My suggestion--one that I thought that someone had already said--is that the shaman gets five fetishes with an average might of 17 for free at character creation (as on p. 213). There is an implication that the tribesman starts with one-use fetishes, but I would allow the shaman to start with 1/day fetishes. The shaman can add fetishes and integrated spirits in his write-up or list of ten things (as can the tribesman).
Next House Rule: I allow tribesmen to substitute an integrated spirit ability for two starting fetishes regardless of whether each tribesman has Spirit Combat. I think that this might even be allowable under the rules because Grazer Herders are noted on p. 108 as being unable to integrate spirits, implying that Grazer Warriors and above may be able to even though they don't have Spirit Combat. I infer that the shamans integrate spirits for the warriors. Until this is official, I limit non-shamans to one integrated spirit ability.
Next House Rule: I allow tribesmen and shamans to mix up the frequency ratings of their fetishes, provided that they don't have any more 3/day fetishes than 1/day fetishes than one-use fetishes (though shamans don't need to take one-use fetishes in my games as I noted above). For example, a tribesman that gets five fetishes to start can take 2 one-use, 2 1/day, and 1 3/day fetishes and a shaman can take 3 1/day and 2 3/day fetishes. I think that this helps alleviate the power imbalance that might exist between theists and animists.
>>p.209 does say that 1-use fetishes can't be improved. However, it
>>does imply that permanent fetishes can be improved.
The way I read p. 209, integrated spirit abilities can be improved, but other fetish ratings can't. The third paragraph under Spirits From Inside The Tradition seems to be clearly aimed only at integrated (complete victory) spirit abilities, not normally embodied (lesser degrees of victory) fetish spirit abilities.
>>Shamans will be catching more powerful ones during play (providing
>>the Narrator is willing to play out shaman encounters, which since
>>they're essentially a single player's bookkeeping are kind of
>>boring).
>
>True, true... we bored everyone else just this way once in RQ :) Of
>course, in some animistic societies, all the tribesmen travel to the
>spirit world... which would be far from boring if the narrator decides
>to spice it up :)
Unless it is a major part of the game session, I run abbreviated excursions to the spirit world whenever the shaman wants to (within reason, though the player hasn't pushed enough to cause any problems yet). This seems to be once per session so far. I run the attempt to cross over as an extended contest, because I've noticed that simple contest is much less advantageous for a starting shaman (10w2 vs. 10w3). I have no problem doing this because I allow the theists to undertake journeys to the God Plane without the shaman. If you want to allow shamans and theists to adventure together, I suggest a style of play where the characters can wander off on their own (rather than the always-together groups of the olden dungeon explorations days, or something similar). I'm working on having enough background information in my game that the players can interact without me for short periods while I attend to side trips such as spirit capturing. (Hopefully none of my players on this list will be too rude in pointing out that I don't have that amount of background information yet.)
>>As for the limited selection, a tribesman's 5 fetish slots can at
>>least change between adventures.
I agree.
Thanks,
Andy
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