults too, but that's a
> tangent).
I think the intention of the rule wasn't to make this a 'free' choice, but rather to hedge its bets about what a character might be allowed/able to do. For example, in some social or magical situations, it might not make sense for the character to have access to the 'whole' affinity. Rather than an opportunity to 'cherry pick' which of the two is the more 'optimal' from a games-mechanical PoV. This clearly makes sense where the worshipped entity is very minor, or is worshipped in a highly restrictive way, such that an affinity wouldn't make sense.
Aside from the numbers not quite tallying, I think the Gloranthan Exploration Logic of what's going on here is that learning specific new feats is really a lot like what one does when one becomes a devotee
Cheers,
Alex.
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