Question: I'm curious as to why you and Anne decided to eliminate the electricity based boons from the Sky purview. Given the number of sky gods that rely on such powers as a mode of attack, electricity/lightning based boons seem pretty fundamental. Just curious, thanks!
Sounds like you might not have been following the blog much and missed out on a lot of what we're doing.
We haven't erased lightning powers from Sky; rather, we've split the old Sky purview into two new ones, Sky and Thunder, with the former containing all the wind and air and cloud boons and the latter all the storm and thunder and lightning boons. While there are some gods who do both things (although very few who have the Avatar of both purviews), for the most part they are very separate creatures; sky gods are normally in charge of the vault of the skies, the shapers of the clouds and rulers of the winds, as opposed to thunder gods who are the ones in charge of destructive storms and life-giving rains. Since the old Sky purview lumped them together, we've all gotten pretty used to referring to both as powers of a "sky god", but we're really looking at two different kinds of deities, which is why we decided on the split. It's the difference between Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc, or Vayu and Indra.
So if you want to be primarily a Sky god, your offensive powers will be Sky powers: knocking your enemies far afield with blasts of wind, denying them breath with your suffocation powers, and so on. If you want to use thunder and lightning instead, you're going to want the forthcoming Thunder purview, which we hope will be released fairly soon. (Or maybe you want to buy both! Chase your dreams!)
You may want to check out this recent post from the release of Sky for more details and suggestions about how to convert to the two split purviews.
Showing posts with label Sky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sky. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
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!
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!
Breath of Heaven
Okay, guys, you know what day it is? It's purview day! Hooray!
This one's going to be a little more complicated and a little less clean than the last one, so please be patient as we make our first public plunge into the wonderful world of elemental purviews. Today, we're going to release the new Sky purview, but we have a few caveats for you guys to be aware of first.
First of all, this is the long-awaited moment when we split Sky and Thunder off into two distinct purviews! Sky, which we're releasing today, is the purview of air, wind, breath and clouds, while the forthcoming Thunder will be about lightning, thunder, rain and storms. We're still brushing up some of the final touches on the Thunder purview, and it's not quite ready for you guys, so it'll probably still be a week or two; we could have held onto it until we were ready to release both at once, but we didn't want to go so long without putting out something new for everyone to play with. For those who are planning to be Thunder users instead of Sky, we're leaving the old Sky purview with its lightning boons up under the Thunder button for now. When new Thunder is released, it'll be replaced, but it gives you a stop-gap for now. (We promise, we'll get that one out as quickly as possible, because we know what a pain it is to have one and not the other.)
If your game would like to covert from the old hybrid Sky to the new Sky and Thunder, here's how we're handling the split for our characters: each player who has old Sky can choose whether they want to convert their boons to Sky or Thunder, and then get whichever boons they want that are the same level as the old ones they had (so if they had a level 1, 2 and 3 Sky boon in the old purview, they can choose a 1, 2 and 3 in Sky or a 1, 2 and 3 in Thunder). If they decide that they want both purviews, it might be easier to just give them an equivalent amount of XP to their old Sky boons, and tell them they can only spend it on Sky or Thunder boons. Either way, we want Scions who have the old Sky purview to get the opportunity to keep the kinds of powers they love using, but without giving them a bunch of extra powers for free that other people in the group don't get.
For Storytellers, if your Scions have positive or negative Fatebonds associated with old Sky, you'll need to convert those, too. If you happen to know what they got that Fatebond for - that is, they gained a Fatebond to it because people saw them lightning bolting a bunch of people, or they were given a penalty because they tried and failed to fly away from danger - then you can assign it appropriately to whichever purview governs the event that the Fatebond is referencing. If you aren't sure or there are too many Fatebonds involved, we suggest splitting them evenly - so if someone has four positive Fatebonds to Sky and there's a mix of reasons, just give them two Fatebonds to each of Sky and Thunder and call it a day.
Since the purviews are splitting, this is now the moment that various gods' associations change, as well! They have been changed on their individual pages and the quick-reference, but here's the quick list (including gods from the downloadable pantheons):
Gods with Sky: Amm, Enlil, Horus, Itzamna, Ix Chel, Izanagi, Marduk, Nezha, Njord, Nuwa, Pauahtun, Quetzalcoatl, Stribog, Svarozhich, Tane, Vayu, Zeus
Gods with Thunder: Baal, Chaac, Dushara, Hubal, Illapa, Indra, Ishtar, Marduk, Ninurta, Oya, Qos, Raiden, Rongo, Perun, Set, Shango, Shiva, Susanoo, Taranis, Thor, Tishtrya, Tlaloc, Tulungersak, Zeus
You'll notice that a couple of gods are on both lists, but most of them aren't. If a Scion's parent no longer has the purview they invested in associated, the Scion gets to keep the associated XP discount anyway, since we don't want to punish anyone because of our fiddling.
The second major issue is that you'll see a couple of boons (both very high-level) that are "under construction" still at the moment, which is because they affect other purviews that we haven't finished rewriting yet. We apologize for the fact that they're hard to use until then, but we'll update them as soon as possible. Both have an alternate boon at the same level, so you won't be prevented from getting a useful power as you go along, and of course Storytellers are always free to give you whatever mechanics they deem appropriate for the under-construction boons if they want to let you use them before we finish them.
Finally, as we've mentioned before, in our odyssey through all these purviews we are not only updating purviews but also discovering that there are a lot of general game mechanics that need brushing up. Today, we're hitting the first of these, which is movement speed. Instead of the old system with Move and Dash and that random +6 in the middle there, here's what we're doing instead: you have one top speed, which is equal to double your (Dexterity dots + Epic Dexterity successes) in yards per second. You can go slower than that speed at will, but it's your top speed at a flat-out sprint. If you want your DV while runnning, you can go no faster than half that speed. Contests of speed such as races are not comparisons of this calculation, but rather contests where the runners roll off their Dexterity + Athletics.
So, to use an example, Eztli's base speed is 112 yards per second (or about 230 mph/369 kph) at a dead run (10 Dex + 46 Dex successes, doubled). If she wants her DV, she can only run up to 56 yards per second (115 mph/184 kph). If she wants to race against Goze, they'll both roll their Dexterity + Athletics, and even though she has more Dexterity, he'll probably give her a run for her money against his buckets of Arete: Athletics.
And that helps simplify speed calculations and more easily apply speed-boosting powers, so hopefully everyone feels as good about it as we do. And lastly, you'll notice that there are now technically two boons in the game called Rainbow Bridge, which is silly. We recognize that, and will be changing the name of the Psychopomp power when we get there.
Enjoy new Sky, and as always, feel free to ask questions, call for clarification or bring up any issues you have in the comments below!
This one's going to be a little more complicated and a little less clean than the last one, so please be patient as we make our first public plunge into the wonderful world of elemental purviews. Today, we're going to release the new Sky purview, but we have a few caveats for you guys to be aware of first.
First of all, this is the long-awaited moment when we split Sky and Thunder off into two distinct purviews! Sky, which we're releasing today, is the purview of air, wind, breath and clouds, while the forthcoming Thunder will be about lightning, thunder, rain and storms. We're still brushing up some of the final touches on the Thunder purview, and it's not quite ready for you guys, so it'll probably still be a week or two; we could have held onto it until we were ready to release both at once, but we didn't want to go so long without putting out something new for everyone to play with. For those who are planning to be Thunder users instead of Sky, we're leaving the old Sky purview with its lightning boons up under the Thunder button for now. When new Thunder is released, it'll be replaced, but it gives you a stop-gap for now. (We promise, we'll get that one out as quickly as possible, because we know what a pain it is to have one and not the other.)
If your game would like to covert from the old hybrid Sky to the new Sky and Thunder, here's how we're handling the split for our characters: each player who has old Sky can choose whether they want to convert their boons to Sky or Thunder, and then get whichever boons they want that are the same level as the old ones they had (so if they had a level 1, 2 and 3 Sky boon in the old purview, they can choose a 1, 2 and 3 in Sky or a 1, 2 and 3 in Thunder). If they decide that they want both purviews, it might be easier to just give them an equivalent amount of XP to their old Sky boons, and tell them they can only spend it on Sky or Thunder boons. Either way, we want Scions who have the old Sky purview to get the opportunity to keep the kinds of powers they love using, but without giving them a bunch of extra powers for free that other people in the group don't get.
For Storytellers, if your Scions have positive or negative Fatebonds associated with old Sky, you'll need to convert those, too. If you happen to know what they got that Fatebond for - that is, they gained a Fatebond to it because people saw them lightning bolting a bunch of people, or they were given a penalty because they tried and failed to fly away from danger - then you can assign it appropriately to whichever purview governs the event that the Fatebond is referencing. If you aren't sure or there are too many Fatebonds involved, we suggest splitting them evenly - so if someone has four positive Fatebonds to Sky and there's a mix of reasons, just give them two Fatebonds to each of Sky and Thunder and call it a day.
Since the purviews are splitting, this is now the moment that various gods' associations change, as well! They have been changed on their individual pages and the quick-reference, but here's the quick list (including gods from the downloadable pantheons):
Gods with Sky: Amm, Enlil, Horus, Itzamna, Ix Chel, Izanagi, Marduk, Nezha, Njord, Nuwa, Pauahtun, Quetzalcoatl, Stribog, Svarozhich, Tane, Vayu, Zeus
Gods with Thunder: Baal, Chaac, Dushara, Hubal, Illapa, Indra, Ishtar, Marduk, Ninurta, Oya, Qos, Raiden, Rongo, Perun, Set, Shango, Shiva, Susanoo, Taranis, Thor, Tishtrya, Tlaloc, Tulungersak, Zeus
You'll notice that a couple of gods are on both lists, but most of them aren't. If a Scion's parent no longer has the purview they invested in associated, the Scion gets to keep the associated XP discount anyway, since we don't want to punish anyone because of our fiddling.
The second major issue is that you'll see a couple of boons (both very high-level) that are "under construction" still at the moment, which is because they affect other purviews that we haven't finished rewriting yet. We apologize for the fact that they're hard to use until then, but we'll update them as soon as possible. Both have an alternate boon at the same level, so you won't be prevented from getting a useful power as you go along, and of course Storytellers are always free to give you whatever mechanics they deem appropriate for the under-construction boons if they want to let you use them before we finish them.
Finally, as we've mentioned before, in our odyssey through all these purviews we are not only updating purviews but also discovering that there are a lot of general game mechanics that need brushing up. Today, we're hitting the first of these, which is movement speed. Instead of the old system with Move and Dash and that random +6 in the middle there, here's what we're doing instead: you have one top speed, which is equal to double your (Dexterity dots + Epic Dexterity successes) in yards per second. You can go slower than that speed at will, but it's your top speed at a flat-out sprint. If you want your DV while runnning, you can go no faster than half that speed. Contests of speed such as races are not comparisons of this calculation, but rather contests where the runners roll off their Dexterity + Athletics.
So, to use an example, Eztli's base speed is 112 yards per second (or about 230 mph/369 kph) at a dead run (10 Dex + 46 Dex successes, doubled). If she wants her DV, she can only run up to 56 yards per second (115 mph/184 kph). If she wants to race against Goze, they'll both roll their Dexterity + Athletics, and even though she has more Dexterity, he'll probably give her a run for her money against his buckets of Arete: Athletics.
And that helps simplify speed calculations and more easily apply speed-boosting powers, so hopefully everyone feels as good about it as we do. And lastly, you'll notice that there are now technically two boons in the game called Rainbow Bridge, which is silly. We recognize that, and will be changing the name of the Psychopomp power when we get there.
Enjoy new Sky, and as always, feel free to ask questions, call for clarification or bring up any issues you have in the comments below!
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Ten Questions with Excited Waving Arms
On today's blog, project updates, future possibilities, a call to action for you guys, and a whole bunch of questions!
Question: How do you handle "secrets" in myth? Things that supposedly certain gods do not know (and would have extreme reactions if they found out) yet are an established part of the myths about them?
Question: How do you explain the story of King Midas? I mean, the guy's an ordinary mortal who gets the power to turn anything he touches into gold. What Scion powers can give such a power to a mortal?
Question: Can you kill a death god? Should you be able to kill a death god? Does killing a death god really accomplish anything?
Question: What do you think would happen if a Scion, who has not yet received a Visitation, were to simply stumble across a Birthright relic that doesn't belong to an active Scion? Could that result in a kind of "triggered activation" of the Scion's divine blood? Or would nothing happen since it isn't a true Visitation?
Question: How do you determine the damage from some of the more extreme attacks that Scion's power allows? If my Strength monster picks up the Empire State Building and hurls it at a Titan Avatar, or some other powerful foe, how do I determine how badly such an impact hurt the target? If I used Create Earth to conjure up a mess of diamonds, then threw the diamonds into a tornado conjured by Tornado Tamer and hurled the whole thing at a bad guy? How would I determine THAT damage?
Question: How far is too far for you guys at GothamByNight when it comes to PC morality? When do you take one of your Players to the side and ask them if their PC could still be considered "a good guy/aligned with the Gods" and not some Chaotic Evil Titan in waiting that is deserving of a Dark Virtue or two? For example, do you think that a God-level PC Band's active attempts to wipeout humanity or kill off their parents for their own ambitions justify them gaining Dark Virtues?
Question: Do you guys have anyway of setting apart gods and goddesses of hunting mechanically? I'm working on some homebrew and I feel like these hunt gods need some association to really drive the point home, but I don't know what. I almost find myself wanting to make a Hunt Purview, but that's a heck of a lot of work. But what else to use? Is War fitting? An attribute that most fits their hunting style? I'm really at a loss here.
Question: You said in an earlier vlog that the difference between Followers/Creatures and Guides were that Creatures and Followers were below you and Guides were beings above you. Now what if I have a character who's got contact to the Valkyries as a Guide from Hero - would it be possible at Demigod that they turned into more like an equal ally type of thing? That instead of them just giving you good advice, they help you out physically when you really need it.
Question: Nut is a Titan, Shu is a Titan, and Geb is probably going to be a Titan as well - but the most ancient of them, Ra, is not?
Question: So! If everyone on Earth, for whatever reason, suddenly got a point of Legend, and the Gods were then able to get up to their old tricks without having to worry about Fatebinding, would they? If they could without having to worry about Fatebinding, would the Gods return to Earth? Related question, is there anything you can think of from any mythology that would be capable of giving everyone on Earth a legend point? Some Uber Relic or ritual that, if done, would give everyone that kind of power?
To our sixth questioner, we now realize that while we talked about PC morality in answer to your question, we didn't really address Dark Virtues. Our rule of thumb is that Dark Virtues are something PCs gain by contact with Titans or otherwise through magical events, so for the most part we would not give them any Dark Virtues automatically just because they're being jerks. It is entirely possible for Scions (and gods, too!) to be sometimes or even often malicious without actually having Malice, just as it's possible to be interested in knowledge and learning without having Intellect or to bravely run into battle without having Courage. However, Scions who are consistently evil or often do things that are in line with the goals of the Titans are likely to attract their attention, in which case it is entirely possible they might end up corrupted by a Titan Virtue later on.
If you want to email us boons, do it here! Go nuts!
Question: How do you handle "secrets" in myth? Things that supposedly certain gods do not know (and would have extreme reactions if they found out) yet are an established part of the myths about them?
Question: How do you explain the story of King Midas? I mean, the guy's an ordinary mortal who gets the power to turn anything he touches into gold. What Scion powers can give such a power to a mortal?
Question: Can you kill a death god? Should you be able to kill a death god? Does killing a death god really accomplish anything?
Question: What do you think would happen if a Scion, who has not yet received a Visitation, were to simply stumble across a Birthright relic that doesn't belong to an active Scion? Could that result in a kind of "triggered activation" of the Scion's divine blood? Or would nothing happen since it isn't a true Visitation?
Question: How do you determine the damage from some of the more extreme attacks that Scion's power allows? If my Strength monster picks up the Empire State Building and hurls it at a Titan Avatar, or some other powerful foe, how do I determine how badly such an impact hurt the target? If I used Create Earth to conjure up a mess of diamonds, then threw the diamonds into a tornado conjured by Tornado Tamer and hurled the whole thing at a bad guy? How would I determine THAT damage?
Question: How far is too far for you guys at GothamByNight when it comes to PC morality? When do you take one of your Players to the side and ask them if their PC could still be considered "a good guy/aligned with the Gods" and not some Chaotic Evil Titan in waiting that is deserving of a Dark Virtue or two? For example, do you think that a God-level PC Band's active attempts to wipeout humanity or kill off their parents for their own ambitions justify them gaining Dark Virtues?
Question: Do you guys have anyway of setting apart gods and goddesses of hunting mechanically? I'm working on some homebrew and I feel like these hunt gods need some association to really drive the point home, but I don't know what. I almost find myself wanting to make a Hunt Purview, but that's a heck of a lot of work. But what else to use? Is War fitting? An attribute that most fits their hunting style? I'm really at a loss here.
Question: You said in an earlier vlog that the difference between Followers/Creatures and Guides were that Creatures and Followers were below you and Guides were beings above you. Now what if I have a character who's got contact to the Valkyries as a Guide from Hero - would it be possible at Demigod that they turned into more like an equal ally type of thing? That instead of them just giving you good advice, they help you out physically when you really need it.
Question: Nut is a Titan, Shu is a Titan, and Geb is probably going to be a Titan as well - but the most ancient of them, Ra, is not?
Question: So! If everyone on Earth, for whatever reason, suddenly got a point of Legend, and the Gods were then able to get up to their old tricks without having to worry about Fatebinding, would they? If they could without having to worry about Fatebinding, would the Gods return to Earth? Related question, is there anything you can think of from any mythology that would be capable of giving everyone on Earth a legend point? Some Uber Relic or ritual that, if done, would give everyone that kind of power?
To our sixth questioner, we now realize that while we talked about PC morality in answer to your question, we didn't really address Dark Virtues. Our rule of thumb is that Dark Virtues are something PCs gain by contact with Titans or otherwise through magical events, so for the most part we would not give them any Dark Virtues automatically just because they're being jerks. It is entirely possible for Scions (and gods, too!) to be sometimes or even often malicious without actually having Malice, just as it's possible to be interested in knowledge and learning without having Intellect or to bravely run into battle without having Courage. However, Scions who are consistently evil or often do things that are in line with the goals of the Titans are likely to attract their attention, in which case it is entirely possible they might end up corrupted by a Titan Virtue later on.
If you want to email us boons, do it here! Go nuts!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
The Sound of Silence
Question: Why doesn't Shroud of Silence have a stealth bonus when Divine Threnody does?
You make a valid point, sir. Divine Threnody confers a bonus equal to the Scion's total Sky boons in dice to those attempting to sneak around while the boon is being used to deaden sound. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Shroud of Silence, which completely and totally erases all sound, isn't also helping our stealthy rogues out, does it?
We're eyeball-deep in a lot of projects right now and we can't see the light, so this will probably go in our boon changelog along with a million other things for the moment. John suggests that, for the time being, you go ahead and use the same mechanic - Moon boons as dice to Stealth rolls - for Shroud of Silence that is currently in effect for Divine Threnody. We'll probably make that bonus a little more potent when we have time to work on it, since Shroud does a full silence instead of just a muffling and Moon has fewer total boons to call on than does Sky, but for the moment it'll give your lunar Scions a little bit of a boost until we have time to sit down and balance.
John suggests that everyone change their vote on the poll from the Amatsukami overhaul to working on various boons. He promises this is because he has your best interests at heart, and not because he's hiding from Japan and having to fix yet another PSP.
You make a valid point, sir. Divine Threnody confers a bonus equal to the Scion's total Sky boons in dice to those attempting to sneak around while the boon is being used to deaden sound. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Shroud of Silence, which completely and totally erases all sound, isn't also helping our stealthy rogues out, does it?
We're eyeball-deep in a lot of projects right now and we can't see the light, so this will probably go in our boon changelog along with a million other things for the moment. John suggests that, for the time being, you go ahead and use the same mechanic - Moon boons as dice to Stealth rolls - for Shroud of Silence that is currently in effect for Divine Threnody. We'll probably make that bonus a little more potent when we have time to work on it, since Shroud does a full silence instead of just a muffling and Moon has fewer total boons to call on than does Sky, but for the moment it'll give your lunar Scions a little bit of a boost until we have time to sit down and balance.
John suggests that everyone change their vote on the poll from the Amatsukami overhaul to working on various boons. He promises this is because he has your best interests at heart, and not because he's hiding from Japan and having to fix yet another PSP.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Wind of the Gods
Today, Scion plus culinary adventures. We live life on the edge.
Question: Hey, I've noticed you mention you've changed up Cloud Sculptor before, but as a big fan of the Sky purview, that boon still makes me groan a bit. I'd be interested in hearing how you guys changed it, or the uses you've found for it.
Question: If you did break Sky down and split off a Thunder purview, what kind of things would fill the holes left on both sides? What else can Sky do and what can Thunder do besides blow things up?
Question: Have you considered the idea of allowing players to choose some form of specialties for purviews? E.g., Zeus specializing in the lightning powers in Sky, or Vayu in the wind powers.
Also, second question-asker, we have to apologize to you; after we finished and were halfway through editing this, we realized that we only answered the part of your question about splitting Thunder and Sky, and didn't actually talk about what different powers the two would have. Thunder would have powers pertaining to rain, lightning, thunder, rainbows and other storm-related issues (hmm, would Storm be a better name for that purview than Thunder?). Sky would have powers involving air, wind, breath, the sky itself (as in the firmament) and other sky-related business that didn't have anything to do with thunder.
In case anyone was wondering, we only lost a small percentage of our chicken due to overexuberant Scion-fueled pan-flipping, and nothing was set permanently on fire.
Question: Hey, I've noticed you mention you've changed up Cloud Sculptor before, but as a big fan of the Sky purview, that boon still makes me groan a bit. I'd be interested in hearing how you guys changed it, or the uses you've found for it.
Question: If you did break Sky down and split off a Thunder purview, what kind of things would fill the holes left on both sides? What else can Sky do and what can Thunder do besides blow things up?
Question: Have you considered the idea of allowing players to choose some form of specialties for purviews? E.g., Zeus specializing in the lightning powers in Sky, or Vayu in the wind powers.
Also, second question-asker, we have to apologize to you; after we finished and were halfway through editing this, we realized that we only answered the part of your question about splitting Thunder and Sky, and didn't actually talk about what different powers the two would have. Thunder would have powers pertaining to rain, lightning, thunder, rainbows and other storm-related issues (hmm, would Storm be a better name for that purview than Thunder?). Sky would have powers involving air, wind, breath, the sky itself (as in the firmament) and other sky-related business that didn't have anything to do with thunder.
In case anyone was wondering, we only lost a small percentage of our chicken due to overexuberant Scion-fueled pan-flipping, and nothing was set permanently on fire.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Free as a Bird
Question: While using Wind's Freedom, what are the restrictions (if any) on your ability to lift objects or people? Is it still your base lift value, as though you were on the ground? Is it less because you have no leverage, or is it more because the wind has the strength to lift you - so why not a few more pounds?
I was going to wait to answer this question until John was awake because I wanted his input, but he was up all night Ragnaroking and who knows when he'll recover? So here's what I'd rule, as a Storyteller, and the way we've generally run it.
Wind's Freedom is a boon with a very specific purpose: giving you the power of flight. It's not about lifting other things independently of yourself or creating big updrafts or winds; there are other boons, like Wind Grapple and Gale Force, that do that. I see where the flavor text might lead readers to believe that since this power uses wind to lift you, it might use wind to lift anything, but that's not the case; the point of this boon is that you're a budding Sky god and therefore you're comfortable in the sky. You can fly if you feel like it, but you're not a master of Sky yet, and you can't get more versatile than that. That's the entire scope of what the power's intended to do (and believe me, for a level 2 boon that's plenty).
So when you activate Wind's Freedom, your lifting capacity is exactly what it would be normally; the boon allows you to fly, but it's not carrying extra items for you, so you can't carry any more than you could normally lift. By the same token, your lifting capacity isn't lessened because you don't have the ground to push off from; Wind's Freedom works effortlessly to lift you, period, and it doesn't have a weight limit. It's simple, clean and intuitive.
Attempting to use this particular boon to lift other things or attach a quantifiable scale to it would be a big mistake, mostly because it would be a pain in the ass and add a pretty useless mechanic to the game. Do we really need a system for something so easily intuitive? Do we really want to get into the murkey waters where we have to explain that somehow Thor's Wind's Freedom must be more powerful than Nezha's because it has to lift so much more weight, even though there's no reason this should be so? It's a place where adding complications would be a drag on the game, not an asset, so I'd steer well clear of the idea.
If you want to grab and lift items with air, that's what Wind Grapple is for; adding anything extra to Wind's Freedom's just going to make it unbalanced and more complicated, two things Scion can always do without.
I was going to wait to answer this question until John was awake because I wanted his input, but he was up all night Ragnaroking and who knows when he'll recover? So here's what I'd rule, as a Storyteller, and the way we've generally run it.
Wind's Freedom is a boon with a very specific purpose: giving you the power of flight. It's not about lifting other things independently of yourself or creating big updrafts or winds; there are other boons, like Wind Grapple and Gale Force, that do that. I see where the flavor text might lead readers to believe that since this power uses wind to lift you, it might use wind to lift anything, but that's not the case; the point of this boon is that you're a budding Sky god and therefore you're comfortable in the sky. You can fly if you feel like it, but you're not a master of Sky yet, and you can't get more versatile than that. That's the entire scope of what the power's intended to do (and believe me, for a level 2 boon that's plenty).
So when you activate Wind's Freedom, your lifting capacity is exactly what it would be normally; the boon allows you to fly, but it's not carrying extra items for you, so you can't carry any more than you could normally lift. By the same token, your lifting capacity isn't lessened because you don't have the ground to push off from; Wind's Freedom works effortlessly to lift you, period, and it doesn't have a weight limit. It's simple, clean and intuitive.
Attempting to use this particular boon to lift other things or attach a quantifiable scale to it would be a big mistake, mostly because it would be a pain in the ass and add a pretty useless mechanic to the game. Do we really need a system for something so easily intuitive? Do we really want to get into the murkey waters where we have to explain that somehow Thor's Wind's Freedom must be more powerful than Nezha's because it has to lift so much more weight, even though there's no reason this should be so? It's a place where adding complications would be a drag on the game, not an asset, so I'd steer well clear of the idea.
If you want to grab and lift items with air, that's what Wind Grapple is for; adding anything extra to Wind's Freedom's just going to make it unbalanced and more complicated, two things Scion can always do without.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Sniper Slipup Solved
Question: Does Wind Reader, paired with Sharpshooter, allow you to add your total number of Sky boons to your damage roll when using guns?
Ahaha, see, this is what I mean when I talk about players always finding a way to do things they aren't supposed to.
No, Wind Reader, like the other level two enhancement boons (Tectonic Strength, Glacial Resistance, Fluid Endurance and Pheromones) is never intended to be used for damage rolls, only for the performances of tasks and badassness in other arenas. We included the inability to use Tectonic Strength for damage in its text, but apparently forgot that Perception can also be used for damage with the appropriate knacks. These boons should never be used for that; there are plenty of damage adders in the game, but these aren't meant to be some of them.
Wind Reader's been corrected to reflect that being able to hear extra well due to the wind carrying sounds to you does not translate to being able to shoot people harder.
Ahaha, see, this is what I mean when I talk about players always finding a way to do things they aren't supposed to.
No, Wind Reader, like the other level two enhancement boons (Tectonic Strength, Glacial Resistance, Fluid Endurance and Pheromones) is never intended to be used for damage rolls, only for the performances of tasks and badassness in other arenas. We included the inability to use Tectonic Strength for damage in its text, but apparently forgot that Perception can also be used for damage with the appropriate knacks. These boons should never be used for that; there are plenty of damage adders in the game, but these aren't meant to be some of them.
Wind Reader's been corrected to reflect that being able to hear extra well due to the wind carrying sounds to you does not translate to being able to shoot people harder.
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