Fastest Gun in the West

Question: I've been focusing a lot on Wits for a character I'm playing. While it fits the concept and was very cool at Hero, now that we're late-Demigods I'm a little bummed out. What's the point of maxing it if, no matter how high you roll, you only get to go 5 ticks before someone who has abysmal Wits? And on top of that, your roll gets trumped by a single tier-1 Knack... I feel cheated! It's like having a knack that autohits you, no matter how high your DV gets thanks to your Epic Dex.

Well, the most important question here is: what is your concept?

There's a weird perception (especially for those playing closer to Scion vanilla, I think, which had admittedly fewer knacks and interesting powers for Wits) that Wits is the Join Battle stat, and that that's the only reason anyone would ever buy it. This leads on to the conclusion that if Wits is only good for going first in combat, it's totally unfair if people who don't invest in Wits get to go first in combat and trump it. That makes it pointless to have all these dots of Wits!

But that's in a world where Wits only does one thing, and this is definitely not that world. Join Battle rolls are a great place to have a lot of Wits, but they're far from the only thing Wits does; what else are you using it for? If you're keeping your Wits maxed, surely you use it for other things besides just Join Battle rolls. What Wits knacks do you have from your Epics and how do you use them? What boons do you have that use Wits and how are you using them? Why did you decide to invest in Wits in the first place, and what can you focus on to work with that? Sure, some of this is up to your Storyteller to help with - if he never has anyone roll Wits for anything, I'm sure that would be frustrating - but there's plenty to do with the stat even if you're confined to powers that use it.

Just like every other Epic Attribute, Wits has knacks that represent different specializations of your divinely quick thinking, and that means that specializing into different trees will get you different results. Those who primarily want to use their Wits to go first, go fast and go before anyone else knows what's happening should specialize into Opening Gambit and Between the Ticks, because those are the knacks that represent a Scion whose Wits are finely-honed combat responses. You clearly took other Wits knacks instead of those, so you have other Wits advantages instead - I don't know what they are, but other options in the field of Wits include being able to shield your comrades from harm, being a badass at driving and operating machines, being able to improvise any weapon on the spur of the moment or being able to socially skewer someone with your rapier wit. Of course the guy with Opening Gambit will go before you in combat - he specifically statted himself to do that, whereas you statted yourself to do something else. He's not cheating you any more than someone who uses Language Mastery to learn ninety languages is "cheating" someone who has lots of Epic Intelligence but decided to put his points elsewhere and is now disillusioned that they don't know as many different tongues. Just having the dots of an Epic Attribute is very powerful, and puts you a cut above those who don't have it by default; but not everyone with lots of Wits is created equal, and your choices about where you put your XP naturally grant you different advantages.

Opening Gambit's not the only way Scions who aren't as high in Wits as you can go first, either. Those with high Intelligence and Tactical Planning will be just as ready for battle as you are if they know it's coming, while Scions with high Epic Perception can take immediate actions with Environmental Awareness and Scions who are strongly aligned with the Prophecy or War purviews will reap the benefits of Extended Awareness or Blessing of Insight. Like most things in Scion, there are many paths to get from point A to point B, and simply buying up one Epic Attribute does not guarantee you an instant win all the time.

We actually illustrated this in a game the other night - Eztli got it into her head to relieve Folkwardr of his spine, and although she has an insanely high amount of Epic Wits, he still beat her on the Join Battle roll thanks to being a god of both Prophecy and War. And that makes perfect sense; Eztli has lightning-quick reflexes, but Folkwardr's a soldier who's been in battle for literally centuries and who can see the future, so it's no stretch at all to believe that he could see her about to take a shot at him before anyone else in the scene even knew she was there. He had time to hide behind Sowiljr and start shouting for help, and thanks to his timely warning everyone was able to interfere and prevent tragedy from striking.

It's also very important to note that having Opening Gambit trump your Join Battle roll is not at all like having a knack that auto-hits you through your DV. For one thing, you are not taking damage from losing Join Battle; you still have all your other powers, soaks, DV and abilities at your disposal for when you get attacked, and nothing is injuring, incapacitating or instantly taking you out of the game. You're just waiting a few more ticks. For another thing, your Join Battle is still useful because it's putting you ahead of everyone and everything in the combat that doesn't have Opening Gambit, which is likely to be several people.

The bottom line here is that, just like all the other Epic Attributes, Wits gives you access to a bunch of powers and specializations that those without Wits don't get. It's not just a Join Battle machine; if all you want it for is to go first in combat, then you should get Opening Gambit and go about your day, but if you actually want to take advantage of having high Wits, there's a whole world of other stuff it can do that you should explore. Having seen the colossal, insane things that characters with high Wits are capable of in our games, I can tell you that those who don't have Wits are generally pretty jealous of those who do, and not just because they have to wait an extra five seconds to go in combat.

Other small notes: Opening Gambit is a level 2 knack for us, not level 1, and we allow those with very high Join Battle rolls to take non-combat actions before tick 0 depending on their roll. But your frustrations sound like you may be playing in a game that doesn't apply those rules, so I'm not sure how helpful that is for you.