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Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-04, 11:55 AM
This being the third of my Scion threads, I'm wondering if there were some general tips to keep in mind while creating a character and levelling up.

I've recieved some advice back in my character making threads, namely that the Self-Healing and Damage Conversion Epic Stamina knacks are apparently essential for every Scion and that Epic Attributes are better than Boons. Other than that though, I'm not certain what to do. What's the best thing to spend EXP on when I get it? Just buying more Epic Attributes until I have them maxxed out?

Say I wanted to work on boons. What are the most effective Purviews? How many Purviews can one max with the average amount of Experience points awarded in the usual Scion campaign? If you want to do well in combat, do you need to have relic weapons with some kind of damage or accuracy boost, or is it fine for a relic weapon to be normal and just grant Purview access? Is it better to pick a god who has access to a lot of different purviews, or one who only has a few of them?

Is it worth it to boost Abilities, or is that just wasting points that could be spent on more Epic Attributes? Is it a good idea to boost regular Attributes, or would that also detract from the all-important Epic Attributes?

Ignoring for a moment that Scion is a Storytelling game and thus the focus is more on character development and the like, what would I need to do to be a Scion munchkin, as it were?

gartius
2010-05-04, 02:47 PM
the best thing to do is this: specialise. choose your areas that you intend to focus on and stick to them. usually its best if you only concentrate on 4-5 (epics and purviews) areas. too many more you will over strech yourself (your previous characters had too much going for them in terms of purviews)

firstly dont go by the table that the books give you for xp. thats all and good for hero campain but when you reach demigod you are gonna need to increase it by more.

depending on how you optimise. legend is the most expensive thing in the game, spend most of your bonus points to get legend 4 straight out for hero(though this one not so much legend 3 is fine), legend 7 for demigod and legend 10 for god. that way you can spend your xp on all the snacky stuff for cheaper points.
the xp you should aim for is
100-150 reach demigod have at least 1 epic attribute at 3 and have the purview you want to specialise in.
300-400 reach god, same specialise. have 7s in epics and purviews that you want.
500+go nuts

in terms of purviews i always try and think of what sort of god i want to aim towards. god of currents? thats water and sky, possibly fire. god of twilight? sun, darkness and possibly moon. god of destruction? war fire and chaos. you get the idea. just think of the concept and then you can build on the mechanics. superman? sky, sun and frost. yeah im gonna stop there before i fully stat him out... but from the purviews you can see what attributes they require so focus on them. once you have chosen your concept then choose the god that fits the concept the best. the god of the currents concept-look at njord in the aesir. sure you won't get full overlap but it'll reduce xp drainage.

although epics are awesome, you have overlooked the purview powers. sky 2 one of the best powers in the game. and although epics do give you more just ignoring them is not a good idea. also you cannot apply your epics unless you are trained in that skill so having 1 epic in each attribute may still not mean that you will be able to not botch in that role. you will fail at some point but the areas you are good at you will excel. yes concentrate more on the epics but you have 10 points there, 6-7 split on epics and 3-4 points into purviews (that gets you 1 dot in two purviews and 1 2dot, 2 each in epics you want and 1 epic in something else)

to do well in combat it doesnt so much rely on the weapon, look at thors hammer. thats just a giant axe with 5 purviews. the character makes the weapon. (then again i did once create a REALLY dirty hammer that when i read off its stats it made the ST cry, relic 5 giant hammer (so start from base, double damage and -2 accuracy) sp4 acc0 def0 14L P).

so just max out the three combat stats (strength or perception for guns if you use that house rule, dex and stamina ), choose untouchable opponent, damage conversion and self healing, and you are pretty much set. the 'i go first' wits one also awesome.

my main advice is this though don't go crazy. if you go too far down the optimiseation and the rest of the group havent then you are making the others feel useless in comparison. Work with the party, so that you dont do this. if you have a high dex and can't do any damage and you have a member of the party who has a high strength but cant hit for toffee, work together, you weaken the opponents dv for the uber awesomeage hammer of titanspawn slaying that will come from the hulk.

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-04, 03:16 PM
I'm thinking of doing a retool of my last character, since I think I REALLY need to cut down on the number of purviews he's using, and since what I really wanted with him was to be a celestial god, I really only need Sky, Sun and Moon.

Now that I've actually GOT the book and had time to read it, I've learned that the War boons don't really have any effect on your own personal battle skill, which is why I went for the purview in the first place. They seem to mostly be oriented towards you being a combat leader, boosting your buddies or followers, and I can just use Jotunblut for that. Guardian doesn't seem to have much help for combat either, which is again why I intially wanted it. I don't want Darkness since that mostly seems to help sneaky characters, and that's not really what I go for in a character. I'd only picked Justice because of one power that references stars, and upon closer examination, the connection is in name only, so that eliminates four purviews I don't need.

I'm not sure what Epic Attributes to focus on. True, Strength and Stamina are useful, but like you said, once I've got the three main combat traits, I can just leave 'em. Hell, I don't even really need Epic Strength! But then I'm not sure what Attributes to specialize in after that. I guess in terms of what I've always wanted to be the guy who makes the inspiring speech and then charges into the fire and leads his troops to kick titanspawn ass:

FORTH EORLI*cough, I mean*AESIR! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDVvUnhEs_g)

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-04, 04:53 PM
But now that I've thought about it, I don't know WHAT I like to play. I'm not really a plays-well-with-others type, so I like playing generalist characters. But not so much "Jack-Of-All-Trades-Master-Of-None" but more like "Level-Grind-Constantly-Until-You-Maximize-Everything-And-Thus-Can-Handle-Any-Challenge-The-Game-Throws-At-You-All-By-Yourself." I think it stems from playing single-player RPGs in which generalists will get access to all the quests and items.

gartius
2010-05-05, 02:31 PM
to be honest that sort of character will cost a lot of xp and you will end up as powerful as the big names, Odin, Njord and others. Something like that may happen if your ST is generous, but unfortuneately what is more likely is that you will be outshone in all areas. (again trust me this is from experience)

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-05, 03:38 PM
Well, I've got some simpler ideas, but I can never really decide between all of them.

I'm pondering dropping my previous ideas for something a bit more subdued, namely a Scion of Hephaestus, focusing on being the sort of technical wizard/armorer/handyman of the group, kind of like Billy in the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Power Rangers Zeo series. I'd mainly focus on the three purviews of my parent (Arete, specifically Arete (Craft), Earth and Fire) and focus on his Epic Attributes as well (Intelligence, Strength and Stamina).

I'm considering at least two different relics, one being the Golden Servant relic described in Demigod, and also a Labrys that provides access to Earth and Fire. I was thinking it could be the axe that Hephaestus used to split Zeus' skull and release Athena. Like you said, it's not the weapon that counts, but the wielder.

That'd still leave one Birthright dot though. I was thinking of investing in some kind of relic involving a car or something, so the group has some form of transportation (as of right now all I know is that our bounty hunter Scion of Horus has a motorcycle and our famous author Scion of Thoth knows how to fly airplanes). Though honestly, our group's so big we'd need a bus or at least a large van or something to carry all of us!

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-05, 08:28 PM
Here's the latest idea.

Name: Still trying to think of one
Player: Archpaladin Zousha
Calling: Genius Bruiser (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeniusBruiser)
Nature: Perfectionist
Pantheon: Dodekatheon
God: Hephaestus

Strength: 3
Dexterity: 3
Stamina: 3
Charisma: 2
Manipulation: 3
Appearance: 2
Perception: 4
Intelligence: 4
Wits: 3

Academics: 3
Awareness: 3
Art (Metalworking): 3
Control (Automobiles): 3
Craft (Weaponsmithing): 3
Craft (Automobiles): 3
Fortitude: 3
Melee: 3
Occult: 3
Science (Engineering): 3

Boutypos ••
(Grants access to the Earth and Fire Purviews, Labrys stats, name means "Ox-Striker")

Golden Servant of Hephaestus ••

Bottomless Gas Can •

Epic Strength 1: Holy Rampage
Epic Dexterity 1: Untouchable Opponent
Epic Stamina 1: Fast-Healing
Epic Stamina 2: Damage Conversion
Epic Stamina 3: Holy Fortitude
Epic Intelligence 1: Fast Learner
Epic Intelligence 2: Math Genius

Fire Immunity •
Safely Interred •
Arete (Craft) •

Expression: 4
Intellect: 3
Valor: 1
Vengeance: 1

Legend: 4
Willpower: 7
Legend points: 16

Bonus Points Spent:
Legend 14
I still have one point to spend.

Does this look solid? I'm still trying to figure out who he is as a person and how his visitation went. His axe, as I said, is the axe that Hephaestus used to split Zeus' head open and allow Athena to be born. Is Relic • enough for a gas can that's never empty? Or should it be a bit more powerful (by which I mean more relic dots, all I want it to do is be an eternal source of gasoline for whatever vehicle I end up using)? I can pull some of the bonus points from my abilities if it needs to be.

gartius
2010-05-06, 05:40 AM
that is actually an illegal character. you cannot have more epics in one attribute that is greater than your legend -1 (so at the moment you can only have 1 epic in each. (hence why legend is the best thing to buy with bonus points)

You will need also to justify why you start off having 5 dots in melee and all the crafts. yes you are a scion of the dodecathon so you are expected to be a master at what you are good at but that comes across in the form of arete.

the gas can relic is fine.

you dont realy have to spend all the virtue points so spread out. concentrate on two main ones and stunt into them whenever your ST asks for on of the others. (so go 4 in one 3 in the other and have 1 in the other two) it will also mean you don't have to spend all those bonus points on willpower

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-06, 09:09 AM
Okay, I've made some fixes. Spending the points for Legend means I no longer have fives in any of the Crafts of in Melee, and now that I'm at Legend 4, my Epic Attributes should be legal. Or can I not spend bonus points until all my other points are spent, in which case I'll need to spread around my Epic Attributes, since I can't have more than one in each before the expenditure of the bonus points?

Is it kosher now? What could I possibly spend that last bonus point on?

gartius
2010-05-06, 01:28 PM
either spend that one bonus point on a birthright-how are you going to hide the axe you are carrying around? either that or buff up one of your favoured abilities.

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-06, 05:57 PM
I suppose I will need to hide the axe somehow. What would be a good way of doing it? The dot allowing me to hide it in some Elsewhere-like place like Exalted, allowing me to summon it at will? Make it shrink into an amulet I wear around my neck? Disguise it as a crescent wrench?

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-07, 06:55 PM
Quick question about Epic Attributes and Knacks. If I wanted one of the knacks described in Demigod (that doesn't have a prerequisite in Hero), can I just take it, or do I have to have Demigod-level Legend in order to access them?

Kylarra
2010-05-07, 07:09 PM
Quick question about Epic Attributes and Knacks. If I wanted one of the knacks described in Demigod (that doesn't have a prerequisite in Hero), can I just take it, or do I have to have Demigod-level Legend in order to access them?Strictly speaking, if it doesn't have a prerequisite, you can take it at heroic level.

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-07, 07:43 PM
Awesome! I think I might switch a couple knacks in that case. What if I have the Prerequisite already? I'm thinking of swapping Math Genius with the Star Pupil purview from more ability-boosting goodness, and I already have Fast Learner.

Also, I'm still not getting any ideas for a backstory, and that's the most important part

Archpaladin Zousha
2010-05-08, 12:56 PM
It's been suggested to me that I give my character amnesia, but I feel that that just doesn't make sense. I have high ranks in knowledge-based abilities like Academics and Occult. If I had amnesia, I wouldn't have those. And even if someone has amnesia, they still need a badckstory that can slowly be revealed as he encounters things and people from his past until the climax of the story when he has all those flashbacks and says "Oh God, I remember everything now!"