There is a class of secrets that start "Instantly use [an affinity]..." Bevara, Ernalda the Healer and Vinga have these. If it just lets you use the named affinity, what is the point of your rating in the secret? Perhaps these descriptions should begin "Works as an instant use of..." meaning you roll against the secret, but it functions as the affinity?
Orlanth Adventurous and Lokarnos have essentially the same secret:
"Automatically succeed at a single final action..." This is harder to
interpret. Again, do you roll against the secret's rating? Kinda useless
in that case, since the sort of hero that has just learned the secret at
12 will already have plenty of better abilities he could use in this
situation. But if not, there's no incentive to increase the secret's
rating. Also, does it just mean that you automatically succeed in
_getting_ a final action, without having to roll your Toughness or
whatever? Or does it also mean an auto-success on the final action
itself? If the later, how good a success is it? Just a normal success has
no chance of putting you back in the fight. Compare this with Yanafal
Tarnils' secret - now that's a real 'bounce back from the jaws of defat'
kind of guy! 'Course in YT's case I think it's obvious he has to roll,
and getting the practice to increase this ability is sorta dangerous
(paying the double cost for increase might actually be worthwile here).
One way of tweaking OA and Lokarnos is to say that a successful ability
test against the secret will mean you perform a final action with an
ability of your choice, and it's regarded as a critical roll. What a
critical on the secret roll would mean I'm less sure of. A bump down for
the opposition?
A completely different way of acheiving more or less the same goal - i.e.
representing the hero getting his 'second wind' - is to say that once per
contest, when knocked to 0 AP or below, the hero can recover a number of
AP equal to his rating in the secret. Still a bit puny, perhaps - a
shaman should be able to find a spirit that does the same thing without
too much trouble. Hmmm, what if those with the secret could do it as
often as they like? Nah, too powerful. As often as they like and can make
an ability test (critical = 2xAP)? Hmmm, masters of this secret would
still be insanely powerful. Then again, masters of Yanafal's secret are
impossible to kill...
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