[Deviant] Ask a Simple Question, Renegade-Style

[Satchel]

Where does it say you're allowed to do that? Because the paragraph I'm thinking of ("Fused and Shifting Scars", p.111)

The paragraph we are both talking about, is about Scars in general being changeable by the players and Storyteller to keep the game fun, and its specific note that this still requires a character's Variations to be entangled with their Scars in a mechanically legal fashion. It doesn't talk about splitting Scars because for the most part that is either legally impossible or else allows a character to lose Scar Magnitude. A character with five Magnitude 1 Variations entangled with a Magnitude 5 Scar doesn't get the option to ratchet down to having five Magnitude 1 Scars, but they could be allowed reassign however many of those Variations they needed to a second (or third, or fourth) Magnitude 5 Scar.

It "says" it by inference from the fact that this is a paragraph about how if a character's Scar is interfering with the smooth and enjoyable execution of play then the Storyteller can let their player adjust the mechanical representation of that bit of their Scars. It would be nonsensical for this clear description of intent to still not allow you to disconnect two Controlled Scars from having the same activation cost.

[Terrorforge]

you would need to replace the Scar one of them is entangled with

Where does it say you're allowed to do that? Because the paragraph I'm thinking of ("Fused and Shifting Scars", p.111) reads:

If the player feels her character has too many scars to reasonably play, or if a Scar seemed interesting at the time impedes her ability to have fun (or makes it less fun for everyone in the troup), the Storyteller may allow her to replace a Scar with one of equal Magnitude or to fuse two or more Scars into a single Scar. This must always result in a legal number of entangled Variations attached to each Scar.

The way I read that, if you have two 4-dot Variations entangled with a 5-dor Scar, you can swap that Scar for a different one, potentially changing the activation method, attributes etc. for both Variations, but there seems to be no allowance for switching one of the Variations to a different 4- or 5-dot Scar.

(I would certainly allow a player to do that, but unless it's discussed somewhere else, I don't think it's RAW.)

[Satchel]

The book explicitly recommends that you allow players to swap or combine Scars, but makes no mention of splitting or unentangling Scars. Does that mean that, by RAW, entangling two or more Variations with the same Scar means neither of them can ever reach 5 dots? Since the maximum Scar Magnitude is 5, which can only support Variation Magnitude 4 or less if it's entangled with more than one Variation.

It means that if you have multiple Variations entangled with the same Scar, you would need to replace the Scar one of them is entangled with with a different one to increase the maximum Magnitude those Variations can reach.

Not being able to maximize the Magnitude of a Variation is notably also a consequence of how Monstrous Transformation works, since that Variation's actual mechanical effect is "activate multiple Variations as a single Toggled action at the cost of that action being Overt and making more of a splash than any one of them would have individually."

"Splitting" here entails replacement — the paragraph is about Scars in general, with the statement about Variations just specifying that if you change what Scars your character has they still need to meet the entangled Scar Magnitude requirements for any Variations they have.

[Terrorforge]

The book explicitly recommends that you allow players to swap or combine Scars, but makes no mention of splitting or unentangling Scars. Does that mean that, by RAW, entangling two or more Variations with the same Scar means neither of them can ever reach 5 dots? Since the maximum Scar Magnitude is 5, which can only support Variation Magnitude 4 or less if it's entangled with more than one Variation.

[Satchel]

Let's say I have a deviant with superhuman strength and a monstrous transformation that also grants superhuman strength.

Do they stack (up to the usual maximum), or do you take the higher one while the transformation is active?

Take the higher.

[Zale]

Let's say I have a deviant with superhuman strength and a monstrous transformation that also grants superhuman strength.

Do they stack (up to the usual maximum), or do you take the higher one while the transformation is active?

[Satchel]

Does the Holographic Projection variation only allow for visual illusions, or can I create fake smells, sounds, temperatures, etc?

You can specifically create sounds, as demonstrated by the stated limitations and capabilities of its first and second Magnitudes. Even with the Magnitude 3 addition of tangibility to the illusion, I am not certain that qualities other than the stated audio-visual/hologram classification can be managed with Holographic Projection by default.

Also, can the variation be used to make objects invisible so long as you are in range i.e. making evidence at a crime scene invisible so that investigators can't see it.

It's a Directed Variation, meaning you have to be within forty yards of the thing you'd be covering up and you'd be covering it up while doing so; the power is very clearly additive, not subtractive, so you're not going to be able to literally make something invisible rather than applying a layer of camouflage over it.

[ArcaneArts]

Do Deviants count as Kin for Beasts? I think they should. They have a lot of conceptual overlap with Prometheans and Changelings, and those canonically count as Kin.

Not that the level of connection actually matters*, but Deviants would fall under the Descended from the Dark Mother category. The degree of change rendered by the Divergence is more on par with what a Durance does the people who become changelings.

"Is it Kin?" is a very easy to thing to answer, with it's main contention being words of god not present in the text. For now, the metric is "Is the character/person/entity in question actively supernatural that does not have roots in the God-Machine**?" Unless you're talking a pure human with nothing magical or monstrous(it terms of physical/metaphysical quality) about them or anything that is what it is because of the God-Machine, it's Kin.

*So far, the Fundamentally Human category is a semantic argument that has no actual bearing on the mechanics of Kinship, and seems to be there to handle people who have trouble grokking the Awakened or your friendly neighborhood telekinetic as monsters in the same vein as vampires, werewolves, and fairies. Whether the game should make a more meaningful distinction between the Dark Mother Descended category and the Fundamentally Human category or more meaningfully flatten the two together is an argument that probably should be had.
**The main wrinkle in the argument is that Dave Brookshaw posited that the Abyss also probably shouldn't count on account of it's metaphysical nature being one of "cannot have meaning imposed on it and will warp, twist, and destroy meaning introduced into it", which is actually a good argument, ruined by the fact that Beast has demonstrable Kinship with "avatars" of the Abyss(Acamoth and gulmoth, as the main example) by way of a Kinship Nightmare as text in the corebook. A Second Edition or a future supplement might weigh in and make it text, but for now, Only God-Machine related supernaturals have no Kinship with Beasts. The only other remaining argument is whether things like the Cursed or Destiny merits count as either metaphysics laid around a person or if they are made a part of them.

[cybirddude]

Does the Holographic Projection variation only allow for visual illusions, or can I create fake smells, sounds, temperatures, etc? Also, can the variation be used to make objects invisible so long as you are in range i.e. making evidence at a crime scene invisible so that investigators can't see it.

[Minty]

Do Deviants count as Kin for Beasts? .

Like most things with regard to Deviant, the answer probably depends on each Remade on an individual basis. While many will fall into the category of "person who was turned into a monster" you also have some who may never have been human to begin with, and at that point you may fall into the same bucket as Unchained. There are also some who will hardly be different than mortals with supernatural merits.

[Neos01]

Do Deviants count as Kin for Beasts? I think they should. They have a lot of conceptual overlap with Prometheans and Changelings, and those canonically count as Kin.

Probably at the same level as mages

[GibberingEloquence]

Do Deviants count as Kin for Beasts? I think they should. They have a lot of conceptual overlap with Prometheans and Changelings, and those canonically count as Kin.

[cybirddude]

One option for the dependency scar's common deviation allows for deviants to require something like large amounts of food. I was thinking, could I have the dependency scar make it so that a deviant was incapable of consuming certain things a human could and had to find other ways of getting the nutrition i.e. a carnivore Chimeric is incapable of digesting fruits and vegetables but still needs the nutrition from plants so they eat wild animals to get it.

[Satchel]

Can I use Monstrous Transformation to "power up" a variation I already have? For example, if I had Superhuman Strength 2 and one of the variations tied to my Monstrous Transformation is Superhuman Strength 3, do I effectively have Superhuman Strength 5 while Monstrous Transformation is on?

You have Superhuman Strength 3. Monstrous Transformation is for activating multiple Variations at once as an Overt action, not for stacking Magnitude on Variations you already have by circumventing the "each instance of a Variation that can be taken more than once does a different thing" language common to those powers.

[cybirddude]

Can I use Monstrous Transformation to "power up" a variation I already have? For example, if I had Superhuman Strength 2 and one of the variations tied to my Monstrous Transformation is Superhuman Strength 3, do I effectively have Superhuman Strength 5 while Monstrous Transformation is on?