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Just ran my first game!

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MisterShifter replied on 2 Jul 2009 3:44 PM
I'm thinkin I might house rule it to allow you to use strength for brawl & melee attacks.. I already decided to allow epic perception into firearms damage to keep them viable..
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Lambach replied on 2 Jul 2009 3:51 PM
That would randomly screw players using bows, making them the only attack that needs double stats in one category.  

Be careful adding str to melee attacks.  At least with your firearms HR you have to buy two seperate stats to increase your dmg.
At higher levels any fighter in your game will always buy str and epic str first because it double dips on dmg.   It'd be imbalancing.

Not to mention at low levels giants will be able to basically one shot your pcs.
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Baron Samedi replied on 2 Jul 2009 8:14 PM
MisterShifter:
I'm thinkin I might house rule it to allow you to use strength for brawl & melee attacks.. I already decided to allow epic perception into firearms damage to keep them viable..


Depending on group, that may work out. I considered doing the strength thing and have chosen not to for now. I'd make that decision carefully though, and only after playing the game a bit.  That has the side effect of making several monsters much more lethal, since they use their strength twice.  It actually becomes harder for a non-dex monkey to survive...a Legend 7 Giant would have added +16 to his damage and, say, 20 dice, but with that adding a similar amount to hit, if he connects instead of adding 2-3 dice to his damage, he is adding over 20 more, making Epic Stamina a less viable defense.  I am not saying it won't work, but it is a major shift toward lethality.  It does make up for Giants being less effective vs. dex monkeys, if you consider that a horribly bad thing.

The Perception has been all good. We just add it to guns though.
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MisterShifter replied on 3 Jul 2009 5:23 PM
Well.. my players all seem pretty keen on Epic Dex.. so I don't think I'll need to add the Epic Strength for brawl & melee attacks..

And the Epic perception thing I'll add to bows, cause I have a Scion of Artemis in my group and she has a relic bow..
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Lambach replied on 3 Jul 2009 5:23 PM
Bows already add epic str.  You dont need to change anything.
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BlaineTog replied on 3 Jul 2009 5:58 PM
Lambach:
Bows already add epic str.  You dont need to change anything.
But it makes it more consistent to add Perception to all ranged attacks, be they bow, crossbow, or gun.  It gets a *bit* tricky with thrown, but I take that on a case-by-case basis (darts use Perception, houses use Strength, and so on).
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Lambach replied on 3 Jul 2009 6:08 PM
How is that consistent?  Bows and thrown items base their dmg on str.   Unlike guns they are shot with propulsion from the scion, not from a mechanical device.

Go try shooting a bow sometimes or throwing a spear across a field.  Tell me how much str you use. 
The first roll to hit decides whether the weapon hits or not.  The dmg is gonna be based on the amount of force the weapon is sent with.


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Grendl replied on 3 Jul 2009 6:18 PM
Lambach:
How is that consistent?  Bows and thrown items base their dmg on str.   Unlike guns they are shot with propulsion from the scion, not from a mechanical device.

Go try shooting a bow sometimes or throwing a spear across a field.  Tell me how much str you use. 
The first roll to hit decides whether the weapon hits or not.  The dmg is gonna be based on the amount of force the weapon is sent with.


Its consistant rules-wise.  What happens in reality has little bearing on Scion.

Its far easier to say "all hand to hand adds Strengh for damage and all Ranged adds Perception".

Then again its also easy to say, everything works like the book except FIREARMS add Perception to damage.  And yes, you need to emphasize that because I guarantee that you'll have at least one player who wants to add Perception to his bow or his crossbow or his Atlatl enhanced Javelin or his sling.
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Grendl replied on 3 Jul 2009 6:26 PM
Lambach:
Watching an ST(or anyone at a tabletop game) use a dice roller would make me cringe.   If the ST is worried about fudging, a DM screen works awesome.  However if I need to fudge, I really don't expect their eyes on my dice.  They have other thing to do. 

I'm glad it works for you, but you're right, it seems heretical :)


I use one some of the time.  Depends on how many things I have going on at once.  It can get pretty obscene with high level characters using Army of One and huge mobs.  One game I'm pretty sure I would have wasted over 15 minutes just in picking up the dice and shaking them.  I've seen damage pools go over 40 (not Epics, just dice) frequently and over 60 at least once.  That usually means between 3-6 rolls, plus counting successes.  It drastically slows things down.  Thankfully my players trust me and my ST'ing 110% so using a dice roller isn't an issue.
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Lambach replied on 3 Jul 2009 6:32 PM
Not true.  What happens in reality has a fair amount of bearing.  Thats why when people house ruled to add perception, they came up with a reason for it.   They didnt just randomly add intelligence.  It matters that it makes sense why you're doing something when you make a rule for it.  Even if its just a house rule to make something more balanced, it should make sense.   And of course when you make a rule you'd emphasize all the possible caveats for it, else there will always be a player who thinks hes getting one over with the new rule. 

Personally I think the perception to firearms HR is a cop out anyway.   I understand the "need" at higher levels to balance epic stats, but it makes them VERY powerful during hero.  And I generally just don't find guns very heroic or aweseome, and happily don't want pcs using them at demigod. 

But thats neither here nor there.  However we shouldnt assume everyone uses even the most accepted HRs
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Lambach replied on 3 Jul 2009 6:37 PM
Grendl:
I use one some of the time.  Depends on how many things I have going on at once.  It can get pretty obscene with high level characters using Army of One and huge mobs.  One game I'm pretty sure I would have wasted over 15 minutes just in picking up the dice and shaking them.  I've seen damage pools go over 40 (not Epics, just dice) frequently and over 60 at least once.  That usually means between 3-6 rolls, plus counting successes.  It drastically slows things down.  Thankfully my players trust me and my ST'ing 110% so using a dice roller isn't an issue.


Its not a lack of trust.  For all intents and purposes the st basically makes up the rolls and scores for the mobs anyway.  I sure as hell never go into a game as a pc asking for stats of things i fight. 
And on the rare occasion, with multiple huge dice rolls I can see a dice roller program being useful. 

But at hero its hardly needed, and unless its a huge fight like you were mentioning, it really takes a lot of the table top out of it for me. 
I show up to table top games, I bring my giant bag o dice, and get ready to RP.  The GM starin at a dice roller computer for a lot of the time would really throw me off.

But perhaps I'm an old man, and these are different times.
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Grendl replied on 3 Jul 2009 6:51 PM
Lambach:
Personally I think the perception to firearms HR is a cop out anyway.   I understand the "need" at higher levels to balance epic stats, but it makes them VERY powerful during hero.  And I generally just don't find guns very heroic or aweseome, and happily don't want pcs using them at demigod. 



While I do use it, none of my PCs in the TT game ever got much use out of Firearms and in the IRC game I think its rare.  I really do try to emphasize that guns just don't have the same "feel" that a sword, spear or bow does in a mythological sense.  I don't disallow guns or anything of that nature, but rest assured if the PCs get a cool relic its far, far, far more likely to be a "classic" weapon as opposed to anything modern.

In my mind having "the gun that John Ford shot Jesse James with" might make a pretty cool relic but its just not as cool as Mjolnir or Excalibur.  I do like the Colt from Supernatural though as a way to work more modern weapons into mythology.
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BillionSix replied on 3 Jul 2009 9:41 PM
Lambach:
Personally I think the perception to firearms HR is a cop out anyway.   I understand the "need" at higher levels to balance epic stats, but it makes them VERY powerful during hero.  And I generally just don't find guns very heroic or aweseome, and happily don't want pcs using them at demigod. 


I agree. Guns are rather impersonal. Bows and thrown objects depend on the strength of the user. (Though if I were to nitpick, I would point out that there is a sense of diminishing returns with bows, depending on the strength of the bow itself.)
A gun won't get any better, since the propellent pushing the bullet won't get any more epic.

Having said that, I would make it so 1 dot added to a relic gun to "attach" an attribute to it, such as Perception or Dexterity. You don't want your magic guns becoming obsolete, after all.

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BlaineTog replied on 3 Jul 2009 11:01 PM
Lambach:
How is that consistent?  Bows and thrown items base their dmg on str.   Unlike guns they are shot with propulsion from the scion, not from a mechanical device. 

Go try shooting a bow sometimes or throwing a spear across a field.  Tell me how much str you use.  
The first roll to hit decides whether the weapon hits or not.  The dmg is gonna be based on the amount of force the weapon is sent with.
I am fully aware of the amount of strength it takes to fire a bow.  However, it is not simply your strength that determines the amount of damage, but also the bow itself.  No matter how strong you are, you are not going to be able to bring 46 autosuccesses worth of damage to bear with a child's practice bow.  Your strength is a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of the damage, if you will.  This is more obvious with a Crossbow, which has a more consistent pull.

The fact of the matter is, there is no good way to make guns or crossbows work well in Scion, or at least no obvious way.  It's also extremely difficult to see how we could possible get bows to work realistically, usefully, and simply, since while it is possible to have a relic bow that sets its strength rating based on the character's strength, it is neither fair nor interesting for all archeery scions to have to have the same kind of bow special ability.  Yet, it is important that players have the option of choosing bows, because bows are very mythical, and crossbows are as well, to some extent, and guns have taken on mythic status in the modern world, so there are many players who want to play gunslinger gods, even if their storytellers aren't as interested in guns.  Having thought through the whole big problem, I have concluded that while adding Perception is an inadequate and uninteresting way of making these interesting options available, it is the only way (as far as I can see) of making them viable at all, and since they are interesting to some players, they must be made viable, also throwing in three knacks as a patch so as to keep options up (one to add Perception to melee attacks, one to add Wits to ranged attacks, even one to add Strength to ranged attacks, though each is a little different in its own way).

Swords and bows are in the myths, because those were the premier weapons technologys of the time.  If you're telling modern myths, modern premier weapons technology should be capable of mythic feats as well, if only as a option for interested players.
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Lambach replied on 3 Jul 2009 11:10 PM
BlaineTog:
since they are interesting to some players, they must be made viable


A lot of players find it interesting to play overpowered ridiculous things.  'Making things viable JUST because players want them is NEVER a good solution.   The ST is running the story, if guns don't work as mythic in that story for him, its his prerogative. 

All the possibilities as knacks might work.  But you must balance their power.   Some may or may not make sense.  Others might make one stat overpowered. 

BlaineTog:

Swords and bows are in the myths, because those were the premier weapons technologys of the time.  If you're telling modern myths, modern premier weapons technology should be capable of mythic feats as well, if only as a option for interested players.


Modern premier weapons are jets and shit. 
The problem with modern tech is that its less reliant on the hero's actual skills and more reliant on the machine doing the work for you.   Its lame.
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