> > Now, I'll bet that you can find five that are close
> > on the list, or make up
> > five that do count.
I could argue that sharpen sword is only going to work if you've got time, etc. But this misses my point. Even if you can cobble together this list, it doesn't happen in play as far as I've seen (I think that the utility of common magic makes them attractive in terms of spreading out one's ability, not at attractive to stack them). And even if it did, it still wouldn't mean that players would find the devotee option unattractive. I'm not even going to say that a fully stacked up Initiate isn't more powerful than a devotee - I'll give you that it's possibly true. All I'm saying is that I think that any such advantage is marginal to the point that it won't stop anyone from selecting the opposing option.
I mean, you're telling me that your PCs have done all of this analysis, discovered that they can get a total in certain circumstances that's a few points higher, and that these same players who balk at the difference between 47% and 49% are making their decisions on what's a better character to play based on a difference that's less than this? They're shaving the percentages that close in making their decisions? Character concept means that little to them that any tiny advantage becomes something that completely takes over their decisionmaking process?
Well, then I don't think that you're ever going to find a game that's "balanced" for these players. No game is perfectly balanced. And HQ doesn't even try. I mean, compare Theists, Animists, and Wizards to each other, and tell me that they can't be min-maxed against each other.
Again, my point is that HQ drives character generation based on player concepts, and does that better, perhaps, than any other game I've seen. If the players in question aren't picking up on that, and they are picking up on these marginal advantages as the only source of decision-making, then you'll never find a game with any level of complexity at all that they won't min-max.
What I'm guessing is that, in fact, the players like the concept of
Initiates, too, and just haven't chosen to be devotees (and, perhaps, are justifiying their decision with such analysis). In any case, again, where players have the idea that it might be cool to be a devotee, it happens.There's nothing so unbalancing about them that they become unattractive from a power perspective.
Mike
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