Question about the Beauty preview’ s innate power.

[RIKIWARREN]

So, the Beauty’s innate power says “You may attempt a Feat of Scale when you roll to influence a character using your beauty, appearance, and body language.”

This has lead to a lengthy debate at my table about how this should be interpreted.

On the one hand, this seems to imply that you can spend a legend and gain (legend / 2 rounded up) scale on an action to influence someone, just like you would use your legendary title. However, this seems very expensive—especially compared to all the other things you could spend your legend on. And there is a concern that the player would never use the Beauty’s innate power, since they always had better things to spend legend points on.

Also, the other innate powers seem to just give you an ability that always applies—like being able to see and talk to the dead. This would make Beauty the only “innate” power you had to pay for.

On the other hand, this could just mean you’re granted scale on every interaction where beauty, appearance, and body language applies. In this interpretation, Feat of Scale just means you get to add scale (legend / 2 rounded up) to the action. For your legendary title, you pay a legend to add a Feat of Scale. This ability just adds the Feat of Scale for free.

This would be similar to how the Epic Strength’s innate power gives you +1 scale for lifting, breaking, or carrying large objects. The issue here, is things that grant scale for free typically say you “have scale” or it “grants scale” and Feat of Scale seems to only be used for the pay-legend-to-buy-scale thing. Also, in anything but a pure combat game, getting scale on most social interactions is very powerful. Much more powerful than most of the other innate abilities.

So, anyone know what the real rules are?

[Mateus Luz]

My interpretation is it’s free to use any time it applies.

When you have to imbue legend it usually says “you can gain scale by imbuing legend instead of spending” or something similar, and an innate power that is just gaining scale is a very narrow use is nothing, I mean, if you have a title like “the most beautiful person in the neighborhood” or about any other title related to the Lover calling, you can do it with no Beauty purview.

So, again, you can gain scale for free...

[Aristarkos]

There is also the Lover Knack "Fluid Appeal" that gives a constant +2e to almost all social interactions, which is functionally identical to Scale and you could also give your character 3 dots in Athletics and a "attractive body" Specialty or similar for another +1e as well as other specialties from other skills. Combine this with the supposedly free Scale gain from Beauty and laugh at the hilariousity.

I like Storypath a lot but sometimes stacking enhancements on top of each other to a ridiculous degree is too easy. At least the enhancement bonuses are capped in this game.

[Heavy Arms]

I second Mateus's interpretation and reasoning.

Though I'll add reason to address, "why call it a Feat of Scale?" issue: first it gives a scaling bonus instead of a flat one, and I would infer that it isn't allow to stack with a normal Feat of Scale (where other Scale granting powers generally would).

...which is functionally identical to Scale...

Functionally identical for Dramatic Scale, not for Narrative Scale, which is a significant difference for social oriented characters that want to influence large groups of minor characters.

[Mateus Luz]

I was not touch on what scale Impact, but as it was mentioned...

As Heavy Arms said, it’s more than just enhancements, it has the narrative effect, that is particularly more used as a social interaction. Basically you are in another level, you are just awesome when compared to regular people. You can affect larger groups as if they were a single person, you can command they to do stuff as if you were a hierarchy superior (in some cases mundane people can have scale due to their position, like a General can probably be considered Scale 3 or 4 when dealing with their underlings). They can even force unexpected reactions that regular people would not be capable of, a man so beautiful even straight man fall in love, or a level of beauty that takes people to war (like Helen of Troy). Think with me, a strongman can barely lift a car from ground for a few seconds, while a Epic Strength Hero can lift one above his head as if it was nothing, imagine how beautiful is a person that can leave topmodels behind by that far.

Now, the enhancements, scale dodges enhancement caps, it grows as your legend grows and in Demigod it stack with other forms of scale to a certain level. In other words, your awesomeness grows over time by itself, different from knacks, and have no limits.

[RIKIWARREN]

So, I can see some great arguments for why Beauty’s innate ability should just grant scale. However, that doesn’t seem to be what the book says.

I guess it boils down to whether a “Feat of Scale” is just a (legend / 2 round up) scale. Or whether it’s “Spend 1 Legend to gain (legend / 2 round up)“.

It’s not 100% clear—but I’ve literally looked at all the references to “Feat of Scale,” in Hero, and all of them reference spending a legend. And several of them strongly imply that the legend cost is part of the “Feat of Scale.”

For example:

From Heavenly Stride: “Once per scene, you may make a Feat of Scale to enhance any action based on physical speed without having to pay a point of Legend.“
From Blessed Harvest: “A Scion who benefits from this condition may call on it to undertake a Feat of Scale without having to spend a point of Legend.”

Also, whenever the game grants scale without a legend cost, it just says something like “XXX has scale” or “XXX grants +1 scale” or something similar.

So it’s really hard to see an interpretation of the rules where the cost isn’t part of the Feat of Scale.

[Awenei]

Sorry, to bring this up again, but a question has been on my mind lately regarding this:

What difference in use is there in a Title (Beautiful something) vs Beautys Innate power.?

[Mateus Luz]

That is exactly the reason why the Beauty innate power can’t cost anything (maybe require imbuing legend). If it costs a legend, you probably could do the same with a title.

The only exception is if you have no title related to beauty, in this case you gain a very narrow use of legend to gain scale.

In other words, it would be a useless power or at best a very narrow use of legend.