Question: A few boon combination questions, all with Army of One. What happens when you use Army of One in conjunction... with Natural Army? with Colossus Armour? with Unseen Shield? with Shadow Bodies?
Well, first let's quantify the idea of "in conjunction with". As I'm sure you know, you cannot use any knacks or boons once Army of One is activated, so any of these powers you wanted to have active would need to be used before Army of One. In addition, it technically doesn't work to use any of them in a double action with Army of One; because Army of One only includes powers you already have active when you activate it, and the power you used on the same action would not yet be active, technically that boon or knack would just fizzle, since it wouldn't be active when Army of One was spent for but couldn't be activated after it was already in use.
But you can absolutely use a bunch of boons, and then use Army of One and have them all carry over, so we assume that's what you're talking about and we'll go from there.
Colossus Armor is easy; all ten of you (or whatever) running around from Army of One have Colossus Armor, as long as you used it first. Hooray! Indestructible army!
In contrast, Unseen Shield and Shadow Bodies don't change. Shadow Bodies simply creates shadow copies of yourself that can run around, but they're already created and rocking themselves out by the time of Army of One, and they aren't an ongoing effect on you that would be duplicated. You'll end up with ten of yourself from Army of One and the same five shadow copies of yourself you already had. Similarly, the Unseen Shield has already been created and is now a free-standing construction that is not attached to you, so you won't sprout a bunch of new Unseen Shields around all your new selves. The one shield is still there, protecting whomever you told it to protect, and will remain so until it's broken or the scene ends. All of the Army of One bodies are you, however, so they're all automatically included in the Unseen Shield as long as you haven't gotten yourself kicked out of it for violence yet.
And finally, you can't use Natural Army with Army of One at all. The only powers you can use while in your animal army form are your mental Epics and knacks; you can't activate boons while transformed into either a single or multiple animal form. You'd need to turn back into your humanoid form before you'd be able to use Army of One anyway, and wouldn't be able to use another boon afterward.
Army of One is honestly kind of a mess of a boon, so we sympathize with the difficulties inherent in using it.
Showing posts with label Guardian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guardian. Show all posts
Friday, March 21, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Behind Stone Walls
Question: Does the Guardian Titanrealm exist? And if yes, what would it be like, and who would you put in there? (On a sidenote, what about Psychopomp? Same questions!)
Possibly?
While we can usually generally match up a purview to a Titanrealm, for the more "human" purviews this can sometimes be difficult. They're still important, universal mythological concepts that should be represented by a purview, but they aren't quite elemental forces the way some of the other purviews are, so it can be challenging to conceptualize what a Titanrealm dedicated to that idea would be like. Guardian, which has primarily positive connotations thanks to its associations with saving people from harm and preserving things from damage, is also difficult to titanize just because it's so often a thing we would think of as good, and therefore too benevolent for Titans.
However, there probably could be a Titanrealm related to Guardian. It probably wouldn't be the "Guardian realm", however, because that wouldn't make much sense, and we would suggest that it's possibly more of a place dedicated to boundaries, locks, walls and imprisonment - Guardian turned to negative purposes or taken to extremes, so that instead of saving people from danger it locks them down completely. A Titanrealm of Barriers, perhaps, or something like that. It would be populated by Titans who believed that protecting things meant controlling them utterly, or locking them away forever; or who wanted to protect things or people for bad or selfish reasons, for example kidnapping and locking up women to "save them" from actually living their lives and preserve them just for the Titan's pleasure; or who think of themselves as the ultimate authority over who deserves to be protected and who doesn't, and who intentionally let the weak suffer sometimes because they aren't deemed "worthy". We haven't done even a scrap of the research and work on such a realm we would need to do to give you a good potential roster of Titans who represent it, but we would look for figures who are older in generation, and primarily famous for protection and guardianship without being necessarily allies of the gods - Rhea, maybe, or the Jade Emperor. This might also be a great place to put the monotheistic or monotheistic-leaning Titans that Scion has trouble placing; Ahura Mazda might be a great fit for this kind of a place.
As for Psychopomp, we actually already wrote a Titanrealm based on that concept - it was the realm of Whedh, the Titan antagonist to the Arab pantheon the Alihah. Whedh is the Titan of Unity, an idea related to Psychopomp in that that purview is the purview of movement, travel and escorting the dead to their destination, and its ultimate expression is in making it literally possible to travel to and be anywhere in existence. Whedh goes a step further, as Titans are wont to do, and decides that all places should be the same place, thus making it impossible for anyone ever to need any other destination or have to travel any distance whatsoever.
Or exist, really, but that's the problem with Titans; they don't and can't moderate themselves. Even Titanrealms of positive places are, outside of those Avatars that represent positive forces within them, too uncontrolled and all-consuming to be truly safe or beneficial to things outside of them.
Possibly?
While we can usually generally match up a purview to a Titanrealm, for the more "human" purviews this can sometimes be difficult. They're still important, universal mythological concepts that should be represented by a purview, but they aren't quite elemental forces the way some of the other purviews are, so it can be challenging to conceptualize what a Titanrealm dedicated to that idea would be like. Guardian, which has primarily positive connotations thanks to its associations with saving people from harm and preserving things from damage, is also difficult to titanize just because it's so often a thing we would think of as good, and therefore too benevolent for Titans.
However, there probably could be a Titanrealm related to Guardian. It probably wouldn't be the "Guardian realm", however, because that wouldn't make much sense, and we would suggest that it's possibly more of a place dedicated to boundaries, locks, walls and imprisonment - Guardian turned to negative purposes or taken to extremes, so that instead of saving people from danger it locks them down completely. A Titanrealm of Barriers, perhaps, or something like that. It would be populated by Titans who believed that protecting things meant controlling them utterly, or locking them away forever; or who wanted to protect things or people for bad or selfish reasons, for example kidnapping and locking up women to "save them" from actually living their lives and preserve them just for the Titan's pleasure; or who think of themselves as the ultimate authority over who deserves to be protected and who doesn't, and who intentionally let the weak suffer sometimes because they aren't deemed "worthy". We haven't done even a scrap of the research and work on such a realm we would need to do to give you a good potential roster of Titans who represent it, but we would look for figures who are older in generation, and primarily famous for protection and guardianship without being necessarily allies of the gods - Rhea, maybe, or the Jade Emperor. This might also be a great place to put the monotheistic or monotheistic-leaning Titans that Scion has trouble placing; Ahura Mazda might be a great fit for this kind of a place.
As for Psychopomp, we actually already wrote a Titanrealm based on that concept - it was the realm of Whedh, the Titan antagonist to the Arab pantheon the Alihah. Whedh is the Titan of Unity, an idea related to Psychopomp in that that purview is the purview of movement, travel and escorting the dead to their destination, and its ultimate expression is in making it literally possible to travel to and be anywhere in existence. Whedh goes a step further, as Titans are wont to do, and decides that all places should be the same place, thus making it impossible for anyone ever to need any other destination or have to travel any distance whatsoever.
Or exist, really, but that's the problem with Titans; they don't and can't moderate themselves. Even Titanrealms of positive places are, outside of those Avatars that represent positive forces within them, too uncontrolled and all-consuming to be truly safe or beneficial to things outside of them.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
We Also Say Thee Nay
Question: Guardian boons can't be used to hurt others, and you've talked about Unseen Shield before, but what about something like I Say Thee Nay? Is a Scion forbidden from fighting back against someone trying to hurt their charge? That seems awfully restrictive.
Of course not. You can fight back against an enemy all you want. You just lose the benefit of I Say Thee Nay! as soon as you do, because you've decided to take an action that involves attacking someone else instead of devoting yourself to defense.
The boon is restrictive, and it's restrictive very much on purpose. Adding your successes to your DV is bananas-cherry-pie craziness level of powerful; as we recently noted in posts about maximum defense capabilities, a god with this boon who uses Animal Aspect easily adds over 100 to their DV, making them literally untouchable to anyone who isn't completely frontloaded for attack (not to mention a lot less hurtable, thanks to cutting over 100 off the threshold successes that would otherwise have become damage dice). And not only do you get that DV, but you also get to give that DV to someone else, something that no other power in the game can duplicate and which is incredibly useful for protection of vulnerable people or other party members. I Say Thee Nay! is one of the few ways in the game, along with the Wits knacks that allow Scions to force enemies to target the user instead of others, that Scions who are not yet gods can reliably protect friends, loved ones and other important people from being hurt in the constant high-stakes craziness of the Titan war.
More to the point than power level, however - that can always be adjusted, after all - is the point of the boon, and the Guardian purview as a whole: it's for protecting other people, period. It's not for making you better at fighting; it's not for making yourself invincible; it's not even for using to get rid of enemies who might hurt those you want to save. It's a purview that is conceptually built around the idea of defense and defense only, and its powers should never be used to enable damage or danger against anyone, friend or foe. Guardian boons can never be used to hurt others, period, and that means that the second you start doing that, whatever Guardian boon you already had active stops functioning.
Just like you can't take a shot at anyone and still stay safe inside an Unseen Shield, you can't use I Say Thee Nay! to protect yourself while wreaking havoc on the battlefield. If that were the case, it would be a mandatory boon for all combat characters thanks to its incredible power; everyone would buy it specifically to hurt other people without being hittable in combat, which is the exact opposite of what the Guardian purview is supposed to do.
So yes, if you want the badass DV bonuses of I Say Thee Nay! for yourself and your target, you can't attack anyone, even if they're trying to attack you. Guardian is here to protect you and your friends, not to make it easier for you to kill your enemies, even if said enemies are the ones you need protecting from. The boon enables you to be incredible at defense only, and is not intended for any other use.
It's true, it would be incredibly awesome to mow down enemies on the battlefield while being almost completely invincible thanks to your crazily boosted DV and ensure that Unconscious Comrade A was similarly teflon, but it would also be broken as fuck. So you can't do that. Sorry.
There are a few minor exceptions, but as a general rule, any time you think you can use a Guardian boon to hurt, kill or make yourself better able to hurt or kill someone else, you're probably doing it wrong.
Of course not. You can fight back against an enemy all you want. You just lose the benefit of I Say Thee Nay! as soon as you do, because you've decided to take an action that involves attacking someone else instead of devoting yourself to defense.
The boon is restrictive, and it's restrictive very much on purpose. Adding your successes to your DV is bananas-cherry-pie craziness level of powerful; as we recently noted in posts about maximum defense capabilities, a god with this boon who uses Animal Aspect easily adds over 100 to their DV, making them literally untouchable to anyone who isn't completely frontloaded for attack (not to mention a lot less hurtable, thanks to cutting over 100 off the threshold successes that would otherwise have become damage dice). And not only do you get that DV, but you also get to give that DV to someone else, something that no other power in the game can duplicate and which is incredibly useful for protection of vulnerable people or other party members. I Say Thee Nay! is one of the few ways in the game, along with the Wits knacks that allow Scions to force enemies to target the user instead of others, that Scions who are not yet gods can reliably protect friends, loved ones and other important people from being hurt in the constant high-stakes craziness of the Titan war.
More to the point than power level, however - that can always be adjusted, after all - is the point of the boon, and the Guardian purview as a whole: it's for protecting other people, period. It's not for making you better at fighting; it's not for making yourself invincible; it's not even for using to get rid of enemies who might hurt those you want to save. It's a purview that is conceptually built around the idea of defense and defense only, and its powers should never be used to enable damage or danger against anyone, friend or foe. Guardian boons can never be used to hurt others, period, and that means that the second you start doing that, whatever Guardian boon you already had active stops functioning.
Just like you can't take a shot at anyone and still stay safe inside an Unseen Shield, you can't use I Say Thee Nay! to protect yourself while wreaking havoc on the battlefield. If that were the case, it would be a mandatory boon for all combat characters thanks to its incredible power; everyone would buy it specifically to hurt other people without being hittable in combat, which is the exact opposite of what the Guardian purview is supposed to do.
So yes, if you want the badass DV bonuses of I Say Thee Nay! for yourself and your target, you can't attack anyone, even if they're trying to attack you. Guardian is here to protect you and your friends, not to make it easier for you to kill your enemies, even if said enemies are the ones you need protecting from. The boon enables you to be incredible at defense only, and is not intended for any other use.
It's true, it would be incredibly awesome to mow down enemies on the battlefield while being almost completely invincible thanks to your crazily boosted DV and ensure that Unconscious Comrade A was similarly teflon, but it would also be broken as fuck. So you can't do that. Sorry.
There are a few minor exceptions, but as a general rule, any time you think you can use a Guardian boon to hurt, kill or make yourself better able to hurt or kill someone else, you're probably doing it wrong.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Protective Gear
Question: A player is wanting to get creative and casts Aegis on their longcoat or trenchcoat (non-relic)... should they even expect any type of soak bonus? I can see maybe 1/2 successes at the most. I know the coat will be highly resistant to damage thanks to Aegis... thoughts?
Nope, they should not expect any soak bonus. Aegis is intended specifically to safeguard objects and mortals; it's expressly stated that it can't help Scions or other Legendary beings, and trying to get around it by using the boon on your clothes is a pretty thin attempt at avoiding that clause. Aegis is for protecting the people who need it most - fragile mortals and defenseless objects - not you, who has all your supernatural soak at your disposal.
Using Aegis on your trenchcoat will definitely make it super-durable, but it won't do anything for the person wearing it. When it comes to your own potential for injury, all that Aegis'd trenchcoat will mean is that when you get a giant sword slice in your abdomen, there'll be a pristinely undamaged leather trenchcoat wedged into the wound.
It's probably nicely stain-resistant, too, though.
Nope, they should not expect any soak bonus. Aegis is intended specifically to safeguard objects and mortals; it's expressly stated that it can't help Scions or other Legendary beings, and trying to get around it by using the boon on your clothes is a pretty thin attempt at avoiding that clause. Aegis is for protecting the people who need it most - fragile mortals and defenseless objects - not you, who has all your supernatural soak at your disposal.
Using Aegis on your trenchcoat will definitely make it super-durable, but it won't do anything for the person wearing it. When it comes to your own potential for injury, all that Aegis'd trenchcoat will mean is that when you get a giant sword slice in your abdomen, there'll be a pristinely undamaged leather trenchcoat wedged into the wound.
It's probably nicely stain-resistant, too, though.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Deliver Us From Punches
Question: How does Unseen Shield react to incapacitating but not damaging boons like Web of Stars? If a person inside the Shield decided to use Starfire, then would he lose his protection immediately, or at the end of 10 ticks when the actual damage happens? Can a person inside the Shield summon Star Beasts and order them to attack without losing its protection?
Every now and then, players like to play a game called Let's Try to Circumvent the Safeguards on the Guardian Purview. We're not really sure why; it's been made very clear in both our games and on the website that Guardian can't be used to harm anyone or hidden behind if you're in the process of being aggressive, but still sometimes someone just has to test those boundaries. Of course, as the quesetions above illustrate, there are always some grey areas when it comes to what "violence" or "aggression" means in context of Guardian boons, but that's why this blog is here to clear up the confusion!
Firstly, boons that involve directly attacking another person in any way always prevent you from remaining in an Unseen Shield. An "attack" doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to inflict damage; tying someone up, throwing someone across the room, blinding someone with light or making someone fall over unconscious are all attacks, regardless of the fact that they don't technically deal damage. If you're trying to do something that directly restrains a person against their will or deprives them of their basic personal rights in some way, you're still assaulting them and Guardian is still not going to stand for any of your shenanigans. Attempting to snare someone in a Web of Stars would still kick you out of an Unseen Shield's protection, because you're directly taking an aggressive action against someone else, regardless of whether or not the web technically causes them physical pain.
Of course, not every incapacitating boon or knack is disallowed by Guardian; it depends on what you're doing. If it's a passive effect - for example, Lasting Impression, which for negative-Appearance users inflicts Willpower loss and dice penalties - then Guardian will probably give you a pass, because it's not that you're attacking that person but rather that the sight of you is disturbing and they're upset about it. On the other hand, using Paralyzing Confusion on someone to make them fall over gibbering will get you punted out of that protective bubble at light speed, even if you aren't planning to hurt the person you've affected, because you took a direct action designed to incapacitate that person and render them defenseless. Storytellers will probably make their own calls about what is and isn't allowed, but we think it's pretty obvious when something is a generalized or defensive power and when it's an aggressive act that isn't playing nice with Guardian's non-aggression policy. A useful rule of thumb (that doesn't cover everything, but is a good general starting point) is that if it's something you could be charged with a crime for doing if you did it with completely mundane means, Guardian won't let you do it; you won't go to jail for being ugly, but duct-taping someone into submission or intentionally drugging them into having a seizure sure as hell qualifies as assault.
So yes, your web-slinging will leave you vulnerable to retaliation if you go after an enemy. Starfire, which is one of the most dangerous and damage-heavy powers in the game, most definitely will, and it will do it immediately, not ten ticks after you decide to go for it. Your Unseen Shield does not care about the exact tick someone else takes damage; what it cares about is that you're actively taking an action to hurt someone, and the second you start doing that, you're out. Starfire may take ten ticks to actually hurt everyone, but you're spending those ten ticks concentrating your celestial energy to blow it out and kill everyone, so you're already taking a violent action as soon as you start (albeit a slow one). The same goes for every other action in the game; you're out of the shield the moment you start swinging your sword to hit someone, and that goes for all five ticks of your swing, not just the one that actually hits somebody (or misses, as the case may be). Your ass is already being obviously violent, and the Guardian purview doesn't need to wait around to see how successful you are at it.
However, there's good news in the third part of this question for the squishy social characters out there: you can indeed order creatures to attack on your behalf without leaving your protective hamster ball of safety. While ordering a gaggle of Star Beasts or Flameborn Spirits or Jotunblut'd up squirrels to tear your arch-rival apart while you hide behind impenetrable invisible walls certainly qualifies as you being a dick to him, you are not personally actually taking any violent actions, and as long as you don't do anything but give orders, you're home free. It's the creatures that are acting aggressively and are not allowed into your zone of protection. Just be careful about what you may or may not do to help them, because Guardian will not accept "but I was helping my friends so it doesn't count when I hurt others" as a valid reason to not deliver you into the waiting jaws of your enemies.
The point of the Guardian purview is that it is meant to defend and protect, and that's the only thing it's meant to do. It is not meant to give you an advantage in combat or help you hurt anyone in any way, so the second you start trying to use it that way, you're probably doing it wrong. When in doubt, ask your Storyteller if you'll be disqualified before you take the action instead of doing it and then trying to argue your way back to safety.
Every now and then, players like to play a game called Let's Try to Circumvent the Safeguards on the Guardian Purview. We're not really sure why; it's been made very clear in both our games and on the website that Guardian can't be used to harm anyone or hidden behind if you're in the process of being aggressive, but still sometimes someone just has to test those boundaries. Of course, as the quesetions above illustrate, there are always some grey areas when it comes to what "violence" or "aggression" means in context of Guardian boons, but that's why this blog is here to clear up the confusion!
Firstly, boons that involve directly attacking another person in any way always prevent you from remaining in an Unseen Shield. An "attack" doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to inflict damage; tying someone up, throwing someone across the room, blinding someone with light or making someone fall over unconscious are all attacks, regardless of the fact that they don't technically deal damage. If you're trying to do something that directly restrains a person against their will or deprives them of their basic personal rights in some way, you're still assaulting them and Guardian is still not going to stand for any of your shenanigans. Attempting to snare someone in a Web of Stars would still kick you out of an Unseen Shield's protection, because you're directly taking an aggressive action against someone else, regardless of whether or not the web technically causes them physical pain.
Of course, not every incapacitating boon or knack is disallowed by Guardian; it depends on what you're doing. If it's a passive effect - for example, Lasting Impression, which for negative-Appearance users inflicts Willpower loss and dice penalties - then Guardian will probably give you a pass, because it's not that you're attacking that person but rather that the sight of you is disturbing and they're upset about it. On the other hand, using Paralyzing Confusion on someone to make them fall over gibbering will get you punted out of that protective bubble at light speed, even if you aren't planning to hurt the person you've affected, because you took a direct action designed to incapacitate that person and render them defenseless. Storytellers will probably make their own calls about what is and isn't allowed, but we think it's pretty obvious when something is a generalized or defensive power and when it's an aggressive act that isn't playing nice with Guardian's non-aggression policy. A useful rule of thumb (that doesn't cover everything, but is a good general starting point) is that if it's something you could be charged with a crime for doing if you did it with completely mundane means, Guardian won't let you do it; you won't go to jail for being ugly, but duct-taping someone into submission or intentionally drugging them into having a seizure sure as hell qualifies as assault.
So yes, your web-slinging will leave you vulnerable to retaliation if you go after an enemy. Starfire, which is one of the most dangerous and damage-heavy powers in the game, most definitely will, and it will do it immediately, not ten ticks after you decide to go for it. Your Unseen Shield does not care about the exact tick someone else takes damage; what it cares about is that you're actively taking an action to hurt someone, and the second you start doing that, you're out. Starfire may take ten ticks to actually hurt everyone, but you're spending those ten ticks concentrating your celestial energy to blow it out and kill everyone, so you're already taking a violent action as soon as you start (albeit a slow one). The same goes for every other action in the game; you're out of the shield the moment you start swinging your sword to hit someone, and that goes for all five ticks of your swing, not just the one that actually hits somebody (or misses, as the case may be). Your ass is already being obviously violent, and the Guardian purview doesn't need to wait around to see how successful you are at it.
However, there's good news in the third part of this question for the squishy social characters out there: you can indeed order creatures to attack on your behalf without leaving your protective hamster ball of safety. While ordering a gaggle of Star Beasts or Flameborn Spirits or Jotunblut'd up squirrels to tear your arch-rival apart while you hide behind impenetrable invisible walls certainly qualifies as you being a dick to him, you are not personally actually taking any violent actions, and as long as you don't do anything but give orders, you're home free. It's the creatures that are acting aggressively and are not allowed into your zone of protection. Just be careful about what you may or may not do to help them, because Guardian will not accept "but I was helping my friends so it doesn't count when I hurt others" as a valid reason to not deliver you into the waiting jaws of your enemies.
The point of the Guardian purview is that it is meant to defend and protect, and that's the only thing it's meant to do. It is not meant to give you an advantage in combat or help you hurt anyone in any way, so the second you start trying to use it that way, you're probably doing it wrong. When in doubt, ask your Storyteller if you'll be disqualified before you take the action instead of doing it and then trying to argue your way back to safety.
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