What does a promethean know at creation?

1. What is the highest dot of might one can purchase at character creation as a Promethean?

I guess its 2 or 3 but I'm not sure which.

2. When a Promethean is created what does he know? any general guidlines?
does he know (assuming appropriate skills):
a, how to operate a car
b, what a policeman is
c, how to do surgery (skills in medicine)
d, the finer points of social studies (high academics)
e, what he can eat
f, of money and its value
g, what an airplane is
h, that people see him differently when he is electrocuted for example
i, that electricity is good for him
j, how to gain pyrus

Bomaz:

1. What is the highest dot of might one can purchase at character creation as a Promethean?

5.

Bomaz:

2. When a Promethean is created what does he know? any general guidlines?
does he know (assuming appropriate skills):
a, how to operate a car
b, what a policeman is
c, how to do surgery (skills in medicine)
d, the finer points of social studies (high academics)
e, what he can eat
f, of money and its value
g, what an airplane is
h, that people see him differently when he is electrocuted for example
i, that electricity is good for him
j, how to gain pyros

Likely, unlikely, likely, likely but academically, likely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely.

I haven't even begun playing Promethean but I am also confused regarding these things....

How do you use 3 points in transmutations to get a 5 dot transmutation ? What am I not getting there?

Bomaz:

1. What is the highest dot of might one can purchase at character creation as a Promethean?

5.

Bomaz:

2. When a Promethean is created what does he know? any general guidlines?
does he know (assuming appropriate skills):
a, how to operate a car
b, what a policeman is
c, how to do surgery (skills in medicine)
d, the finer points of social studies (high academics)
e, what he can eat
f, of money and its value
g, what an airplane is
h, that people see him differently when he is electrocuted for example
i, that electricity is good for him
j, how to gain pyros

Likely, unlikely, likely, likely but academically, likely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely.

How can one know how to operate a car without knowing what an airplane is? What if you pick drive (aircraft) as a skill specialty?
How can you understand basic concepts of social studies without knowing the value of money? Too much in social studies is based on money. Same things goes with a police officer (very basic social studies).
So he would have no idea as to what he is doing but he can still drive a car flawlessly despite probably not knowing what it is or what it is supposed to do? (although with knowing the language I guess he should be able to categorize it as a "car")

I find this thread very interesting... so please try to elaborate a bit...

Crabbadon:

Bomaz:

1. What is the highest dot of might one can purchase at character creation as a Promethean?

5.

Whoops, missed the "of". Well, with no exp, 3.

pson:

Bomaz:

2. When a Promethean is created what does he know? any general guidlines?
does he know (assuming appropriate skills):
a, how to operate a car
b, what a policeman is
c, how to do surgery (skills in medicine)
d, the finer points of social studies (high academics)
e, what he can eat
f, of money and its value
g, what an airplane is
h, that people see him differently when he is electrocuted for example
i, that electricity is good for him
j, how to gain pyros

Likely, unlikely, likely, likely but academically, likely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely, unlikely.

How can one know how to operate a car without knowing what an airplane is? What if you pick drive (aircraft) as a skill specialty?
How can you understand basic concepts of social studies without knowing the value of money? Too much in social studies is based on money. Same things goes with a police officer (very basic social studies).
So he would have no idea as to what he is doing but he can still drive a car flawlessly despite probably not knowing what it is or what it is supposed to do? (although with knowing the language I guess he should be able to categorize it as a "car")

... Well, the first one is easy. Cars were invented before aeroplanes... so in exactly the same manner as every driver before aeroplanes did.
Second: You would probably recognise an aeroplane if you saw it, and once you were at the controls then you'd know what to pull to make it do what you want, but you wouldn't necessarily know how or why it worked.

Third: OK, first off I was answering them individually, so I wasn't assuming that it had skills in academics for that question. Secondly, you might know that money is important and people move money about and get things in return... but even so you might still need it pointed out "This is money."

And with a police officer: again, if you had the skills you might know what is and is not OK to do to a police officer, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'd recognise one.

... Where the hell did I say that?

pson:

How can one know how to operate a car without knowing what an airplane is? What if you pick drive (aircraft) as a skill specialty?
How can you understand basic concepts of social studies without knowing the value of money? Too much in social studies is based on money. Same things goes with a police officer (very basic social studies).
So he would have no idea as to what he is doing but he can still drive a car flawlessly despite probably not knowing what it is or what it is supposed to do? (although with knowing the language I guess he should be able to categorize it as a "car")

It is assumed that a starting level character is not 'fresh off the slab'. A starting level character is assumed to have been around long enough to have learned how to function on their own, while not having learned enough to acquire experience.

Crabbadon:

... Where the hell did I say that?

You did not. It was an assumption based on knowing how to operate something whereas you dont know what it is (in the case of airplanes for example) I was merely trying to see if I had understood you correctly, it wasn't a quote that's why there was a question mark.

Crabbadon:

Whoops, missed the "of". Well, with no exp, 3.

So it does not count as buying one 1-dot transmutation and one 2 dot transmutation then?

No. Transmutations don't work like Disciplines, you don't have to buy them sequentially, and can cherrypick form the lists.

However, for each level you've skipped there's a three xp surcharge (not relevant to character creation, but important later.) So let's say you want to buy a Sensorium 3 transmutation with xp. and it's an associated transmutation list for your Refinement. This transmutation costs a flat 15 xp (5xp per dot). however, it's +3xp for not owning any of the level 1 transmutations and +3 xp for not owning any of the level 2 transmutations, so it would cost 21xp. it's the same surcharge for non-associated lists, so if Sensorium wasn't associated the 3-dot would cost 21xp (7xp per dot), but with the surcharge it would cost 27xp.

But to answer your question, at character creation you can take three 1-dot transmutations (one of which must come from associated transmutation lists), one 2-dot transmutation and 1 1-dot transmutation (either can come from an associated list) or a single 3-dot transmutation from an associated list.

EDIT: Bah, made a mistake. Edited to be right.

As far as I understand the promethean book, "Might" has the requirement that you buy each dot sequentially...

Might does, yes.... It's a set of Vitality transmutations. Sorry, should have looked at that specifically.

Hmm... I think, as written, that yes, your three transmutation dots would get you Might 1 and Might 2, if you wanted to put all three of them in Might.

Chaka:

Hmm... I think, as written, that yes, your three transmutation dots would get you Might 1 and Might 2, if you wanted to put all three of them in Might.

This, sorry. My mistake.

Thanks for the answers.

So what are good guidelines for determining what a promethean knows?

I have some trouble wrapping my mind around it.

These are the reason I think promethan could use another explanation book.

What I do at the beginning is roll randomly the age level of my promethan mentally speaking.  If I roll something like 5 year old I assume that he may know anything a 5 year old may know, a 30 year old everything a 30 year old would know.  Though they may know what things are I make sure that they don't have any emotional reaction tied to it.  Humans no matter what it is has an emotional tie to everything we've learned we have a feeling about what it is to you.  You see a roller skate you may know you don't like roller skating because of the time 10 years ago you fell in front of every.  You see a car you may know you don't like long road trips because they make you sick.  A promethan would just know what it is, and have no opinion or feeling about it.

There's no set amount of knowledge a character posesses upon "awakening".  If you want to play a childlike character that's fine.  If you want to play a guy who's convinced something was done to him and now he can't remember who he is, go ahead.  If you want to go with the concept of cellular memory and have the character posess multiple memory fragments from different donor parts, that's fine too.  Promethean lets you get creative that way.

What's the main concept of your character?  Base your character's amount of everyday knowledge around that.

Darksider:

There's no set amount of knowledge a character posesses upon "awakening".  If you want to play a childlike character that's fine.  If you want to play a guy who's convinced something was done to him and now he can't remember who he is, go ahead.  If you want to go with the concept of cellular memory and have the character posess multiple memory fragments from different donor parts, that's fine too.  Promethean lets you get creative that way.

What's the main concept of your character?  Base your character's amount of everyday knowledge around that.

That's pretty much how I approach it, though it tends to confuse people.  New players never know "if they're doing it right", that's a big deal with a lot of people.