I'd add that much of the Deviant template is about what you *lose*. Your soul is broken. You only have one short-term Aspiration and no long-term Aspiration. You have no Virtue or Vice. A bunch of quite ordinary Merits are dangerous to use. You get a brand new "health track" (Stability) that provides another way to die horribly, Loyalty and Conviction Touchstones that allow you to slow down that slide (or accelerate it, depending on how good you are about pursuing them), and a life on the run from countless individuals and organizations that want to use you for your powers.
Deviants have a couple Adaptations - a universal one that helps them resist being mind-controlled into acting contrary to their Touchstones, and two others that are a part of their Clade (more on those later, but they aren't an aura). Some Remade also have a Form. The rest of their template is a mix of Variations and Scars based on threat level (plus any gained along the way). Make no mistake, high-Magnitude Variations can be pretty impressive, especially any Magnitude 5 Variation (although you have to be willing to take on a Magnitude 5 Scar in trade, which is no easy burden). But in the absence of a bunch of other benefits gained from the template (Mage Sight/Attainments/improvised magic for mages, pledge-crafting/hedge-crafting/dream-crafting for changelings, blood **ckery/benefits of being dead for vampires, etc.), Variations are pretty much all the Broken have got going for them.
To some extent, this stripped down template keeps Deviants comparatively low-powered. But I think it also keeps the game itself simpler, its characters' abilities easier to keep track of.
Deviants have a couple Adaptations - a universal one that helps them resist being mind-controlled into acting contrary to their Touchstones, and two others that are a part of their Clade (more on those later, but they aren't an aura). Some Remade also have a Form. The rest of their template is a mix of Variations and Scars based on threat level (plus any gained along the way). Make no mistake, high-Magnitude Variations can be pretty impressive, especially any Magnitude 5 Variation (although you have to be willing to take on a Magnitude 5 Scar in trade, which is no easy burden). But in the absence of a bunch of other benefits gained from the template (Mage Sight/Attainments/improvised magic for mages, pledge-crafting/hedge-crafting/dream-crafting for changelings, blood **ckery/benefits of being dead for vampires, etc.), Variations are pretty much all the Broken have got going for them.
To some extent, this stripped down template keeps Deviants comparatively low-powered. But I think it also keeps the game itself simpler, its characters' abilities easier to keep track of.
Comment