Deviant Kickstarter

[Stupid Loserman]

MG is right. Deviations are a means of further customizing the Scar, providing alternate ways in which it can be eased or worsened. Power Failure's Rare and Common Deviations allow you to represent either a rare hazardous mineral which can wholly block out your powers (Power Failure 4 with Rare -1) or the temporary ebbing away of your powers while distracted by anger (Power Failure 2 with Common +1) at the same net Magnitude 3 rating.

As for why you'd want higher Magnitude, more crippling Scars? Check out what Variations do at Magnitude 4-5. Rapid Healing 5 makes you completely impossible to directly kill by any means – and is impossible to develop without a Magnitude 5 Scar (or at least Magnitude 4 plus your one unscarred Variation dot from chargen). Deviants are empowered and supercharged in direct proportion to how messed up and ruined they are.

Plus, sometimes awful Scars are cool. Sometimes you want to be a hideous monster man who has to hide his face from the world. A deviant's Scars are as much a part of developing how cool their concept and story are as their Variations.

[Satchel]

Positive Deviations instead allow you to increase the Magnitude of a Scar, so that you can potentially entangle more/stronger Variations, without worsening the effect of the Scar. Instead, you take some other, lesser drawback.

As for why you'd want higher Magnitude, more crippling Scars? Check out what Variations do at Magnitude 4-5. Rapid Healing 5 makes you completely impossible to directly kill by any means – and is impossible to develop without a Magnitude 5 Scar (or at least Magnitude 4 plus your one unscarred Variation dot from chargen). Deviants are empowered and supercharged in direct proportion to how messed up and ruined they are.

Case in point: from the data we have available, the design space that Involuntary Scars live in relies heavily on Deviations for long-term viability; the price you pay for not having to pay a price to activate your powers or constantly suffer a drawback from their availability is that neither of the core Involuntary Scars has a core Magnitude that goes above 3 on its own, and both of them make their entire Variation package Overt as soon as it goes over Magnitude 1. Deviations let you lighten that load a bit.

This is one of the ways that being a Coactive looks great on paper: your Adaptations are nearly a same as Cephalists get without double-dipping into the same resource, and your Scars thematically trend toward the least inherently troublesome baseline effects, but damage is damage and Instability will find a way to escalate your problems very quickly if you don't stay on top of the game.

[Primordial newcomer]

Negative Deviations decrease your total Magnitude, but the effects of the Scar remain at the higher level. In return, the Scar becomes less punishing in some other way.

Positive Deviations instead allow you to increase the Magnitude of a Scar, so that you can potentially entangle more/stronger Variations, without worsening the effect of the Scar. Instead, you take some other, lesser drawback.

For example: Dependency 3 with the Common (-1) Deviation leaves you with a two-dot Scar with the effects of a three-dot, but the substance you require is common enough that you're unlikely to run out; you can just buy it at the local grocery store, or even find it lying about. Conversely, Dependency 3 with Rare (+1) becomes a four-dot Scar that is only as severe as a 3-dot one, but you are much more likely to run out due to your dependency's rarity.

Ok, I understand now. Thank you and everyone else that elaborated, I'm sorry I had such a late response.

Anyway, cant wait for the game, looking forward to it more than I did Hunter

[Satchel]

A thing for when errata-gathering time rolls around:

Maintenance is, thematically and descriptively, a pretty dope Scar, but as a Persistent Scar it should probably either have the Toggled keyword or include some guidance for how the effects of failed or jury-rigged maintenance kick in on Perpetual Variations like Rapid Healing or Sensor Array or Superhuman, particularly given that it shows up in the examples for multiple Perpetual Variations in the KS draft.

[Eric Zawadzki]

A thing for when errata-gathering time rolls around:

Maintenance is, thematically and descriptively, a pretty dope Scar, but as a Persistent Scar it should probably either have the Toggled keyword or include some guidance for how the effects of failed or jury-rigged maintenance kick in on Perpetual Variations like Rapid Healing or Sensor Array or Superhuman, particularly given that it shows up in the examples for multiple Perpetual Variations in the KS draft.

The current draft shows it with the Toggled-Only keyword, so at some point it must have come to my attention how wonky that would get. However, I see it's still being used as an example for Sensor Array, which is Perpetual, so I'll add it to my list of things to fix during a late pass. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[tasti man LH]

*sees latest MMN*

Oh hullo...Deviant's out of Layout and off to Proofing!...but whose text is still in post-editing development? Huh.

[Eric Zawadzki]

*sees latest MMN*

Oh hullo...Deviant's out of Layout and off to Proofing!...but whose text is still in post-editing development? Huh.

It's in proofing. It just didn't get deleted from the post-editing development list.

[Dataweaver]

Can't… wait…

[Daigotsu Max]

Aaaaand it's out (to backers)!

As someone who was critical of the previews, I'm curious to see the final (or well, almost final) product!

[Dataweaver]

Got it! Now I just need to find some time to read it. Darn work...

[Grimmi05]

And Nevermind it was with my old email account that I have switched over

[Satchel]

An approximate and non-exhaustive summary of some of the changes from the KS draft:

Adaptations, Stability, Merits, Basics

Most of the Adaptations have been tweaked to some degree, notably Untamed and Redundancy (which have changed the tenor of their effects to more all-or-nothing fare); Focus and Consume now specifically allow you to space out adding extra Magnitude at cost across the scene.

If you're the direct cause of a Loyalty Touchstone's death or destruction, the accompanying Instability is major rather than medium.

"Acting in support of a Loyalty Touchstone" is now more broadly defined and can include spending a scene deepening your relationship with it for the purposes of healing Instability.

There are rules for drowning/suffocation/holding your breath, and a new one-dot Physical Merit to make it easier to manage, which adds some stuff for Aquatic and certain varieties of Native Environment to play with.

Armed & Extremely Dangerous and Prized Experiment have shed most of their prerequisites and picked up more mechanical utility, as promised.

Stabilizer now only goes to three dots, which is probably the way to go for not completely trivializing low Stability.

Fight, Flight, Freeze has been renamed "Human Prey"; the "Fight" response now also increases your Strength.

All Tilts now have their effects delineated as moderate or severe, which affects some mechanical tagging.

Discrete Variations now cannot have their Magnitude temporarily adjusted, barring specific exceptions (such as Carapace and Lash), which predetermine higher- Magnitude effects at the time of purchase; effects that would decrease a Discrete Variation's Magnitude instead shut it down after a number of failed Scar Resistance rolls.

Nested secondary Scars are now explicitly forbidden.

Universal Variations

The number of Variations with scaling other than 1-5 has decreased; there are now a lot more Variations with an "Aura" Deviation (the basics of the mechanic are now covered in the section on Directed Variations), and many Variations with formerly limited Magnitude now have a "Defensive" Deviation like Out of Phase and Translocation did.

Enhanced Speed has split the old Fleetness option into a Speed-based effect and a Defense-based effect, giving it three possible Magnitude 3 effects to parcel out over the top half of its Magnitude.

The "Recollection" Deviation of Face Thief now specifically limits the features you can duplicate to those you can reference from the record, but also allows you to make a disguise of a non-specific person with your choice of features.

The "Velocity" effect of high-Magnitude Flight has gotten dramatically faster.

Healing Touch has been renamed Healer, is a Directed Variation, and can specifically be used on yourself unless it has the Aura Deviation now available to it.

Holographic Projection has lost the Deviation that expands the size of your holograms, but solid holograms can now be used as a moderately effective Retainer with no expertise under your direction.

Hyper-Competence is now Tiered; the Magnitude 2 bonus has been halved; it has a mutually-exclusive +1 and +2 Deviation that increase the number of Skills a single instance of the Variation applies to.

Immunity now has a Deviation that makes it Toggled in exchange for extending its effects to a 10-yard radius around the character.

The "Channel" option for Lash is now subject to the same rules of dealing damage as applying Tilts with a Cutting/Bruising/Gentle Lash, and Channeled Variations entangled with a Controlled Scar explicitly still exact their cost. A "Conjured" Lash now adds the Variation's Magnitude to its dicepool. There is now a "Quick" option that makes activating/"drawing" Lash a reflexive action. The "Circle Strike" Deviation now uses the Long-Burst Autofire mechanics, limited to a one-yard range. "Gunshot" Cutting Lashes are now subject to the effects of ballistic armor.

Miniaturization is now Tiered; its new "Defensive" Deviation allows the character to functionally Dodge an attack with successes equal to Scar Power.

Out of Phase (and Astral Projection) now includes a note specifying that being intangible to something prevents the character from targeting it with Directed Variations, Lash, or Variations that require physical contact.

The "Pyrotechnics" and "Extinguish" effect of Pyrokinesis now describe more concrete mechanical effects; Magnitude 2 now also grants minor firestarting capability, and both Magnitude 4 effects are now options at Magnitude 3 (though "Ignite" no longer gives fires it starts an automatic heat bonus); the Variation has an Aura Deviation that also grants functional immunity to direct harm from fire below a heat threshold determined by Scar Power.

The "Shared Vision" of Shadows of the Past is now a free element of Magnitude 3; reaching Magnitude 5 now allows you or one of the people who projected with you to bring back an "echo" of something from the past (of a Size limited by Scar Power) once per story without consequence.

Storm-Caller now has the type of environmental phenomena set upon acquisition unless the "Universal" Deviation is taken, which makes the Variation once-per-chapter and still requires all simultaneously active effects to fall under the same class type of phenomena. The Variation's range is now larger outdoors, but the "Control" effect is no longer available; the "negate opposing environments" trick is now a default aspect of the Variation at Magnitude 1; "Intensity" is now the sole Magnitude 4 effect. Environmental Tilts and Extreme Environment levels no longer come out of the same "budget"; Environmental Tilts "cost" more to impose if they are severe rather than moderate, and until Magnitude 3 they must be imposed over multiple turns rather than all at once.

Superhuman Strength now allows a character to throw objects without respect to their Size; Superhuman Dexterity no longer specially benefits autofire attacks.

Telekinesis now specifies that the character's rolls to maintain the grapple or execute available grapple moves on a character grappled with the Variation become reflexive, making a single Scar Finesse roll for all victims each turn; the "Force Field" effect now requires the player to determine upon its acquisition whether the shield counts as non-transparent cover to Directed Variations and other targeted supernatural powers (all-or-nothing, not selectively applied), which is a two-way barrier as it is for physical objects and attacks.

Translocation's "Conjuration" Deviation now specifies that teleporting an item out of another character's possession may be contested.

Clade Variations

Body Snatcher now specifies that each of its effects involves a separate Scar Finesse roll and includes notes for how Variations and Scars interact with its use; neither of the original Magnitude 5 effects is available (Magnitude 5 now provides access to both Magnitude 4 effects), and "Puppet Possession" now upgrades the minor Instability incurred by riding a character's senses when they die to a medium Instability.

Creeping Dread 1 now triggers an immediate penalized breaking point roll, or inflicts the Shaken Condition on supernatural targets.

Telepathy 2 now allows characters to spend Willpower to maintain a telepathic connection with a willing target from chapter to chapter (as Face Thief or the "Body Swap" effect of Body Snatcher); the "Recontact" Magnitude 3 effect does not require a roll for a willing target, and the penalty for rolling to contact an unwilling target is -4; the "Hivemind" Magnitude 4 effect can now have its limit overcome by Adaptations; the "Forceful" Magnitude 4 effect now allows the character to force their memories on the target, causing them to regain Willpower, suffer one of the standard Integrity breaking point Conditions, grant a relevant version of the Informed Condition, or (depending on the target's supernatural quality) damage the target's [Integrity/Stability/Willpower].

Hybrid Form has been renamed Monstrous Transformation; the secondary Variations it grants specifically do not count against out-of-Clade restrictions and all use the same Mental/Physical/Social category as Monstrous Transformation; Monstrous Transformation is a specific exception to Sacred Flesh's new restriction of "no secondary Variation with secondary Variations."

Pheromones now has a keyword for what Persistent forms of it are (it's Perpetual).

Predator's Cunning now has two Magnitude 1 options, the first of which is the original (now named "Elusive") and the second of which is effectively a scaled version of most of the original Magnitude 2 effect (now named "Vigilant"). The "Uncanny" Magnitude 3 effect now also causes the character to no longer suffer reduced Defense from multiple attackers. The Variation also now has a Magnitude 5 ability best summed up as "unless you are successfully ambushed, you effectively ambush everyone else in the first turn of combat who does not use a pre-empting power and beat you in a Clash of Wills."

Blessing is now a Directed Variation; all of its original effects have been reduced in Magnitude and it has an Aura Deviation that allows the character to use its effects on themself.

Fate's Agent now works on the same model as Immunity 3 or Otherworldly Connection, with each instance corresponding to a different type of supernatural being; the Magnitude 5 effect is no longer available, but there is a "Universal" Deviation that lets it apply to the abilities of all supernatural creatures in exchange for making each effect a once-per-scene ability. The "Dispel" effect only neutralizes large area effects in a 10-yard radius.

Onomantic Influence has been renamed Psychic-Onomastics; the ability to permanently erase a true name has been removed in place of the ability to erase or change a true name and greater mechanical consequence for namelessness.

Precognition 1 now has the effect formerly assigned to Blessing 1. The Magnitude 2 effect is now Directed rather than touch-based.

Hidden Compartments has changed its "Extra Capacity" Deviation to increase the Size cap to 1 + [half Scar Power (rounded up)] and removed the "High Capacity" Deviation; its new "Varied Inventory" Deviation increases the frequency with which each Magnitude's effects can be used by one step.

The "Battery" Deviation of Integrate Technology now generates electrical current capable of dealing damage proportionate to Scar Power and does not have a limited number of sockets.

Omnicompetence has replaced its original Magnitude 5 effect with constant access to the "Jack of All" Magnitude 2 ability and access to the "Journeyman" Magnitude 2 ability as a once-per-scene power, in addition to its duplication of the Magnitude 4 effects.

Deadly Ichor now includes a note that each attacker can only trigger one counterattack per turn. The "Aura" Deviation has been renamed "Proximal," presumably to avoid confusion.

Rapid Healing 1 now carries over to all subsequent Magnitudes.

Sacred Flesh cannot be used to grant any version of Sacred Flesh or any other Variation that grants a secondary Variation (Monstrous Transformation is an explicit exception). Variations granted by Sacred Flesh are the same Mental/Physical/Social type as Sacred Flesh and specifically do not count against out-of-Clade restrictions; secondary Variations that must be Persistent and Perpetual (e.g. Rapid Healing and some forms of Anomalous Biology) last until the end of the chapter instead of the end of the scene.

Controlled and Involuntary Scars

As with Variations, a lot fewer Scars have weird aberrant scaling.

Persistent Drawback now directly addresses the notion of taking secondary Scars that would otherwise be long-term issues — lingering effects stick around until they're used up normally, and Scars that apply their effects once per chapter apply them each time the entangled Variation's activated.

Preparation now splits between "this is an extended action" and "this takes time" before converging at Magnitude 5; one of the Magnitude 4 effects outright prevents the Variation from being activated in the context of an action scene.

Unstable Variation is now fully scaled and applies its cost with every activation; at Magnitude 2+, Scar Resistance rolls are penalized for the rest of the scene and another Scar (Storyteller's choice) temporarily worsens in Magnitude.

The "Uncontrollable" Deviation of Involuntary Stimulus is now a +1 Deviation.

Persistent Scars A-H

Alternate Persona 2 now lasts for minutes (rather than until the end of the scene) and penalizes subsequent Scar Resistance rolls for each successful resistance within the chapter; Magnitude 3 makes transformations more common and longer-lasting and applies the same rolls for resisting takeover to rolls to temporarily reassert control while the alternate persona is active once per scene. There are more Deviations available; "Bestial" is now a single +1 Deviation, and "Forgetful Persona" and "Blackouts" now have counterpart Deviations mutually exclusive with them called "Aware Persona" and "Perfect Recall" that give the relevant personality clear awareness of their counterpart's actions; "Cross-Purposes" now simply gives the persona different Touchstones rather than reshuffling the character's normal ones, and its mutually exclusive counterpart "Partner" instead prevents the persona from having a different Aspiration from the character; "Superior Persona" and "Inferior Persona" are mutually exclusive counterparts that lock the character off from using the entangled Variation or lock the persona off from using Variations it's not entangled with; "Invoked" allows you to voluntarily yield control to the persona.

There is a new Persistent Mental Scar called Bestial Mind, which inflicts various Conditions and Tilts on the character and hampers their ability to Build Equipment, use Mental Skills, or use sophisticated tools.

Fragility and Hemophilia no longer have Deviations that reduce the character's number of Health boxes.

Genetic Disorder 5 now prompts a Scar Resistance roll once per chapter (rather than once per day) and inflicts lethal damage or a minor Instability (player's choice each time, rather than always lethal damage), but supernatural powers cannot outright heal the damage.

Glitch no longer references hallucinatory effects or incorporating mental or emotional Conditions; the Magnitude 2 effect exempts Willpower expenditures that are Willpower costs for supernatural powers from the triggers for the Scar; the Magnitude 3 effect maintains this specified application and consistently inflicts the Distracted Condition (rather than the Insane Tilt in action scenes); the Magnitude 4 effect adds Willpower costs back into consideration for the Magnitude 2 effect; Magnitude 5 makes the Distracted Condition last until the character regains all their Willpower.

There is a new Persistent Mental/Social Scar called Hallucinations, which starts from imposing the Distracted Condition, proceeds to introducing false persons or objects into a scene that the character needs external observation to dismiss, and goes on to elaborate imaginary scenes and/or narrowing the list of people who can bring them back to reality to just their Loyalty Touchstones.

Hemophilia now explicitly exempts itself from the sources of damage that cause a character with it to start bleeding out at Magnitude 3+.

Persistent Scars M-P

Maintenance has, appropriately enough, been overhauled; it's now Repeatable and Toggled-Only, no longer calls the Build Equipment rules, and starts its mechanical effects at the end of any scene in which an entangled Variation was used rather than at the end of the story; maintenance takes time based on Scar Resistance (minutes at first), and using an entangled Variation without maintenance prompts a Scar Resistance roll (penalized for each entangled Variation activated since the last maintenance) to see if it shuts down until it's repaired. Further Magnitude adds limitations like needing someone else to be the primary actor in the maintenance roll, upgrading the maintenance time from minutes to hours, or adding a [damage/Willpower/Instability] cost to those Scar Resistance rolls (price determined when the character develops the Scar).

Misfortune is no longer a purely Social Scar and no longer tracks a pool of Misfortune; instead, minor misfortune can strike once per chapter (modifying dicepools against the character's favor mitigated by Scar Resistance), with higher Magnitude increasing that to once per scene and/or introducing serious strokes of bad luck once per chapter (downgrading success to failure or failure to dramatic failure).

Missing Limb now has full 1-5 scaling; the new Magnitude 2 effect gives one of two sub-Tilt-level effects that are replaced by the Magnitude 3-5 effects, which are the original Magnitude 2-4 effects.

Murderous Urge 2 now specifies that Loyalty Touchstones and cohort members don't usually prompt the roll to avoid escalation.

Native Environment now has a -1 Deviation that allows the character to tolerate Extreme Environments and Environmental Tilts that are a product of their native environment commensurate with the hazards being out of it apply; the original Magnitude 1 and 2 effects have effectively been merged into the Magnitude 2 effect.

Paranoia 4 now includes members of the character's cohort along with their Loyalty Touchstones on the list of people they don't find it harder to trust, and having the Spooked Condition from a secret roll allows the Storyteller to reduce one of the affected rolls to a chance dice and prevents the character from forging new Loyalty Touchstones or affirming Wavering ones. Paranoia 5 now prevents the character from switching a Conviction Touchstone to a Loyalty Touchstone without Wavering first (though not the other way around).

Phobia now has full 1-5 scaling; the new Magnitude 3 effect removes the ability to spend Willpower to suppress the fear and changes the Scar Resistance roll dynamic from "each failed roll gives a bonus" to "each successful roll gives a penalty."

Persistent Scars S-T

Sensory Deprivation is now a single contiguous Scar instead of a loosely-linked Repeatable ladder of single-rating Scars with the same name; options are more or less sorted in the order that they were in the original list, with partial and complete deafness and blindness further spacing out; there is no "lose your sense of touch" option, and at Magnitude 5 the character either can't see and can't hear, can't see, smell, or taste, or can't hear, smell, or taste and has bad eyes.

Silence now has a Magnitude 4 effect that removes writing and sign language as work-arounds for the lack of speech and further penalizes attempts to use body language to communicate.

Sluggish Metabolism now has full 1-5 scaling; Magnitude 3 now provides a set of options that lock out supernatural healing, upgrade damage for the purposes of healing, and prevent more severe damage from healing without long-term care; higher Magnitudes add more choices from the list.

Suppression is now fully scaled and no longer applies a ceiling to the affected Attribute; Magnitude 2+ prevents the character from spending Willpower on rolls or resistances with the Attribute and removes 10-Again from relevant rolls.

Thin Skin is now fully scaled and has turned its original effect into a pair of mutually exclusive Deviations; the Scar now serves the same role as the missing Deviations for Fragile and Hemophilia, with each Magnitude above 1 subtracting two Health boxes from the character's total.

Standard Deviations

Disfiguring Scar is now limited to one Scar, though its effect may be applied to any other Subtle Scars or Variations and there is a further +1 available if the character makes all of their Subtle Scars and Deviations Overt, much as Identifier works.

Relentless Variation is a Deviation, largely as previewed in this thread before; Suppressible Variation, likewise; Unruly Variation, ditto.

There is a new Standard Deviation called Target Restriction, which adds one or two Magnitude to the attached Scar based on how narrowly its entangled Variations can be used.

[Daigotsu Max]

Thanks Satchel! As I didn't read the previews in detail, would you mind sharing how you feel about the changes? Have they significantly altered the game in some areas? Are you happy with the new versions overall?

[Tessie]

The Anomalous Biology Variation for Mutants has changed slightly in how Bloodless works.


Why do Deviants still have the once-per-turn WP expenditure limit? That rule was changed to once-per-action ages ago.

[The MG]

Good hustle, Satchel. Two things you missed, though:

1. The Willpower extension effect of Body Snatcher has been moved down to Magnitude 2, affecting both lines instead of just Body Swap, and
2. Suppression 3+ explicitly doesn't affect Scar Power/Finesse/Resistance.

Why do Deviants still have the once-per-turn WP expenditure limit? That rule was changed to once-per-action ages ago.

I checked my books, and it seems like the ones that list out the Willpower rules like Deviant does use the "per turn" language, while books describing Willpower in natural language say "per action."