Question: Why is Multitasking so far down a tree of Intelligence knacks? Its effect is nice enough that I can understand it not being an entry level knack, but fourth tier seems kinda far for what is essentially a buffed human talent. Likewise, why is it at the end of a defensive set of knacks? Wouldn't the Perfect Memory -> Compartmentalization tree be a more fitting place for it?
Holy cow. Multitasking is a fourth-tier knack because it is insanely powerful. Like, just completely fucking nuts. Putting it any lower would be like giving babies nukes.
The thing about Multitasking is that it allows you to perform any kind of simultaneous non-physical actions. If all you're using it for is to play chess and solve physics equations at the same time, then yes, it's basically just a very badass version of something a human could theoretically do on a smaller scale. But it gets scarily good when you remember that boons and knacks are also non-physical actions.
Let me give you some examples. Sowiljr has seven Epic Intelligence and Multitasking (this is true, he does). When a small army of bandits charges over the hill at him, normally he would only be able to use his Compelling Presence knack to freeze a maximum of 22 of them, equal to his Epic Appearance successes. But since he has Multitasking, he can use Compelling Presence seven times at once if he wants to spend all his Legend on it, allowing him to freeze a whopping 81 people in the blink of an eye. He has completely ended the battle before anyone could so much as breathe on him.
Or, take Aiona. She has seven Epic Intelligence and Multitasking also (in fact, I believe she's going up to eight Epics this week). If the same army charges her, she can use any combination of Inferno, Dragon's Breath and Control Fire seven times on them; if she chooses to use Baelfyr on those boons, she has the potential to be dealing literally hundreds of aggravated damage against everyone in the area every single turn. She is an engine of instant death, all thanks to Multitasking.
Or, to use a lower-Legend blast from the past, consider Auggie. He has only four Epic Intelligence, so he can't do the giant godly things the two examples above are doing, but when he sees an enemy coming he can still turn on his Body Armor AND blow Fight with Your Head to drop their soak AND light up his spear with Blazing Weapon AND punch up his own defenses with Warrior Ideal, and still be able to take physical actions at the same time. The other guy has barely had time to do two of those things, and only if he wasn't planning on actually hitting Auggie this turn.
If you don't have a lot of Epic Intelligence, you're right, Multitasking is a pretty lackluster knack for you; you can only do two or three non-physical things at once, which is pretty close to what you could do before anyway. Even primarily physical characters can get some use out of it, however - it may not allow you to make any more physical attacks than you normally could, but it will allow you to throw up Body Armor and Mortal Stroke on your weapon without stopping you from still punching a guy in the face twice on the same turn.
So Multitasking will probably never be coming down to a lower level of knackhood; it's just too powerful. It's not game-breaking, but in the right hands, under the right circumstances, it can be devastatingly effective.
As for its position in the tree, it was a sticky one to place; nothing else really does the same kind of thing, so there was no tree that really stood out as being more appropriate than the others. We ended up putting it at the end of the resistance tree on the theory that the resistance knacks are all about disciplining your mind to avoid being affected by outside meddling, and that such mastery over doing various things at once was an extension of that discipline. I don't think it'd necessarily be worse off after Compartmentalization (other than players whining because Compartmentalization is kind of a specialty knack that not everyone cares about having), but it probably wouldn't be a lot better, either.
To be fair, you're probably allowing too many things to fall under the category of Multi-Tasking. Since there is no actual definition of a 'mental action' it falls upon the Storyteller to create a definition.
ReplyDeleteMy personal definition would be "Perception, Intelligence, and Wit knacks and mundane rolls" and no Boons because Boons are always a miscellaneous action unless stated otherwise in the boon text.
I disagree, actually. I don't have a problem with knacks and boons counting as mental/social actions - there's no such things as a "mental action" in the game proper, and Miscellaneous Actions are really just a measurement of time in ticks, not necessarily content. I don't see why you couldn't multi-task to use a War boon to make yourself scary or a Dexterity boon to make yourself fast - multi-tasking, after all, is just the ability to do a lot of things at once. There's no need for it to be only doing things that fall under the mental Attributes at once.
DeleteWhich sounds funny coming from me, because normally I err on the side of restriction to prevent ridiculous player excesses from blowing things up in the game. But in this case, I think it's a great power; it's high-level and hard to get, and rewards those who are really serious about their intellect.
Im confused by your phrase "to be fair" and "you're probably allowing ....etc"
DeleteHow does that change the conversation and make it any more fair?
It seems like on one hand you have a more powerful knack that should be a higher tier, and on the other you have a less powerful knack that should be a lower tier. We happen to like our multi-tasking to feel more awesome and surely more useful and so we did with it what we did.
The only real argument for not allowing multi-task to be used on War boons to make yourself scary or a Dexterity boon to make yourself fast would be a balance issue. Most buffs are supposed to represent an opportunity cost paid in time in order to benefit from a given buff.
DeleteNot every situation allows the players all the time in the world to activate their buffs, so the players are forced to make time critical decisions regarding what buffs they want to activate in the middle of a fight. It also steals some of the thunder from Riastrad but that is a pretty niche case.
It's just too mechanically useful to pass up, since it can let you active quite a few boons at the drop of a hat. In fact I noticed Vala, Sowiljr, Yoloxochitl, Jioni, Will, and Folkwardr all have it. Only Aiona seems to have abstained when it actually would fit her character concept.
I cant go through and check atm(best man at a wedding this weekend), but if you feel inclined, could you check if all those people have all the prereqs(meaning they bought it after the change and tier move), and how many people dont have the prereqs(meaning they bought it when it was first tier and just let you play chess while juggling).
DeleteAlso, aiona got it when she got her 8th dot of epic int this week. However, most of those gods you listed have near max epic intelligence(except will...he just bought all the knacks to keep them from buying intel off), and so its a reasonable knack for them.
In reply to John:
DeleteFor the most part I think the rules presented in GBN are fairly well balanced and probably heavily play-tested. I will stand by them against detractors 9 times out of 10. So it is reasonable to say that I am often biased in favor of this website as an authority in the Scion community.
In this sense, to be fair means to free myself of my initial bias. I've never heard of anyone running Multi-Tasking the way you run it, and it seems counter to one of the major design philosophies of Scion.
Also in reply to John:
DeleteFolkwardr (3/3), Jioni (2/3), Aiona (3/3), Yoloxochitl (3/3), Sowiljr (0/3), Vala (3/3), Will (1/3).
Im with you on your view of the design philosophy. With riastrad as the other example(one character has it, they've used it once, it was terror inducing), there is a small precedent(albeit from companion, my most despised book) for there to be several "powers" used all at the same time. At god, with 20+ knacks, and 50+ boons across most characters, you do get the sense that maybe only allowing 1-2 per 5 ticks gets to seem like "man, I really dont get a chance to actually use my powers in combat".
DeleteNot to say that might not also work fine, but we've also had times where even though they're using 7 powers every 5 ticks, they still wait 15 before they are ready to attack.
I have definitely thought at times during combat. "wow, everyone just blew 10,000 powers instantly, this is too crazy." But then at the same time, if they all needed to just wait 70 ticks before they could use their power. Thatd be longer then most combats last for us total.
I think its a neat thing for the super intel people to have, but I certainly could see it not being used for boons without consequence.
It certainly speeds up the "getting to the action" part of combat.
Thanks. I think definitely once you have the previous knacks it becomes too good to pass up for sure. But if you dont have any knacks in the tree, Im not sure its worth the massive xp cost all on its own.
DeleteWhile I'm brainstorming(ive been thinking about multitasking a bit recently), would you feel a legend cost per use to mitigate the potency, or is the affront against the design philosophy too much for even that?
That sounds sarcastic, its really not.
Putting multitasking with the mental defense knacks hurts characters who already the wits or appearance mental defense knacks. Putting it after compartmentalization will allow those characters to take multitasking without feeling like it cost them 3 knacks just for that one ability.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I see what you're saying. It depends somewhat on the character; a lot of ours actually take more than one resist tree (if they have the Epics for it) due to the fact that just having one doesn't always help in every situation. The cost of a resist knack varies depending on the attacker; if they have more of that Epic Attribute than you do, it can get expensive very quickly, which has led to a few folks picking up two. You never want to rely on your Wits resist against Loki, because he's better at Wits than you are, so having, say, an Appearance resist as well is a good idea.
DeleteBut of course that doesn't apply to everybody, and I definitely see what you're saying. I'm sure some of our players would argue that the Compartmentalization tree might be equally useless for them - unless you like memory-wiping and investing in Academics, it's kind of infrequently used - but you make a good point. I need a John consult.
John Consult.
DeleteMost of our characters(the 2 main games at least) have more then one resist tree for the reasons anne listed above. But also because the dice from each first tier resist knack add to the resist roll even if you dont end up using the autos from the 2nd tier(of course I mean 2nd tier and 3rd tier here when talking about their actual tier in the knack tree). Several of them(maybe as high as 4) actually have the resist knacks in all 3 trees.
I think any fourth tier knack, no matter where you put it, is going to feel(to some people) like they had to waste knacks to get there, and to others like its a convenient new knack they get after taking some knacks they already wanted. I dont think there is really anyway around that because its all about how much the character values the previous knacks in the tree. It seems that you value compartmentalization and the knacks in that tree over the resist tree knacks. Many others disagree and feel the opposite. All about what the character values.