Being a long-term Glorantha fan, I played HeroWars for a year or so when it first came out, but basically gave up due to the rather arbitrary, "make it all up as you go along" feel of the rules. I haven't played the HQ rules yet, but am considering picking them up again as they feel a bit more concrete and "objective", if that's the right word.
I have a question relating to affinities and feats which I'm sure has cropped up before, though I can't find it in the archives. Basically, some of the listed feats seem to be no better than using the core affinity. As far as I can see, for example, the Swordhelp feat is going to be used primarily as an augment. What is the difference between the augment you get from Swordhelp, and the augment you get from using the core Combat affinity? As far as I can see, there isn't one.
So if you're an initiate, you use augments from the Combat affinity. If you're a devotee, you can augment from either the Combat affinity or the Swordhelp feat. Either way, there is no qualitative advantage you get in this from the fact that you are a devotee - in this instance, using the Swordhelp feat to augment makes you no better than an initiate using the Combat affinity to augment.
Rather than assume this is how the game is, I have two questions which might help clarify the difference.
i.) I understand that there are instances when the devotee might
want to use Swordhelp as an active ability. In this case, someone
resisting the active Swordhelp feat would take a penalty to their
(mundane) Combat ability, or would have to resist with some equally
active feat, such as Armour of Woad. If neither applied, they would
have to resist with the default 14. This gives the active use of
the feat some teeth, but it still leaves you with the augment use
being basically nothing special.
ii.) I wonder if it's possible for a devotee to augment with BOTH
the affinity and the feat? So if the devotee has Combat 5W, they
get +3 for the Combat augment and +3 for the Swordhelp feat. Is
this allowed, or does this sort of contravene the p120 rule that you
can only augment with one feat per ability?
What does everyone think?
Cheers,
Sarah
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