Heirlooms

I believe it was officially limited to Armor, Weapon, Shield, Animal.

That is an interesting question……but it would take a seperate Heirloom Talent to get an Exceptional hammer. IIRC, the Talent from the background only gives Fine quality.

The talent from the book is limited to Armor, weapon and shield, Animal was added on in the bestiary as a sidebar.

I have strong feelings on this particular topic along the “play the same game as everybody else” front (that I may have harped upon in the past)

I dont think we had any official ruling on that other than those points, we did have a long discussion about just allowing anything.. but I dont really agree with that.

I have used an Heirloom to gain both a Wand and a Chariot in the past. The wand on the grounds that it is a weapon. The Chariot on the grounds that it is both a weapon and a mode of transportation. However the economics of the chariot required that I expend another talent on an heirloom Quality Light War Horse, to team with a light war horse acquired from the Tribune Background. The expenditure of multiple talents for multiple heirlooms was allowed in the draft Erratta that was published prior to Origins. But I believe has been dropped.

However, I have dropped the Chariot from my Blessed Lands PC on grounds of fairness unrelated to the permissibility of the choice in regards to the heirloom talent. The reason was that the Chariot was unbalancing. Either I had the use of a chariot at the table which gave me a huge advantage in mounted combat. OR, as was the case in 80% of non-BI encounters, and 100% of the BI, the size Huge wheeled nature of the chariot was not usable at all which essentially meant that I was shorting the table effectiveness of two talents.

As for “Playing the same game as everyone else”, I take the more liberal stance of John which is to say if it is in the book, and under the price cap, you can take it. The reason is that with a Hawk, or other equipment just isn’t going to be as useful as a Weapon, Armor, or Shield as often. Even a horse is less useful than the three types as horses are not useable in buildings or dungeons.

So here is the problem with taking a liberal stance.

Person A says, “well this is how I think the rules should work, I hope and encourage the rulemakers to change them”

Person B says “well person A said that the rules should work this way, and I agree so I’m going to use the new rule”

Person C says “well person B did it, so I’m going to do that too”

Person D says “well I can see him doing that, but i cant find that in the rules, I give up on this game the rules are too complicated”

Person E says “well I don’t like this rule over here, since you are ignoring that one, I’m going to ignore this one”

There was confusion. I believe Pedro allowed it via post, but it was never incorporated into an Errata or FAQ document.

I personally think that–campaign wise–we should probably take a more narrow view of the rules. However, I am a strong believer that PCI and the campaign staff should carry around a stack of blank CP’s or Artefact Pages to allow things in specific cases. Things that are grey and cool, but do not quite fall within the letter of the rules.

@John, right but the books are allowed to break/bend the rules because they are the rules.

its been said many times over, but you cant extrapolate new rules based on one off items and how they bend the rules, like your three examples, and the runestaves and permanent rune discussions on the old forums