I considered changing vanilla affinities for flavor and to shake up balancing, but ultimately didn’t to keep things simple. The reason for this was that I assumed:
- Even with changes, 80% of players probably wouldn’t care to look up or keep track of new bonuses, especially when I’d have to put them in the guide because vanilla has no easy way to view them. Accessibility is an issue without wizardry.
- The 20% that would care probably already have vanilla affinity bonuses memorized anyway, so this makes their calculations that much easier.
Affinity/support bonuses were a niche mechanic in GBAFE, and I’m fine with them mostly being a little bonus to improve combat. A bonus that’s nice, but probably won’t drastically move the needle too much. I’m pretty wary of over-tuning, feature bloat, and unnecessary complexity or deviation from vanilla, and that philosophy has probably guided my outlook on affinities.
That said, if my hack strayed far from vanilla numbers or had a way to make looking at bonuses more accessible, I’d be much more likely to change up vanilla bonuses and affinities. Since your project is in Lex Talionis, that may well be the case.