Question: The way Environmental Awareness (Perception knack) is written, it sounds like you automatically join first on tick 0 in all combats - is that correct? If so, what is the advantage of such a character having boons like Blessing of Insight or Expanded Awareness?
Hmm, I can see where the wording might be slightly confusing on that one - sorry!
The order of an ambush for a person with Environmental Awareness goes like this:
1) Ten ticks before the ambush should occur, roll Perception + Awareness to notice it. If you succeed, huzzah! You can warn everyone, turn on your Body Armor, firebomb the ambushers, or whatever else you want.
2) The ambush happens and everyone who didn't notice it gets hit in the face. Ambush response powers like Cobra Reflexes or Solipsistic Well-Being are used.
3) Everyone now rolls Join Battle, including the ambushers. If you rolled highest, you get to go first! If you didn't roll highest, however, you get to go at the same time as whomever did, thanks to your Environmental Awareness letting you join battle immediately.
So somebody with Environmental Awareness is always going first, along with whomever else is going first, in that initial tick. But you're still rolling your Join Battle, and therefore things like Blessing of Insight or Expanded Awareness still make that roll better. If you have those, you have a better chance of rolling the highest Join Battle and going before everyone else instead of just at the same time as the next highest roller, potentially giving you more time for extra actions. Environmental Awareness makes sure you always go first, but that'll be first at the same time as someone else; powers that add to your Join Battle roll may allow you to go before everyone else, so that instead of having to act on the same tick that an enemy is, you might be able to act before him and be better defended, deal him some damage, or otherwise gain the upper hand.
And, just to address this before it comes up because I know it will, Opening Gambit would trump Environmental Awareness; Environmental Awareness allows you to Join Battle with the person who rolled highest, but it can't duplicate Opening Gambit, which automatically allows the Scion who has it to act first. So in that case, the order of combat would be 1) Scion with Opening Gambit, then 2) whomever rolled highest Join Battle + Scion with Environmental Awareness, then 3) everybody else in order of their Join Battle rolls.
It's a power that's very nice for Scions with lots of Perception but not a lot of Wits, since it gives them enough forewarning to be able to keep up with those with much better reaction times. But it doesn't really replace having an awesome reaction time, just allows the Scion not to be left in the dust when the Wits monsters are taking eleventy actions before anyone else knows what's going on. A Scion can always benefit from a better Join Battle roll; after all, knowing an ambush is coming can only take you so far if your reflexes are too slow to do anything about it.
We're going to mess around with the wording to see if we can make all of this more clear, because at the moment the knack's definitely not explaining itself very well.
Question asker here (Hi! I ask a lot of questions...) - first off, thanks for clearing that up! My player with EA will be happy to hear this.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, you mention having time to throw Body Armor on in the 10-tick window before an ambush. I'm going to be mean and ask a question within a question here: Is Body Armor not reflexive? I know a player in a different game who likes to pre-emptively activate Body Armor any time he believes he's in remote danger. He insists it carries forward into combat. So what's to stop a Scion with Body Armor, even without Environmental Awareness, from keeping it up in the scene leading up to combat?
Do you dictate that combat is its own new scene, therefore you can't "buff" yourself beforehand? Do all your "buffs" (ew, MMO terms) fall off at the start of combat?
Sorry for the off-topic subquestion - I tried to relate it! :P
Nope, Body Armor is not reflexive; like most powers in Scion, it needs an action to activate. A Scion certainly could put Body Armor on all the time, but it would be quite a wasteful Legend drain for all the scenes he ended up not needing it, and he'd probably be out Legend he needed for something else later.
DeleteWhether or not a combat is part of the same scene or a new one is the Storyteller's call; sometimes it'll be one and sometimes the other, depending on what's happening. If a Scion has Body Armor up during negotiations that abruptly go south, then yes, that's probably the same scene. If the Scion pops Body Armor and sits around in it for an entire Japanese tea ceremony scene with foreign dignitaries, and then they get attacked after they leave that place, the combat is probably a completely new scene. The Storyteller should use reasonable judgment of when a scene ends, and it's always their call, not the player's.
Note also that wearing Body Armor all the time is not only a bit silly but also has effects of its own, and that a Storyteller should take them into account. Being constantly whatever-BA-looks-like for that Scion is going to look weird and scary for mortals, and it's very obviously broadcasting to everyone around him that he's spoiling for a fight. Enemies may go out of their way to jump him who wouldn't otherwise, or he may ruin negotiations with people who can clearly see that he doesn't trust them.
Most "buffs" are scene-long, so it depends on if the combat is part of the preceding scene or its own scene. I generally do not run combat as its own scene, and all of my players will try to buff themselves as much as possible before any combat. They all have some manner of anti-surprise technique, so they frequently get a few buffs active. Generally Body Armor or some Animal Boons.
DeleteBody Armor is not reflexive, like most Knacks that don't specifically say they're used in response to something (Damage Conversion, Roll With It, Skin Shedding) it is a Speed 5 Misc action just like a Boon.
That *does* make more sense, and was what I hoped to hear :)
DeleteSo if a Scion has reasonable cause to believe he's entering a hostile situation - maybe an "abandoned" town during an outbreak of restless dead - he's probably justified to have Body Armor up constantly while searching around. And when the inevitable happens and a hungry zombie or twelve pop around the corner that Body Armor should carry over into combat I guess, since the player was being proactive in a (somewhat) obvious situation.
Exactly. Body Armor lasts for one scene, not "until combat happens"; if they put it up and combat happens in the same scene, then groovy, but if they put it up and there was no combat that scene, the Legend point was wasted and it turns back off at the scene's end.
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