Change to the meaning of "Associated": 1-8

Soooooooo I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if a) Legends 9-11 were available as differentiation between the parent-worthy gods of the pantheons, and b) PCs could think about making Scions of their own before amassing enough XP to buy 3+ UAs/PAvatars (otherwise, it's just dumb to not have mommy or daddy adopt them)?

I've thought of going the other way and requiring Ultimate to pass down a stat.  Gives a lot more leeway in stating gods

Yeah, i completely agree with baron here.  I'm not sure I see any reason to lessen what gods need to pass traits to their kids.

Baron Samedi:

I've thought of going the other way and requiring Ultimate to pass down a stat.  Gives a lot more leeway in stating gods

Gack!  For some reason, I thought you already needed the Ultimate Attribute to pass it on.  Though I'm not sure what you meant by that second sentence...

OK, what I mean by leeway in stating gods is as it stands, we know every significant (8+) epic for every god. If it was 11+, then we could assign higher stats to gods more easily.

APPs are less an issue that way because a god could still have, say, a level 10 power without having it established as favored.

BlaineTog:

Ok then, my question changes to only requiring Boons from levels 1-8, the reasoning being that Purviews are a little less desirable in general than EAs anyway, and again so not every god that means anything has to be Legend 12, thereby making Legends 9-11 mean something.  Also, so PCs can start parenting Scions as soon as they become gods (since they may want to).

They already can. Granted, if they want their scions to actually have any favored epics or purviews, they'd better hand them over to another god for adoption, but most would agree that nobody really needs the favored epics/purviews to do the whole scion thing. Just remember handing them relics to channel the purviews you'd like them to have.
The companion also introduced the option for CB scions to be some kind of adoptive children of the whole pantheon, which gives them two favored epics, the CB PSP and two purviews of the player's choice. You could rule that every scion gets at least that much, either from their parent (per ultimates and purview avatars) or from their own dormant legend - i.e., what they did before becoming a scion. That way, the parent could still manipulate the scion's life to guide him into a particular direction.

I'll also note that, while games vary and some games pass more time then others...the kids of all but one PC who has them are mostly around 1 year old or less. One player has a 13 year old (started as 10) and a daughter who is like 10 now, but even they are far from probably being turned into Scions.

We do have one Scion with a lot of adult children, but he is the exception.

BlaineTog:

If it's a guarentee, so anyone with less than 4 makes up the difference by choosing, then gods who give 0-3 are strictly better than gods who give 4 because Scions of the lesser gods would get some choice in there.

They are a better choice for the players, but not neccessarily for the gods themselves. However, I understand the problem you have with that. The problem is that Aphrodite really doesn't have much reason to get another purview. You might add Health (Hera and Athena also get it without too much reason, the latter probably for her role as a goddess of marriage) but.. yeah, the problem remains. I'd probably just don't care. As said before, no scion needs the favored attributes and purviews to be useful. You can have useful scions without avatars or ultimates - they do get more useful with them, but you don't need it. And the earlier you start, the more scions you have, so there is an advantage in beginning to sire them as soon as possible - I'd say that's enough of a fair option. And if you really don't want scions like that as a god, you can give them to virgin goddesses/barren gods or otherwise busy deities in your pantheon.

BlaineTog:

then you a weird situation where Adonis (Donny Rhodes) makes better Scions than Aphrodite (who only gives 3 EAs and no purviews).  If it's a guarentee, so anyone with less than 4 makes up the difference by choosing, then gods who give 0-3 are strictly better than gods who give 4 because Scions of the lesser gods would get some choice in there.

Aphrodite gives 4 with Arete. So its the same number. Unless you don't count PSP with the CB system, which does lead to some problems.

Baron Samedi:

Aphrodite gives 4 with Arete. So its the same number. Unless you don't count PSP with the CB system, which does lead to some problems.

Even if you count Arete as one of the four (which makes no sense to me), this *still* means you get to choose your four, which is still better.

The method I'm personally leaning towards (although I have yet to find a chance to test it in game play) is to make an addition to the god template. The way I have it work is that when you ascend to godhood you don't just become a god you become a god of something e.g war, death. The thing you become a god of is the two purviews with the most boons taken in them (I've taken the optional rule from the celestial bureacracy and modified it slightly) + whatever your pantheon specific purview is. The same two highest with epic attributes in addition to your 6 highest skills. In cases where a person has more than the given amount they pick the one's they use the most.

So for example my Scion of Inari reaches legend 9 and becomes a god, I then look at his stats to find his two purviews with the most number of boons picked (animal 1-7 and 5 in nature), his two highest abilities (dex and intelligence) and his six highest skills (accademics, art, brawl, craft, occult, science). Those then become his associated attributes (with changes in how they cost i.e. if his parent had war as a favoured purview it now costs the same as a non-associated one normally does while nature now has the assciated cost. He has become a god of nature able to pass his abilities onto his own Scions but by the same token its now harder for him to act outside his area (higher costs to purchasing things that were previously associated because of his parent). Any children will receive animal, nature and Tsukumo-gami as associated purviews, dex and intelligence as associated attributes, accademics/art/brawl/craft/occult and science as associated skills.

If he had animal 1-7 and magic 7 then he'd become a god of animals and magic (or depending on player desires a god of magic associated with a particular animal). If he had animal 1-7, 5 boons in nature and rank 5 in magic he'd have to decide whether to be associated with nature or magic (he'd be encouraged to take the one he used most, nature, although maybe if he really wanted to be associated with magic it'd be allowed) in addition to animal.

An optional rule is that you can add extra abilities and purviews to your associations using the current rules i.e. reaching ultimate attribute or having ranks 1-10 + avatar in a purview. That way if you come back in a few centuries/millenia maybe he'll have mastered magic and added that to his associated attrbutes.

I really just dont understand why you feel you must change the rules to allow non-12 legend gods to pass on their traits.  Please tell me what is so important about it that you want an entire new ruleset for it. 

What are you gonna do with your scions kids?
Is the next story gonna use the children of every scion once you reach legend 9?


In addition.  Just using the name of the purview when describing your "godhood" is in a word: lame.  What you are the "god" of should describe both your adventures and your characters outlook on life.   They should have very little to do with the strict rules and powers he has, although generally they will follow suite. 

Pantheons already have gods of war, health, and fertility.

Your god should take a new spin on those ideas:
God of honorable combat
God of combat surgery
God of homosexual eroticism

But in reference to the first part.  Please explain to me your goal and reasoning here.  Otherwise it just makes no sense.

BlaineTog:

Two.  For the players, they can't really have scions of their own until Legend 12, and even then they have to wait to get half a dozen EAs to 8 and PAvatars.  Oh they can make scions, but it would be sheer stupidity to not get daddy or mommy to adopt them, and that doesn't sound like much fun to me.

Question, are children of Gods in peoples games hitting an age to turn into Scions before 12?  I can see this being a problem if they are, but I can't imagine it in my games. As my games are not all games, I am curious what other people are seeing.