All Eyes On Me

Question: What was your reasoning for rearranging the Knack progression the way you did? My players were a bit confused at why a Knack like Inescapable Vision comes before Serpent's Gaze, when Serpent's Gaze seems to be less powerful and is a first tier Knack in the Hero book.

In every case, our reasons for rearranging knack progression are twofold: first and most importantly, we want to make sure that the most impressively powerful knacks are at the end of their trees, representing super-amazing awesome powers that require some working toward, rather than having everything be available at the first or second level. Second (and only slightly less important) is our attempt to make sure that knacks follow in a logical progression - that knacks that make sense with other knacks are placed together. We don't always get perfect matches due to having to make sure the powerful knacks are at the end of the progression, but we get as close as we possibly can.

In your specific example, the tree that goes from Lasting Impression to Compelling Presence is all about the stun and awe of your appearance, whether it's impressing someone so much that they are affected viscerally or literally making them unable to see anything else. As for power level, I'd have to disagree with you - Serpent's Gaze and its end-of-the-line badass party trick component, Compelling Presence, are much more powerful than Inescapable Vision.

Don't get me wrong - Inescapable Vision is hella cool. Nothing quite says "fear me, ye mortals" like being everywhere they look, all the time, haunting them for eternity. It's also a handy tool for preventing others from recognizing someone via mundane means, which is a lot of fun, especially at Hero level. But mechanically, it really isn't all that; not only do Legendary beings automatically shrug it off after a day, but the -4 dice penalty, while pretty crippling at early Hero and Demigod levels, is a lot less of a problem later on when people are rolling four or five times that many dice (or a lot more, if they have things like Arete or Animal Aspect). It remains super cool as a knack, and I absolutely love seeing it used because the psychological ramifications alone are always a barrel of fun, but it loses its power punch as a Scion progresses in Legend.

Serpent's Gaze and Compelling Presence, on the other hand, never get less powerful, and the reason is this: because when you have frozen someone with those knacks, they are out of the game until you release them, period. They can't move. They can't talk. They can't use boons or knacks. They can't do anything but stare at you, because you're just that goddamn impressive. It completely neutralizes them from doing anything to affect the scene unless you let them; they're out of negotiations, have no prayer of taking any action (mental or physical), and, in the case of Compelling Presence, they won't even remember what was happening. Possibly most importantly, they also can't dodge, and believe you me, being able to drop a guy down to zero DV while your bandmates all aim and muster up the most badass of their attacks can very easily one-shot beings that don't have a ton of soak and/or health levels (or Skin-Shedding or Solipsistic Well-Being). Serpent's Gaze and Compelling Presence are some of the most powerful knacks in the game, because they can instantly and completely remove from the situation any enemy that fails to resist, not to mention opening them up to be grievously wounded or killed.

So it was a no-brainer for us to move Serpent's Gaze and Compelling Presence to the end of a tree, because that's where they really belonged; they're too powerful to be level one and two knacks, and since they fit in line with the theme of Lasting Impression and Inescapable Vision, both of which are very cool and useful but not at the same level of power, it seemed like a great place to put them. I know of some STs who don't play SG and CP so stringently - they allow talking or even use of powers while they're up - so if your ST is one of those, they may need to rearrange the knack progression a bit to accommodate that. But for us, those knacks are awesome game-changers, so they need to be something that a Scion achieves, not something that they can easily pick up for a measly five XP.