Shaman, why not give the fetch all pow?

[Diana Probst]

17 hours ago, Kvott said:

I read the Johnstown adventure with an npc Shaman with Pow 19 and fetch 16. A combined power of 35. (Stone and bone 2 Praxian adventure). That shaman can overcome all Runelords resisting his spells easily. Befuddled and Demoralised any runelord should run away. If they know the way. 🙂

 

He didn't get there by power gaming, though.  He got there by kicking things around in the spirit world, and he's respected and feared for his power and the things he can call on.  People know that if Erhehta goes to war he's going to bring a heckton of allies and spirits, and things he's bound, and apprentices, and he'll probably go out of his way to hit you in the spirit at the same time as Sanar tramples your tent in a possessed bison body.

He got there while being an active shaman and not sitting back away from it all.

If you need an in-character reason not to power-game, then 'you will be mocked and your tribe will be shamed' is a good one.  A shaman who keeps his fetch hidden in the spirit world and cowers behind it will cause other tribes to think your tribe is weak.

[g33k]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Under most circumstances, this would be the case. But if the adventurer is, for example, a White Bull loyalist working for Argrath, is he going to stop you from powergaming and abusing the system? That's what he does.

 I doubt that Argrath has any time at all to coddle several years' of this cowardly "hide from real threats and Disrupt rats" strategy that the "All POW to Fetch" method calls for.

If Argrath has you working for him... I think he expects you to be working; and that means going out & about and getting down & dirty and bringing your Adventuring A-game.

Now, after you've successfully gotten to your high-POW-all-round goals... yes, absolutely Argrath wants you on his team!

[Rodney Dangerduck]

As GMs, do you force PCs in other occupations to go out and do things between sessions?  For example, do your Hunters go hunt, Warriors war, Entertainers entertain?

[Jens]

2 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

As GMs, do you force PCs in other occupations to go out and do things between sessions? 

In seasonal play campaigns, yes- that's what PCs are assumed to be doing during the majority of time when they're off screen, and why they earn their professional income and seasonal experience checks.

[Diana Probst]

As a GM, the time I'm forcing the PCs to go out and do things is what I call 'the session'.  Adventures are when there is a break to the natural order of things in which the PCs perform their occupation.  The merchant is in a caravan, or performing rounds of social visits, or selling at a nearby market.  The noble is seeing to her lands, attending courts, practicing weapons and giving small judgements.  Occupation isn't just a starting package - it's what you do.

Edited May 12 by Diana Probst
Typo

[g33k]

22 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

As GMs, do you force PCs in other occupations to go out and do things between sessions?  For example, do your Hunters go hunt, Warriors war, Entertainers entertain?

It depends what you mean by "do things."

If they want to maintain a "standard of living" and various community connections (including Loyalty/ies) then yes:  within the game-world, PCs pursue professions.

But the players don't "do" it:  it isn't played-through or rolled (except for one seasonal "summary" roll) ... it's offscreen time (for all characters); so, no.

If they WANT to cut ties, drop the Passions, etc... then they can explicitly say they are abandoning their profession, their families, their temple, etc.

IME, most players like the freebie seasonal advancement checks!

Edited May 12 by g33k

[Rodney Dangerduck]

4 hours ago, g33k said:

But the players don't "do" it:  it isn't played-through or rolled (except for one seasonal "summary" roll) ... it's offscreen time (for all characters); so, no.

O.K., understood, and very reasonable.  We did that when we first started.  And the Occupation Income table on page 423 covers the basics.  Note that Shaman don't use POW, they use Spirit Combat.

First, if a Warrior or Hunter dropped their POW to 4 to obtain gobs of Rune Magic, would you tell them "sorry, you can't perform your duties, because your Protection or Speedart spells are unlikely to work"?

Second, and most important, even if a Shaman didn't drop their POW, and kept it at something "reasonable" like 12, saying that they are expected to routinely go on the Spirit Plane alone as part of their duties is unfair and dangerous.  Our PC Shaman was wildly overconfident, and, with other GMs, convinced them that he could "easily" go on the Spirit Plane and find and defeat some spirit in order to learn every spell he wanted.  I mean, he has Spirit Block and is over 100% at Spirit Combat, right?  What could go wrong?

Then, when I was GM, we did lots of actual normal-plane spirit combats.  After several crits by relatively middling POW enemy spirits, he realized just how random and dangerous is Spirit Combat.  He got knocked out of battle, but his companions saved him.  If he had been alone on the Spirit Plane, that's probably a permanent character death.  Call it a Thought Experiment - assuming that a Shaman goes routinely on the Spirit Plane is incorrect, as the Spirit Plane is far too dangerous.

 

While I agree with everyone that it is horrible munchkinnery power gaming to drop the Shaman's POW and give almost all to the Fetch, the solution to say "you must routinely go Spirit Plane, where you can't perform your duties" is unfair, and, as proved in the thought experiment, wrong.  The solution is to ignore the unpublished, and, so far as I can tell, untested and unbalanced  "errata"

[French Desperate WindChild]

On 5/11/2024 at 9:19 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

As GMs, do you force PCs in other occupations to go out and do things between sessions?  For example, do your Hunters go hunt, Warriors war, Entertainers entertain?

I don’t consider occupation is for always

in fact I consider that, if a player is able to organize is character life in another way the pc can change the occupation : you are able to obtain an hide and want to work toe soil ? Yes you are no more a warrior but a farmer (of course the mundane powers -skill, knowledge , gear- is still there but you have now another income, other experience between adventures.. etc

You were a shaman and now you are a smith ? Fine but what made you a shaman disappear day after day.

[PhilHibbs]

On 5/12/2024 at 9:28 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

First, if a Warrior or Hunter dropped their POW to 4 to obtain gobs of Rune Magic, would you tell them "sorry, you can't perform your duties, because your Protection or Speedart spells are unlikely to work"?

There's no requirement for a hunter or warrior to have a high POW.

Offtopic, but lets say you do roll 4 for your POW, and you're using a strict as-rolled character creation system. What occupation do you take? Certainly not Apprentice Shaman, Philosopher, or Priest, but all the others are open to you.

[Shiningbrow]

On 5/9/2024 at 2:55 AM, hasevir said:

then one of those moments: ey dm.. ya know.. ill spend a season zapping rats with disrupt ok? Fetch gets pow from 10 to 30 and ill go from 2 to 14.

Not in only one season you're not...

You've just added 23 points of POW... There's a maximum increase of only 2 POW per season, so obviously, that's at least 12 seasons (so, 2 years) - at best. More likely to double that...

A shaman disrupting rats for 4 years... isn't really a shaman.