Question: Doesn't Extended Youth seem a little too powerful for something that can be bought at character creation?
Not at all. Actually, we're kind of confused, because Extended Youth is one of the least powerful Stamina knacks in the game, so much so that people grouse about getting it unless they specifically picked it up for aesthetics.
Extended Youth just stops you from aging. And... that's it. It doesn't give you immunity to diseases, it doesn't save you from damage - in fact, it doesn't do anything. Once you buy it, you never age again, and that's literally all the knack gets you. Sure, that would be hella powerful if we were talking about humans, but unless you have a problem with PCs in your games living so long that they die of old age, Scions aren't getting any mechanical benefit out of it. It's there purely for the flair; in fact, once Scions become gods, they stop aging permanently anyway, making the knack even less helpful.
Not that we think it's not worth being in the game, because it totally is and it can be used for some really neat stuff. Kettila, who used it to ensure that she would remain seven years old forever, or Woody, who entered the game as a Scion who was three hundred years old and still trucking, are both good examples of creative and fun uses of the Eternal Youth knack. Neither of those things got them any mechanical bonus - they were just there for background and character-building - but what awesome choices anyway, right? We love Eternal Youth, but we'd be lying if we said it was powerful. It's awesome, but from a pure game mechanics standpoint it's almost totally useless.
If you're out there, question-asker, what was it about Eternal Youth that made you think it was too powerful for Heroes? Did we miss something?
Yeah, I have no idea why anyone would say its OP. The only reason I could think it may be construed in such a way is that the person never ages anymore, like if they are stuck in Hero level for 100+ years with this knack and never die of old age. Which is not the worst thing going at a Scion. I don't know if this knack is about keeping youthful look and vigor until you die at like 80 or if you could live forever with this knack as long as no one kills you, kind of like how Tolkien described his Elves to have. Unless I misread Tolkien, which I doubt.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, the only time I have thought about using this knack was with a scion that was old enough to have been in Vietnam, like a Rambo situation, except in VA hospital dieing of cancer from Agent Orange exposure all those years ago. The only application I could see of the knack was to have his youth returned temporarily through some means and having that knack right off the bat. So it be an old character with experience in a young body. But then I scrapped the idea.
Actually I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it's supposed to do. It makes you immortal, unless you're killed. Except, as Anne explained, that's not incredibly overpowered at all, because it's highly doubtful you're going to have a Scion game that lasts eighty years and your characters are all going to die of old age before they can achieve apotheosis (though there are definitely stories of Scions achieving apotheosis upon death in mythology, so why not.)
DeleteI agree with Anne that this is just a flavorful knack. Under no condition would I ever say it's a -bad- knack, because it's not, it's totally awesome, and totally deserves to be there, but it also totally deserves to be a tier one knack because it's not game-breaking if every Scion just decides off the bat 'I'm immortal' because why not? It's not like Scions have incredibly long life expectancies with the Titan War on anyway - you either become a God or you get squashed under Surtr's fiery heel one way or another.
Jacob's right - it does make you immortal, at least in the sense that you won't age and you'll never die of oldness. You can still be murdered, however, so that's only so helpful for a Scion; it's nice for image, but doesn't save you from the actual dangers of your life.
DeleteI still love it when people use it, though.
Lol, ok. It makes a lil more sense why they would think that, but it is not even near OP. OP was my friend's ruling on dodge being doubled with untouchable opponent, instead of just the epics being doubled. Anyways, its an interesting knack none the less. If you can explain how you lived for so long without being killed, it can explain some stuff. But honestly, unless for some reason you have time skips in your games or have NPCs you like and have the ability to confer epics and stats, I don't see too much use. But if you do have either, it can be useful. Like if one person is left behind and everyone got time skipped 20 years, they don't change. Or having a mortal lover and confer the knack to them somehow forever could work out.
Deleteyou all are focusing on the titan war scenario, but extended youth can be most useful in games without the titans like the 1900 eastern promises game John and Ann are running where there is no major titan activity and relatively little enough action to have strong advancement. In that kind of game where a scions life expectancy can be much longer and less eventful, extended youth can be vital. Isn't that how Woody got to be 300 in the first place, and was only able to reach godhood after centuries, because the titans finally escaped and brought the chances for legend and glory with them.
ReplyDeleteEven if you're not running the Titan War, your game is running something Legendary happening, right? It's not just "some magic people with nothing to do", because that would be boring. The Titans aren't loose in our Eastern Promises game, but trust me, that hasn't made any of those Scions' life expectancies better - in fact, between monsters, godly intrigue and mortal politics, the mortality rate is downright brutal.
DeleteScions have Fateful Aura, remember, no matter what's going on in the world, and that means dangerous and crazy stuff is polarized toward them like a magnet. They're never going to have uneventful lives or sit around wondering what to do while they get old. Scion games that aren't set in the Titan War have always had just as fast a pace for us as those that are - it's a difference of what epic things are happening, not a lack of epicness in general.
Woody's actually a great example; he spent those three hundred years in ceaseless, bloody, brutal wars and almost died multiple times, because there's no such thing as a Scion that just sits around until they get old. If he hadn't been built to survive and safeguarded by his father to boot, he would have had a very good chance of dying, and as it was he still had a very rough existence even before the escape of the Titans.
He's also a very bad example, too, because Woody's life is almost never going to happen in a game. It happened that way because it was a backstory - within a game itself, you're never going to have periods of centuries go by without anything noteworthy enough to stop and roleplay happening every five damn minutes. If we were playing Woody's life the way we play Scion proper, we'd all still be in the Revolutionary War. We'd maybe have made it up to the War of 1812 by now.
(Well, I guess an ST could be all "okay, three centuries go by before your next mission, if you don't have Eternal Youth you die", but that would be a pretty por ST.)
It still is a totally awesome knack, though - just not for extending your life, most of the time. It's useful for staying youthful and beautiful (which is why Geoff bought it), for locking in an age (Kettila staying a child forever or Chicahua being stuck as a permanent infant) or for awesomeness in backstories (Woody). It just doesn't have a lot of utility as far as actually playing the game goes.
DeleteI get what you're saying and agree with you fire. But yeah no ones dying of old age in game.
DeleteEh, I had something similar in a game. We had a Japanese scion come into the game, though he was older than everyone else. He was awoken before the Titan's were released, if I remember correctly it was like 16th, 17th century and was part of the rebellion against the Emperor when he got guns to bring down the shoguns. I can't remember all of the details, but he got caught and instead of being killed or disowned, they wanted to put him in his place. So basically he was put into stasis and solitary confinement for the years until he was 'paroled' out for good behavior and be another soldier in the fight. They also wanted to put him through the meat grinder and see if he will survive.
Delete*chuckle* Captain America. Scion of Uncle Sam, Extended Youth...amongst other things.
ReplyDeleteSorry, mixing my geekdoms.
We actually had a player design a scion of Tyr to be exactly like that. A Scion nye on 100 and calling the rest of the group whippersnappers.
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