Scion Dex/Stamina Build Help?

[icern300]

I'm looking to make a char who is good at not getting hit & heals fast when they are hit. {I'm fairly new to this system}
I already know about things like-
Untouchable Opponent, Whirlwind Shield, Roll With It - Dex stuff.
Damage Conversion, Self–Healing, Regeneration, Skin–Shedding - Stamina stuff.

But was having troubles finding any gods that may go with this build.

If Any one knows of some good gods or knacks or skills I'm missing, or just a better way of achieving this, any other information they can give it be great.

[Friv]

So, hey. This is Scion 1e, right?

My advice: Don't do this. This is a bad road that you're going down, and it will end with the system imploding around you, lots of screaming, and everyone dead. Heavily focusing on Dexterity and Stamina, especially on both Untouchable Opponent and Self-Healing, is going to absolutely wreck the system.

With that said - if you really want to do this, the obvious choice is Tezcatlipoca. You don't get Stamina for cheap, but you do get Dexterity, and more importantly, you get Animal (Jaguar) and Itzli. The former lets you use your Epic Stamina to pick up absurd Dexterity on top of your existing, and the latter lets you hurt people to recover Legend, and then spend that Legend to heal and regenerate, which is symbolically as well as mechanically cool.

But seriously, stacking two forms of defense in their most powerful modes is going to make the ST cry. About the only way it could be worse is if you do it with a Speed 1 weapon and good relic armor.

[Eurus]

The thing about Scion is that you pretty much never have to worry about your character not being strong enough. With even a bit of focus into a combat stat you'll either hit like a truck full of other, smaller trucks, or you'll be nearly invincible, or both. Honest advice? Look at the other characters, and try to make it so that you're somewhere in the same vicinity as them, not too crazy strong or too crazy weak in comparison. Otherwise the game is going to get awkward fast, because the ST is going to have to figure out how to deal with, for example, one person with absurdly high defenses to the point that anything capable of touching them can simply vaporize everyone else.

(This is a good thumbrule for any system, really, it's just especially important for Scion. The DM/ST will presumably try to design encounters that are appropriate for your party if they know what they're doing, so it's better to focus on hitting the same power range as your allies, whatever range that may be.)

[Anonymouswizard]

Note that the game breaking balance issues in 1e are mainly for Demigod+, while they exist in Hero dice pools are still generally larger than automatic successes and so it's more 'problem' than 'gamebreaking', and even then only arguably. As in dice pools top out at about 15 dice (I believe 25 if you have access to Arte), while Epic Attributes give automatic successes roughly equal to 2^(EA-1).

I did have a bunch of house rules, lost when that laptop died, which weakened Epic Attributes and Dexterity (IIRC defence was based on Perception, and some knacks let you swap it out for other stats). There were also knacks for making melee attacks off Strength (which mainly took speed in these house rules and Dex became almost entirely body positioning) and ranged attacks off Perception, to reduce the need to cookie cutter combat builds (a marksman could actually run entirely off Perception if they wished, although melee fighters couldn't do the same for Strength).

[Friv]

Note that the game breaking balance issues in 1e are mainly for Demigod+, while they exist in Hero dice pools are still generally larger than automatic successes and so it's more 'problem' than 'gamebreaking', and even then only arguably. As in dice pools top out at about 15 dice (I believe 25 if you have access to Arte), while Epic Attributes give automatic successes roughly equal to 2^(EA-1).

Oh, gosh no. The game-breaking balance issues from Epic Attributes are mostly for Demigod+, but really they kick in at Legend 4. Once you have an Epic Attribute at 3, giving you four auto-successes to your roll, the game is already borderline rocket tag. And the build above? Untouchable Opponent hurts the game bad by Legend 3 and breaks it by Legend 4, and those Stamina knacks are pretty game-bending on their own, let alone with Dex added in.

Let's take two combat characters at Legend 3 (starting characters using Scion rules to be the best). Dex 5 + Melee 4 + Specialty 1 + Epic Dex 2, with a +1 Accuracy, +1 Defense weapon, and Untouchable Opponent. Your die pool is 11 + 2 successes, and your DV is 10. You need at least nine successes to hit your mirror opponent, and with only 11 dice, your chances of getting that are less than nine percent. You'll need substantial tactical advantages just to get to an unlikely chance of success.

By Legend 4, you've added two successes to hit, but you've also added 4 to your DVs. Assuming you also bumped Melee to 5 and picked up a second Specialty, you're up to a die pool of 13 with four successes, and a DV of 15. You need at least twelve successes on thirteen dice to hit your mirror self (less than a 3% chance of success.)

(And that's without the extremely wonky equipment rules, and the way that soak beats damage so you have an extra layer of defense if Dexterity/Stamina is your focus.)

[Anonymouswizard]

Oh, gosh no. The game-breaking balance issues from Epic Attributes are mostly for Demigod+, but really they kick in at Legend 4. Once you have an Epic Attribute at 3, giving you four auto-successes to your roll, the game is already borderline rocket tag. And the build above? Untouchable Opponent hurts the game bad by Legend 3 and breaks it by Legend 4, and those Stamina knacks are pretty game-bending on their own, let alone with Dex added in.

Results from me being afb, I had forgotten about how powerful some Hero boons are and how Knacks aren't limited by Legend at all. But I said mostly Demigod plus because it all sort of works Epic Attribute-wise at Legend 2 and 3, barring a few outliers like Untouchable Opponent (which, while it make sense, needs to either be banned or massively nerfed before it's actually playable). Heck, Untouchable Opponent is so broken that I don't even consider it when talking about balance if 'ban it' has already come up, it's petty much all that needs to be said on the topic.

Honestly, I believe that the best thing to do is to just get rid of Epic Attributes and focus balancing efforts on Boons (this is different to my early days where I tried limiting EAs). Most of the problematic Knacks aren't a problem without Epic Attributes to run off of, and 'better than mere mortals' can easily be represented by the fact you can increase your Attributes above 5 at Legend 6+.

Scion 1e is kind of a broken mess that just about holds together with a gentleman's agreement at Legend 2-3, past that Epic Attribute scaling tends to make attempts at balance laughable (which is why I'm glad 2e won't have EAs).