Foretelling The Messiah
(Prophecy ooooo)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: 1 Willpower and 1 or more Legend.
Gifted with flashes of insight, you may predict that a particular PC or NPC holds the solution to the problem at hand. Making such a declaration costs 1 Willpower point, and any number of Legend points up to a limit equal to your Legend Rating. This insight comes to you in a (Speed: 5) vision - while the player chooses who will fulfill the role of the prophecy, the character does not (they see it as Fate itself having chosen).
In a later scene this same story, the player of the prophecied character may announce that they are attempting to fulfill your prophecy with their current action. Any stunts they perform on that action add auto-successes instead of dice. In addition, if they expend a legendary deed on that action, it grants successes equal to their Legend Rating (as normal) plus one success for every point of legend you spent while activating this Boon. This bonus affects a maximum of one roll, and that roll cannot be made in the same scene in which this power is activated.
You may only name one person to be your messiah at a time. Using the power again immediately ends the effects of all previous activations. You may name yourself as the messiah, but doing so increases the cost of this power by 3 extra legend points. Regardless of whether or not you ever name yourself messiah, you may not indicate the same character in back-to-back messianic prophecies. Someone else must have used the bonus before you can give it to the same person a second time.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Forspeak Destruction (Prophecy 6)
Forespeak Destruction
(Prophecy ooooo o)
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: 1 willpower
By looking into the future, you may learn a person's fatal flaw, the tragic destiny that will be their undoing. By spending 5 ticks gazing at a person, you learn their Legend rating, and their greatest Virtue or Dark Virtue (or multiple of the same if they have several rated at the same level) along with the effects of the related virtue extremity. Armed with this information, you may predict what will be their undoing. This itself costs nothing, and involves no die roll. Those come in when you actually tell them the horrible fate you foresaw.
For creatures with Virtues or Dark Virtues, the answer is that they will fall victim to the dark side of their strongest virtue. If their legend is less than yours, you may roll Manipulation + Occult (they contest via Willpower+Integrity+Legend), if you succeed, you gain the ability to force that extremity upon them at any time (from any distance) by spending a willpower. You may do so immediately, and/or wait till later. You may do so no more than once per day. Note that if you personalize the destruction you announce (such as "your rapacity will cause you to gorge yourself to death eating your own children"), it will probably score you stunt dice on the roll.
For victims who lack virtues (and have Legend less than yours), you may predict any terrible fate of your wishing, provided that it's something the GM deems befitting of that person's Legend Rating. You thereafter gain the ability to spend a willpower to make them flee or cower in terror. For victims without a Legend Rating, you may choose that they die in a totally mundane way, such as a car crash or a virus, or even in some humiliating fashion, such as an accident during autoerotic asphyxiation.
For those of equal or greater legend than yourself, your pronouncement increases the chance of that flaw impacting them. If you succeed on the contested roll, they lose the ability spend willpower to suppress that Virtue. Instead, they must roll against it whenever attempting to override the virtue. For those of equal legend, this penalty lasts for one month, for those of greater legend it lasts but a scene.
The effects of this boon may also be canceled by a variety of mind-affecting powers, including Moon 7, Prophecy 9, Justice 9, or any of several different Avatar/Ultimate level powers.
(Prophecy ooooo o)
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult
Cost: 1 willpower
By looking into the future, you may learn a person's fatal flaw, the tragic destiny that will be their undoing. By spending 5 ticks gazing at a person, you learn their Legend rating, and their greatest Virtue or Dark Virtue (or multiple of the same if they have several rated at the same level) along with the effects of the related virtue extremity. Armed with this information, you may predict what will be their undoing. This itself costs nothing, and involves no die roll. Those come in when you actually tell them the horrible fate you foresaw.
For creatures with Virtues or Dark Virtues, the answer is that they will fall victim to the dark side of their strongest virtue. If their legend is less than yours, you may roll Manipulation + Occult (they contest via Willpower+Integrity+Legend), if you succeed, you gain the ability to force that extremity upon them at any time (from any distance) by spending a willpower. You may do so immediately, and/or wait till later. You may do so no more than once per day. Note that if you personalize the destruction you announce (such as "your rapacity will cause you to gorge yourself to death eating your own children"), it will probably score you stunt dice on the roll.
For victims who lack virtues (and have Legend less than yours), you may predict any terrible fate of your wishing, provided that it's something the GM deems befitting of that person's Legend Rating. You thereafter gain the ability to spend a willpower to make them flee or cower in terror. For victims without a Legend Rating, you may choose that they die in a totally mundane way, such as a car crash or a virus, or even in some humiliating fashion, such as an accident during autoerotic asphyxiation.
For those of equal or greater legend than yourself, your pronouncement increases the chance of that flaw impacting them. If you succeed on the contested roll, they lose the ability spend willpower to suppress that Virtue. Instead, they must roll against it whenever attempting to override the virtue. For those of equal legend, this penalty lasts for one month, for those of greater legend it lasts but a scene.
The effects of this boon may also be canceled by a variety of mind-affecting powers, including Moon 7, Prophecy 9, Justice 9, or any of several different Avatar/Ultimate level powers.
Friend Or Foe (Prophecy 7)
Friend or Foe
(Prophecy ooooo oo)
Dice Pool: Typically none, but sometimes Perception + Empathy
Cost: 3 legend (though sometimes 20 legend plus a willpower)
When you first meet someone, a montage of key moments from your future interactions with them cascade before your eyes. This means that when you first see a person, you can know immediately whether they are destined to be a friend or a foe. This three-tick action costs 3 legend to activate, and succeeds automatically, if done in the scene where you first meet the NPC. It can only be done once per NPC.
The GM then must choose whether your fate is to be friends or foes. If destined to be a friend, you gain bonus (successes equal to your Legend) on all Charisma and Appearance rolls directed at that person, though only for positive interactions. (In order to knowingly take a harmful action against you, they must roll dice equal to your Legend, and score no successes.) If instead they are destined to be an enemy, both parties gain bonus dice on all harmful actions against each other equal to their respective Legend ratings. These effects last forever. As potent as such bonuses may be, they are insignificant compared to the benefit of knowing without a doubt whether or not you can trust someone.
If used later than the introduction, such as when talking with an NPC you'd met in a previous scene or story, the visions are not as pure or objective. In such a case, the cost is increased to 20 legend and a point of willpower, and you must roll Perception + Empathy vs a difficulty of (5 times their Legend). The difficulty increases by 10 if they have even a single level of the Chaos or Magic Purviews. If they have both, the penalty increases to +15 total. Failure on your roll prevents you from using this power on them again for one year.
Altering an NPCs friend/foe status is extremely difficult, something to rival the greatest Herculean task, though it could be sped up considerably by The Wyrd or Ultimate Charisma. Note also that while this power will no doubt color your first impression, and dictate the final fate between two characters, nothing mechanically prevents a Friend from betraying you for a good cause, or keeps you from making a truce with a Foe. But doing so would be a waste of good bonus dice, and probably require exceptional circumstances.
(Prophecy ooooo oo)
Dice Pool: Typically none, but sometimes Perception + Empathy
Cost: 3 legend (though sometimes 20 legend plus a willpower)
When you first meet someone, a montage of key moments from your future interactions with them cascade before your eyes. This means that when you first see a person, you can know immediately whether they are destined to be a friend or a foe. This three-tick action costs 3 legend to activate, and succeeds automatically, if done in the scene where you first meet the NPC. It can only be done once per NPC.
The GM then must choose whether your fate is to be friends or foes. If destined to be a friend, you gain bonus (successes equal to your Legend) on all Charisma and Appearance rolls directed at that person, though only for positive interactions. (In order to knowingly take a harmful action against you, they must roll dice equal to your Legend, and score no successes.) If instead they are destined to be an enemy, both parties gain bonus dice on all harmful actions against each other equal to their respective Legend ratings. These effects last forever. As potent as such bonuses may be, they are insignificant compared to the benefit of knowing without a doubt whether or not you can trust someone.
If used later than the introduction, such as when talking with an NPC you'd met in a previous scene or story, the visions are not as pure or objective. In such a case, the cost is increased to 20 legend and a point of willpower, and you must roll Perception + Empathy vs a difficulty of (5 times their Legend). The difficulty increases by 10 if they have even a single level of the Chaos or Magic Purviews. If they have both, the penalty increases to +15 total. Failure on your roll prevents you from using this power on them again for one year.
Altering an NPCs friend/foe status is extremely difficult, something to rival the greatest Herculean task, though it could be sped up considerably by The Wyrd or Ultimate Charisma. Note also that while this power will no doubt color your first impression, and dictate the final fate between two characters, nothing mechanically prevents a Friend from betraying you for a good cause, or keeps you from making a truce with a Foe. But doing so would be a waste of good bonus dice, and probably require exceptional circumstances.
Voice Of Fate (Prophecy 8)
Voice of Fate
(Prophecy ooooo ooo)
Dice Pool: Typically none, but sometimes Intelligence + Occult
Cost: 1 legend / level of Prophecy sent
Following the example set by the Fates, you've learned to delegate. You may pass your visions on to your own mortal oracles. Whenever you use Prophecy, you may choose to pass it on to one of your followers instead of gaining the benefits yourself. You still roll, and make any decisions involving the activation, but your chosen oracle sees with your eyes and speaks with your voice. Combined with the Hear Prayers knack, you can selectively send the visions only to those who pray for them, but there's nothing that stops you from inflicting prophecy on those who don't want it.
When you send a prophecy to a Follower or worshiper (or your own child) you use the normal activation cost of the boon being sent, plus extra legend points equal to the level of the boon being transmitted. The range of this power is unlimited, you can even send visions to an oracle on another plane of existence. The only Prophecy boons you can't send are this one, the avatar level, and the tenth level boon. Once you have used it on a worshiper in at least 3 different scenes, you also gain the ability to communicate to them for one legend per sentence, similar to a long-range version of the Telepathy knack.
For those who are not allied to you, you may force Prophecy upon them, as Apollo did to Kassandra. This requires a roll of your Intelligence + Occult vs their Willpower + Integrity + Legend, in addition to the costs listed for followers. If you fail the roll, the prophecy cannot be sent to them (though all costs must still be paid).
(Prophecy ooooo ooo)
Dice Pool: Typically none, but sometimes Intelligence + Occult
Cost: 1 legend / level of Prophecy sent
Following the example set by the Fates, you've learned to delegate. You may pass your visions on to your own mortal oracles. Whenever you use Prophecy, you may choose to pass it on to one of your followers instead of gaining the benefits yourself. You still roll, and make any decisions involving the activation, but your chosen oracle sees with your eyes and speaks with your voice. Combined with the Hear Prayers knack, you can selectively send the visions only to those who pray for them, but there's nothing that stops you from inflicting prophecy on those who don't want it.
When you send a prophecy to a Follower or worshiper (or your own child) you use the normal activation cost of the boon being sent, plus extra legend points equal to the level of the boon being transmitted. The range of this power is unlimited, you can even send visions to an oracle on another plane of existence. The only Prophecy boons you can't send are this one, the avatar level, and the tenth level boon. Once you have used it on a worshiper in at least 3 different scenes, you also gain the ability to communicate to them for one legend per sentence, similar to a long-range version of the Telepathy knack.
For those who are not allied to you, you may force Prophecy upon them, as Apollo did to Kassandra. This requires a roll of your Intelligence + Occult vs their Willpower + Integrity + Legend, in addition to the costs listed for followers. If you fail the roll, the prophecy cannot be sent to them (though all costs must still be paid).
Negative Prophecy (Prophecy 9)
Negative Prophecy
(Prophecy ooooo oooo)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: 1 Willpower and 15 Legend
As a speed 5 action, you can declare that something "shall not come to pass" and the power of fate will back up your prophecy. As with foretelling the Messiah, the character is not choosing the thing that will not happen, the fates are. However, the player of the character gets to choose the restriction, rather than leaving it up to the GM.
Anyone who attempts to work against your negative prophecy will find the difficulty of all rolls they make (to that end) raised significantly. Legendless mortals just fail automatically. Hero-level Scions and most Titanspawn find their difficulties raised by +10 for even the most mundane tasks opposing this prophecy. Demigods and lesser immortals face +5 difficulty. Gods and the Avatars of the Titans face +1 difficulty. Such penalties do not stack, not even if spoken by multiple goddesses of fate.
Note that this power only allows for banning events/outcomes, it cannot force events to occur. The GM is free to deny any use of this power that he or she feels is contradicts this clause, though they should ask the player to rephrase to something that more specifically pinpoints that which it seeks to ban. For example, you could say "McCain will not become President" but you couldn't say "Obama will become President". Any number of reasons could prevent McCain from being sworn in: Obama or Clinton could win, McCain could win but abdicate to his running mate for a variety of reasons, or (in a world as epic as that depicted in Scion) the US government could fall apart before the election.
(Prophecy ooooo oooo)
Dice Pool: None
Cost: 1 Willpower and 15 Legend
As a speed 5 action, you can declare that something "shall not come to pass" and the power of fate will back up your prophecy. As with foretelling the Messiah, the character is not choosing the thing that will not happen, the fates are. However, the player of the character gets to choose the restriction, rather than leaving it up to the GM.
Anyone who attempts to work against your negative prophecy will find the difficulty of all rolls they make (to that end) raised significantly. Legendless mortals just fail automatically. Hero-level Scions and most Titanspawn find their difficulties raised by +10 for even the most mundane tasks opposing this prophecy. Demigods and lesser immortals face +5 difficulty. Gods and the Avatars of the Titans face +1 difficulty. Such penalties do not stack, not even if spoken by multiple goddesses of fate.
Note that this power only allows for banning events/outcomes, it cannot force events to occur. The GM is free to deny any use of this power that he or she feels is contradicts this clause, though they should ask the player to rephrase to something that more specifically pinpoints that which it seeks to ban. For example, you could say "McCain will not become President" but you couldn't say "Obama will become President". Any number of reasons could prevent McCain from being sworn in: Obama or Clinton could win, McCain could win but abdicate to his running mate for a variety of reasons, or (in a world as epic as that depicted in Scion) the US government could fall apart before the election.
It's A Wonderful Life (Prophecy 10)
It's A Wonderful Life
(Prophecy ooooo ooooo)
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult
Cost: 1 Willpower Dot and 20 Legend Points
You have the ability to foretell how the worlds would develop without you if you just kept to yourself.
To use this power, you must expend a permanent willpower dot and 20 temporary legend points. Roll Intelligence + Occult, including the full bonus of any Epics, Arete, or other powers that add dice or successes. For every success, the GM must reveal one major plot point they intend to carry out. These come in the form of "if you don't do something to stop it..." Most are bad things that will happen without your intervention, but they reveal secret plans or capabilities of enemies both known and unknown. A few can be good things that will happen, but that should be no more than a dozen (or so) of the successes. With a really good roll, this could leave very little unrevealed in the campaign.
Alternately, the player can forgo rolling the dice to simply ask the GM one question, which he or she must answer truthfully and fully - no tricks.
This is a massive power, capable of warping and derailing storylines, revealing hidden allegiances, spoiling numerous mysteries, etc. Conveniently, the power level of challenges and NPCs at Legend 11+ is sweeping enough that simply knowing who the badguys are (and what their plans entail) doesn't guarantee you can foil them. Knowing that Loki will trick Thor into killing you doesn't automatically undo his trickery, and you'll still have to act to prevent it - or be prepared to weather the storm.
(Prophecy ooooo ooooo)
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult
Cost: 1 Willpower Dot and 20 Legend Points
You have the ability to foretell how the worlds would develop without you if you just kept to yourself.
To use this power, you must expend a permanent willpower dot and 20 temporary legend points. Roll Intelligence + Occult, including the full bonus of any Epics, Arete, or other powers that add dice or successes. For every success, the GM must reveal one major plot point they intend to carry out. These come in the form of "if you don't do something to stop it..." Most are bad things that will happen without your intervention, but they reveal secret plans or capabilities of enemies both known and unknown. A few can be good things that will happen, but that should be no more than a dozen (or so) of the successes. With a really good roll, this could leave very little unrevealed in the campaign.
Alternately, the player can forgo rolling the dice to simply ask the GM one question, which he or she must answer truthfully and fully - no tricks.
This is a massive power, capable of warping and derailing storylines, revealing hidden allegiances, spoiling numerous mysteries, etc. Conveniently, the power level of challenges and NPCs at Legend 11+ is sweeping enough that simply knowing who the badguys are (and what their plans entail) doesn't guarantee you can foil them. Knowing that Loki will trick Thor into killing you doesn't automatically undo his trickery, and you'll still have to act to prevent it - or be prepared to weather the storm.
White Wolf
I sometimes complain about some issues in their mechanics that could have used some more development / playtest time, but I can't deny these two facts about White Wolf Publishing:
Thank you, White Wolf.
- Their settings are fun to explore and play in.
- Their customer service amazes me.
Thank you, White Wolf.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
When It Rains It... is pretty darned cool
Expect output here to go down again for a little bit. I just picked up another contract job. Hooray!
Special and Pantheon Purviews flaw rant
Scion has these things called Purviews. A purview is a category of boon, a listing of 10 boons and an Avatar, all thematically linked. A boon is a power. An avatar, in this definition, is an ultimate-power, like a super-boon.
These purviews fall into 3 official categories:
For All-Purpose Purviews, you get a lot of variety for your investment. And if there's a level or two you don't like, you can skip it at no real disadvantage until the late-campaign "I'm a freakin' God now!" stage, which, statistically speaking, most campaigns will never get to. The versatility of spells makes the special purview of Magic have similar advantages. So far, so good.
However, for the other two Special (Mystery and Prophecy) and the Pantheon Purviews, you're stuck with buying everything in order.
Level 10 of the Prophecy and Mystery purviews are the two most expensive dice in Scion. They each cost a minimum of 36 xp (about 6 sessions by the book) to gain that single die, plus a couple hundred points to qualify for that level. For level one you get the base power and four to six dice. For each level thereafter, you spend ever larger wads of XP to get just one more die. I doubt any player would ever do that.
Sadly, all 3 Special Purviews share the same Avatar, so if you had Magic and one of the other two, there's exactly zero motivation to raise Prophecy or Mystery above the first level or two. Plus, it's the one and only Avatar power that comes with strings attached. Some players will just say "no thank you" even if they could reach it via Magic instead of Proph/Myst.
According to poll data at the forum, majority of Norse characters/players find the Norse purview useless or out-of-theme. It boosts your sidekicks, but fails to do so enough to make said sidekicks stay useful at Demigod and God levels.
The Greek purview is strong at Hero, then rather weak at Demigod through Legend 11, but busted good at late stages of the Legend 12 God plateau, so it's only really worth buying if you're gonna pump it till it breaks.
For the typical US gamer, Greek and Norse are the two best-known / most popular pantheons, so huge numbers of players end up with these largely non-functional Purviews.
Even for the Pantheons where the boons have more variety run afoul of the "must buy in order" restriction. I'm thinking of Kevin's Egyptian/Pesedjet PC here, who has the Health Purview, and has a fellow party-member with the Death purview. Should he decide he wants the 9th or 10th level of Heku, he'll be forced to first buy 1 power that is completely redundant due to a better boon he already has from Health, plus 1 power that steps on another PCs conceptual toes, plus 1 power that's just plain too dangerous to use. That, in a word, SUCKS.
And I can't just remove the "order" clause from Pantheon Purviews, as that would simultaneously make high-level Greek purview even more broken and make the first seven levels of the Norse purview suck even worse than they do now.
I think the solution involves a massive re-envisioning of Prophecy, Mystery, Arete (Greek) and Jotunblutt (Norse) coupled with the removal of the "in order" clause from all Special and Pantheon Purviews, subtly tweaking Spells to be a bit more like Boons, and the adoption of a single XP progression for all Boons/Purviews. And that's a hell of a lot of work.
Guess I'd better get started...
These purviews fall into 3 official categories:
- All-Purpose Purviews, of which there are 16. Armed with such, you may buy any of the 10 levels in any order, subject to a limit based on Legend Rating, and only need buy the entire Purview if you plan to eventually buy the Avatar. Each boon is unique and does something different. None, save the Avatar, require having the others. Some compliment each other quite well, but others don't - sometimes a high-level boon renders a lower one nearly obsolete past a certain Legend Rating.
- Special Purviews, of which there are 3. Unlike All-Purpose Purviews, you can't buy these out of order. You must have level 1 to get level 2 to get level 3 to get level 4, etc. Two out of the three are particularly annoying - each new "boon" is just 1 more die on the power granted by the very first boon. The other special purview, Magic, has no core power but gives you access to spells. Since you can make your own spells, it could easily be the most versatile purview in the game.
- Pantheon-Specific Purviews, of which there are 6, but no character can have more than one. They have the same "buy in order" restriction that the Special Purviews do. Some of them are very narrow. The Greek purview is just a die-adding mechanic, though it is more impressive and more versatile than Mystery or Prophecy. The Norse purview does just one thing - with 9 terribly minor alterations to that one thing for boons - and it's not even something that happens very often in Norse myth. The other 4 purviews are certainly themed, (Japanese manipulates Kami/Spirits, Egyptian messes with Ba/Ka/Ra/BaBaBaran, etc) but have a variety of boon effects.
For All-Purpose Purviews, you get a lot of variety for your investment. And if there's a level or two you don't like, you can skip it at no real disadvantage until the late-campaign "I'm a freakin' God now!" stage, which, statistically speaking, most campaigns will never get to. The versatility of spells makes the special purview of Magic have similar advantages. So far, so good.
However, for the other two Special (Mystery and Prophecy) and the Pantheon Purviews, you're stuck with buying everything in order.
Level 10 of the Prophecy and Mystery purviews are the two most expensive dice in Scion. They each cost a minimum of 36 xp (about 6 sessions by the book) to gain that single die, plus a couple hundred points to qualify for that level. For level one you get the base power and four to six dice. For each level thereafter, you spend ever larger wads of XP to get just one more die. I doubt any player would ever do that.
Sadly, all 3 Special Purviews share the same Avatar, so if you had Magic and one of the other two, there's exactly zero motivation to raise Prophecy or Mystery above the first level or two. Plus, it's the one and only Avatar power that comes with strings attached. Some players will just say "no thank you" even if they could reach it via Magic instead of Proph/Myst.
According to poll data at the forum, majority of Norse characters/players find the Norse purview useless or out-of-theme. It boosts your sidekicks, but fails to do so enough to make said sidekicks stay useful at Demigod and God levels.
The Greek purview is strong at Hero, then rather weak at Demigod through Legend 11, but busted good at late stages of the Legend 12 God plateau, so it's only really worth buying if you're gonna pump it till it breaks.
For the typical US gamer, Greek and Norse are the two best-known / most popular pantheons, so huge numbers of players end up with these largely non-functional Purviews.
Even for the Pantheons where the boons have more variety run afoul of the "must buy in order" restriction. I'm thinking of Kevin's Egyptian/Pesedjet PC here, who has the Health Purview, and has a fellow party-member with the Death purview. Should he decide he wants the 9th or 10th level of Heku, he'll be forced to first buy 1 power that is completely redundant due to a better boon he already has from Health, plus 1 power that steps on another PCs conceptual toes, plus 1 power that's just plain too dangerous to use. That, in a word, SUCKS.
And I can't just remove the "order" clause from Pantheon Purviews, as that would simultaneously make high-level Greek purview even more broken and make the first seven levels of the Norse purview suck even worse than they do now.
I think the solution involves a massive re-envisioning of Prophecy, Mystery, Arete (Greek) and Jotunblutt (Norse) coupled with the removal of the "in order" clause from all Special and Pantheon Purviews, subtly tweaking Spells to be a bit more like Boons, and the adoption of a single XP progression for all Boons/Purviews. And that's a hell of a lot of work.
Guess I'd better get started...
Prophecy Brainstorm
I posted the following to the Scion forum last week:
There's some feedback from people in that thread, but not much in terms of actual boon ideas. I plan to do some more brainstorming, pick it apart a bit, and then construct an entire new Purview out of it. We're talking top to bottom - 10 new boons, plus possibly a change to the avatar to separate Prophecy / Mystery / Magic a bit more. I mean, the Avatar power is really cool and quite flavorful, but if you had 2 or 3 of the three "fate-based" Purviews, you'd be a bit let down in a long-running God-level campaign - though I suppose revising prophecy would remove enough of the let down that a person might not care or complain about Avatar overlap.
Has anyone put any serious effort to making Prophecy (and/or Mystery) worth raising above the first level?It's such a pain to search for things on the white wolf forums, so I put this link here.
My experience with it is that the PC who has it will likely never buy the second level. She gets enough to be interesting off of her 6 dice nearly every time she uses it, without it wrecking the plot by revealing too much. If the rare cases where she really needs more info, she spends a Deed or Channel on it. At Legend 7, you can imagine what a shot-in-the-arm those Legendary Deeds do, easily tripling the number of successes.
Anyhow, I was considering ways to make it more engaging, but didn't want to spend a lot of effort if someone else already has done so.
I was thinking that it'd be a good idea to strip the die rolls out completely, and/or give it boons.
Say, the first boon could be:
Minor Visions
(Prophecy o)
Dice Pool: None
Every session, the GM provides you with a minor Vision. This can take the form of a dream or meditation, or just an insight given you. The GM choses what he wants to reveal, and it can be fairly trivial. It must apply to a future (not the current) scene. If by the end of a session the GM has not given you a Minor Vision, you may prompt them for one and they must deliver. Minor Visions prove truthful and accurate unless a being with Legend who is aware of your prophecy takes actions to thwart or prevent it.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm intending this to be kinda like rolling a single success (under the old system) every session, except it happens automatically and the GM is free to make the tidbit given up by that success somewhat less useful.
Higher levels could involve:
bigger visions,
more frequent visions,
visions you can actively summon up,
powers not unlike that Rube Goldberg knack,
bonuses to dice pools when acting to fulfill visions,
bonuses to Perception or Wits rolls to act intuitively,
the ability to influence the dreams of others,
etc.
The die-roll for visions effect of the current purview could be made into a high-level boon that allows Epics.
There's some feedback from people in that thread, but not much in terms of actual boon ideas. I plan to do some more brainstorming, pick it apart a bit, and then construct an entire new Purview out of it. We're talking top to bottom - 10 new boons, plus possibly a change to the avatar to separate Prophecy / Mystery / Magic a bit more. I mean, the Avatar power is really cool and quite flavorful, but if you had 2 or 3 of the three "fate-based" Purviews, you'd be a bit let down in a long-running God-level campaign - though I suppose revising prophecy would remove enough of the let down that a person might not care or complain about Avatar overlap.
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