> I think making any ability unable to be used as an ability (only as a
> stretch or an augment) is unnecessary clutter and unnecessarily limiting.
I wouldn't agree that abilities that are designed to be used as "stretch and broad use only" (i.e. they're so broad that someone in the group of characters has a more specific ability) are limiting. For example a sagacious character in one of my games has an ability "Know everything." This was made deliberately vague and broad so that the character has a chance of influencing the narrative whenever knowledge is key without needing to clutter the character sheet with loads of other abilities. I can't recall it ever being used in Hero Wars without an improvisation penalty (although it was mostly used as an augment) and these days it's that ability that cranks up other people's abilities by 6, including resistances.
Generally I find that most characters have a couple of broad brush abilities (which are occasionally keywords as well) which tend to get used with a bonus to the opposition or as augments. They're mostly skills based (i.e. what the character can do) rather than what the character is (although you could use "know everything" and "sagacious" in similar spheres with a bit of fancy narrative footwork) but they're still useful in conflicts.
[Incidentally, a good strategy for a bunch of characters is to make sure that you give complementary broad and specific abilities to different characters in the same group. It gives you a nice foil to bounce to grab +6 to specific ability bonuses and relevant augments as well.]
Cheers,
Ash
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