Re: Shameful confusion about Fetish/Spirit Ally rules

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:53:41 -0000

• In HeroQuest-rules_at_yahoogroups.com, "Mike Holmes" <homeydont_at_h...> wrote: >>
  > > > So, it appears that someone with say, 9W2 Lance Combat and a
  > > > spirit ally knowing Lance
  > > > of Flame 12W gets to be Flaming Lance Combat 1W4 _all_the_time_.
  > >
  > >Which does sound like quite a lot. But then those are very high
  numbers,
  > >and both combat-related.......
  >
  > I have characters with higher level abiliities in my game. Given
  the ranges
  > stated for spirits, these are not outrageous, really, in terms of
  what's
  > said to exist. That said, I agree with Jane that if you think it's
  too
  > powerful, that you can limit it by simply making the available
  spirit's
  > abilities lower. Players may find this artificial, but...
  >
  Notice that the abilities ranges given for the standard practice spirits are pretty modest.

Another limitation is to follow the informal rule, hinted at in the example, that for special spirits, one out of three abilities will be....challenging. That is one of the powers of the spirit ally in many cases will be a personality trait, and it will be AT LEAST as high as the other abilities. It is always augmenting you, and you have a friendship with this thing, so you are going to have to cope with its attitudes. So the more powerful an ally you obtain, the more troublesome it may be to have it as an ally. Which is great from a story perspective, but does make powerful allies not an unalloyed joy.

Finally, although spirits may be able to get more juice out of limited ratings compared to other kinds of magic, that low rating is still all that is there when they need an applicable magical defense.

--Bryan