Saturday, March 15, 2014

To Clarify...

A little housekeeping - a couple of questions about the new Sky boons!

Question: I want to make sure I understand the Flight boon. You spend the moment of truth or willpower dot. Its gone forever, but you can fly now. No further activation's or costs, you wanna fly, you can fly, at will. UNLESS your grappled, in which case you can't fly anymore until your not grappled, at which point you can fly again right? Sorry if this seems like an obvious question, I just am a little confused on the wording of the boon.

No worries, we want to make sure it's not confusing. :)

Flight lets you fly, period, once you have spent that cost. Any time you want, anywhere you want, as long as you're not underwater. You are no longer constrained by gravity and all three dimensions are your playground.

The grappling clause is just trying to say that if you are grappled by someone who can't fly, you're under their control. You can't fly out of the grapple, nor can you take your grappler into the sky unless you gain control of the grapple yourself. And if you're already in the sky when you get grappled, you'll start falling, because your attacker has control of the grapple and he can't fly. Just like with groundbound grapples, whomever has control is in charge of whether or not you guys are moving and where, so if your grappler has hold of you, you're stuck with him on the ground. If you're the one winning the grapple, you can totally haul your helpless victim into the air with you, though (provided you can lift him, of course).

Question: Sky doesn't seem to have any way of creating weather, is that going to fall under Thunders purview?

As we said in the last post, Thunder is the purview in charge of storms, rain, thunder and lightning, so any boons that involve creating rain or storms will be in there. The Sky purview can create some kinds of weather - for example, with the Whirlwind or Obscuring Mists boons - but not all. In essence, "weather" is too big a category for one purview, and there will be weather-like effects among all the different elemental purviews.

Question: Does Cloud Travel stack with the lightning Dex knacks? Cause if not, it seems like you could travel faster for the same price with those knacks.

If you have Lightning Flyer, yep, sure does! It and the knacks after it (Fast as Thought and Peregrine Fleetness) can stack with Cloud Travel. If you don't, you may indeed find that you run faster on land with your land-based speed knacks, if that's how you've specialized yourself.

Question: "When he spends this boon's cost, he immediately and permanently gains the power of flight, able to soar through the skies completely regardless of gravity at a top speed of double his top level of Sky as if it were an Epic Attribute in yards per second" Does this mean (assuming someone has the avatar) your speed is determined as if you had 22 epic attribute levels, or you treat it as a maxed out epic attribute, then double the number on auto successes it would give you and use that for speed?

The second one. You're doing Sky rating x 2, not some weird crazy math stretch that tries to make the epic scale worth more somehow for only this power in the entire game. The maximum base flying speed for a Legend 11 god with all 10 levels of boons and no other modifiers is 92. Avatars are separate powers and don't count as a level, the same way Ultimate Attributes don't count toward successes from Epics.

Question: Does Arrow Storm work with magic attacks like Levin Fury or throwing a fireball? Cause if it DOES, you guys just made Zeus legit scary. ER. Scarier. Especially if his Thunderbolts are a relic he can give Rainbow Mantle to.

It does not - the same as in Heavenly Domain, it applies only to normal projectiles, not magical powers (although it should say so, so thanks for pointing it out!). However, Zeus' thunderbolts are in fact a relic, so he might very well be able to use them with Rainbow Mantle and Arrow Storm to devastating effect. There's a reason that after losing to Typhon in a battle of strength, he curbstomped him with thunderbolts on the rematch.

Question: Skys Grace - how much does each individual boon in Sky add to your move speed? 1 boon = 1 yard?

Yep, that's it.

Shoot in more questions if you got 'em, folks!

23 comments:

  1. I think the reason the first question-asker is confused (i know i were) is because the boon -though it very clearly states it's permanent- says ''1 willpower or 1 moment of truth PER USE''
    Not many uses needed for a permanent boon tho', ey?

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    1. Ah, I see. It says that because technically you could turn it off if you wanted to, because only then could you rebuy the spent WP dot, but I assume 99.99% of all players are never going to do that anyway.

      It's part of a rule regarding spending permanent WP (if you spent a permanent WP to power something, it can't be rebought with XP unless you turn that power off or it specifically says so), but that's not up anywhere yet, so the confusion's understandable. I'll go tweak the wording. :)

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    2. At least until you guys get to redoing sun, Is there a rough a ready method for working out how penetrating glare interacts with obscuring mists?

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    3. So, if i use a permanent willpower dot, will i, if i want to buy more willpower, pay for that dot's price, or the dot above it?
      In other words, am i locked at the willpower i had after i spent my permanent dot, or can i buy up to 9 still?

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    4. Well, I imagine someone somewhere who wants Flight but doesn't have a MoT saved up might invest the WP dot, then deactivate the boon once they've saved up a MoT, and buy the WP dot back. Most will probably just invest the WP dot and be done with it rather than Shenanigans, but it is an option.

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    5. You'll always buy the WP dot at the price it would normally be, regardless of "which dot" you spent to power Flight. You just can't buy the tenth dot, because that WP "slot" is busy allowing you to fly permanently instead.

      We'll have a more clear permanent WP rules explanation soon, I'm sure... John and I were talking about how to make it easier for people last night.

      Jo, Penetrating Glare only allows you to see in low light; it doesn't let you see through obstacles, so right now it probably doesn't have any effect on how far you can see through the fog of Obscuring Mists.

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    6. Sounds like you could borrow the "committed" resource terminology of Exalted. A resource (WP, power, dots) that is "committed" can't be rolled, used or in any way accessed until the effect/power/item that it has been "committed" to is ended.

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    7. Almost but not quite - that dot is actually spent, not just committed, and if Flight was turned off it would remain gone and would need to be rebought with XP.

      We tried doing just committed with the All-Seeing Eye boon, but found that players would just go, "That's fine, I turn it off for this one action, spend that WP, then turn it back on for basically free," which was not much of a true investment on their part.

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  2. Two things...firstly, the cost for Wind Warp differs between the actual page and QR. Which is it?

    Secondly, I've noticed that next to no Boons in the Sky Purview require Willpower expenditure. Is this something that just happened during the design process, or is it intentional?

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    1. Actually, make that three things...does Prismatic Presence work on enemies too? As in, could the giant titanspawn trying to crush my Band ALSO use my Legend as Willpower if I activate this Boon to bring up my comrades' flagging spirits?

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    2. It just happened to come out that way. :) We are still using Willpower as a cost for various boons and powers, but in these cases we felt that Legend was more often appropriate. We're trying to save WP for those powers that really feel like an investment of force of will rather than just calling on a magical power.

      ...that said, though, Wind Warp isn't supposed to have a WP cost, that's a typo, so thanks for catching it!

      And yes, Prismatic Presence applies to everyone nearby, even if they're your enemies. By taking on the aspect of the rainbow, you are becoming a beacon of hope and good feeling to all around you; just seeing you lifts peoples' spirits, no matter who they are or what walk of life they come from.

      This can mean that you'll accidentally bolster an enemy along with an ally, but who knows? Maybe they'll decide that they don't want to fight you after all, since you make them feel better. And either way, that's why you get a bonus if the people around you drain your Legend, because you don't have a lot of control over who spends it or why.

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    3. Hmm, now that Wind Warp is fixed, Prismatic Presence is the only Boon in Sky with a WP cost. I find the contrast with Magic and Prophecy fascinating, where most Boons that have a cost spend WP. I suppose attempting to master Fate or even trying to serve it is a gigantic drain on the psyche. By contrast, I imagine most Elemental Purviews would be similar to Sky...they're all about marshalling the raw magical power of the Elements. Or they might not; honestly, speculating about upcoming Purview rewrites is almost as fun as seeing them.

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  3. I have another question (I know, shocking isn't it?): Enlil is the God of the Winds, so he rightfully has Sky, but is he not also a Rain God? In fact, isn't part of the reason he has Fertility Associated because he brings the rains that feed the crops?

    I've actually kind of been curious about Rain Gods and Fertility for a while...is bringing rain enough reason for them to have The Green? And how come Illapa and Indra are the odd men out? Why are these two unique amongst Rain Gods in not having Fertility? Honestly, I've sometimes considered replacing Indra's Water with Fertility, since I'm not entirely sold on that one either. Sure he rescues the Waters and lets them out as rain, but actually ruling over them is Varuna's job (not that Varuna doesn't have...other commitments).

    (I totally understand that the second paragraph is only tangentially related to the Sky update, so if you feel it is better in the box, just let me know. It's just something(s) that's been bugging me for a while).

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    1. We questioned it some with Enlil, but while he does do some rain, we weren't sure it was enough of a major facet for him to have the Storm (especially with folks like Ninurta and Marduk around that definitely do). He is one we are talking about double a double-check on, though, along with Oya over in the Orisha.

      Rain gods do get fertility a lot because of the connection between rain and fertility, but we figure that's okay; if a god has a lot of cred for being in charge with both, we give both, and if not, we don't. Some storm gods are seen as just destructive (Ishtar, for example), while others are life-givers like Perun.

      I agree, Varuna is definitely ruler of Water, but I also remember us feeling like Indra had too much watery stuff going on to just ignore. Might be worth a revisit, though!

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  4. Re: Flight speed. As written it is equal to "double his Sky rating as if it were an Epic Attribute in yards per second".

    Two things. First, is that (Sky rating x2) as epic attribute, or (sky rating as epic attribute) x2?

    Second, unless my math is wrong how does epic 11 work? Epic 20? Epic 40 if you have all 20 sky boons?

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    1. This question is already answered, fourth one above: (Sky rating as Epic)x2. Plus, Sky rating = Highest level of Sky, not #Boons in Sky, so it'd never be higher than 10. Therefore, max flight speed = 92.

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    2. Sky rating as epic, doubled (so the max for a god is 92). The other way would be heinously overpowered with a maximum of 382.

      Technically you could continue the Epic scale as far up as you wanted by just adding New Dot of Epic - 1 to the previous pool of successes... but we're not doing that, it would be bananas.

      So your Flight speed if you have max Sky boons when you buy it at Legend 5 is 14 yards per second base, and 22 yards per second with the bonus from Sky's Grace.

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    3. Ah, thank you - that makes so much more sense...

      Now with your new speed rules, is a Scion who is flying at their "top flight speed" at 0DV and considered "sprinting"?

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    4. Yep, speed is the same across the board, whether swimming, flying or running. Maximum speed is always at 0 DV; our hypothetical maxed Sky Scion at Legend 5 above needs to slow down to 11 yards per second if he wants to be able to maneuver to avoid being hit.

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    5. I forget where I saw it...maybe in the RAW rules? But iirc swimming and climbing speed is half your normal speed. in RAW, I don't think you could take a dash action while doing those things, could you?

      Anyway, how does swimming and climbing speed work in your rewrite, and can you "sprint" while doing those things (at 0DV)? Would climbing speed then be 1/4 of your top speed?

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    6. That's right - getting your DV in water makes you very slow. (Unless you have the appropriate Water boons or Dex knacks, of course.) Swimming is a pain in the butt if you aren't designed for it.

      Climbing we haven't addressed yet, although I imagine it'll be similar.

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