[DL] Gifts and Sinnin' (John)

[BAuri65055@aol.com]

I recently discovered the section in Fire and Brimstone about blessed losing 
their miracles if they sin, even if they make their spirit rolls. Thankfully 
this should help control the blessed in my game that seems to overshadow the 
rest of the posse, you see hes a Vet and has a hankerin' for the demon drink, 
worst of all he got conscience so he knows its wrong, but just cant help 
himself.

My question is are gifts effected the same way? If he say drinks to get drunk 
(a minro sin) does he lose his gifts for an hour also? I ask because this 
characters real power comes not from his miracles, but rather from his Gifts 
(guardian angel,hardy, lion-hearted and refuge-o'-faith). Cutting out his 
miracles will stunt him, but not really hurt him in the long run. In fact it 
will probably not even be noticable.

I ask this mostly since Blessed seem, in my opinion, a little over balanced. 
There are no real drawbacks to being blessed other than the sinnin' thing and 
thats usually pretty easy to get by, especially if the non-blessed 
individuals do all the "dirty" work. I've ran through a few non-miracle 
blessed in my head and they seem to be far too powerful for the points they 
spent. 8 character points at creation makes you nearly unstoppable and if 
gifts arent affected by sinnin', your powers never fade. Consider a starting 
character with a d12 in Spirit. 3 points for arcane background:blessed. 5 for 
faith level 5. 5 gifts - Guardian angel,hardy,lion-hearted,refuge o' faith,& 
spiritual giant. For 5 points this character has gotten improved versions of 
a ton of edges for a fraction of the cost! (Brave 2pts, Brawny 3pts, 
thick-skinned 3 pts, dodge level 5 -with a d12 no less, and a -2 to all 
ranged attacks directed at him). 

Personally I think gifts are going to be without a doubt nullified after a 
sin, I mean getting 13 points of edges and aptitudes and a -2 to be hit is 
pretty cheap at 8 points not to mention all those gifts are actually BETTER 
than the edges in every case. Add in the fact that they can take the edges on 
top of the gifts and you can end up with a huge blessed monster that cant be 
stopped by anything. I mean size 8 and can ignore 3 levels of wounds is a 
beast to fear. Add in that he can have a +4 to all guts checks and even those 
he DOES fail are less severe. And then again thats assuming you can even hit 
him (-2 to all ranged attacks and a 5d12 dodge/fightin'). Sure its a lot of 
points at the start, but if you take Vet of the West and/or down play a few 
skills you can do it pretty easy.

I was just curious what your house rules were and what the "official" ruling 
was on whether or not saying gifts are nullified by sins.