Learning Supernatural Abilities in play

[YR7]

@Erik_Dahl

I wrote all of the sections on Favored Abilities for the various Realms books, as well as the sections in Societates and Hedge Magic Revised Edition.

Thanks a lot for chiming in!

@Erik_Dahl

I had intended Favored Abilities to generally work the same for everyone, but I admit there are differences in the text....

Probably the biggest difference for each realm is how the books say Favored Abilities affect other Supernatural Abilities. I think I spelled it out best in RoP: Infernal. You don’t have to subtract your scores in other Supernatural Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning a Favored Ability, and you don’t have to subtract your scores in Favored Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm.

Interesting, I think this is very DIFFERENT from the other texts. Most indicate clearly that "You don’t have to subtract your scores in other Supernatural Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning a Favored Ability", but I didn't get that "you don’t have to subtract your scores in Favored Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm" except for the Infernal.

HoH:S explicitly says that "The Source Qualities to learn Favored Abilities are still penalized by scores in other Supernatural Abilities, and scores in Favored Abilities penalize the Source Quality to learn other Supernatural Abilities", which seems to contradict the above.

The Faeries text is most vague, as it talks about "the others" and it isn't clear if this refers to other Favored Abilities or all Supernatural Abilities.

@Erik_Dahl

For divine traditions, they got 10 points of virtues (3 Majors and a Minor), for infernal they got 12 points of virtues (4 Majors), and faerie wizards only get 6 (1 Major and 3 Minors). I think that all the hedge wizards and societates got 10 points– at least the ones I wrote.

Oh, nice to know. I didn't notice that.

@Erik_Dahl

I don’t think I ever stated in print if you can belong to multiple traditions from different realms (like a faerie wizard who also belongs to a holy societas), but I think that should be discouraged.

Yeah, I don't remember seeing a note on that, but there is a note saying getting two supernatural abiltiies from two different realms is generally discouraged and all-out forbidden for Infernal & Divine, so I reckon this applies to traditions too.