Re: Initiates using feats.

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 18:04:21 +0100

On Mon, Aug 09, 2004 at 10:31:50AM +0100, ASHLEY MUNDAY wrote:
> I can think of a reason: It makes Initiates Devotees -
> 5 in all respects, with the additional advantages of
> only half the commitment and being able to use
> non-cult magic. Maybe Devotees are the sort of thing
> characters do for "worldly realism" and I'm just a
> dirty, slutty powergamer, but removing the one thing
> devotees get (unless I've misread the rules again)
> reduces their appeal somewhat.

Well, the alternatives would be on the face of it, the situation Jane complains of in the first instance, or the suggestion you make elsewhere. To wit that one could buy stand-alone feats as well as/in stead of one's own affinities, essentially independent of them. Of these, my suggestion seems to me the most satisfactory in terms of verisimilitude, and game-mechanics.

I'll grant you there's an issue about adequately distinguishing devotees and initiates, but that arises in any case. If initiates can not bother with affinities, and simply raise their stand-alone feats, that's about as big a 'hole' as being able to raise feats within an affinity, for all practical purposes. This'd be easier to 'fix' if it was clearer how the two were supposed to differ in Glorantha: I must admit to discerning little in the way of pattern in which 'major' NPCs are devotees, and which 'just' initiates.

Cheers,
Alex.