Question: I personally think a lot of your rules are twinkish, such as your Multi-Tasking and your Sword is Mightier. But my players absolutely love them to death. How to I politely inform them that your material is not allowed when this website is more popular than the Scion forums?
There are few times when "Because I'm the ST and I said so" is the most appropriate response, but this is one of them. As the Storyteller, you have to decide what you're comfortable with in your game; it doesn't really matter what other games are using, what your players may have played with before in other games, or even what you've seen in games you've played in yourself. Whatever your reasoning for not wanting a particular power, pantheon, interpretation or anything else in the game, it's completely within your rights not to include it; you're the one building the gameworld and writing the story for your players to enjoy, so you have every right not to include things that you don't think will enhance it.
Which is not to say you should ignore your players (this almost goes without saying, because you should never ignore players), but it means that you have the final word on what is and is not allowed. Discuss the problem ideas with your players if they bring them up; see what their reasoning for wanting them included is, and see if it's reasonable beyond the point of "I think it would help me do a whole lot of damage with minimal XP expenditure!" Explain, in turn, what bothers you about those powers and why you'd rather not include them. Maybe they'll change your mind and you'll end up keeping them, or maybe they won't, but in either case you'll all know where you stand and they won't feel like it's arbitrary. They're trusting you to run a great game for them to have fun in, after all; as long as they know you have reasons for the things you do, there may be some grumbling but they'll probably have a fine time anyway. All STs have to, at some point, tell their players, "I know it's done X way in the books/this other game/on the forums/our usual house rules, but I'm going to disallow it this time around," and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just setting up a different kind of game.
For the record, you'd be very hard-pressed to twink out with either Multi-Tasking or Mightier Than the Sword; Multi-Tasking is a high-tree knack so that just getting it would cripple low-Legend Scions pretty effectively because they wouldn't have the points to spare on actual powers to use with it, and neither power is very effective until higher Legend anyway (for MT, because the limited number of Epic Attribute dots a Hero can buy prevents it from doing all that much for a while, and for MttS because its Legend cost is prohibitive for Heroes and low-level Demigods).
We have actually been considering ways to nerf Multi-Tasking a bit lately, after John's little simulation combat ran insanely long in only twelve ticks thanks to Aiona, Sowiljr and Vala, but we haven't yet figured out what we're planning to do with it. Mightier than the Sword, on the other hand, isn't a good fallback for the I-just-want-to-buy-Dex minmaxing player, simply because it costs 3 Legend per attack and leaves that character unable to make ranged attacks or do anything else useful Epic Strength would do, so we're just fine on that one. It's intended to allow the small-but-mighty archetypes - thieves, rogues, little girls with scissors - the ability to still be effective once in a while without truly replacing Epic Strength/Perception as combat necessities, and it performs very well in that capacity, so I'm pretty comfortable with its power level. It's doing its job well (and we've never had that many people take it in the first place; the only two are Seamus, who was the epitome of a skulking-in-the-dark character who only wanted to use it for sneak attacks or in dire circumstances, and Sangria, who uses it once in a blue moon when she has to use her dagger instead of just smashing things with her bare hands).
But that's our game, and you have to run yours. If you're truly uncomfortable with any powers from our site (or from the book, or from the Scion forums, or from anywhere else), then don't use them. It's your prerogative as a Storyteller, just like it's also your call to say that you don't want X pantheon open for character creation or you prefer X over Y version of a certain PSP. Tell your players up front what you are and aren't allowing, explain to them your reasoning if they ask, and continue onward. The odds are that if you're polite and reasonable, they will be, too, and if someone throws enough of a fit over not being able to use their Epic Dexterity for damage that they leave the game or raise a huge stink, it's pretty likely that they're the kind of problem player you were worried about in the first place.
ehhhhh....I disagree. You should take some time and fully think through what your disagreements are and why you think the rules are twinkish.
ReplyDeleteThe base rules are twinkish, we are actually one of the farthest from twink houserule sets you'll find. Your players are probably right and you should have very good reasoning ready for them when you bring up that you're not using our rules.
I'm the original poster. While I think some of your rules are perfectly fine, I think you have way too many dice/success adders. The Etzli post should really drive it home for you.
DeletePen-sword? Applied academics? Principals of motion? Theme music? I could list a lot more, and then you still have base rule monsters like animal aspect, fight with your head, and enech.
And then there is the nuclear bomb of multi-tasking. Sure it is 20xp, but it is the mother of all dice/success adders. It costs absolutely nothing, and every single action after the first two are basically increasing your dice/success by 50%, 100%, 150% and more by virtue of having those extra actions to take.
I think there's some confusion here when it comes to the definition of "twinking". It sounds like you're saying that you feel that a lot of rules are making Scions have the option to be too powerful in a way that unbalances the game.
DeleteI'd counter by pointing out that exactly what you're saying points to the opposite: there are tons of ways to gain awesome power, for many different purposes, in Scion. That's not a mistake, nor is it unbalanced. Scion is a game about attaining ultimate cosmic power and becoming gods; it's supposed to let PCs do incredible, unheard-of amounts of damage, think unbelievable, unfathomably complex plots into existence and bowl over anyone and everything with uncontainable social might. We want Scions to get enormous numbers and succeed mightily at things, and the only way that's unbalanced is if they can't be challenged while doing so.
Trust me, we challenge them a lot. They can do incredibly badass things, and they should do incredibly badass things, and so can and do their antagonists. If this is just a question of scale, we must just have very different definitions of what power levels should look like in Scion.
Because Eztli, who is built to hit things, is actually not hitting them hard enough yet, and won't until she's reached the pinnacle of godhood. She's an example of the system working well, not poorly.
(Although I will grant you that lots of adders can make things complicated; most players keep a cheat-sheet of their most-used abilities and stuff so they don't have to bog combat or social situations down figuring out their math. That's a bridge for individual games to cross, however.)
My other reply basically just replys to this one as well. Keep your hyperbole to yourself.
DeleteSome of John's Knacks and Boons are really powerful, but if you're gunna use his house rules, you gotta remember they were designed to be used as a set. They include things like rising costs for Knacks and linear progression of Boons.
ReplyDeleteUnder his rules, Multitasking itself costs 20 XP (not 5) and requires you spend 5 on Telepathy, 10 on Blockade of Reason and 15 on Parapet of the Mind. That's a grand total of 50 XP compared to the total of 5 required to buy Multitasking in the RAW.
He also uses a different XP calculation system so that buying new traits costs more XP. Instead of Current Rating x 5 (or whatever) to improve something, it's NEW Rating x 5. That adds up.
So there may be a lot of things I don't like about John's rules, but twinkyness isn't one of them. If anything, they're kinda punishing.
Most of the house rules are fine, it is the knacks and boons that are borked. There are so many ways of adding a bunch of dice/successes that lethality is through the roof.
DeleteI don't know if the players have to struggle to make themselves more lethal because John makes super enemies all the time, or if John has to struggle to make super enemies to match the massive amounts of dice his players throw around.
It doesn't matter if it costs 50xp to get multitasking. When you suddenly have the option of dropping 6+ dragon breaths, compelling presences, or engender loves in one tick you can look at everything else you can buy for 50xp and they are weeping with envy.
Actually, neither! There's no struggling involved. Antagonists are statted to be a good challenge for the PCs, regardless of what the PCs are good at or what they do. How else would you stat an antagonist?
DeleteLethality actually isn't through the roof at all; you seem to be forgetting that all this ability to cause mayhem is counterbalanced by insane survivability effects, as well. The Earth purview, Stamina knacks, resist knacks... Scion as we run it has tons of ways to survive, just as it has tons of ways to blow things up. You know, like all games kind of have to. Of course there should be a real and present threat of death, but I've got to tell you, character death does not happen very often even so. Scions are masters of surviving the impossible.
As far as envy and Multi-Tasking, it's totally within your rights to think that knack is way better than anything anyone else could be getting, but we haven't had much of a problem with it. Sure, Eztli can only do two things a round, but most of the time it's her the intellect characters are cowering behind, not the other way around. Performing zillions of actions with Multi-Tasking costs resources, and draining yourself that quickly has its own sets of hazards, even if you can use them for super-nuke powers like Dragon's Breath or Perun's Applres.
Every game's going to be different in what it considers most potent, depending on the playstyle of the characters. As I said elsewhere in this post, go ahead and nerf MT (as we've been discussing further down), or don't use it, if you prefer; you totally get to do that, as the ST. But I don't agree that our system's powers are, on the whole, borked at all. They're consistent with themselves and work beautifully in play.
Multi tasking, Really? Because you can buy army of one and marcus does 2000 agg in one hit.
DeleteIm having trouble responding to this particular tirade because you go wrong in so many different places.
1. You always make the enemies in line with the difficulty level you want them to be. This is no different then any rpg ever. Know what the players can do, their enemies should be able to withstand as much of that as you want them to.
Lethality can be through the roof, but what exactly is wrong with that? Also for as many ways as you have to do damage, there are as many ways to escape it.
You are being again, purposely misleading with your statements and it is getting annoying.
You didnt spend 50 xp to do all those actions, you spent HUNDREDS of xp. You would need 8 epic int. Fire up through level 5, and enough appearance AND charisma to make both of those knacks worth a shit. Thats 3 max epics at god level which costs ~867 xp
Not 50, 867. So calm yourself. Take a breath. And do some math before you start spouting bullshit. If you want to discuss things civilly. I'll be here, but if you're gonna spout meaningless hyperbole, we're done here.
And as we've talked about pretty extensively, multi-tasking is on the chopping block for a nerf.
I don’t allow army of one or colocation because those break the game almost as easily as multitasking.
DeleteThe solution to having too many dice adders is not to make enemies more resistant. That is circular logic, especially since my games feature intra pantheon politics and scion vs scion action with only the occasional showcase of a titanspawn.
What is wrong with lethality through the roof is that everyone wins. Anything the players can do the enemies can do as well, so when the players bring their overwhelming number of dice to bear, the enemies do the same and everyone kills or manipulates everyone. The numbers have to roughly equal out to maintain balance in my games. There are definitely not as many ways to escape damage or escape social whammies as there are to inflict them, and only a few scions are going to be earth specialists.
You are the one who is being misleading, and seriously need to do some math before you start spouting bullshit. First you pull epic intelligence 8 out of thin air, then you decide to lump all those knacks and boons together under one giant umbrella and completely ignore the fact that I said ‘or’.
It only takes 210 xp to maximize your epic charisma and epic intelligence to 6 to start dropping 6 engender loves per turn and that does not include any hero, or demigod freebies. We can increase that to 315 if you want to add in fire 6. You know what that gets you? A multitasking with three fight with your heads, three infernos, and three scions who cannot make their dex rolls.
Don’t forget, you don’t even need to go up to epic intelligence 6+. You start getting awesome benefits for free the moment you hit epic intelligence 4 and pick up that fourth free knack.
But we’re getting really off track the issue of lethality being twinky. I just had to respond to your bullshit claims about my poor math skills.
I dont think you know what break the game means. Making enemies the power level of the players is not circular logic, its good game design.
DeleteMaking them too strong would make them unkillable, making them too weak would take away any challenge.
Epic int 8 is the amount of epic int you would need to perform all the tasks you listed. It wasnt out of thin air, it was based on what you said. I suppose maybe 6 epic int to do ONLY the dragons breaths? But you wrote plus so i assume you mean 7? You obviously forgot that in order to get epics you need to have the correlating regular attribute that high. That also costs xp. And unless you are legend 7, the epic 6 charisma engender love isnt going to work.
Fight with your head wouldnt effect those 3 infernos, since the person wouldnt lose their dex til the end of that tick. So they'd have it for your first three infernos.
If you were smart though you'd take the fight with your head away from their soaks, its much more effective.
It is GOOD that at epic intelligence 4 you get bonuses. You shouldnt have to wait til epic 6 for an attribute to be useful. Strength and dex are useful right off the bat, and intelligence should be the same.
Fight with your head and multitasking are near the end of different trees. This makes them much more expensive to use in tandem then you are suggesting.
You also added compelling presence, which is appearance. Whatever powerlevel you are using for the epic intelligence to have that many actions with multitasking, you would NEED to have that same amount of epics(usually max) to do much to a meaningful target with your compelling presence, dragons breath, and engender love. The dragons breath also needs 2 other stats maxed to be near meaningful. A system where you have to MAX all of 6 different VERY expensive attributes to qualify as TWINKY is NOT twinky. Thats like saying you can do amazing things in D&D if you are EVERY class. That is just completely illogical.
Lethality is not what twinky means. Lethality is a different word.
Right now you have two problems. You're over simplifying, you arent thinking your ideas through, and you are being reactionary and defensive because you are wrong, and your players know you are wrong, and that hurts your ego.
Speaking of "linear progression of knacks," how does that work anyway? Do you have to buy only one boon per rank, or do you have to buy -all boons- on a rank in order to move up to the next one?
ReplyDeleteSorry, I meant linear progression of BOONS.
DeleteYou only need to buy one per level; if you have Sky's Grace, you can move on and buy Wind's Freedom without also needing Electrical Immunity. The system lets you progress only after you have a good foundation power at each level, but you don't need all of them; you could be a Sky god who prefers to buy the air-related boons instead of the electrical ones, for example, or a Fertility god who likes the personal buff-boons instead of the growing-stuff boons, and still move on up just fine.
DeleteOf course, you can also buy multiple boons at each level if you want them, since they're usually pretty nifty and some boons work better the more boons you have in the purview, but it's not a requirement to advance.
I was thinking about Multitasking earlier, and it seems to me that a lot of its huge power comes from a liberal interpretation of what "purely mental actions" are. If you interpret that to include every knack and boon activation, than it's a pretty beefy power, sure.
ReplyDeleteI think it's hard to argue that Intelligence/Wits/Perception knacks AREN'T "purely mental actions", pretty much by definition, but I also think that's a reasonable place to draw the line.
Personally, I'd feel fine with ruling that non-Mental knacks (Knowing Glance, Serpent's Gaze, Overt Order, etc.) and all boons (Heal/Infect, Evil Eye, Levin Fury, whatev) can't be Multitasked because they don't fit the criteria. That might be enough to cut this knack down to size right away.
There are, I think, enough powerful Mental knacks that Multitasking is still powerful; it's still an awesome mini-Riastrad for Fight With Your Head, Jack of All Trades, Parallel Attention, Between the Ticks, and a million other important powers. (Not to mention how much you can get done during downtime with this one knack.)
Indeed. I don't let my players use Boons with it at all and they can't use social Knacks or Physical Knacks unless they can give a pretty darn good reason why that power is "mental."
DeleteSetting someone on fire with your godly powers is not mental.
I disagree, actually - I think boon activation is every bit as mental an action as any other. It's a non-physical action that the Scion thinks into being using only their sheer force of will and Legend to make happen; how is causing your Pheromones to activate or turning yourself into a Lightning Rod any less mental than using Grant Visions to pop an image into someone's head or activating Rareified Electromagnetic Perception to eavesdrop on radio waves? Deciding to Forespeak Destruction happens exactly the same way as deciding to Sense Fatebond; for my money, I can't see anything that makes the one less mental than the other. It's certainly not a physical action, nor some kind of social interaction - it's something a Scion makes happen purely with the power of his or her mind alone.
DeleteSo for my money, while Multi-Tasking might need fixing, I'm not looking to do it by removing its ability to affect anything but mental knacks (though you are both right, that would be a very simple way to prevent it from being overpowered). I'd rather examine cutting down the number of actions - perhaps half Epic Intelligence dots or something - or in some other way making sure it doesn't get out of hand.
If it's working for your games, though, that approach certainly works fine. (Although I might bring MT down from a fourth-level knack if it only affects mental knacks - it's still very useful, but that seems more like a level-three useful. YMMV.)
The game itself is pretty twinkish under any ruleset. Anytime you can change the outcome of your character sheet based only on the order in which you buy things you are probably dealing with a faulty system.
DeleteWe know that John gives out lots of XP which kind of counters the increased cost of stuff. We know John does not give out much in the way of stunts, so a 3 legend cost on mightier than the pen is more balanced for his games. We know John has players who don't care much about crunching numbers. We know Johns players are happy as hell with their game.
In some cases these new rules are objectively better. I really love the lifting rules, and the perception rules for example. In most cases these new rules are just different. Different in a way that works great for his group, but probably not for everybody. This is going to be true for just about any set of houserules.
I don't think Multitasking was designed to allow someone to unleash 5 simultaneous Dragon Breaths or apply 8 Withers at once. I'm 95% positive it was designed to allow brainy characters to be extra brainy. Reading while doing math, translating while in the middle of research, etc.
DeleteScion's system falls apart pretty easily, and far more easily if you add in multiple actions. Nothing else in the game gives them (as far as I can remember) because part of the change from Ex2 to Scion was removing flurries and other multi-action abilities. They slow things down. The closest Scion has is Multi-Attack which lets you apply 1 roll twice. Adding in a Celerity that applies to anything-that-isn't-physical (which i guess means anything that isn't a Dash or a weapon-using attack?) is just causing issues that don't need to be caused.
That's my logic being Multitasking only affecting Mental Knacks and Mental actions (ones using a Mental Attribute). The game has a built-in definition of what "Mental" means, so why not use it?
Mostly because I don't think it actually does have a built-in definition of mental actions. I don't think it bothers defining them at all, like it doesn't most things, and the fact that one class of Attributes uses the word "mental" doesn't necessarily mean that's what's being referred to. God knows Scion has a tendency to play fast and loose with its terminology all over the freaking map.
DeleteBut more importantly, I don't care if that is what it was designed to do, because I think that's underpowered and boring. In general, we don't care very much about what the original rules were trying to do if it's a power we don't like, nor do we have any interest in whether or not something follows a pattern set for it by Exalted. Like most things on the site, we didn't like the original and we made it into something we think is better. It's still not perfect - that's why we're talking about it needing more work done on it - but worrying about whether or not it conforms to its intent when compared to Exalted's system is totally pointless.
Multiple or speedier actions are certainly game complicaters, but I don't think that means they're necessarily game-breakers or game-damagers when handled well (which is what we're trying to do with this theoretical okay-so-what-do-with-MT thing). We absolutely don't want to slow combat down to a crawl, because it's slow enough in this system as it is, but it would be unfair to say that that means the system can never include anything to reflect that a character is exceptionally fast/good at doing many things at once/quick on the draw. We just need to find a way to make that work without bogging things down too badly; a tall order but not, I think, impossible.
I'm a little confused by the comparison between Celerity and Multi-Tasking, since they don't do the same thing. Or wait, are you talking like oWoD Celerity? (I'm still confused?)
(Oddly enough, we have two high-level psychopomps and yet nobody has ever bothered with Celerity yet, even though they both have it thanks to their Fatebonds. I guess they hate bullet time or something.)
This is the third convo this week I've had about this knack, and I think I've boiled down my defense of its use(though not its power at god).
DeleteWho cares what it was designed for though? The basic mechanics of the game are shitty at best? Was untouchable opponent meant to make you never take damage ever? Should we keep it that way?
No. This website is all about changing the problems with the game, and making them better. Before it was a useless knack. At hero and demigod it was a powerful, but worthwhile and balanced knack. At god...its pretty insane(but really so is high level Infect, and so are a million other things). I think it needs to be reigned in, but making it nearly useless and lame is not the answer.
I meant Vampire Celerity. I always forget there's a Boon named Celerity, too. Flurries and Celerity are just other examples of multi-action powers slowing things down. I do think there are a lot of ways to represent someone being super-fast and good at doing two things at once, but I don't think the way to do that is multiple combat actions. It's been tried a whole lot of ways and I haven't found one I'm happy with, especially not in a system like Scion where combat is iffy anyway.
DeleteI still feel like Opening Gambit is probably more "twinkish" that either example here (especially if it is *combined* with Multitasking).
ReplyDeleteI mentioned how overpowered I thought it is in its current form on the Royal Rumble post, but I don't feel like anyone saw it.
"This makes me wonder if Opening Gambit should be restricted to a single action (or maybe something like up to 1/2 your Epic Int dots if you have Multi-Tasking)."
I wouldn't mind seeing a definite list of boons, knacks, etc that you can use with Multi-Tasking, but I feel like that'd just be a tremendous undertaking with little real benefit.
DeleteThomas double hitting the nail on the head here. I think its insanely powerful coupled with opening gambit. But also coupled with powers that do dmg. Both the fixes thomas mentioned are ones Ive thought about, and just havnt decided which if either is better. My other thought was during opening gambit, between the ticks(and possibly just the first couple actions of the combat) multitasking worked off the lower of your int or wits since the whole point of the beginning of combat is going off your wits anyway.
DeleteRe: list. Again completely agree. My time can be spent better on a host of other things. That would take an insane amount of time and would be much better handled in game. Maybe one day, but not one day soon.
I like the idea of lowest Wits or Intelligence; it makes sense that a super witty character could react that quickly, but not necessarily at full intellect, or that marshalling your full intellect might not be possible if you weren't witty enough in the heat of the moment.
DeleteCould somebody please explain how the Opening Gambit roll-off works? I am having trouble understanding it.
DeleteSure! If you're the only person who blows Opening Gambit at the beginning of a combat, you go first, regardless of what anyone rolls on their Join Battle. If more than one person blows Opening Gambit, they roll their Join Battles against each other, but not those who didn't use it.
DeleteSo to use an example (not real numbers), Eztli, Terminus, Sowiljr and Aiona are racing into battle. Eztli and Terminus both use Opening Gambit, while Sowiljr and Aiona do not and roll a 7 and a 24, respectively. Eztli and Terminus then roll and get a 35 and a 20. Eztli goes first because she used Join Battle and rolled highest, Terminus goes second because he used Join Battle, Aiona goes third and Sowiljr trails in last. Aiona still goes after Teminus even though she rolled higher than he did, because he used Opening Gambit and she didn't.
So OG is an instant go-first button, unless someone else uses it; then it lets you only have to worry about rolling higher than the other people who used OG.
What tick do they each act on? Eztli would go on Tick 0, but does Terminus go on Tick 1? Does Aiona then go on Tick 2 or does she go on Tick 6 because she was 9 successes below Eztli?
DeleteIf Eztli got 35 successes but only Terminus used opening gambit, would Eztli go on Tick 1?
If all four characters used opening gambit, would they go on Tick 0, Tick 1, Tick 2, and Tick 3 respectively?
Etzli on 0.
DeleteTerminus on 1.
Aiona on 2.
Sowiljr on 5.
Yes to the 2nd question
yes to the 3rd question, a 5th person involved in the combat who wasnt them would go on tick 5, as would infinite more people in the combat(unless they botched, then tick 10).
More then 5 people using opening gambit? 5+ all pile on tick 5.
Thank you very much for the explanation. That actually explains it very well. The only question I have left is about Tick 5.
DeleteI know in the book it says Tick 6. Did you change it to Tick 5 to prevent Tick 0 people from going twice before someone on Tick 6 could act?
I never use Celerity on Vivian because it's simply not worth it. 10 Legend and 1 Willpower is too high a cost for such a laughable speed increase. It would increase her movement speed from 1 to 2 (wowzers!), and while it would speed up her actions, I can't think of a single time that it could have made a difference in combat. Her Legend is much better spent on healing or actual psychopompery.
ReplyDeleteI think vivian has too much to do, but laughable speed increase is incorrect. For damage, if we assume your able to hit what you're attacking(again, vivian sometimes doesnt fit this model). And you're doing dmg with a 5 speed weapon, lets say after soak, 10L. Over the course of 60 seconds(average boss battle fight length), you'd do 120L without celerity, and 150L with celerity, or 20% more damage. There are few knacks that give you a 20% straight damage increase.
DeleteAlso, with celerity the more you increase your dmg through other knacks or boons, the better celerity gets. Its a straight % increase vs a dice increase which is very powerful.
A more vivian esque use might be that over a combat she could heal 15 times when her opponent could only attack 12 times(basic, obviously you can double attack, or aoe, or whatever).
However, I do agree vivians legend ends up precious, and the 10 legend spent there is probably often not worth the ability to teleport later.
I mostly meant the movement speed increase was laughable, but I admit the damage increase you propose is more than I expected. If I was built a bit better for fighting and I knew encounter would last long enough, AND if I had the spare Legend, I might try it sometime. I guess I've been fortunate thus far to have someone breathe fiery death or punch with aggy fists in my stead and leave the healing to me.
DeleteAnd I also just realized that the people Vivian relies on to drive her around and carry her while running just moved to New York. Ffff.
DeleteIt's okay, you've still got... Geoff?
DeleteFfff.
So will your games continue on as Sowiljr, Vala, Jioni, and Folkwardr against the world as one game instead of two?
DeleteFor the moment, yes. Since a lot of character died/moved/went on hiatus after Ragnarok, the two games will be combined for the time being. It's for the best. Sowiljr would be pretty lonely trying to manage his game all by himself.
DeleteI think we should name the new band Jioni and the Norsemen. It has a ring to it.
That 20% damage is pretty subjective, though. First you have to be fighting an enemy you can hit, then you have to be fighting an enemy you can damage, and then you have to be fighting an enemy that is going to stay alive long enough to see results.
DeleteAlternatively, you have to be fighting a number of small enemies that die in a specific number of hits, and the enemies have to divisible by your new speed.
Naah, Celerity is just not worth the opportunity cost. There are way more important things to spend 10 legend on.
For Vivian, definitely not. If somebody like Eztli or Sverrir happened to have Celerity, that could make a whole lot of difference, though.
DeleteLuckily for their foes, none of our big combatters are psychopomps, so the magic combination hasn't yet occurred.
Anon:
DeleteFirst part.
If you cant hit, or hit and then do damage to a target, then you shouldnt be in the fight. No power that adds damage makes any sense if you arent already able to damage the target.
re: staying alive long enough to see results? That applies to any use of any combat boon or knack.
re: fighting small enemies etc...
what? That bit just actually doesnt make sense at all. Its misleading and nonfactual.
I don't know for certain, but I think what the above poster meant by fighting small enemies is...
ReplyDeleteIf you can kill an enemy in 4 seconds instead of 5 seconds then you have to have 5 enemies to kill over 20 seconds or celerity did not help you kill any additional enemies. Or if you have 9 enemies to kill over 40 seconds then you only killed one additional enemy over your old speed, so celerity only gave you a 12% benefit that time.
Something like that? Or maybe the poster could just come back and clarify?
Ah, I see - that makes sense. In that case, yes, Celerity's not helping kill more people - but it is killing those people faster, so over the course of those 20 seconds, some of them are dying before they can do anything against you or your band. That's handy all by itself. It gets handier the more people are involved - by 9 enemies, your band is taking substantially fewer hits/meddling powers/whatever as you remove foes. It's only a 12% benefit to overall murder, but a substantial benefit to everyone not having to heal/resist/take damage as much.
DeleteAnd, of course, since Celerity affects all actions, it can be applied to a lot more situations besides just beatdowns. But I think the poster was more interested in examining its combat effectiveness, which would be a big draw for a lot of characters.
Thanks for the help james. Maybe thats what he means? If so, most of what anne said.
DeleteMore importantly though, if enemies are actually 1 shottable we usually gloss over that combat and let the players describe what happened vs actually getting crunchy and rolling it.
Oh, well, yeah - if you can win a combat in your sleep, then of course don't bother with Celerity. Or much of anything else, really, unless you feel like showing off (okay, I do enjoy watching players show off).
DeleteI think what people forget is that these rules, and in completion, GBN itself is balanced around John's games. Not RAW Scion, not a individual's games/meta-universe.
ReplyDeleteThese are "at your own risk" rulesets if you're not running it as John does.
I mean, I use a ton of these powers, and some of the lists; and I tweak them to fit nice and snug in my own games, but I don't expect John and Anne to rework their own gamerules because the powers don't quite mesh.
Also, walking into someone's house and effectively saying "You suck, but my players love you." is just asking for it, Anon.
Aynie! Aynie! Aynie!
Deletebut yes, exactly.
"You suck, even though my players love you, now help me."
DeleteSorry, I'm probably giving you guys the wrong impression there. I really like most of the rules but I think all the dice and success adders break the game. I didn't mean to sound insulting with my original question.
DeleteYou dont know what break the game means. Relics also add dice, are they game breaking? How are things game breaking that are easily controllable?
DeleteIm really not sure what you're doing here at this point. You will never convince us that you're right(because you arent) and we certainly arent going to tell you to tell your players we said so. What is your goal here?