> Can I just check how this is supposed to work? You wager one of your
> abilities against one of your opponent's, right? If you win, you get
> their entire ability, to keep, and can use it just as they did. If you
> lose, you lose your entire ability.
Almost -
Re-read page 203 - Heroquest challenge.
I'm only covering the *basic* cases below - yes, an initiate might have a stand-alone feat to wager, and if you are Arkatting the quest all bets are off, or your Myth has several challenges in it, but for the most part...
You start by following a particular myth - "How Zorak Zoran stole Fire from that wimpy Yelamlio". Before the quest starts, you declare your "wager ability" - what are you putting up to get the power in the myth?
Once you get to the proper point in the quest, you declare the wager, and your opponent declares his. You also spend 2 HP (considering the potential winnings, it's a deal). Then you have a contest using the two wagered abilities. The book says "extended contest", but you can roll whatever kind you want, really. And the book states that this is a one-on-one contest - your supporters and followers have no part in it (unless you specifically asked for Community support for the HQChallenge).
The actual ability rating the winner will get is the *lower* of the two ratings wagered - so if I wager a 10w3 ability, and you wager a 10w, the actual new rating (whoever wins) will be 10w. If I win, I get a new ability at 10w and you lose your ability totally. If *you* win, I lose 30 points worth of my ability (drops me to 20w) and you get 10w in your new ability. Considering that you've got to use the abilities wagered in the challenge, I'll probably win, with a 2-mastery advantage...
> Does "ability" include magical abilities, such as feats? Affinities,
> even?
"...anything on his character sheet with its own rating" - you can't use an ability with a default value of 6, and initiates can't wager feats (a devotee could, but an intiate doesn't *normally* have feats with their own ratings). But yes, you can wager abilities, relationships, magic, virtues, equipment (if it has a rating), etc. With the rule that the hero doesn't get to use followers in the contest, I'd suggest that you can only wager *your own* abilities, you can't wager your follower's ability (even though it has a rating on the character sheet...!
> So an experienced HQer could have Feats from all sorts of other (enemy)
> cults, to use just as effectively as they could have done?
Yep. *Assuming* the god he follows has myths to support it - Orlanth does (the four weapons, frex), but not everyone does.
And the new ability might be a Spell or a Spirit (or dragon magic, or chaos magic, or...) rather than Feats, and the hero can use them as if they were always a part of his belief structure (ie, it's not "misapplied worship" and doesn't break his concentration to have magical abilities from another magic system)
> And when can you do this - at fixed points in a HQ? Can you sort of add
> in a HQ challenge to an existing station in a HQ? It says I simply
> fight the monster here, but actually I wager my "run fast" against
> his "fiery breath" as the outcome?
It occurs at the point determined by the myth. So you do it only when the myth says "And Zorak Zoran faced Yelmalio and stole his Fire" or whatever. You don't get to make every part of a HQ into a HQ Challenge. Most quests with HQ challenges only have one challenge.
RR
C'est par mon ordre et pour le bien de l'Etat que le porteur du pr�sent a
fait ce qu'il a fait.
- Richelieu
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