I've only gotten a few pages into the book. I've been pretty busy converting my classes from face to face to online. That, and Netflix. But I did get through the first few pages.
So I kind of knew this already, from my previous perusing of my PDF version, and from what others had told me about it. When your PC achieves immortality, their XP total is converted to Power Points at a rate of 1PP per 10k XP. So starting immortals have a few hundred PP, depending on their class/level when they achieved immortality.
When you convert your character, and play as an immortal, these PP are EVERYTHING. They're still the "xp" you collect, or rather XP you continue to collect is converted to PP. But you can also earn them in other ways, by advancing your personal goals and the goals of your Sphere.
PP are your hit points, as well. The only way to truly destroy an immortal is to reduce them to 0 PP.
PP are your spell points. You can cast any spell, and create plenty of other powers, by temporary expenditure of PP. These come back in time.
They are also character build points. You can improve your character, construct your own Outer Plane, create artifacts, and make other permanent changes/improvements through permanent expenditure of PP. In fact, the "advancement table" looks fairly easy to achieve, until you read the rules about needing minimum stats in certain ability scores to advance, which require these permanent expenditures of PP.
So while I have looked at the sections on using ability scores as % chance to perform "godly" tasks (which is pretty loosey-goosey story gamey, or at least it appears to be in the Players Book), and the section on the new saving throws, the main take-away so far is that Power is the metric of the immortals, and it's what drives the game.
Cool. And I'm gonna wait until I get through everything, but I've got an inkling that these PP based character mechanics might possibly work for a Supers game or maybe something like the Ambers in Zelazny's books. Yeah, there's Amber Diceless for Zelazny, but I don't have it and have never seen it.
Yeah, power points are the currency of the game, and their use is pretty slick.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is (or, rather, ONE problem is) the paradigm shift that comes with the uber-currency. Treasure/XP replaced with Power as a reward is fine, but the straightforward "go-on-adventures-to-acquire-reward" system goes away...the acquisition of PP in THAT way is a pretty trite way of running an immortal campaign.
What's more, the cooperative element that makes D&D so "special" goes away: assuming you're still running Immortal for a group of players, the whole relying on each other in pursuit of riches element becomes absent.
Immortal is really its own game with a few "leftover" D&D mechanics (combat, saves, etc.). And while there's great mileage to get out of an RPG that role-plays immortal beings (I've owned several over the years), I'm not sure the BECMI chassis is the best method for running such a campaign. The paradigm shift to PP is both too much for D&D, and too little for a god-based game.
I totally agree that this is a different game entirely. You may be using the same PCs from a DnD game, but it is definitely not a continuation of "DnD with superpowers". It's not an adventure game like DnD, it does have some storygame elements, in the sense that the players will be dictating more of where the story goes and the DM acts more as a referee, taking a backseat to what the PCs want to accomplish. I think it went over the heads of nearly everyone at the time leading to the atrocious IM2 and IM3, and the eventual rewrite in Wrath of the Immortals that brought it more in line with the ADnD gods.
ReplyDeleteI never considered using the Immortal set as a basis for a Superhero game, that's an interesting concept, I might do something with that.
Would Immortals make a good faction-level game where every player controls a god in a pantheon overseeing institutions and churches that work in their name - or is it focused on the god as an individual walking around and doing god stuff?
ReplyDeleteI haven't read far enough to know for sure, but I'm guessing it could be played either way.
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