One thing I'm considering is a major top-down XP revamp for Scion. This is a very rough draft of such a houserule, and it assumes Legend rating is GM-controlled, NOT bought via XP.In a nutshell, Everything would be categorized as: Costly, Average, or Trivial.
For Hero: Epics and Boons are Costly. (Mundane) Attributes and Abilities are Average. Nothing is Trivial at the hero level.
For Demigod: Epics and Boons at levels 3+ are Costly. The first two levels of a Purview or Epic are average. Attributes and Abilities are Trivial, except when being raised above standard human maximum, when they are Average instead.
For God: Epics and Boons at levels 6+ are Costly. Epics and boons at levels 1-5 are Average. Abilities and mundane Attributes are Trivial (regardless of rating) since adding one die is pretty meaningless at this level.
Cost to raise something by one dot would be based on it's Costly/Average/Trivial rating at your Legend. If favored by your divine parent, a thing costs 1 XP (or 10%?) less.
Costly = 2 x (average session award) to raise level by 1.
Average = (average session award) to raise level by 1.
Trivial = 1/2 x (average session award) to raise level by 1.
That way PCs advance something nearly every session, every other session if raising stuff that really has an impact. If raising minor minutia, they get two per session.
All existing limits based on Legend, corresponding mundane Attribute, etc, remain the same as per the rulebook. Things must still be bought in sequence, except for Boons. The only wonky part of the system would be Boons - a God could get a level 5 Boon for the same cost as a level 1 Boon, which would be a bit weird.
7 comments:
You could solve the whole Boon cost issue by requiring that all Boons be taken sequentially, just like Pantheon Specific Purviews. Of course for a God, gaining any low level power is probably pretty easy...
I do question whether having Attributes and Abilities be the same cost is balanced. That is just a knee-jerk reaction, however. It just seems like Attributes should be higher. From a game mechanics standpoint, since you combine Attribute and Ability, I don't see a huge advantage to raising one over the other. The advantage would like in Epics, since you cannot have more Epic dots than you have dots of Ability.
It is an elegant concept that makes the XP system smoother, and avoids some of the number crunching that goes on.
When you use the "average session award" are you anticipating that the story award and any bonuses for good game play, 3-die stunts, or other sources would then be above and beyond? So, you might get one Average advance each session, with a bonus one at the end of a story? (Depending on the length of the story.)
When you use the "average session award" are you anticipating that the story award and any bonuses for good game play, 3-die stunts, or other sources would then be above and beyond?
Honestly, I figured it'd be the average award (as in number of XP) that you hand out most sessions. If somebody was really on the ball, they'd get a point or two more, and therefore jump ahead slightly.
So if using the book's XP awards verbatim, you'd probably set:
Costly = 10xp,
Average = 5xp,
Trivial = 2xp
or something around that.
The reason I didn't quantify it in the main post was that not everyone gives out XP at the same rate (and I posted this to the forum as well).
If I listed the 10/5/2 scale, I'd have someone respond with "your system is broken" and then not mention till 8 posts later that the reason he thought is was broken was because in his campaign he gives out 15+ xp / session.
I tend to run long sessions, and instead of 4xp/session as the base, I use 1xp/hour. My average award ends up being about 8 or 9 points. Instead of 10/5/2, I might use 16/8/4 or even 20/10/5. As I said, it's a rough draft, and I haven't implemented it yet.
I do question whether having Attributes and Abilities be the same cost is balanced.
A level of Attribute gives you +1 die on the roll.
A level of Ability also gives you +1 die.
If your Attribute is level X, your Epic is maxed at X-1.
If your Ability is 0, then your Epics don't apply.
So, attributes are a little better, but not superior to the first dot of an Ability.
Perhaps at Hero, Attributes should be Costly and Abilities be Average?
At Demigod, Ability dot 1 is average, 2-5 is trivial. Attributes could be average at this level, but they're so much weaker than Epics and Boons.
By the time you get to God, the only value in Abilities is the first dot (everything else is wasted xp) and the only value to Attributes is those you raise high enough to unlock the top levels of Epics.
Feel free to keep chiming in with feedback.
If your Ability is 0, then your Epics don't apply.
Plus, according to elsewhere in the rules, your difficulty goes up as well.
I had completely forgotten about that when I was posting. That helps balance the two a little, and makes that first level of Ability more important.
If your Attribute is level X, your Epic is maxed at X-1.
Actually, it's Epic up to Attribute, but Legend-1. I just checked page 124. Sorry, the rules lawyer in me rears its ugly head.
Otherwise, I see the logic and Attributes and Abilities being the same cost, with the higher 1st dot of Ability at higher levels.
I disagree a bit on the "average session award" calculations however. To my mind, if you're playing longer and getting more accomplished than in a "typical" session, a more rapid advancement should be perfectly normal. While I like that your system doesn't penalize a group that plays for 2 hours per week, I think that a group that plays for 8 hours per week and gets two sessions worth of material done and so hands out more experience should just advance faster.
This logic starts to break down at higher levels, perhaps. At Hero level, with the 9 Experience I got recently, I was able to advance like four things (several 1-point skills due to Fast Learner). Under your system, backfilling, which is about the only way to really build a decently effective starting character in most games, is just as expensive as going for the gusto.
While I think that your system fixes the XP in the mid- to high-level sections of the game in a rather elegant fashion, I think that perhaps it is not so kind to the low-level parts of the game.
I can definitely see myself using something similar ... I just need to think about how I would want skills done or how else to round out a character at a "reasonable" pace.
In Scion, backfilling is already strongly discouraged. With the per-the-books version, EVERYTHING is inferior to raising Legend and your highest Epics.
(That is, everything other than getting the first die in skills, the only form of backfilling the game makes worth it. But even that is discouraged by two knacks in the new God book.)
With Attributes, Abilities, Willpower, etc, you're paying an ever-increasing cost to get the same flat bonus (typically +1 die). With Epics, you're paying those increasing costs for geometrically-increasing benefits.
I've done a lot of character building and GMing these last 5 months, and I honestly believe that past the 3rd session or so, an overly-focused Scion character (pretty much regardless of what the focus is) will clobber a generalist every time. Unlike a lot of RPGs, in Scion your strengths matter far more than your weaknesses.
Re: Backfilling being "the only way to really build a decently effective starting character in most games"
That's just shoddy craftsmanship on the part of the the authors of said games. I don't know how many games I've played or read where the sort of character that fits the proper conceptual mold for a PC is completely unattainable at character creation.
Usually, it's about not enough skill points and/or a disconnect between skill descriptions and character descriptions. I'm looking at you, Cyberpunk 2020.
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