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Grynning
2010-09-23, 08:12 AM
I've seen passing references to Scion being an easily broken system in other posts around here, and wanted to get some clarification. I've never played it, but one of my groups may be starting a game up soon. We've only got the first book "Hero" so far, and from what I can see, there's nothing inherently abusable. I also hear a lot of references to it being a high-powered system, but it seems that at the lower levels at least, it's at a lower power level than Werewolf, Mage or Vampire.

So three-part question:

A) Is Scion inherently broken (i.e. does it contain major rules snafus, infinite loops, or any other such nonsense)?

B) Is the first book, "Hero" fine on it's own own or do you need other books to make it playable?

C) Is "Hero" level play really at a high power level or does that come in with other books?

Selrahc
2010-09-23, 08:45 AM
A) Is Scion inherently broken (i.e. does it contain major rules snafus, infinite loops, or any other such nonsense)?

No. It has a few complaints, many of which come more into focus in Demigod or God tier. In Hero there is nothing of major concern.


B) Is the first book, "Hero" fine on it's own own or do you need other books to make it playable?

It's perfectly playable on its own.


C) Is "Hero" level play really at a high power level or does that come in with other books?

It depends on what you define as a high power level. Your characters are definitely a cut above humanity and can do some world altering things. They aren't going to be conquering the world or laying waste to cities just yet though.

Effects like flight, invisibility, temporary paralysis, creation of zombies and other effects of that level are about the highest amount of power that can be achieved.

Powerful, but not godlike is an apt description. Certainly a starting Hero character is going to be at a similar power level to a starting mage, vampire or werewolf.

The Rose Dragon
2010-09-23, 08:53 AM
There are two main problems I hear: the gun rules, which are useless, and epic attributes (especially Dexterity), which are godlike. The example often used is that someone with Epic Dexterity 2 has no chance of fighting someone with Epic Dexterity 5, because Epic Attributes are just that good. However, since this is limited by your Legend (I think, I haven't actually played the game), it isn't a big problem at Hero level.

Could someone more experienced than me correct me here?

Whammydill
2010-09-23, 09:08 AM
I have played Scion many times. Yes the game is inherently broken and designed that way it seems. It is a game pretty much designed with the "rule of cool" in mind. Take the "stunting" bonuses; the more over the top and descriptive you are of what your character is doing, you can get bonuses from extra dice to roll and/or extra legend or even experience.

It's not really fair to directly relate them to WoD products just because they use the same system for the most part, Scion/Exalted are in a class all of their own as far as power levels are. Even a starting scion would be much more powerful than a starting werewolf/vampire..etc im my opinion.

Whereas the boons aren't that great to start out with they can get really powerful with focus. Magic is powerful especially the fate altering magics like evil eye that can penalize someone more than a Bohagande could dream of.

The most power-inducing mechanic I'd say is the Epic Attributes. You can have up to your legend -1, in an epic attribute as long as it doesnt exceed your normal attribute if i recall correctly. Alone the epic attributes give you automatic successes on any roll associated with them, not to mention the secondary effect and knacks that they grant.

Knacks are perhaps where the game is broken the most, in my opinion they aren't very well written out as far as their mechanics go. Take for instance: Serpents Gaze, if I recall correctly, you spend your legend point or whatever and activate the ability, who ever you use it on pretty much stops what they are doing and is transfixed by your gaze.....thats it, nothing about resisting it, or overcoming it. Use it and your buddies can pretty much ignore that guy or cornhole him without reprisal. If I'm wrong on this someone can chime in, but there are many abilities without a way out of, magic has some, knacks have some.

As far as character archetypes go, the combat powerful ones are Dex/epicDex based characters with max ranks in athletics and your combat form(s) of choice Boosting str/epicstr and stamina/epic stamina never hurts either. This boosts not only your defensive DV's but also the amount of dice you get to roll. In scion however many successes you roll over the target DV (Keep in mind you are getting auto successes with epic attributes,) you get threshold dice you get to add over the raw damage of your weapon/str..etc. This is a lot of dice. It's also worth noting that anything over a 7 is a success with 10s counting as two successes. This is basically a combat powerhouse whose only way of being stood up to is a similar character with insane stamina and soak scores. This character is also nullified by the aforementioned broken things above like Serpent's gaze.

Combat archetypes like the above are powerful in combat, but as has been said, they are completely at the mercy of some of the mental/social knack weilding characters...combine the archetypes as some of our players have done for great effect.

I would never run this game myself, playing it is...ok I like a mechanically sound (for the most part) system whose discrepancies can be handled by rule zero. Scion is a game where everyone gets rule zero, not just the GM, though the GM still has final say, its hard to adjudicate without something more concrete to stand on.

So yes this game is broken by design i think. To balance it you have to break it more, then balance that by breaking it more....ad infinitum. Once you realize that this is how it's supposed to be and play it like it is for what it is, it can actually be really fun. If you are looking for balance...run....now.

In reference to B and C of your questions, you can play forever with just Hero, but demigod and god add alot more and as such, demigod is even more broken, god turns it up to 11. But hey....you're a god or on your way to become one, its expected.

Zanatos777
2010-09-23, 09:30 AM
Okay, I would like to start by saying something good about Scion: I absolutely love the concept here. I was very, very sad to see that it falls apart in execution. Okay now some of the bad.

Some of the knacks are extremely broken. One for Epic Appearance allows you to paralyze a target by making eye contact (you can still act normally so long as you maintain eye contact), beings with lower legend have no way of stopping you while other can spend a willpower. Another knack ups the previous one's power to remove the eye contact problem and only beings of higher legend can resist (your allies aren't affected unless you want them to be also). Then there is the big Epic Dex knack that everyone will take (because you need ED to fight) which doubles Epic Dex to your dodge defense.

The purview powers are less of a problem since they have more restrictions (only one knack has a legend requirement). The hero powers are often not that good, their are some gems like flight, water manipulation, invisibility (which allows you to kill just about anything around your level in one shot), and a healing/harm power which is either completely overpowered or useless. That is all ignoring the level one boons. They rock hard. They tend to grant blanket immunities such as: immunity to falling damage, fire, ice (not in the main books), falling rocks, getting lost, drowning (despite the later books often pointing out that drowning is an effective way to kill divine beings, hint: its not! in no small part because it would probably take several years before they drown even if they don't have this), perfect vision in darkness (all darkness), and ghost senses. Also Arete is terrifying, Epic Abilities.

The back...birthrights are actually worse. They can grant you an animal companion that is possibly stronger than the whole party, a small army of soldiers roughly as strong as Hero scions (well starting Heroes), a powerful adviser, or an awesome artifact with cool powers. Basically birthrights of 4 or 5 are amazing. Artifact weapons can be easily gamebreaking.

Okay, I've ranted. I only included the stuff in the Hero book with some exceptions (the second Epic App knack is in Demigod and the Frost Immunity power is in...Ragnarok I think). There is more stuff. Epic Attributes get really nasty eventually.

wayfare
2010-09-23, 09:49 AM
My biggest problem with scion is the sheer difficulty of combat.

Defenses in the Storyteller System have always sucked. In exalted they are a constant pain. In Scion they are only a shade less annoying, simply because you don't have buffs constantly going off.

That said, Scion is WAAAAY more playable than Aberrant. I love Aberrant, I've played and run the game multiple times, and each time it has been a massive pain. Too much book-keeping, too many successes to keep track of, too many vaguely worded powers. Mega Attributes (essentially epic attributes) are not really scaled to eachother. Each dot of Mega Strength adds 5 successes to a strength related roll. Not dice, successes. Each mega attribute either adds dice to a roll (which must be done seperately, as they have different effects) or reduces the difficuty of a roll by 1 -- and you can use your mega dice in both ways each round, on the same actio if you want to.

In many ways, scion has come a long way since Aberrant.

Whammydill
2010-09-23, 09:55 AM
Yes, Arete is terrifying no way around that.

My first character was a scion of Hermes, before his "visitation" he was an olympic-level track and field guy. He had high epic dex, athletics was maxed, throwing was maxed. Took Arete: throwing and only Arete throwing for boons, had three dots in it.

His birthright was a shield that produced javelins that returned and had piercing damage. He had the throwing related knacks as well so he could throw that thing damn near to the moon.

With all the bonus dice and auto successes to throwing that thing, on top of the dex and wit knacks to stay out of trouble, the insane high dodge DV and all the other goodies the GM was flustered, he couldnt challenge me without a good chance of wiping out the others who werent so created. That was my first character and I wasn't even trying, he just turned out that way. By time he got to 5 legend and was about to ascend to demigod I retired him because of his disparity with the party.

Pretty much unless the GM understands and fully uses the Fatebinding rules things can get out of hand, and probably will regardless as it is.

Zanatos777
2010-09-23, 11:05 AM
My biggest problem with scion is the sheer difficulty of combat.

Defenses in the Storyteller System have always sucked. In exalted they are a constant pain. In Scion they are only a shade less annoying, simply because you don't have buffs constantly going off.

That said, Scion is WAAAAY more playable than Aberrant. I love Aberrant, I've played and run the game multiple times, and each time it has been a massive pain. Too much book-keeping, too many successes to keep track of, too many vaguely worded powers. Mega Attributes (essentially epic attributes) are not really scaled to eachother. Each dot of Mega Strength adds 5 successes to a strength related roll. Not dice, successes. Each mega attribute either adds dice to a roll (which must be done seperately, as they have different effects) or reduces the difficuty of a roll by 1 -- and you can use your mega dice in both ways each round, on the same actio if you want to.

In many ways, scion has come a long way since Aberrant.

I've found Aberrant much better than Scion. Mega Strength only adds to Might and damage, nothing else. You don't even get it to help hit with Brawl. I've never seen someone actually use the mega dice to reduce difficulty, their more effective just rolled (they count as 2 successes, not very hard).

I do agree about the ambiguously worded powers though. For some its not clear how to oppose them so you have to make it up. The social combat probably needs work too.

Grynning
2010-09-23, 09:33 PM
So from what I'm hearing, Epic Dex is so good it's almost a non-choice. Is there any way to build a combat character who doesn't rely on it?

Also, I'm thinking of using Odin as my patron for my character, any suggestions for a good build and concept? I kinda want a master of disguise/stealthy type of character (Odin was always passing for an old man or turning invisible in the myths) who is fairly competent in a fight. Maybe a mercenary or a spy, I dunno.

Kylarra
2010-09-23, 09:40 PM
So from what I'm hearing, Epic Dex is so good it's almost a non-choice. Is there any way to build a combat character who doesn't rely on it?No, there isn't. Dex governs your attacks and defenses, so naturally something that grants auto-successes to both is mandatory.

The_Snark
2010-09-23, 09:51 PM
Actually, there is the Fight With Your Head knack, which allows you to cancel out other people's Epic Dexterity with your Epic Intelligence. It'll let you function without Epic Dex, although it'll cost you a Knack and a point of Legend for every fight you want to use it in (and you have to keep Epic Intelligence maxed out for best results). There's still very little reason not to take Epic Dex alongside it, though...

Grynning: The Illusion purview from the Ragnarok book is worth looking at. I don't know of anything that can turn you invisible—the closest thing is a three-dot Darkness boon that lets you blend into shadows—but Illusion's second boon is a disguise, and the rest is pretty good for a wily trickster kind of character.

senrath
2010-09-23, 10:15 PM
So from what I'm hearing, Epic Dex is so good it's almost a non-choice. Is there any way to build a combat character who doesn't rely on it?


You technically can. In the same way that you technically can play a Wizard with 9 intelligence in D&D3.5e.

Kylarra
2010-09-23, 10:21 PM
Actually, there is the Fight With Your Head knack, which allows you to cancel out other people's Epic Dexterity with your Epic Intelligence. It'll let you function without Epic Dex, although it'll cost you a Knack and a point of Legend for every fight you want to use it in (and you have to keep Epic Intelligence maxed out for best results). There's still very little reason not to take Epic Dex alongside it, though... Assuming you have the Ragnarok book anyway, but UO means that epic dex char will probably still beat you.

Chipp Zanuff
2010-09-23, 10:27 PM
The idea that White Wolf even tries to balance its products is laughable.

Having played Scion, Epic Attributes are something to be avoided if you seek any kind of game balance. Alternatively, do not allow the Epic Attributes of your encounters to exceed the player's own attributes by more than 2. And even 2 is pushing it.

Kylarra
2010-09-23, 10:34 PM
The idea that White Wolf even tries to balance its products is laughable.

Having played Scion, Epic Attributes are something to be avoided if you seek any kind of game balance. Alternatively, do not allow the Epic Attributes of your encounters to exceed the player's own attributes by more than 2. And even 2 is pushing it.being 2 higher in terms of epic attributes is only potentially within range at hero level, and then only comparing 1 to 3. 2 to 4 is a whopping 5 success difference and 3 to 5 is 7 so...yeah only arete can make up that kind of shortfall, and even then only barely.

The_Snark
2010-09-24, 01:11 AM
Assuming you have the Ragnarok book anyway, but UO means that epic dex char will probably still beat you.

Yeah, Untouchable Opponent breaks the game badly as soon as you get out of Hero. Epic Dexterity by itself is kinda-sorta manageable, if only by making sure that everybody has more or less equivalent Epic Dex... although if you do that, you have to wonder what the point of having it at all is. Either all the bonuses cancel out and it's the same as if nobody had Epic Dex, or someone has an unbeatable advantage (at Demigod and above, anyway; at the Hero level random chance can still affect the outcome). You might as well just put a label on every creature saying "you must be at least this tall/have this much Epic Dex to fight this monster."

It's a terrible design idea, but at least it can function. Add Untouchable Opponent, and an evenly matched fight turns into a fight where neither combatant can hit the other at all. (Unless one of them has Arete or one of the Celtic geasa.) UO is one of the most broken things in the system, which is saying something.

Selrahc
2010-09-24, 04:36 AM
Scion quick reference (http://www.colugo.org/jmcmurra/generators/index.php?pageId=9&pageType=2) which is very handy.


Talking about game balance is silly. The game isn't balanced. It needs the ST to work to make encounters that fit the party. Different abilities have different power levels. As an example.. someone who takes Odin as a patron gets a good dozen benefits and discounts on abilities. Someone who takes Ptah gets 4. That is not even an attempt at balance.

And that is fine. Balance is only really important when talking about tactical combat simulators where the entire point is to generate fair and balanced battles. Scion isn't trying to do that.

I don't think it's brokenly unplayable though.


Epic Dexterity by itself is kinda-sorta manageable, if only by making sure that everybody has more or less equivalent Epic Dex...



Actually, there is the Fight With Your Head knack, which allows you to cancel out other people's Epic Dexterity with your Epic Intelligence


That is the way to do things. Best support ability in the game.




Yes, Arete is terrifying no way around that.

No it isn't. It gives a few bonus dice to roll to hit. It costs almost as much as an epic attribute, but rather than giving auto successes it gives bonus dice, which makes it one third as good, except without knacks and ancillary benefits.

Arete is rubbish.



So from what I'm hearing, Epic Dex is so good it's almost a non-choice. Is there any way to build a combat character who doesn't rely on it?

Of course there is. At hero level epic dex isn't unhittable by normal means. Past hero tier and you aren't trying to hit people by normal means anymore.

If you focus on stamina then anyone who hasn't focussed on strength is going to be completely incapable of hurting you. The epic dexterity person who you fight is going to be just as incapable of doing anything to you as you are to them. If you focus on strength then you can take down anyone who hasn't focussed on epic stamina in a single hit.


And the thing is, Epic Dexterity only helps you dodge certain things. If you're capable of picking up a skyscraper in each hand and throwing them halfway to venus, you're capable of doing attacks that affect an area too wide for an epic dexterity character to dodge them.

The same applies to those who focus on more magical effects. Hurricanes, Lightning storms, tidal waves, firestorms, earthquakes and blizzards all hit over such an area that dodging isn't a possibility. Then you have all the mental attacks that come from the social attributes as well as purviews like chaos.

There are definitely other ways to attack than epic dexterity. Most of them are even useful against foes with epic dexterity.

Although Untouchable Opponent does need to be nerfed. Reducing it to only add Epic dexterity dots rather than successes is a decent fix.

gartius
2010-09-24, 05:47 AM
Quote:
Yes, Arete is terrifying no way around that.

No it isn't. It gives a few bonus dice to roll to hit. It costs almost as much as an epic attribute, but rather than giving auto successes it gives bonus dice, which makes it one third as good, except without knacks and ancillary benefits.

Arete is rubbish.

er no it isnt... It doesnt just give you more dice to a pool (which by itself is REALLY nasty for a combat character-imagine one with arete in atheletics-that's a DV you won't breach. Full Stop. It also allows you to reroll-that means you will beat the bell curve for the dice as you get to choose which roll you wanted. You will succeed and will succeed well. Thats the point of arete and why its so nasty.

Another way of fighting in combat is to use Epic strength and clinch-not only can you end up with aggravated daamge later on in demigod/god but they'll have to try and break the clinch which a scion focused purely on strength will do really well-the downside is you'll be a glass cannon so pick up stamina at the same time to soak it- it is very easy with the fire, earth and water boons to create a soak in the 90s at least at god level (I once had a legend 8 god have the same soak as a epic stamina 10 god wih only 6 epic stamina)

One thing is to never try and Parry-it will always be better to try and dodge as the way it is calculated favors dodge more


It is a fun game though-it requires a lot of work by the storyteller to make it work but when it does it works well.

Selrahc
2010-09-24, 07:38 AM
er no it isnt... It doesnt just give you more dice to a pool (which by itself is REALLY nasty for a combat character-imagine one with arete in atheletics-that's a DV you won't breach. Full Stop.

It does just give you more dice to a pool. DV is a derived statistic, not a dice pool. Arete does nothing to help it.

Arete to any other skill is pretty good. It is the only way to really increase other skills past the mortal maximum. You want to be the best smith or greatest scientist then Arete is great. Arete as a combat skill is massively overshadowed. It's also great for helping on the activation of purview powers.




It also allows you to reroll-that means you will beat the bell curve for the dice as you get to choose which roll you wanted. You will succeed and will succeed well. Thats the point of arete and why its so nasty.

Arete doesn't allow you to reroll a successful action in the hopes of succeeding better.

Succeeding and succeeding well is almost automatic when Epic Attributes are in play.

Arete is only going to be getting you one or two more successes. The *only* thing to recommend Arete as a combat skill is that it adds those bonus dice to both damage and accuracy.

The_Snark
2010-09-24, 12:50 PM
Arete does not apply to damage rolls (except in the sense that more successes on the attack will mean more damage). It applies to any roll that includes the Ability, and damage rolls involve only weapon damage, attack successes, and Strength (depending on the weapon).

And nobody is recommending you use Arete in place of Epic Attributes. You use it in addition, and it allows you to gain an edge over people you'd otherwise be evenly matched with—maybe even lets you fight people with higher Epic Dex than you. They might get six more bonus successes than you, but you have sixteen bonus dice on your to-hit roll; you can hit them, and they can hit you.

Unlike Epic Dexterity, not everybody can take it, which gives the Greek pantheon a bit of an unfair combat edge. The Celtic geasa have a similar effect.

Lord_Gareth
2010-09-24, 02:58 PM
Of course Scion is unbalanced. Have you seen the granted abilities from Aphrodite vs. those granted by Odin? Ares vs. Apollo? No, when it comes to optimization, White Wolf more or less declared, "Screw it, let's make it cool as hell," and included all the gods that, statistically, suck because they knew people would love them.

Combat-wise, I've never had a problem running my games, even with Epic Dexterity included (though it should be noted that this is also by expident of banning Untouchable Opponent as hard as it can be banned). You can even dance around the gun rules by, for example, 'brewing a relic that allows you to add your Perception to damage rolls (making it Weapon Damage + Perception + Threshold successes + Epic Perception Bonus Successes, and thus in line with the whole melee damage formula). The wonderful thing about the system is that it's so easy to mod that it takes no effort. Is something not working for you? Change it. It's that easy.

Selrahc
2010-09-24, 05:48 PM
Arete does not apply to damage rolls (except in the sense that more successes on the attack will mean more damage). It applies to any roll that includes the Ability, and damage rolls involve only weapon damage, attack successes, and Strength (depending on the weapon).


Yes. Of course. I actually did know that and then changed it after consulting the books inaccurately.


Unlike Epic Dexterity, not everybody can take it, which gives the Greek pantheon a bit of an unfair combat edge. The Celtic geasa have a similar effect.

Yes, but listing Arete as a terrifying ability? It.. isn't. It's underwhelming. The experience spent there can be better spent in a dozen other ways to make you a kick ass combatant.

You want a terrifying ability that gives you an edge in combat? Look at Tsukomo Yami 3. No limit on legend that can be spent means that even in Hero tier you can give your weapon a +16 bonus for weeks. If you've got a reliable means of generating legend then it is game breakingly powerful for hero tier. *Much* worse than untouchable opponent.

The_Snark
2010-09-24, 07:33 PM
... wow, that is pretty bad. I'd never really noticed that boon before. There's another item for my list of houserules...

Kantolin
2010-09-24, 10:18 PM
If I recall, 'moon' doesn't have anything opposing it, nor any caveat such as 'But it ends when you attack' or sommat. Just 'you are utterly unpercievable forever'.

Either way, I don't find Scion to be in the slightest balanced, nor do I find most white wolf products to be, and summarily I don't enjoy them terribly much for long.

The setting is not bad itself, though, although I greatly prefer exalted. Playing extremely rules-light makes Scion more fun, I think. Granted, I've only played it once (and not under the best of Storytellers).

Oh - and I don't know if I was doing something wrong or something, but my Stamina 5 + Epic Stamina 3 character only barely didn't die instantly from being bitten by a relatively mundane snake's poison (and would have died when the poison struck again, but we had someone who could fix that). I don't think white wolf likes juggernaut very much.

gartius
2010-09-25, 09:34 AM
How do you calculate DV? dex+Atheletics+legend/2-and since you add arete to all activities you add Arete as well.

er... no arete adds more than 2 successes-you beat the bell curve-you will succeed full stop-that off roll you had? it didnt happen. that one chance where all dice rolled tens? more likely to happen because of arete.

that example with that boon you gave though-burning through all your legend at that point..yeah good luck with that. so you'll have to stunt legend back insanely to get that or you'll be munched as you've made yourself completely open to be attacked as you are defenseless(no legend to activate your boons and stuffs)

Yes arete is boring there a lot more funky purviews out there but a pure combat character will be maxed out and you will die facing one. It is an xp ink as well-espescially if you want more than one ability maxed out-but you will be the one the gods turn to if they need help cos you're the best at it.

Selrahc
2010-09-25, 10:38 AM
How do you calculate DV? dex+Atheletics+legend/2-and since you add arete to all activities you add Arete as well.

Arete gives you bonus dice and rerolls. That is it. DV is calculated based on Dex, Athletics and Legend, but it isn't rolled. Dice are not involved in creating your DV thus Arete has no effect.


er... no arete adds more than 2 successes

Well yes, possibly. I'm more saying that it is likely to be a trivial effect than giving an exact number.



you beat the bell curve-you will succeed full stop

But you are likely to do that in almost any task anyway due to epic attributes.

And this is also what makes the reroll so poor. If you roll an epic attribute enhanced, arete empowered dice pool you will always succeed. You might not always succeed big, but the odds of failure are so low as to make the reroll irrelevant.

So essentially.. you're a little bit better. I *do* think that is useful, but from the way people are talking it is as though every faction but the Greeks is screwed when it comes to a fight, because they don't have arete.



that example with that boon you gave though-burning through all your legend at that point..yeah good luck with that.

You seriously don't see how broken the helpful spirit is? Remember that you don't need to dump every single point of legend into it. Dump 8 points of legend in and you still have a bonus twice as good as Arete, while keeping more than enough legend for personal use. And it last for days. If the user of the ability has good epic charisma the enhancement is likely to last for a week or more.

It doesn't only affect one person either. It increases the function of the weapon, which can then be handed off to another scion. It's like super arete that can be transferred around, can be used for multiple skills and can be taken to a much higher limit!

And really, it's pretty easy to stunt your way to having a bit of legend.

If you think this ability is fine, but arete is really good then I'm not sure I can really understand how you think. This ability basically needs houseruling to make it into a game.