Sucker Punch

Question: I am a bit afraid to ask... how do you survive being hit by Eztli? The first hit is skinshedded, but after that?

Alas for Eztli's foes, for she wields a great and totally uncontrolled power, and she's not picky about whose face it hits first. You're right that getting hit by Eztli is now An Experience; at this point, only gods with Strength associated with them are rocking a meaner left hook, and her job is almost exclusively to mow things down while the rest of the band does the things that require finesse or emotional response or brains.

But she doesn't automatically murder everything - far from it. Just like every other combat PC in the world, she tends to fight things tailored by the Storyteller to challenge her, because otherwise there would be no point. Eztli's enemies are usually other gods, Titan Avatars and Typhonian beasts that are far from pushovers, and she still has her share of major scenes in which she has to turn it up to eleven or twelve to triumph.

As for other PC-style enemies, though... well, survival is harder, not gonna lie. After the initial skin-shed, nobody else in her band could survive a direct shot to the face from her if she really meant it (luckily for them, however, she usually doesn't, and they only get the love taps that are a hazard of the business for hanging out with super-strong loose cannons). Most Scions and gods at her level couldn't unless they were expressly built for survivability; if you want to survive someone who's put most of their effort into breaking your face, put yours into keeping that face intact.

To start with, Stamina knacks are your best friends when trying to keep from being pulverized (by any majorly strong enemy, not just our favorite Aztec psychopath). Damage Conversion and Divine Damage Conversion are musts to ensure that you can apply your best soaks to the incoming damage, and Unbreakable allows you to blow as much Legend as necessary to deal with overflow that your normal soaks can't handle (of course, it's a lot of Legend at once sometimes, but it beats dying). Some of these will be rendered moot if she happens to get her Armor Crusher on, but Earth Body has the awesome side effect of letting you apply your armor even if she would normally ignore it. Dexterity knacks, while they won't always spare you actually taking the hit, can bring the pain down to a more manageable level as well, especially Roll With It to increase your soaking capacity and Untouchable Opponent to bring down the threshold successes that are about to be translated into broken bones.

Secondly, you can never have too much armor when you're trying to keep yourself in one piece. In addition to the good old Stamina standbys of Body Armor and Impenetrable, anyone invested in Earth should be rocking out their Earth Armor and Earth Body to get further tasty protective layers, while Greenskin in Fertility, Devil Body in Fire, Phase Body in Moon and Colossus Armor in War can all further boost your attempts to become teflon. There are also various powers that you can employ to try to stop her from hitting you quite as hard as she otherwise might, including Solar Shield in Sun, Battle Cry and Warrior Ideal in War and Do Not Want in Appearance.

Honestly, though, if you're not built to be a massive juggernaut of mountain-like indifference to damage, just don't get hit again (you might need Between the Ticks to get the chance, though). There's a lot to be said for using Guardian powers to cower behind shields while your friends deal with it (Woody's preferred method of handling Eztli on a rampage) or Psychopomp powers (or the infamous Out of the Frying Pan) to just peace out before things can get any uglier. Eztli, like every other dangerous god, has blind spots and areas in which she's not very skilled as well, so exploiting those can often give you a better than average chance at survival; she's something of a beast when it comes to resisting mental and social powers aimed at her, but her tragically low Perception rolls make it child's play for anyone with Illusion to misdirect or entrap her without her getting anywhere near them, not to mention making it extremely difficult for her to find anyone good at hiding until the storm blows over. Even mortals have been able to successfully evade her by hiding behind trees and telephone poles.

But yeah, your options are basically A) be awesome at taking damage like a champ, or B) get the fuck out of Dodge. It's not impossible for PCs to be at the same level of survival that Eztli herself is at for damage output; not only is she personally great at that stuff (she's got to survive things that are just as badass as herself, after all), but Sverrir is also a badass when it comes to soaking and surviving, and the two of them are probably the most evenly-matched opponents among the younger generation of gods. And, if you think you have time for it, you can always try to go with option C) get Sowiljr to call her off, although once in a while that results in Virtue Extremity and then things become very, very unpleasant for everybody involved.

Eztli has reached a level of physical danger that allows her to now outclass most gods, and it's definitely no joke to be on the receiving end of her anymore. In a recent game, Tezcatlipoca had been put to sleep by Hypnos and she tried to wake him up by slapping him, and she accidentally caved in his skull. It was quite an eye-opener for the PCs, who had until that point really not thought about the fact that she probably could decimate some of the gods they'd always thought of as eternal and all-powerful if the circumstances were right.