Thus Spake Zaranephilpal/PlayersGuide

Nephilpal - 03/30/2004 16:37:21

charles77: Nice background, and some very nice ideas, but I have some questions.

1. Can god bloods take the Experience or Knowledge backgrounds? My first thought is, "No, that those backgrounds are subsumed in Inheritance." My second thought is that Knowledge, being mystical, would be forbidden, but Experience can be used to show older God-bloods. My third thought is that you'd better have a really good backstory to justify any such mixing.

1) There is a table to address just this very issue. Basically, Inheritance, Experience and Knowledge aren't fair Backgrounds. They give you power without any drawback that is vastly disportionate to their cost. If you want to be a veteran God-Blooded thaumaturge gunzosha, well... ok, yes, you could use the system to build such a character. Of course, your character will be vastly more powerful than someone who didn't have the benefit of your education, parentage and the wisdom of years. When you build a mortal or mostly mortal character, your Storyteller tells you how much Inheritance, Knowledge and/or Experience to record. If you're playing an Exalt, Inheritance works a little differently because you actually have to purchase it with Background points and accept the negative side effects intended to discourage mixing.

2. Knowledge and Experience both allow you to take Flaws -- if you have both Knowledge and Experience, do you take the sum of the two's Flaws, or is it simply the highest total? I.E., could someone with Knowledge 3 and Experience 3 take 30 points of flaws, or are they lmited to 15? My preference would be for the latter.

2) My immediate assumption is that you get to take the highest number of Flaws permitted by your Backgrounds (or 10 without such Backgrounds). Making it cumulative is just silly, crossing well over into the whole "I'm blind, one-legged, crazy, ugly and doomed," but at least I have all the Arts.

3. While such Thaumaturgy merits such as Essence Recovery, Essence Awareness, and Essence Mastery are obviously subsumed into the abilities of any Exalted or God-blooded, what about "The flow of essence" -- should that be allowed to Godbloods and Exalted?

3) Hmmm... the Flow of Essence is particular to thaumaturges and depends on a Merit that goes away if you are ever Exalted or have other natural ways of tapping your Essence (such as by being a God- Blood who could take Awakened Essence). So I'd say no. God-Blooded and Exalted both have access to Charms as a far more reliable way to boost dice pools.

4. Finally, are those mortals who have gained the ability to use Essence or attune to Artifacts prey to the negative effects of gunzosha armor or other such devices? My assumption is that they could attune them like all Artifacts, rather than having to use the more dangerous methods humans who cannot Essence channel must use.

4) If you can power gunzosha armor with Essence, you don't need to use life-draining amulets. Or maybe you have the amulets but they don't drain your Essence. I'm not sure how that works. Ask Scott. Yes, that means thaumaturges make the best gunzosha troopers, which is further hinted at on the first full paragraph of page 98. It also means you could theoretically have a thaumaturge with a warstrider, but that's another matter altogether.

Comments

Thanks, FWW. I was having a bit of trouble there. :) -Kicker

No problem. - willows (incidentally, I've actually set up a redirect for FWW too...)