Scion Companion

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Samuel!

errr.... Why?

Well its been 8 months since I gave the books a really detailed read through and I must say I found the mechanics wanting, and I know I wasn't the only one. Try looking at some of the reviews over on rpgnet and you'll get the general impression.

RPGnet : Review of Scion: Hero

My suggestion to convert the game to 4E is purely because I believe that system to be much cleaner.

Still if it works for you then I say good luck to you.

 

[Upper_Krust]

It would be very interesting to see someone write up some ways to use another system for Scion.

I am working on Immortal Rules for 4th Edition, with two new tiers being added 31-40 = Legendary Tier, 41-50 = Immortal Tier.

Its not a complete stretch to overlap:

Hero = Epic Tier
Demigod = Legendary Tier
God = Immortal Tier

 

[Samuel Leming]

I'm pretty sure that there used to be sample characters (NPCs, villains) in Champions (probably 2e or 3e) that would have PhysLim: Blind and then have some kind of radar power, or the like. AFAIK, the theory was always, "no points if it's not actually a problem"; it was, however, not always observed, either by the game's authors & publishers, or by the players (at least in my group ).

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one! Thanks for soothing by aging ego a bit.

For Scion => M&M, I hadn't thought of any actual conversion, since the systems are different; my planning was all blue-sky preliminary stuff, and thus in more general terms (i.e., Hero start at PL7 or so; Demi-god being around PL10; God being PL12-13 & up).

I’d go with Legend being equal to around PL-5. So, yeah, start off at PL7 for heroes, demigods at PL10, but I’d boost the gods up to PL14 and up.

 

[Samuel Leming]

For M&M though you'd want to come up with two costs for most abilities since have one's parenet favor an ability allows it to cost less.

Actually, I wouldn’t want to do that. Things with identical costs in Scion will have divergent costs in M&M. That could make some things even more wonky.

If you feel that giving players a cost break to stay within concept is what you need, then TheWyrd’s idea is probably a good place to start.

You'd also need something for Legend and Fatebinding.

Legend:
Legend is a limiting factor much like PL and legend points function much as hero points do.

To build a Legend power I’d start with Enhanced Luck and give it a flaw since using any of the hero points the power provides would prompt a fatebinding save. That flaw could be -1 or -2 depending on how badly you intend to hammer the players with fatebinding. With that Legend would provide 2 or 3 hero points per rank.

For boons that require legend to use I’d purchase them with a -1 flaw that they require a hero point to activate. Functionally this is almost identical to the Tiring flaw, but without the Extra Effort intermediary step. I think I’ve seen a Requires Hero Point flaw used somewhere, but I can’t recall right off hand where.

I’d limit the ranks of Legend a character could purchase by PL-5. This would set the starting level at PL7.

Fatebinding:
I’d make this a save every time you used a hero point provided by the Legend power. I’d set the DC at 10+Legend Rank if you go with the -1 flaw and 15+Legend Rank if you decide on the -2 flaw. I’d increase the strength of the resultant fate binding for every 5 you miss the save. The save would be a base ability roll not including the enhanced ability. I’m not really sure which one is appropriate though. If you want a to use a regular save, such as a will save, I’d use 15+Legend Rank as the DC, but only build the Legend power with a -1 flaw.

I like the 9 attributes of Scion over the 6 of M&M though for the game and it's division of them so one person is great at the social stuff but has less points for all the mental ones. That would be a harder thing to do in M&M.

You’ve got me there.

I guess it would depend on if one was going to just use M&M to run a Scion like game that just used the rules iof M&M and ignored most of the mechancis in Scion.

That’s exactly how I’d handle it. I’d fiddle with the M&M mechanic as little as I could while still covering Scion’s themes and feel.

 

[Samuel Leming]

My suggestion to convert the game to 4E is purely because I believe that system to be much cleaner.

Still if it works for you then I say good luck to you.

Oh, I’ll give you that. 4e is a very clean system. One of the contributors to this cleanliness is it’s narrowness. There isn’t really much flavor and theme overlap between it and Scion, while with any of the modern supers games there’s considerably more. That’s why the choice appeared odd to me.

As for working with the original Scion system. Yeah, it’s a clunker, but I’ve had good games with far worse. Who’s at the table has more effect on how well you session goes then the rules system.

I am working on Immortal Rules for 4th Edition, with two new tiers being added 31-40 = Legendary Tier, 41-50 = Immortal Tier.

Its not a complete stretch to overlap:

Hero = Epic Tier
Demigod = Legendary Tier
God = Immortal Tier

This is what I really wanted to know when I asked why.

Sounds like an interesting project.

 

[Crothian]

That’s exactly how I’d handle it. I’d fiddle with the M&M mechanic as little as I could while still covering Scion’s themes and feel.

If we were to do something different I would also change as little of M&M as possible.

Last night the group traveled to Egypt in search of a missing Scion colleague. We found her last location and missing cell phone and pieced together some vague clues that took us to Crete. There we seemed to play PI as we gathered a few more clues and then meet a Scion of Hera who was smitten with Tate (Shaylon's PC, Scion of Apollo, think famous boy band member now enjoying a very successful solo career). Scion of Hera had sold our friend to cultists of Skadi. But she was very sad to learn she had hurt Tate, as she did all of this to get Tate to come to her.

We join up with her to track down the Cultists in northern Italy. We track down then in their secret underground liar as they are about to kill our friend. We dispatch them with ease, but then a frost giant shows up and he's a little tough but not much. It is of course the day the earthquake hits so we fight this giant underground during an earthquake. It was quite fun.

We rescue our friend, everyone lives that we are aligned with, and then Tate spurns the Scion of Hera and creates a very unhappy demi god. We travel back to Egypt and we roll credits with my Scion playing Frisbee with his wolf around an archaeological dig deep in the Egyptian desert.