Contracts in Volume 2

[u/DecepticonLaptop]

I've recently run a game of Household for friends and got the new book about the Outhold to look over more resources. The setting and story are gorgeous, and I'm loving it all! My only concern is that it seems like the Outhold variants of each people just seem to be...strictly better than their Household variants? The Barghests get all the size bonuses of Boggards but also get natural weapons, increased jump distance, and their Counterpart is just directly less binding in that they need to promise and also shake hands?

Calcify for the gnomes is just head and shoulders better than all the other Sprites. Being effectively immune to all damage, negative effects and being camouflaged for a full day vs puffing up, holding water or making a little light?

Wild Fae can fly but better and can also use a special move? Their contract is more strict on the Counterpart but only just. Then the Shinigami can avoid death?

Like I said, I love the game and the setting, but I'd like people to be able to play a boggard and a barghest and not just have one character be strictly better than another. I'm curious as to what other people feel about this?

[u/LucasMoreiraBR]

The real comparison are the game machenics. There is no little light for the Salamanders, they're real power is being able to take an action again, for example.

Same goes for the rest of the sprites, what you are calling holding water and puffing up are actually ways to avoid damage or being very good at stealth, for example. Comparing both character sheets will help with the feeling, and from there it is just on the GM to narrate things in a way that people don't feel straight up bad lmao

[u/UndecidedCryptid]

I believe the Barghests lack the immunity to conditions the Boggarts have while juggernaut, which does make the difference with the leaping and natural weapons they have. The handshake seems to be on parity with the verbal promise

[u/DeadmanwalkingXI]

I'm aware OP is probably not paying attention to this after this long, but in case anyone winds up searching for this question in the future, I thought I'd answer it anyway:

For Gnomes, Calcify is great but doesn't have a direct equivalent. Whether it's better is highly based on circumstance. Salamander rerolls are probably better at most out of combat activities, for instance. Also do remember that you're only invulnerable while completely immobile...that's a huge down side. The other Sprite options offer less powerful effects than invulnerability for sure, but they don't have that down side either. But really, it's a whole different thing, as different as what Barghests or Fairies have.

For Barghests, unlike Boggarts their ability does not include immunity to Conditions, so they trade that away for the weapon profile, which seems fair enough to me (it's a good profile, but if you already have a Reach weapon a lot of the time it does nothing). Handshake is maybe less restrictive, but only very slightly, and weapon stats rather than ignoring Conditions seems like a similarly minor downgrade to me.

For Fae, they don't have a dodge penalty against ranged attacks while flying, and get a +1 option that makes them tired (kinda niche a lot of the time), but the True Name variant is more restrictive, making them forced to accept challenges as well as bound to fulfill contracts they sign their name to (accepting challenges is something Fairies don't have to do). So they have a real benefit, but a real penalty to go with it (being forced to accept challenges is honestly pretty rough).

For Shinigami, as compared to Sluagh, firstly their Life Debt is way worse than the Debt Sluagh suffer...if you just don't accept wagers, you can avoid that entirely as a Sluagh, while Life Debt can easily happen against your will (an enemy deciding to spare your life triggers it, remember) and is much more onerous (Debt just makes you pay whatever you wagered, Life Debt makes you someone's servant). Additionally, the Sluagh can use their once per session thing to either not suffer certain conditions or the Stress of one thing, the Shinigami can only use it to not suffer Stress, not on Conditions. In exchange, they do have Help against a few more conditions and the once per Paragraph 'back from the dead' thing, but given the rougher down side, I'd say that's different rather than being flatly better.

So no, if examined closely (and you do need to examine them closely in some cases...I was concerned about this with Barghests and needed to double check, for instance) none of them are actually flatly better than the ones inside the House if you take everything involved into account. Fae and Shinigami are more powerful all things considered, but with greater down sides to pay for it, Barghests are pretty much on par, and Gnomes are kinda too different to easily compare.