Showing posts with label Blessing of Ammunition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blessing of Ammunition. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

God of War

Question: Don't you think that Blessing of Ammunition needs a boost? I think it's severely underpowered for its level.

Blessing of Ammunition, in its original form in the Scion: God, was for a long time in the running for the coveted title of Worst Boon Ever. It was god-level and heftily expensive, but all it did was provide unlimited ammunition to a single weapon for a single scene, something that was better (and permamently) done by a single dot on a relic. It was intensely lame, especially for war-gods who weren't in situations that made ammunition matter. We were baffled when, given the opportunity to do something about this awful mess, both Scion: Companion and Scion: Ragnarok subsequently added new boons to the War purview but still failed to add an alternative level eight option for those who didn't want to have to buy something that sucked.

Of course, we've worked on Blessing of Ammunition, so it doesn't suck anymore (thank goodness!), and we've also added alternative options for those who want to get something else as their level-eight War boon.

Like many high-level War boons, Blessing of Ammunition is intended for gods who are leading armies, defending from sieges or otherwise strongly affecting the tides of an entire war, not just fighting on their own. It's still not useful for a Scion to use it on their own weapon, since if they're a ranged fighter at god-level the odds are strongly present that they've already got a relic weapon with unlimited ammunition, but it's incredibly useful for supplying armies or comrades under that Scion's command. Scions may still affect individual weapons if they want to, but the really powerful part of Blessing of Ammunition is the ability to bless ammunition containers with endless supplies.

Think about it: a god with Blessing of Ammunition can see to it that a ship's store of cannonballs never runs out, that a fort under siege has endless bullets, that a rogue submarine never runs out of torpedos in its tubes or that an invading army's quivers of arrows never run dry. Armies that are not made up of gods or Scions (so, most armies everywhere) become incredibly powerful when they don't have to restock or maintain ammunition and can rain ceaseless death down on their opponents, and a War-god with this boon can help them do that with barely any investment on his part. The ability to do so permanently for a permanent Willpower is nice, but even that isn't necessary - War-gods with high Wits can provide these benefits for months at a time with a single Legend and Willpower point, very concretely turning the tide of battles and wars they choose to interfere in.

It also seems like a small thing, but making it impossible for anyone to botch with that ammunition is also a very big deal. Especially if used on mortal armies, where botching happens tragically often and losing men to a weapon backfire or losing attack opportunities due to a magazine jam makes a very big difference if one side is doing it and the other is not.

Basically, this is a boon that is now very effective at letting gods of war buff an entire army or platoon so that it becomes much more awesome than the ones arrayed against it; it's a boon that is designed for changing the outcomes of wars, not for individual Scions to get fighting benefits of their own from. Gods of war should be able to go out there and pretty effortlessly affect wars even if they aren't fighting in them, blessing those mortals who call on them for aid, and this boon allows them to do so.

If you guys happen to have ideas about other things Blessing of Ammunition should do to make it better, however, we're always glad to hear them. We're pretty comfortable with it, but it is still more of a specialty power than some, so we recognize that it still has limitations.