Re: Differing Approaches to Augmentation in Simple and Extended Contests

From: Gavain Sweetman <gavain.sweetman_at_...>
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:05:32 +0000 (GMT)

> Contradictory Rules
>
> Here are the rules from page 79 of the Heroquest rulebook:
>
> "You can augment with any number of mundane or magical abilities, if
> they are appropriate and the narrator agrees. You may only use a
> particular ability to augment another once during a single round. Thus,
> you cannot use Strong twice to augment Sword Fighting, and magical
> abilities often have limitations on stacking. The narrator may decide
> that it takes a certain amount of time to apply multiple augments, even
> with mundane abilities."
>
> And 3 paragraphs later the book contradicts itself:
>
> "Some abilities are inherent characteristics, such as Strong, Clever or
> Large. It usually takes no time to augment with them, so even
> augmenting with multiple abilities does not take an unrelated action in
> an extended contest. Thus, during each round of combat a giant
> automatically gets +6 each for its Large 18w2 and Strong 18w2, and
> another +3 for its Tough 10w."

I don't see any contradiction between these paragraphs.

The first says that you can't use the same ability twice simultaneously. eg you want your hero to jump over a small wall and attack a defender. You decide that the important fact is to make it over the wall and so choose Jump as you lead ability. You Can then augment with Strong (useful for jumping) and you combat skills. What you can't do is to augment your combat with Strong as well.

What the second paragraph says is that some skills need no effort to use. ie your Strong is automatically on, however your Hate Guards skill will need an action to activate, ie it takes some time to "work up your hatred".

There is no conflict. Inherent characteristics are "always on" and used all the time.

I have common abilities already listed with their auto augments. eg combat abilities, including weapons, armour, and inherent characteristics, the only thing that my players have to add is any magic.

Hope this helps.
Gavain