I was just making some new character concepts when I again stumbled over one thing that bugs me in the rules:
Why does creation still have “Channel higher power” in its description?
I guess its an issue with all extraordinary attributes still being very "fantasy"ish, but in this specific case it doesn’t even tell of the effect of the attribute right? I mean anything could be channeling a higher power. If you channel your gods power into fire, you surely wouldn’t do so with creation but energy. If you channel the power of the god of death, it would surely be entropy instead of creation, and so on.
“Channel a higher power” is only about the source of the attribute not the effect, and I feel that should be up to the DM/Players to decide right?
I know, some of you might say: “But anyone can see that’s just a guide to give ideas!” Yes, I understand that. But having it be the first thing written for creation, in my eyes its like a creativity blocker.
I’ve seen so many great things done with creation throughout the forums (like engineers and chefs).I would hate to have players (or DMs) be confused by that little sentence, thinking creation has something to do with gods.
tl;dr: I petition for “Channel a higher power” to be removed from the description of the creation attribute.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t really feel it’s necessary. It’s actually not the first thing listed in the Creation section, either:
Creation is the attribute of healing and forming matter out of nothing. It can be used to close wounds, summon creatures out of thin air, and even raise the dead. Creation is also a tool for channeling higher powers, and thus it can be used to empower allies with divine might, inspiration, or similar effects.
Even apart from the fact that the core rules are now effectively set (gotta cut off changes to get stuff to the printer), I don’t feel it’s a problem to include it. In fact, given the number of people familiar with the Cleric archetype, this probably helps people translate from other systems (most notably D&D).
Well I guess if the rules are already set the discussion is pretty moot and I suppose it’s a bit nitpicky of me to note this.
Actually in the Core Rules Alpha, the first time creation gets mentioned it comes with the short version, which does start with “Channel a higher power”. Of course, later on it’s explained, but then you might have already brushed it aside as the healbot cleric attribute.
I do see the point for converting clerics, but thats exactly what I feel is the problem. Not every cleric would use creation, right? And not only clerics should use creation, but I feel that through the wording it comes out a bit like this:
Fair points, but (I think) it’s largely moot at this point. I’m not involved in any way in the process of publishing the rules, but I thought it’s been stated that nothing short of a catastrophic oversight will result in major changes at this point.
I hadn’t noticed that in the alpha PDF, and I grabbed the quote from the website.
To note, creating something from nothing is routinely described as divine providence across all genres. Only in a Science Fiction, where technology can be significantly advanced enough to handle matter from formless energy manipulation of that caliber, is Creation NOT divinely inspired.
Additionally, adding that “calling on a higher power” doesn’t even REMOTELY scream “healbot”. In fact, Healing is literally the LEAST cool thing creation does.
Summon Angels/Devils. Conjure a flaming sword from nothing. Create a banquet to feed a metropolis. Instantly have equipment for a battalion of soldiers. Form an air bubble in the void of space.
How much of that sounds like it WOULDN’T be possible without some sort of divine intervention to do? Most of it, frankly.
Oh yeah, and when you need it, you can create flesh over a wound for instant healing. But who cares about that stuff?!
I don’t see any reason to remove it. It falls into that trap of “let’s make it multi-genre,a nd remove all things that ____” well that is no longer multi-genre, b/c you don’t have fantasy included.
It is the same thing that happened when we changed Supernatural to Extraordinary, people went crazy and were suggesting the removal of every instance of Supernatural, but that isn’t what was needed. Fantasy still exists, and examples of it will still be in the text.
The world/campaign is either created or picked by the GM. The GM should be helping characters during character creation and by helping establish themes in the world. If a player gets stuck up on that, and for some reason thinks creation should only be used by a “cleric”, then the GM can step in and say, no, that’s not the way it works.
Just have a look at the various archetypes listed, and all the other descriptions. You have to specificelly ignore all those other things to take that view.
Plus, the first time people read things, a lot of times they will miss things. So maybe the first time they play, the will have that mentality, but later when they create other characters or get more familiar with the ruleset, they’ll realize it.
If we tired to take into account every little thing, and hand held people, the rules would easily be 4 to 20x longer.
If the channeling higher powers was the only thing listed, I would 100% agree with you on this, but there are other things listed there.