Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

I think spending quintessence is akin to spending Xp; The DM controls the rate a god will gain it, but the God controls the rate he or she spends/wastes it. If things didn't cost Quintessence to do. EX: Creating avatars and the like, Then there should be no reason why any god who has been around for any apreciable length of time would not be a greater deity.
I see it as an expending of personal energy, like a type of "mana" or "magic points" or "gold" for divine stuff. Getting to certain points promotes the deity in the ranks of his or her pantheon, but he or she must be careful not to rush ahead; As just ascending to a new rank means the bigger, meaner, older gods could attack him or her with impunity: Winning means Power. Loseing means little as the god who would be attacked would probobly need to expend quintessence to win, and that would drop his rank, making him lose.
A fair balance, much like the Wish spell. Do I cast it and not level for another session, or do I hold out and hope we survive this difficult encounter that just turned for the worse?
We also have yet to see the third method of obtaining quintessence, which may provide a deity with a renewable way of replenishing his stores, but only over long periods of time.

 

[dante58701]

Jolly right my dear friend, mayhaps I am a pinch antiquated, tho one dost wonder if it were just my fundamental wickyness.

Truth is...I am old fashioned...extremely.

 

[Eversius]

Hey UK!

I just now understood what the "Cosmic EGG" is.

Two questions, though. Will Oblivion overrule Transmortality?

Also, can artifacts sunder other artifacts?

 

[poilbrun]

Ltheb Silverfrond posted something in the Grimoire thread that got me thinking, but I moved the post here since I believe this thread is more appropriate:

Since gods can get quintessence easy, just tell their clerics to do stuff

With the even system as it is, wouldn't a god of adventurers (such as Tymora in the FR, who has adventurers in her portfolio) be able to increase her power more quickly than, say, the god of farmers (Chauntea)?

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Ltheb Silverfrond posted something in the Grimoire thread that got me thinking, but I moved the post here since I believe this thread is more appropriate:

With the even system as it is, wouldn't a god of adventurers (such as Tymora in the FR, who has adventurers in her portfolio) be able to increase her power more quickly than, say, the god of farmers (Chauntea)?

You would think that, but remember (PCs Aside) for every group of adventurerers that goes out and become famose, theres a group eaten by a Grue. (And the God of the Grues, the Ur-Grue, is very powerful because of it)
Yes, I think adventure gods gain WP faster than everyone, but remember, theres allways a bigger fish, and the Older, more powerful, evil deities in the setting may not take kindly to adventure-gods jumping in ranks every week. Those evil deities could just instruct their clerics to Kill the adventurerers. Its Evil to kill indescriminately right? Guess that means the god Darth-Killatron will gain WP from it. Politics at their best.

 

[Fieari]

As I see it, a god of adventurers doesn't really have much of an advantage over a god of farmers. Think about it.

God of adventurers gets a massive sudden influx of quintessence when adventurers save the day, which happens every once and a while, but not exactly every day. I mean, yeah, adventurers do stuff every day, but the quintessence comes from when they WIN, and when they are KNOWN to have won. When adventurers do little stuff, the god gets some quintessence too, but not much.

On the other hand, there are a lot more farmers out there than adventurers. A LOT more. And clerics are out there helping those farmers. Maybe low level stuff, but still... volume is key here. Practically every day there are farmers needing stuff to go well with them, and remember that it takes a LOT of farmers to support cities... just because they're spread out doesn't mean there aren't many of them. And every day, that god of farmers is raking in a profit from helping them out, or having clerics do the helping. The god of farmers rarely if ever gets a huge influx at once, but there's much to be said for a steady income.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

So, in order to have the most powergamed, min-maxed deity, one must take the Farming AND Adventure portfolios! I love it! To create the most broken PC of all time, you must have the most convoluted, useless, and silly concept ever. (The way it always is)
A pity Time Lords don't really care about portfolios. I would so much like to do a level 1000 Expert Time Lord, with double Farming Portfolios.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there!

Actually, DDM's post- combined with one from Ltheb Silverfrond in the Grimoire thread (which I'll quote below for ease of reference) brought up a point in my head that I thought of upon first reading Beta 0.6, but forgot to post about at the time.

This is the question: what, precisely, does it mean to "spend" Quintessence?

Are you assuming a system of point pools (i.e. there are permanent points and temporary points) like two previous Immortals-level rules systems (the D&D gold-box set, and the Primal Order) used? If this is the case, how does the temporary pool replenish itself? How often, and does the character need to do anything special to get it back?

There is no temporary pool, just like there is no temporary pool of EXP if thats the cost of casting a spell or creating an item.

Or is it something altogether different, where Quintessence is more like XP for characters in the base d20 rules system- an essentially nonrenewable resource (you can only renew it by participating in encounters and other means which essentially boil down to DM fiat)? If this is the case, what is an Immortal really doing by spending it?

Divorcing part of itself.

Does it lose worshippers suddenly, for no apparent reason, for instance?

No, but you can set a chain of events in motion known as a worship point vacuum.

Does it lose memories or get smaller somehow?

Does a character lose memories when it expends EXP to create an item?

It would become spiritually less than it was before.

I know which system I'd prefer to use, but the current version of Ascension doesn't actually make it clear which one it's using- or at any rate, not in any place I noticed. However, since the book does mention spending Quintessence, it should be spelled out in explicit detail somewhere, I think, particularly if Quintessence is considered truly separate from a character's XP total. This is mostly a fluff detail, I think, because different DMs may have different ideas of how it should be done- but it should probably be spelled out in detail somewhere in the explanations of what Quintessence is, because people new to the concept won't have any idea what to do on this point. And knowing how most players think, it will come up in game shortly after any mechanics for Immortals are introduced.

I agree, I'll make sure and cover it, when i go back over those chapters. Although there are some missing pages that touch on this (The second 'power' page for instance).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey UK!

Hi Eversius mate!

I just now understood what the "Cosmic EGG" is.

Two questions, though. Will Oblivion overrule Transmortality?

No, but I'll investigate whether or not they should cancel out.

Also, can artifacts sunder other artifacts?

I'm thinking yes, but that they would automatically be restored at the start of the next round. So it would be a temporary sundering.

 

[Sledge]

Hey Sledge matey!



Don't - I still need to send you a copy for free, since you won the competition a while back...I was waiting until I had the finished thing (since it makes a better present), but if you want the next update let me know.

The next update would be great!