Why Nerf the Fetch?

[Zozotroll]

Fetches used to not have a limit on how much POW they could have.  Now they do.   I never had a problem with a player having a hugely powerful fetch, They never really got that big.  Big it was useful to have very powerful NPC Shamans.  Why the sharp drop in power? 

[David Scott]

42 minutes ago, Zozotroll said:

Fetches used to not have a limit on how much POW they could have.  Now they do.   I never had a problem with a player having a hugely powerful fetch, They never really got that big.  Big it was useful to have very powerful NPC Shamans.  Why the sharp drop in power? 

RQ2 Fetches were randomly rolled and had a range of 2-36, fetches had to make a POW gain roll to increase. RQ3 is the same as RQG, the minimum is 1 POW but a fetch can grow as large as the shaman has POW to give it. There's only a limit imposed at creation time based on POW sacrificed and a spirit dance roll. For an NPC shaman, pick the POW you want (or maybe roll on the summon ancestor table). From play (my own and others) shaman have kept their POW to about 20, so that the POW gain roll is easier and the extra pow is passed on to the fetch. My RQ3 troll shaman had a POW of 20 and I got my fetch from an intial started of 7 to 35.

I don't actually think that the RQ2 rolled max of 36 is that high. I was always disappointed that Blueface in Griffin Mountain's fetch was only POW 18. In RQ3 Griffin Island his fetch was 250! much more reasonable.

[soltakss]

On 9/16/2018 at 4:09 PM, Zozotroll said:

Fetches used to not have a limit on how much POW they could have.  Now they do.   I never had a problem with a player having a hugely powerful fetch, They never really got that big.  Big it was useful to have very powerful NPC Shamans.  Why the sharp drop in power? 

Because some people like to nerf powerful characters.

Only Rune Lords can exceed 100%, Rune Priests are restricted to DEXx3, only certain professions are available to certain backgrounds. All nerfed in the past, all discounted by me, as a GM.

Edited September 22, 2018 by soltakss

[MJ Sadique]

I think that the objective is to  create more powerfull shaman not only with high characteristics but with more complexity...

I personally follow this way of doing things when building my heroes class NPC. re-Creating a blueface level shaman with more than just the "I've got hundreds more MPS than you so I'm certainly more powerful than you"... The "Nerf" is a way to force people think more about how you can get stronger

I found that Shamanic Abilities are a superb way to do this :
-With Power within 5, you can sacrifice 5HP and gain 5D6MP (up to 30MP for 5HP per round), you can face a shaman who have a more powerful fetch ( about 10POW) and still beat it !!!
-With Spirit pacts, you have to sacrifice 10POW to gain an allied spirit acting as a reservoir of 100MP 😱... nerfed ? who said nerfed ?

 

A Shaman have to be a bit clever and not only count on the power of his fetch only... Nerfing the "raw" POW and adding Shamanic Abilities is a very elegant way to do this.😎

[Zozotroll]

7 hours ago, soltakss said:

because some people like to nerf powerful characters.

Only Rune Lords can exceed 100%, Rune Priests are restricted to DEXx3, only certain professoins are available to certain backgrounds. All nerfed in the past, all discounted by me, as a GM.

I am a past expert at ignoring that which I dont like.  I as wondering if there might have been a good reason for it besides "we don want no stinkin powerful shamans"    This is the start of the hero wars, I what my players to have the chance to be heros.  

[PhilHibbs]

19 hours ago, Zozotroll said:

Fetches used to not have a limit on how much POW they could have.  Now they do. 

Citation please? I can't find the limit.

[Zozotroll]

I have to look through the shaman bit, but they are limited by CHA

[PhilHibbs]

11 minutes ago, Zozotroll said:

I have to look through the shaman bit, but they are limited by CHA

Ah yes, of course. Although there are no mechanics presented for increasing CHA, I believe there is no limit specified. So all we need is a mechanism for increase, perhaps along with a limit or some other form of diminishing returns, and it's all good.

[Zozotroll]

I am sure I read a hard limit somewhere, but now I cant remember it.  It annoyed me so much I went back to some of the old supplements to see if I was having a senior moment, but no, lots of very powerful shamans.  while I am happy to have the PDF early, I really prefer dead elf, I just cant find stuff as well in PDF.  If I find it again I will put it here, or somebody else will post it I hope

[David Scott]

I could find no trace of a limit on POW, I even checked the early drafts. No limit in RQ3 either. 

Edited September 17, 2018 by David Scott

[PhilHibbs]

The CHA "limit", if there is one, isn't such a major problem IMO. You can expand your spirit spell repertoire with the Expanded Presence shamanic ability, and the total POW of spirits you can hold in your fetch is limited by the fetch's POW, not CHA. The number is limited by CHA, so as a fetch gets bigger, you just hold the same number of increasingly larger spirits.

I would suggest an additional shamanic ability that adds 1D6 CHA for the purposes of the number of spirits that can be held. It might be annoying to have three different CHA stats to keep track of: the base, the Expanded Presence bonus, and the new "Expanded Dominance"? bonus.

[David Scott]

@PhilHibbs You're right, there are clearly a number of Shamanic Abilities not listed in the Core rules, that will become available when shamanic cultures are detailed more.

Edited September 17, 2018 by David Scott

[Zozotroll]

Cool, so I just have to be patient

[PhilHibbs]

17 minutes ago, Zozotroll said:

Cool, so I just have to be patient

Or use the regular training rules for increasing a fetch's CHA, and live with only having up to 21 spirits.

[Zozotroll]

I am not worried so much about the players having all that.  More a concern that I need to rerig the stats for numerous NPCs they may run into.  I try to anticipate player questions as much as possible, and our likely shaman is definitely going to want to know how he can get that powerful.  Of course we probably wont play that long, but that is OK as long as they understand the path to get there they will be happy.

 

Thanks all.