At 2:17 PM +0100 18/6/01, Alex Ferguson scribbled:
>ian_hammond_cooper:
>> So in a combat situation you will have to work hard to remove the
>> swordhelp advantage. The flavor of the game changes. This applies to
>> other affinities that are used to augment or provide an edge rather
>> than provide a skill - the incentive is to buy up one feat.
>
>Frankly, if one is min-maxing, I can't see why anyone would bother
>buying up _any_ ability that you'll be using solely as an augment.
>Bear in mind that the "rate of return" is 1 per 5... Really the
>main attraction of such feats is that one can increase them "for free"
>while raising some "Combat" (ugh) affinity for some _other_ purpose...
Seconded. Augments are both an extremely poor return on investment, and a cumbersome rules mechanic. If you are going to fix something on a HW second edition, fix augments.
My suggested fix is (largely based on one suggested by some clever chap suggested many moons ago) subtract the Augment resistance from the ability, then roll a simple test. Personally, I would make the consequences of failure merely failure rather than a minus - but if you leave the consequences of failure as an equivalent penalty, you have kept the game balance much the same, and just sped up play a lot. I think augments could stand to be made more useful as well as quicker.
But to reiterate - 'broad' abilities that are used mostly as augments are very far from being a game balance problem, trying to increase your ability by augmenting is very inefficient.
Cheers David
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