Affinities and Resistance Skills...

Here's something I've thought was wrong for quite a while... the affinity and resistance skills. Problem is they're so inherent in our system now that reworking them would be a MAJOR project (well I think so, for all I know Chaos goes 'hold on' tappety tappety tap 'Done!').

Here's what I think is wrong from a purely philosophical standpoint. Aligning yourself with any major power means that you gain affinity with that power (fair enough). So Gav doesn't suffer from holy or ordered attacks and can actually benefit from them if his skills are high enough. However. There's a price. He's wide open to attacks from Unholy and Chaos, moreso than someone who hadn't aligned with Holy or Order powers. He can offset that by buying Chaos Resistance to help /offset/ his order affinity and holy fortitude to offset his holy purity (holy affinity).

Now gamewise that means that I tend to fight unholy and chaotic beings more than I fight holy or ordered. Fighting those guys would actually give me some benefit. The main reason to buy these up is to benefit from artifacts, but I'm really not sure it's worth it, especially with being so open to attacks from my enemies, even with some resistance skills bought up. In fact Gav's got his holy fortitude a lot higher than his holy purity to try and have some benefit when he's fighting the unholy powers. He has no access to chaos resistance and tends to get the lowest of his orifices violated when he goes up against chaotic powers.

Now if you've read the chronicles of amber, remember when Corwin comes across the Black Road (a Chaos Construct) as he's fleeing from his currently enraged brother Benedict. You don't want Benedict mad at you. EVER. Even for an amberite he's pretty damned powerful, best warrior ever and the reason the Courts lost the Patternfall War. So when he's pissed at you. Run. In desperation Corwin decides to cut through the Black Road. Not having much effect he summons the Pattern to mind (effectively this would in game mechanics, give a boost to his Order Affinity), it's with this power that he manages to cut his way through the road. Temporarily losing his pissed off brother.

I'd like to see the Affinities and Resistances merged. It makes sense if you fill your body with Holy Spirit that spirit reinforces you against the effects of the Unholy. And vice-versa. Same goes for Order Affinity, it aligns you with the forces of Order and protects you against the forces of Chaos. It'd also mean that two opposite-aligned characters or NPCs meeting on the field of battle actually have a half-decent chance of being able to be roughly of equal strength. Also in a game where skills are so many and spec points are so few, freeing up some will stuff to allow you either a) to focus your strength on that power alone or b) Throw some will stuff elsewhere would be much appreciated.

Addendum: After talking with Twilight and Beasty some more, it's helped me refine my argument. So... let's look at it this way. FireBoy has fire affinity. To a high level. He's attacked by a bucket of water. Under the current system, with no water resistance, he's be staggered by the bucket of water. Now if his fire affinity is 240 and the bucket of water attack is water affinity 60 attack, under the new system, he'd just laugh it off as it's turned to steam. No problem against the bucket of water. Let's say he runs into WaterGirl. WaterGirl tries a few bucket of water attacks to no affect. FireBoy launches his fireball attacks, also to no effect under the new system. But WaterGirl is much higher level and Bucket of Water attack is her lowest power. She now launches LAKEOFDOOM area attack, her most powerful spell. LAKEOFDOOM is a strength 300 attack. Now because this power is 60 higher than his affinity, he doesn't actually take 60 damage. His pool of resistance from his affinity is overloaded and he takes a double-effect, not the full 300 doubled, but the 60 doubled, so he takes a 120 attack strength LAKEOFDOOM. Who's laughing now FireBoy?

My two cents.