I don't mind quibble or criticisms at all. As a matter of fact, while I was happy with the positive feedback the book received/receives, I was hoping to see some feedback about what people thought didn't work or was omitted. There were a good many things we wanted to add, but we were given a finite amount of pages to work with unfortunately. We wanted to bump up to about a 50% larger book, but were told no.
So, to reply to some things...
It should at least have been considered that one might take the position that gods do not have sources of power, they are sources of power. The "gods draw power from their worshipers" trope has frankly been overused, in gaming especially, to the point it has become cliched.
There a few areas that we didn't cover specifically because they were so simple. Meaning if the god is the source of power there is no need to describe a process or system for how the power is gathered. While this would have been a fairly brief bit to include, the above mentioned space restraints were the issue. We pushed the content as far as they could get away with. I was almost tempted to ask for less artwork so we could include more.
The suggested information for defining religions in chapter 4 is focused on trivia. It isn't useless, but it is incomplete.
The dilemma we had with much of the book was where to balance general guidelines with specifics. Below someone mentioned not liking the terminology we used (Saints, etc) because they feel it implies a biased to one form of faith. So what to do? It was the equivalent of using a masculine default. Anyhow... we decided to remain fairly generic since this was Rolemaster and, at the time, there was no true official setting and because everyone's Rolemaster is a little different than the next group or GM's.
The attempt to handle grace and corruption was about as good as one could hope for, but I think any capable GM is going to be better off winging it.
This system was really intended for those who couldn't or didn't want to have to create their own system, but we felt it was important to include so that Channeling users have the potential for accountability in their behavior if the GM so chooses. Some GM's also prefer to have an 'official' method so they can tell their players "That's the rule!" Of course, experienced GM's just tell their players to put a sock in it.
The Warlock lists has some possible balance issues. One that leaps out is on Transformations, the 1st level spell offers +5 DB. You can also get +10 DB, at 15th level. This seems a huge leap in level given the difference in the bonus.
This is on par with other similar spells in power level. Consider many lists give a +5 DB spell at 3rd level, but against all attacks made against the caster. The Warlock's 1st level spell is only applicable to attacks the caster is aware of, which is a serious factor in effectiveness. Also consider that the "Shield" spells, often at 3rd level for even Semi's, are five times more powerful than the Warlock's.
That said, the Warlock was not one the professions I wrote (co-author did that one) so I can't comment a whole lot on it. I suspect much of it was pulled from the RM2 version of the profession but with some adjustment for power level (a lot of RM2 stuff needs toning down for RMSS).
My final comments are on the "spheres of influence" concept. Spheres of influence are interpretations of gods; their definition is in specific myths.
I actually disagree that a "sphere of influence" implies a deity is involved. There is no reason a Ranger cannot be drawing it's power from the actual forest (or whatever) itself. This is actually discussed in the book, stating that in such a situation the player character may have more freedom in behavior, but is far less likely to receive any 'sentient' divine help.
I suppose it's whatever works for your game. I like the idea that some of the message is open to interpretation.
This was the intention with some things in the book. RM users tend to be more advanced gamers and, therefore, tend to have more unique ways in which Channeling works in their own little world.
...the language and flavour tends heavily to monotheism, or frankly Christianity, which doesn't suit me so much. It's full of saints, grace, temptation and redemption, ministers and missionaries etc etc. All of these evoke Christianity rather than the more sword and sorcery world I'm looking for.
A few comments (not discounting your opinion, just explaining where we were coming from)...
1. We had to use something and making up new names for everything, or stealing them from other game systems, seemed silly.
2. The primary users of RM, and largest concentration of RM fans are North America and the UK, thus weighted in the favor of Christianity.
3. My Co-Author is Morman. I'm a godless heathen... ok, maybe not that drastic, but (no offense to anyone) I do not have a high opinion of organized religion.
4. There was some influence from "The Primal Order" table top game (one of the first products of a fledgling WotC).
5. We put in a section that give basic definitions of the various 'titles' were so that you could create your own.
The think the thing I miss most in Channeling Companion is ways to dealing with avatars.
Oh trust me, we wanted to go here, but this is one of the things nixed by space restraints.
The rules about divine status and intervention is perhaps not flawed, but they do seem rather boring with them only providing more and more bonuses.
The main intention here was to give Channeling users a benefit for the potential restrictions they face due to being Channeling users. This is another piece that was really included for GM's that didn't want to (or couldn't) create their own system for rewarding/punishing behavior.
I also think that Channeling Companion is one of the best Companion books. One improvement I'd like to see in a revised version is to have a set of Templates not only for the (Pure) Priest profession but also for the Semi Channeling user. The Templates offer a multitude of different types of Priests to be played, and, in a similar fashion, I'd like to have a multitude of Semi Channeling user types. Of course I am aware that this is quite a difficult task...
This was what the "Priest" system was originally proposed as to ICE at the time (1997-1998). We wanted to create a system that worked with all the possible templates (Pure, Hybrid, Semi and Arms). ICE tried to get us to make one single pure caster template and set of six base lists for a "Priest" profession. We pushed back saying that would defeat the entire purpose of the concept (for the Priest). The first reason we came up with the Priest system was because the Cleric was too generic to portray a vast variety of possible gods. Even then the editors at the time (this was before Tim was part of ICE) tried to get us to go with a simple new sole profession and we simply refused to do it. So, they settled on having the Pure Priest template, a bunch of list you can choose from to build it with, and put the other three templates (Hybrid, Semi, Arms) in the back of the book as 'optional'.
Really, the idea was for there to be no template at all. Instead you'd take an existing profession template that most closely matched your concept and swap out base lists from similar caster types (Pure, Hybrid, Semi). You would also modify profession bonuses, everyman/occupational/restricted skills. We saw no reason to create more templates as there were plenty already to simulate anything you wanted to do fairly well already. For example, if you wanted to create an Anti-Paladin there's no reason not to use the existing Paladin template and just modify the spell lists. When you're talking about spell casters it's largely the spell lists that differentiate them in the end.
Thanks all for the positive comments, but I have to say it's finally nice (in a way) to see some well spoken feedback about the parts people think could be better. Heh, especially when it backs up what we wanted to do in the first place but weren't allowed to.
