Then you put a lot of hero points in to build up your ability to use it. Personally I'd give a fair number of HPs for completing such a quest in the expectation that they'd be used to increase that base ability. The 13 is what I'd regard as the level a PC gets who just happened to find the item and pays 1 HP to fix it.
>I would certainly that most of the powers in Balastor's Axe are due
>to him and thus give the player a relationship with him at 13 but if
>they work together they get the full powers :-)
>
>I know nothing of the windsword :-( Sounds like it is entirely
>possible that it contains a wind diamon so you could rule the same.
That's the other way of handling it. If something has an innate ability way above the PCs ability levels they have to establish a relationship with it. And if the item is a lot more powerful than the PC the PC will find themselves under pressure to do what the item wants. You want to negotiate with a troll and Balastor's Axe wants to kill it then you either follow it's prompting or damage your relationship with the Axe. That's in addition to the penalty on negotiating with a troll while you've got the axe.
Basically this is a play balance mechanism for the game to avoid a starting PC walking into a bar and picking up Harrak's cloak. If by some miracle Harrak doesn't just kill your PC, it's absurd for the PC to be able to use the cloak as well as Harrek.
Powerful magic items in Glorantha aren't just goodies to be collected. They're plot lines.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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