>At 10:52 PM 6/21/01 +0800, you wrote:
>>>Given that a typical order could conceivably have ten (almost
>>>complete) grimoires and twice as many single spells in addition
>>>to the basic syllabus (numbers are based on the subjects taught
>>>at Sog City), presuming that they must restrict themselves to the
>>>order's grimoires and then complaining about it is rather
>>>counterproductive.
Just noticed - this does seem to be you saying that I was complaining about it - au contraire, its desirable. I have no desire to restrict sorcery, and I am cheered to discover it may be a bit better of than I thought. Restricting themselves HELPs the sorcerer, by letting them concentrate (ineffectively) on a few abilities, rather than be all over the place.
My point was that I don't expect sorcerers, in practice, to be able to do that much wider a variety of things, as I don't see gaining more and more Grimoires as a particularly effective tactic. Its possible they might, but if they do it only means they will do that wide variety of things increasingly poorly, which only underlines the problem.
Sorcerers being able to do lots of stuff is not a game balance problem. Sorcerers doing their stuff so poorly that all the others pick on them (except the mystics, of course) is.
> > Game mechanically, its just not very useful, as such
>>abilities will be at a starting level and not raise much.
>
>Which makes sense to me.
So these abilities are the sort that we wish to encourage (make character slightly more interesting and fun to play), rather than discourage (by making them prohibitively expensive)?
> > And its just not a big deal. In a game when you can just give
>>yourself any ability you can name (without even working out what it
>>does),
>
>Once again, how does a devotee get more than three affinities?
By convincing the narrator, same way as anyone gets anything. My, TR and ST seem to have done a good job in turning HW, atleast in the way we think about it, from a freewheeling conceptual game to a rigid prescriptive one.
TR and ST talk about normal Heortling practice. Your PCs are free to be much cooler than that, just by you allowing them to be so. Sure, to come up with more than 3 affinities you need to explain why your PC is special.
But in any case, once again, its a misguided argument. Sure, lots of grimoires gives them lots of options - but if I can give myself any ability by just convincing the narrator I have it, I already have quite a few options.
> >>Because a sorcerer has a large number of grimoires and single
>>>spells to learn from whereas a devotee only has three
>>>affinities?
>
>> Thats not a response that logically follows, its just two
>>unrelated facts about it.
>
>Then how would _you_ balance the advantages of sorcery against
>its disadvantages if you don't believe that grimoires should
>be more expensive to learn than affinities?
Again, you miss the point - a large number of Grimoires and single spells is NOT an advantage we need to balance. Its just a neat thing about sorcery, which makes them fun to play but is in no way unbalancing.
What we do need to balance is that, as the rules stand, those Grimoires and spells are at a lower value, so when he tries to use them the sorcerer never wins.
> > Remember, you can almost always defend against a magic attack
>>with your primary magic abilities. So a sorcerer with a whole bunch
>>if grimoires can attack you any number of ways - but they will always
>>fail, because their abilities will almost always be lower.
>
>But there is far more to sorcery than just being able to attack
>people with spells.
Yes. But the only real reason, in game, to make ability levels lower, by increasing cost, is to make it harder to beat people in contests. (the universe gets to set its own target numbers, so is not really the determining factor).
> >>So if they are not that big a deal, then what penalty do you
>>>think the spells should have instead?
>
> > As for what penalties they should have - oh, stuff like
> >requiring talismans, being difficult to learn in a hurry,
>>being taught by authoritarian orders, needing rigid emotional
>>control - stuff like that.
>
>Given that animists (fetishes, difficult to learn in a hurry)
>and theists (authoritarian orders, restrictions on behaviour)
>also suffer most of these penalties, they aren't real differences
>that could be imposed on sorcerers to balance them out.
Thats kind of the point - sorcerers do not have vast advantages (indeed, fairly mild ones), and so need no vast disadvantages to balance them.
Cheers David
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