Godbound General

Also, since I ran out of room: a lot of Taoist magic uses magic sword-talismans (the only official published adventure, Ten Buried Swords, is literally named after this fact), so anything involving them would almost certainly be viable fodder for Miracles of the Sword, or for Influence/Dominion expenditures; it'd be quite reasonable for your Sword Word PC to spend their level-up Fact mastering Taoist magic, since they're quite capable of using Influence/Dominion to teach it to large groups of people, or a Miracle to teach it to a single person.

>If you take both the Might and Sword words
That requires two Words rather than just one and doesn't solve the issue of Bow's inherent advantages coupled with the fact that some Bow Gifts are just Sword Gifts but better.

Bump.

Anyone got any decent homebrewed word? I was disappointed by the lack of a pure ice word and something to transform without complete shapeshifting.

This costs a gift point and Effort for the scene, and it still does not solve melee having no inherent advantages over ranged.

All of your points in this post are deeply misguided, if not misinformed.

>Melee gifts already do more damage than ranged attacks.
Bow *still* gets the best deal from its damage-increasing gift.

Might's Fists of Black iron: Increases damage to 1d10 one-handed (shield for +1 AC) or 1d12 two-handed
Sword's Steel Without End: Increases damage to 1d10+1 regardless of handedness (use a shield for +1 AC)
Bow's Omnipresent Reach: Increases damage to 1d10 regardless of handedness (use a shield for +1 AC), and increases range out to line of sight

So, Might is receiving the worst deal here with its gift. While Sword deals 1 more point of damage, Bow's version of the gift increases range to line of sight, which is so much more important a benefit than a +1 damage.

>If you take both the Might and Sword words
Might is completely irrelevant to the melee vs. ranged debate, because dual thrown weapons deal 1d10 damage by default, can use Strength or Dexterity, and have a 120-foot range. Omnipresent Reach, if the ranged character bothers to take it, enables Strength-based single throwing knife attacks out to line of sight, for 1d10 damage a throw.

If anything Might actually *favors ranged*, because then you can take both Descent of the Mountain and Bolt of Invincible Skill, and use devastating area attacks without committing Effort.

>Other things Sword Miracles can do:
>On a larger scale, you can use Influence and Dominion to do anything melee-combat-related.

Bow can do more or less the same, except replace "melee combat" and "melee weapons" with "ranged combat" and "ranged weapons." Given that, by the rules, ranged combat is significantly superior to melee combat, it similarly behooves even the common warriors of the world to favor range instead of melee.

Low magic and theurgy are more of the purview of the Sorcery Word, not the Sword Word.

If we want to go this way with Chinese/Dulimbaian mysticism and mythology though, we could just as easily say that the Bow Word can create darkness by shooting out light and the sun just as Hou Yi did.

Frost Word: forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20239078#post20239078

Ice Word: forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20289429#post20289429

As for transforming without shapeshifting, you could poach a gift from Shapeshifting with a lineage or, if your GM allows such, a fae character.

So instead of a Godbound general, you decided to make a thread to bitch about "problems", and then refute other Anons who propose solutions to these problems or give perfectly valid reasons why they're not problems. Dope. Good thread, 10/10

forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound-Staff-Pick&p=20416151#post20416151

Word of Music

forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?773601-Sine-Nomine-Godbound/page242

Word of Sight

reddit.com/r/godbound/comments/504v58/list_of_extra_words/

Word of Blood

All were made by the guy who made the game.

I have not refuted at all. I think it could be a good idea if hashed out.

, , , and have presented points, but they are not *valid* points, as I have broken down in my responses in and .

>you keep shooting down valid points
>nUH UH I DIDN'T SHOOT DOWN A GUY WHO WANTS THE SWORD WORD TO BE EVEN WORSE AND ALL OTHER POINTS ARE INVALID
>le_anime_waifu.jpg

So, wait. "Even worse" would mean that Sword is actually bad and needs adjusting but their points are valid somehow while all they said was basically "just pick another Words and Sword will be as good as Bow"? What it is, then?

I figure I could at least contribute and homebrew some Gifts for tanky Swords, at least.

Lesser
Intercession of the Sword Saint/Instant
Commit Effort. You may intercept a single attack meant for a single nearby ally or other target that you wish to protect, forcing the attacker to roll the attack and its damage, should it succeed, against you instead of their original target. Further uses of this Gift in a round Commit Effort until the scene's end.

Parrying Lightning/Constant
This Gift requires Nine Iron Walls to be purchased first before it can be purchased. This Gift upgrades Nine Iron Walls to be able to give an invincible defense towards anything with a physical manifestation, such as environmental hazards, spells that produce material phenomena such as fireballs and lightning bolts, and so on. This defense still does not apply to intangible effects, however.

Irresistible Swordsman's Boast/On Turn
Commit Effort. A single enemy that you are aware of within a mile must make a Spirit Check or be compelled to attack you exclusively. The enemy may still make attacks that strike everything in an area near the Godbound, but the Godbound must always be the initial target. The initial Effort spent must remain committed for this effect to continue; upon release, the enemy is free to resume attacking as they wish. Effort is automatically reclaimed once the enemy is incapacitated.

Upgrading melee by giving it greater damage potential *by default* and making it more capable of defending allies would hardly be a downgrade.

I think that melee combatants should be given some intrinsic, out-of-the-box advantage by default. Gifts alone do not solve the issue of ranged supremacy.

Double attacks, maybe?

>just pick another Words and Sword will be as good as Bow

This is not even a valid point, because a Bow-user picking up Might gets just as much benefit out of Might (1d10 damage, Strength-based ranged attacks are possible by default), and because Descent of the Mountain has a crazily strong synergy with Bolt of Invincible Skill.

That would be *too* strong. Perhaps some small, die-based increase to melee weapon damage?

So base d12, maybe? Dunno how that'd work out with that one Gift from Might, though, that does that if you got both.

Or make bows lose damage/accuracy over the distance, with Gifts negating this requiring actual Effort.

Fists of Black Iron needs a complete rewrite anyway, because it is an absolutely horrid gift.

Improving the damage of all melee attacks by one step would be a good start.

I also think that allowing melee characters to actually charge would be a large improvement.

Thirsting Razor and Cutting the Crimson Road should be made melee clones of Feathered Tempest and Rain of Sorrow, rather than watered-down versions.

Hey Colette, here's an idea:

Go write your fix. Go make a rework of Sword and Bow (or the melee/ranged divide more generally, as you imply) to make them more even, and come back with them.

Also, stop being an avatar-fagging autist who comes across as a smarmy cunt in every conversation they get involved with.

1. If any character takes an action that includes a melee attack, they can also move their speed towards the target of their attack.

2. All melee attacks improve their damage die by one die step, even after damage-improving gifts.

3. Fists of Black Iron is simply a copy of Steel Without End.

4. Thirsting Razor and Cutting the Crimson Road are just melee versions of Feathered Tempest and Rain of Sorrow, with all references to ranged attacks being replaced with melee attacks.

>1
It's written backwards, but the general idea holds.
>4
I'd rather make the distinction between close combat meat grinder and safe ranged attacks even greater and, rather than making them the same, swap them.

Also, if you've gone over all the mechanics like this, maybe you could write up all your suggested changes and post them as a PDF for future use.

What would you have ranged combat's niche be, assuming that the player is not aiming for a cheesy Creation's First Light sniper build?

Ranged combat is the safe option, avoid getting hit while doing fairly consistent damage, and powers that ensure that safety and consistency.

Melee combat is dragging 3 people into a blender with you and trying to be the last one into the blades, with powers for pushing people further down and pulling yourself further up.

Would it be smart to add a rule that downtime in which you're spending Influence and Dominion or traveling counts as a single day and scene no matter how long it goes on?

This is a very sensible house rule.

In the last Godbound general thread (), I discussed my experiences with how utterly game-breaking it is for some Words (mainly Knowledge and Time) to be able to spam miracle after miracle for intel in addition to spending Influence and Dominion.

The problem is that the Influence and Dominion subsystem has no guidelines at all on how gathering intel is supposed to work. There is nothing stopping someone with Knowledge and/or Time from spamming miracles of those Words during downtime to gain answers to nearly anything.

In my own game, the GM went along with this and allowed my character to divine basically everything important about the campaign. Afterwards, we settled on a house rule of "For the purposes of Effort, a single string of downtime is considered a single day." Then, we realized that such a house rule did nothing to stop my character from spamming their purchased Disclose the Flaw greater gift (commit Effort for the scene) to gather copious amounts of information on literally every single creature and institution that has ever come up in the campaign so far.

This is a difficult problem to solve, because Kevin Crawford clearly did not expect players to be serious about intel-gathering during downtime.

>there are situations in which ranged weapons have an advantage over melee weapons

>this is bad because

>because

>because

What are the inherent, out-of-the-box, mechanical advantages of melee builds in Godbound?

The answer is, "There are none."

Let's be honest. Crawford did not expect players to be serious about Godbound in general.

It's a hipster system that relies on concept over execution, plain and simple.

Because the situation in question is "always".

>Influence and Dominion subsystem has no guidelines at all on how gathering intel is supposed to work
That is true and even more vague because Influence and Dominion are supposed to be an abstraction of Godbounds using their time, efforts and continuous usage of Gifts to solve problems and then stop the world and circumstances from reverting to status quo. How does that work with divining things with Knowledge for longer periods of time? You are using one Gift once a day, is that enough of your attention to require Influence? How does the commitment even work in that case? The information suddenly becomes false or obsolete if you retrieve it? You didn't exactly change anything so it would mean that it was false from the start but it wasn't because it was only when the Influence was retrived so... I don't even know.

Oh good, there's more anime avatar hipster cunts. 11/10 threads.

Those would be better if instead of insulting people you would actually engage in discussion or at least shut up if you think there is no point in doing so.

Yeah, I figured that letting a player spam Gifts/Miracles willy nilly would be dumb, especially with stuff like Fate/Knowledge/Time that lets the player essentially spoil the plot forever, but it'd be a little too punishing if you said "No Gifts/Miracles during downtime ever". They picked those Gifts because they wanted to feel like a planner, so it'd be unfair to stop them from planning in between missions or what not.

Anyways, 2 questions:

1. What would be some fun stuff to do in the Raktine Confederacy? They remind me of The Witcher, what with the Slavic-ness and the wandering curse breakers hunting monsters released by lodges of wizards, so I want to run my game there.
2. How would you convert a D&D monster to this game, like, say, the Tarrasque or (less crazy) a dragon?

>2. How would you convert a D&D monster to this game, like, say, the Tarrasque or (less crazy) a dragon?
The game mostly says "pick relevant Gifts and say it's a dragon" from what I've seen.

What exactly does your dumb ass think a general is for?

>but it'd be a little too punishing if you said "No Gifts/Miracles during downtime ever". They picked those Gifts because they wanted to feel like a planner, so it'd be unfair to stop them from planning in between missions or what not.

Perhaps it could be that "any string of downtime is considered 1 day and 3 scenes for the purpose of Effort"? That would at least prevent degeneracy on many counts.

>1. What would be some fun stuff to do in the Raktine Confederacy?
I personally do not find it too interesting myself, so I cannot be of much help here.

>2. How would you convert a D&D monster to this game, like, say, the Tarrasque or (less crazy) a dragon?
Page 171 of the Godbound PDF gives guidelines for converting monsters from other games, but this leads to completely lopsided monsters. Kevin Crawford is utterly naïve if he believes that crudely converted monsters will be a good fit for a game built under wholly different math assumptions.

For a dragon or a tarrasque, I would look into modifying a Misbegotten "titanic beast" or an Uncreated "hulking abomination."

>If we want to go this way with Chinese/Dulimbaian mysticism and mythology though, we could just as easily say that the Bow Word can create darkness by shooting out light and the sun just as Hou Yi did.

Sure. That'd be a Realm-scale Impossible change that'd be opposed by basically every supernatural faction in the setting that doesn't want the world destroyed. That's (16+8)*4=96 Dominion to destroy the sun by shooting it with darkness from your bow.

If you just want to destroy light in a small area by shooting all the lanterns and campfires, I'd probably say "Yeah, sure, you need the Omnipresent Reach and Feathered Tempest Gifts to do that (unless there's only one light source in the area, in which case just the Omnipresent Reach Gift would suffice); if you don't have them both, it's a Miracle."

>Might's Fists of Black iron: Increases damage to 1d10 one-handed (shield for +1 AC) or 1d12 two-handed
>Sword's Steel Without End: Increases damage to 1d10+1 regardless of handedness (use a shield for +1 AC)
>Bow's Omnipresent Reach: Increases damage to 1d10 regardless of handedness (use a shield for +1 AC), and increases range out to line of sight
Firstly, Bow does less damage; this can't really be contested. Secondly, you can't use shields with any AC-boosting Gifts save for those of Artifice or Artifact Armor, the former of which is a Greater Gift, and the latter of which costs you a point of Effort to attune. You *can* wear mundane armor, but that gives you big penalties to two of your three Saves instead.

>Bow can do more or less the same, except replace "melee combat" and "melee weapons" with "ranged combat" and "ranged weapons." Given that, by the rules, ranged combat is significantly superior to melee combat, it similarly behooves even the common warriors of the world to favor range instead of melee.
Mundane warriors can't use Gifts to compensate for a lack of weapon damage, so melee combatants will have the edge. *too long*

*cont.*
Ranged combatants can have a shield and 1-handed ranged weapon, dealing 1d6 damage with a range of 40 ft (allowing one attack before melee combatants close the gap), while equivalent melee combatants will have a 1-handed melee weapon that does 1d8. If they go for two-handed weapons, neither gets shields, but the melee combatant gets to do 1d10 damage to the ranged guys' 1d8; if they dual-wield 1-handed ranged weapons, they get to do 1d10, but they suffer the 40' range of 1-handed ranged weapons again. When you're training mortal combatants, the melee guys are just mechanically better. Heck, if they have their speed augmented in any fashion (riding horses, cybernetic leg implants, maybe certain martial arts or lesser magics), it's entirely possible for them to close the entire distance that 1-handed ranged weapons are capable of shooting in one turn. Heck, if they've got the Skitterback Projector cybernetics, they can instantaneously close the distance to a unit of 2-handed ranged weapons users.

>Sure. That'd be a Realm-scale Impossible change
You are not grasping what I am saying here.

What I am saying is that the purview of the Sword Word is: "The Word of the Sword is that of melee combat, of direct struggle between the Godbound and their foes. Miracles of the Sword involve unerring strokes, tremendous blows, or marvelous escapes from harm in battle. While potent, these miracles do not work at range."

If we look at page 170, we will see: "Skewer a foe in melee, Leap into a group and slaughter them all with a few sweeping strokes, Parry an attack, Redirect a blow, Cut straps, slash tendons, or knock the breath out of foes"

The purview of the Sword Word does *not* include anything that happens to be a ritual sword, or anything that ritual swords could do as part of low magic or theurgy. That would fall under the Sorcery Word.

To say that Sword covers "anything that a ritual sword could feasibly be related to in a specific type of Dulimbaian mysticism" is as much of a stretch as saying that Bow includes "anything that could vaguely entail shooting something down."

>Firstly, Bow does less damage; this can't really be contested.
You mean that Omnipresent Reach deals less damage than Steel Without End; marginally less damage in exchange for line-of-sight range, which is a huge advantage anywhere outside of a tight and cramped dungeon.

>Secondly, you can't use shields with any AC-boosting Gifts
This is for characters who bother taking such gifts in the first place. I do not think such gifts are worth taking, because regalia heavy armor is perfectly sufficient; Hardiness and Evasion saves are rare anyway, considering that Divine Wrath allows no saving throw and Corona of Fury allows a saving throw only sometimes. Spirit is the one save you really need to watch out for, and fortunately, you can preserve it in regalia heavy armor.

You are so, so very desperate to be Jon Chung, aren't you Colette?

>Mundane warriors can't use Gifts to compensate for a lack of weapon damage, so melee combatants will have the edge.

>but the melee combatant gets to do 1d10 damage to the ranged guys' 1d8; if they dual-wield 1-handed ranged weapons, they get to do 1d10, but they suffer the 40' range of 1-handed ranged weapons again

This is where your argument falls apart.

Arming people with greatswords, greataxes, and the like lets them attack with Strength and deal 1d10 damage in melee.

Arming people with a brace of knives lets them attack with Strength or Dexterity, deal 1d10 damage in melee, and throw two knives at a time out to 120 feet (*not* 40 feet, but 120 feet!) and still have enough knives for melee.

The brace of knives is an objectively superior weapon in this case. The greatsword or greataxe has absolutely no advantages over it.

Suppose we have two level 1 Godbound. Both of them have the Might Word, one noncombat utility Word, and either Bow or Sword. Both have a lineage. Both Godbound give themselves a budget of 4 gift points on combat, and 2 gift points on noncombat, because they want to be two-thirds combat-focused and one-third noncombat utility.

The Bow-user practices with a brace of throwing knives, and then takes Bolt of Invincible Skill (lesser), Nine Iron Walls (lesser) via lineage, and Rain of Sorrow (greater) for combat gifts.
• The Bow-user can make melee attacks with a +5 bonus and deal 1d10+4 damage.
• The Bow-user can make ranged attacks with a +5 bonus and deal 1d10+4 damage, with a range of 120 feet.
• The Bow-user can force a near-automatic hit for 4 points of damage with Bolt of Invincible Skill.
• The Bow-user can deal straight damage against Mobs regardless of their HD, and adds their level to the straight damage. Against a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1, the Bow-user can activate Bolt of Invincible Skill to deal 15 points of damage and instantly take out the Mob. They also roll their Fray die against all lesser foes *not* in a Mob in sight, even those out of range.
• The Bow-user can gain a perfect defense against physical attacks using Nine Iron Walls.

The Sword-user practices with a greatsword or a greataxe, and then takes Unerring Blade (lesser), Nine Iron Walls (lesser), and Cutting the Crimson Road (greater) for combat gifts.
• The Sword-user can make melee attacks with a +5 bonus and deal 1d10+4 damage.
• The Sword-user can force a near-automatic hit for 4 points of damage with Unerring Blade.
• The Sword-user can deal straight damage against Mobs of 1 HD foes (2 HD at level 3, 3 HD at level 5, 4 HD at level 7, 5 HD at level 9). Against a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1, the Sword-user is going to have a tough time. The Sword-user can also completely demolish such weak lesser-lesser foes if they are not grouped into a Mob, but then, were they really going to be much of a threat as singular opponents anyway?
• The Sword-user can gain a perfect defense against physical attacks using Nine Iron Walls.

The only, *only* situation in which the Sword-user has an advantage is the event that they are ganged up on by a gaggle of 1 HD opponents who are somehow *not* in a Mob. In any other situation, the Bow-user can do everything the Sword-user can, only with a much longer range of 120 feet. The Bow-user is also far more equipped to take on any Mob regardless of HD, and indeed, can one-shot a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1, or a Small Mob of 3 HD elites at level 2, something the Sword-user could only dream of.

Remember, default movement speed is 30 feet, there is no charge action, and dual thrown weapons have a range of 120 feet.

That's because you picked janky builds. Neither of them has a defensive Gift, and those are basically mandatory. Additionally, you didn't take the Word weapon Gift, which is also basically mandatory.

If you're dedicating 4 Gift points to combat, you don't have 4 Gift points to spend, you have 2, because two of them are taken up by the basically-mandatory Weapon and AC gifts that you need to acquire baseline competence.

Additionally, you can't gain Nine Iron Walls via lineage, since it's not an Attribute-related Gift. Might gifts for the Strength lineage, Alacrity or maybe Journeying for the Dex lineage, Health or Endurance for the Con lineage, Sight or maybe Knowledge gifts for the Wisdom lineage, and Passion or Command gifts for the Charisma lineage. That's about the limit of what you can justify with them.

So, here's what an actual comparison would look like:
Bow user takes Bow weapon gift, Alacrity's AC word via lineage, and Rain of Sorrow. Sword user takes Sword weapon gift, Alacrity's AC word, Unerring Blade, and Effort of the Word (Sword), and spend that Effort on 4 Integration points for Cybernetics, picking Skitterback Projector and Redundant Organ Implants.

They both have AC 1 (16 Dex + AC 3 gift); Bow guy has 9 HP while Sword guy has 11 HP. Bow guy can shoot anyone in line of sight, doing 1d10+4 damage, while Sword guy can teleport up to 500 feet and then hit someone for 1d10+5 damage.

Sword guy can spend an effort to autohit and deal 4 damage. Bow guy can murder Mobs, but doesn't have any special tricks that he can use against Worthy enemies. In a straight-up fight between them, Sword guy wins; he teleports into melee range, and then proceeds to spend an Effort each turn to autohit and deal 4 damage.

Or, alternately, let's say that Bow guy takes Bolt of Invincible Skill and the Dex-lineage's attack-avoidance Talent instead. This makes their Gifts roughly equal, but Sword guy still wins.

>Neither of them has a defensive Gift, and those are basically mandatory. Additionally, you didn't take the Word weapon Gift, which is also basically mandatory.
Please explain why these gifts are actually "mandatory," because from all my on-paper analysis and my actual play experience, I can safely say that they are completely unnecessary.

A single lesser gift is enough to purchase Bolt of Invincible Skill/Unerring Blade or a hyper-useful utility gift like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, or Banner of Passion. Spending them on very, *very* marginal defense/offense upgrades from AC/weapon-boosters is completely wasteful.

>Additionally, you can't gain Nine Iron Walls via lineage, since it's not an Attribute-related Gift.
There is no such limitation anywhere in the rules for lineages. Given that many of the lineage gifts have nothing to do with attributes (especially the Kalay and Senai gifts), one could easily call Nine Iron Walls a feat of sheer Strength (parrying), Dexterity (dodging), Constitution (absorbing attacks), or Wisdom (predicting attacks).

>Bow user takes Bow weapon gift, Alacrity's AC word via lineage, and Rain of Sorrow. Sword user takes Sword weapon gift, Alacrity's AC word, Unerring Blade, and Effort of the Word (Sword), and spend that Effort on 4 Integration points for Cybernetics, picking Skitterback Projector and Redundant Organ Implants.
This is a poor comparison if you are giving the Sword-user cybernetic implants, while the Bow-user does not have any. I mean, if we give the Bow-user a Skitterback Projector, then the Bow-user becomes terrifyingly capable of kiting.

Additionally, your Sword-user does not have any actual tricks against Mobs, which is an important factor to consider.

Let us try a comparison with both level 1 Godbound going all-in on combat, each taking a weapon gift (I do not think they are worth the purchase at all, but let us go along with your logic for now) and cybernetic implants (because if the Sword-user has them, we might as well give the Bow-user implants too).

The Bow-user takes Bolt of Invincible Skill (lesser), Omnipresent Reach (lesser), Nine Iron Walls (lesser) via lineage, and Rain of Sorrow (greater). They also take Effort of the Word and use the 4 integration points on a Skitterback Projector and Redundant Organ Implants.
• The Bow-user can make melee attacks with a +5 bonus and deal 1d10+4 damage.
• The Bow-user can make ranged attacks with a +5 bonus and deal 1d10+4 damage out to line of sight..
• The Bow-user can force a near-automatic hit for 4 points of damage with Bolt of Invincible Skill.
• The Bow-user can deal straight damage against Mobs regardless of their HD, and adds their level to the straight damage. Against a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1, the Bow-user can activate Bolt of Invincible Skill to deal 15 points of damage and instantly take out the Mob. They also roll their Fray die against all lesser foes *not* in a Mob in sight, even those out of range.
• The Bow-user can gain a perfect defense against physical attacks using Nine Iron Walls.
• The Bow-user has a teleport from the Skitterback Projector and extra hit points from Redundant Organ Implants.

>Please explain why these gifts are actually "mandatory," because from all my on-paper analysis and my actual play experience, I can safely say that they are completely unnecessary.

They give you the baseline level of combat competence that the game system assumes you have. Without them, you're a sitting duck.

>There is no such limitation anywhere in the rules for lineages. Given that many of the lineage gifts have nothing to do with attributes (especially the Kalay and Senai gifts), one could easily call Nine Iron Walls a feat of sheer Strength (parrying), Dexterity (dodging), Constitution (absorbing attacks), or Wisdom (predicting attacks).
Read the fucking book.
> Optionally, they can buy one apposite lesser gift from an appropriate Word for one point.
>an appropriate word
Sword is not an appropriate Word. Its theme is not superhuman supremacy through one of the Attributes; its theme is melee combat in general.

>This is a poor comparison if you are giving the Sword-user cybernetic implants, while the Bow-user does not have any. I mean, if we give the Bow-user a Skitterback Projector, then the Bow-user becomes terrifyingly capable of kiting.
Skitterback Projector can't be used for kiting, since each additional use consumes increasing amounts of HP; its primary combat purpose is to allow a melee combatant to close into hand-to-hand range.

>Additionally, your Sword-user does not have any actual tricks against Mobs, which is an important factor to consider.
He can spend a point of Effort to perform an AoE damage Miracle, and combine it with Unerring Blade to do ridiculous amount of Straight damage to them, and then do more damage on an ongoing basis because of his higher level of baseline competency.

>They give you the baseline level of combat competence that the game system assumes you have. Without them, you're a sitting duck.

Weapon gifts are awful for their price, because the damage increases they confer are very, *very* marginal, and become irrelevant the moment you bring out a Bolt of Invincible Skill/Unerring Blade anyway.

AC gifts are also mostly awful for their price because you can wear regalia heavy armor anyway. Hardiness and Evasion saves are really quite rare, particularly when Divine Wrath offers no saving throw, and Corona of Fury offers a saving throw only sometimes. Spirit is the only saving throw you really need to worry about, and you can preserve it in regalia heavy armor.

This is not just an "only on paper" matter. I have participated in well over a dozen battles in Godbound across three parties and across three GMs by now. There was not a single time wherein any one of us went, "Gee, I really wish we had a weapon/AC gift right now!", nor was there a single point in which a weapon gift actually proved more useful than regular weapons or smites.

Weapon gifts and AC gifts are bunk. Spend your precious gift points on some narrative-warping utility like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, or Banner of Passion.

Sword user teleports in, then uses a Miracle to curse the Bow user so that they can't leave melee without using Divine magic to do so. The Bow user is now stuck in melee, and using Melee attacks that his Bow gifts can't enhance, and can't teleport away. What now?

The Sword-user practices with a greatsword or a greataxe, and then takes Unerring Blade (lesser), Steel Without End (lesser), Nine Iron Walls (lesser), Cutting the Crimson Road (greater). They also take Effort of the Word and use the 4 integration points on a Skitterback Projector and Redundant Organ Implants.
• The Sword-user can make melee attacks with a +5 bonus and deal 1d10+5 damage.
• The Sword-user can force a near-automatic hit for 4 points of damage with Unerring Blade.
• The Sword-user can deal straight damage against Mobs of 1 HD foes (2 HD at level 3, 3 HD at level 5, 4 HD at level 7, 5 HD at level 9). Against a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1, the Sword-user is going to have a tough time. The Sword-user can also completely demolish such weak lesser-lesser foes if they are not grouped into a Mob, but then, were they really going to be much of a threat as singular opponents anyway?
• The Sword-user can gain a perfect defense against physical attacks using Nine Iron Walls.
• The Sword-user has a teleport from the Skitterback Projector and extra hit points from Redundant Organ Implants.

1d10+4 average damage: (1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4) / 10 = 2.9 damage, or 4 damage with a Bolt of Invincible Skill anyway
1d10+5 average damage: (2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4) / 10 = 3.2 damage, or 4 damage with an Unerring Blade anuway

The Bow-user is better. Line of sight range is no joke when one can teleport 500 feet away with a move action. Ripping into Mobs of any HD is also a major advantage.
Bow-user's advantages:
• Line of sight range.
• Completely demolishing Mobs regardless of their HD, including the ability to one-shot a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1.

Sword-user's advantages:
• 0.3 more points of damage on average, although this advantage disappears in the even of comparing Bolt of Invincible Skill vs. Unerring Blade.
• Better ability to deal with 1 HD opponents who are somehow *not* in a Mob.

>The Bow user is now stuck in melee, and using Melee attacks that his Bow gifts can't enhance

What? There's literally no penalty to using ranged attacks in melee.

That's neverminding that this Miracle is nonsense because the Bow user could just as easily miracle asspull himself *out* of it.

>Sword is not an appropriate Word. Its theme is not superhuman supremacy through one of the Attributes; its theme is melee combat in general.
Many of the lineage gifts are not directly tied to attributes either. The Henok gifts are "Endurance-lite," Kalay gifts are "Knowledge-lite," and Senai are "Passion-lite," but nowhere does the book lock a lineage-bearer into those gifts.

One could say that an Alazar or a Tilahun's agility or strength lead to prowess in melee combat and thus lead to the Sword Word's Nine Iron Walls.

Apart from this:
"If a Godbound PC from these lesser lineages is desired, the player should just describe the particular way in which the Khamite theoeugenicists modified their ancestors. The PC can pick a single lesser gift from an appropriate Word to represent their lineage abilities, paying only one gift point for it whether or not they've bound the appropriate Word. It's not usually necessary to worry about the mechanical details of the lineage's lesser talents."

That, right there, is a blank check for a player to say, "My PC belongs to a lesser lineage. Their lineage lesser gift is Nine Iron Walls."

>Skitterback Projector can't be used for kiting, since each additional use consumes increasing amounts of HP; its primary combat purpose is to allow a melee combatant to close into hand-to-hand range.
It can also allow a ranged character with Omnipresent Reach to teleport 400-500 feet away and safely plink at enemies. That is very good kiting. Even in a dungeon environment, there should still be enough leeway for a Skitterback Projector to take a ranged character into a safe spot.

>Weapon gifts are awful for their price, because the damage increases they confer are very, *very* marginal, and become irrelevant the moment you bring out a Bolt of Invincible Skill/Unerring Blade anyway.
They're also the only method you have for increasing your baseline, no Effort expenditure, combat competence other than increasing your base Attributes.

>AC gifts are also mostly awful for their price because you can wear regalia heavy armor anyway. Hardiness and Evasion saves are really quite rare, particularly when Divine Wrath offers no saving throw, and Corona of Fury offers a saving throw only sometimes. Spirit is the only saving throw you really need to worry about, and you can preserve it in regalia heavy armor.
Heavy Regalia armor, unless it's an Artifact (and costs you a point of Effort for Attunement), will penalize your saves significantly.

>Hardiness and Evasion saves are really quite rare,
Literally any non-divine poison or AoE attack. I don't know what game you're playing, but it isn't in the default setting. The moment you start throwing your weight around, the local national government will start pulling the local wizards and assassins out of their hidey-holes, and I hope that you've got some decent saves for when they start poisoning your food or tossing Low Magic 2d8 damage fireballs at you.

>He can spend a point of Effort to perform an AoE damage Miracle, and combine it with Unerring Blade to do ridiculous amount of Straight damage to them
Smites are not attacks (no attack roll involved, and Unerring Blade specifically calls for a natural attack roll result). Even if they were, the Sword user has blown Effort *for the day* to emulate what the Bow-user's Rain of Sorrow does passively.

>then do more damage on an ongoing basis because of his higher level of baseline competency.
You have a strange definition of "higher level of baseline competency."

For one, such a miracle would offer a saving throw (see page 27).

For two, there is no penalty to shooting in melee.

For three, even if the Bow-user was bothered by a miracle, they could just as easily use a miracle to shrug it off.

Miracles cost Effort for the day; they are not to be used lightly.

>They're also the only method you have for increasing your baseline, no Effort expenditure, combat competence other than increasing your base Attributes.

Weapon gifts provide a very, *very* marginal increase. Going from 1d10+4 to 1d10+5 damage is +0.3 points of damage on average, or literally +0 points of damage on a 4-damage Unerring Blade anyway.

This is utterly pathetic compared to what other lesser gifts like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, or Banner of Passion can do.

>Heavy Regalia armor, unless it's an Artifact (and costs you a point of Effort for Attunement), will penalize your saves significantly.
>The moment you start throwing your weight around, the local national government will start pulling the local wizards and assassins out of their hidey-holes
Under the rules, Hardiness and Evasion saving throws are still quite rare.

Wizards hurling out magic? Let us see. Cinnabar Order spells offer no saving throw. Divine Wrath offers no saving throw. Skilled mages' and eldritches' magic blasts target AC.

Corona of Fury offers a saving throw only sometimes. Theurgies sometimes offer saving throws, as do a few Word-specific smite gifts such as Firestorm.

From the printed magical blast options, the ones that do not involve a saving throw are more common than the ones that do. Hardiness and Evasion are really rather rare.

Food is essentially a non-issue for Godbound between their many divine powers.

This is not just an on-paper thing. I have played in well over a dozen battles under three separate GMs. The only times Hardiness and Evasion have ever come up is against Mobs' Overwhelm abilities, and those deal completely negligible damage against a Godbound past level 1 anyway.

We have fought skilled mages and eldritches. They used their default magic blasts and Divine Wraths/Coronas of Fury. Those never involved saving throws. Maybe if the GM picked out gifts like Firestorm instead...

>You have a strange definition of "higher level of baseline competency."
Not really, no. Your baseline competency is the level of the numbers written on your sheet. A Sword user does 1d10+1 damage; this is more than a Bow user's 1d10 damage.

>For one, such a miracle would offer a saving throw (see page 27).
Yeah, okay, probably (the book says "most", not "all"). If your opponent's wearing armor, you target their worst Save; this is why getting an AC gift is important.

>For two, there is no penalty to shooting in melee.
The penalty is "you're in melee, so you're making melee attacks". Bow Gifts improve range attacks, not melee attacks.

>For three, even if the Bow-user was bothered by a miracle, they could just as easily use a miracle to shrug it off.
How? Bow resists ranged attacks, not melee attacks. You'd need to use a Sword miracle to shrug it off.

>Miracles cost Effort for the day; they are not to be used lightly.
On the contrary: Miracles are your bread-and-butter, and should be used whenever you need an effect in your Word that your Gifts don't directly cover; unless you're planning on getting into multiple fights in one day, there's no real difference between committing Effort for the day and for the scene, anyway.

>The penalty is "you're in melee, so you're making melee attacks". Bow Gifts improve range attacks, not melee attacks.

Oh, so your answer is "homebrew."

>Your baseline competency is the level of the numbers written on your sheet. A Sword user does 1d10+1 damage; this is more than a Bow user's 1d10 damage.
The extra point of damage (actually an extra 0.3 points of damage) is completely negligible, especially when the damage increase is *0* when Unerring Blade is used.

Do you know what is not negligible? Warping narratives with gifts like lesser gifts like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, or Banner of Passion, all of which cost exactly the same as a weapon gift like Steel Without End.

Even for someone dead-set on purchasing a weapon gift, Bow's Omnipresent Reach confers *line of sight range*. If you are outside of a dungeon, that offers ludicrous sniping potential, far more valuable than a marginal increase in damage that disappears the moment Unerring Blade is used.

>Yeah, okay, probably (the book says "most", not "all"). If your opponent's wearing armor, you target their worst Save; this is why getting an AC gift is important.
The Sword-user would be shooting themselves in the metaphorical foot with such a miracle. If the Bow-user succeeds, then the Sword-user has just wasted 1 Effort for the day. If the Bow-user fails, they commit Effort for the day to automatically save, and then they are even.

>The penalty is "you're in melee, so you're making melee attacks". Bow Gifts improve range attacks, not melee attacks.
There is no such rule anywhere in the book.

>How? Bow resists ranged attacks, not melee attacks.
All Godbound can turn a failed saving throw into a success by committing Effort for the day.

>On the contrary: Miracles are your bread-and-butter
Given how freeform miracles are, between two characters with an equal amount of Effort to spend on miracles, the one with the more powerful non-miraculous baseline has a distinct edge.

Never mind that PvP comparisons are wholly bunk anyway; the Bow-user has far more to contribute in an overall campaign.

For my final case, I would like to refer everyone back to and . I would like to think that this is a fair comparison, because the two characters are symmetrical:

- Both of them have the Might Word, a utility Word, and a dedicated combat Word (Bow vs. Sword)
- Both of them have Nine Iron Walls, Effort of the Word, and the same cybernetic implants.
- Both of them have a weapon gift (Omnipresent Reach vs. Steel Without End).
- Both of them have an automatic hit gift (Bolt of Invincible Skill vs. Unerring Blade).
- Both of them have a mob-slayer gift (Rain of Sorrow vs. Cutting the Crimson Road).

This is as symmetrical as it gets, and yet the bow-user pulls ahead, given the final set of advantages for each:

Bow-user's advantages:
• Line of sight range.
• Completely demolishing Mobs regardless of their HD, including the ability to one-shot a Small Mob of 2 HD veterans at level 1.

Sword-user's advantages:
• 0.3 more points of damage on average, although this advantage disappears in the event of comparing Bolt of Invincible Skill vs. Unerring Blade.
• Better ability to deal with 1 HD opponents who are somehow *not* in a Mob.

>• Better ability to deal with 1 HD opponents who are somehow *not* in a Mob.

Actually, I just realized that this is not even in the Sword-user's favor. Rain of Sorrow would let a Bow-user deal their Fray die against all lesser enemies in sight that are not in a Mob. That is even better than Cutting the Crimson Road's version.

So, the one and only advantage the Sword-user here has:
>• 0.3 more points of damage on average, although this advantage disappears in the event of comparing Bolt of Invincible Skill vs. Unerring Blade.

That is it. That is the only advantage Sword has between these two symmetrical builds.

>The extra point of damage (actually an extra 0.3 points of damage) is completely negligible, especially when the damage increase is *0* when Unerring Blade is used.

Except that it's not. It's a 10% chance do do four times as much damage as you otherwise would. You will much more reliably hit the 4-damage mark, and that's a big deal.

>Do you know what is not negligible? Warping narratives with gifts like lesser gifts like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, or Banner of Passion, all of which cost exactly the same as a weapon gift like Steel Without End.
There's no reason you can't do both.

>Even for someone dead-set on purchasing a weapon gift, Bow's Omnipresent Reach confers *line of sight range*. If you are outside of a dungeon, that offers ludicrous sniping potential, far more valuable than a marginal increase in damage that disappears the moment Unerring Blade is used.
This game is designed on the assumption that all the big fights will occur within dungeons, or at least within close quarters where infinite range doesn't matter. Look at the published adventure, for instance: one fight against mortal bandits in a house, one fight against cultists in a dungeon, and one fight against a wizard in his mountaintop monastery (that you need to enter to fight him).

Or, hell, look at the Ancalia book: if you want to deal with the Uncreated and/or raise the Cousins to help you, prepare to start dungeon delving. Save for the Burning King, The Uncreated lords are each all residing at the center of their own little dungeon or fortress, the Cousins need you to go delving into three or four Shards of Heaven to repair Celestial Engines, Anderaccha is basically one giant dungeon, and so on and so forth.

Similarly, the game assumes that you'll Alpha Strike with as much force as you can muster, and then fight mundanely from then on, and that's where the Sword word shines.

>It's a 10% chance do do four times as much damage as you otherwise would. You will much more reliably hit the 4-damage mark, and that's a big deal.
Mathematically, that amounts to +0.3 points of damage on average, or +0 points of damage on an Unerring Blade. Negligible is negligible.

>There's no reason you can't do both.
You have only so many gift points, and there are so many useful, narrative-warping gifts to spend. Spending 2 gift points on an AC gift and a weapon gift means you just lost 2 points which could have gone towards a real narrative-warper like Banner of Passion + Snuff the Heart's Candle.

>one fight against mortal bandits in a house
This specific battle is supposed to be a curbstomp no matter how weak the PCs are, and it is not actually supposed to be a challenge.

>one fight against cultists in a dungeon
A fairly standard climax, yes.

>one fight against a wizard in his mountaintop monastery
Said wizard also flies off into the air during the battle, which implies an open-air battle.

>Ancalia
>Alpha Striking
What, exactly, causes the Sword Word to "shine" here? Is it the +0.3 points of average damage, assuming you did not throw out an Unerring Blade? Is it the +1 point of average damage on a damage roll read straight? This is assuming you actually wasted a gift on Steel Without End, of course.

The Bow Word still has the advantage of sheer range and a far, *far* better Mob-clearing greater gift. The only advantage Sword will ever have over it is marginally higher damage, and that is assuming a Sword-user who wastes a gift on Steel Without End.

It's fundamentally a fantasy heartbreaker that somehow got popular, "concept" is usually all this kind of system has going for it in the first place.

>Mathematically, that amounts to +0.3 points of damage on average, or +0 points of damage on an Unerring Blade. Negligible is negligible.
Except that it's not; it's the difference between one-shotting a 4 HD enemy and needing two blows to kill them.

>Spending 2 gift points on an AC gift and a weapon gift means you just lost 2 points which could have gone towards a real narrative-warper like Banner of Passion + Snuff the Heart's Candle.
And the guy who wastes his Gift points on narrative fluff instead of the mechanical bones of the game will get murdered by the expected challenges; having all the airy fluff gifts in the world means nothing when you just got murdered by a killer robot that's immune to non-magic weapons and throws out a half-dozen attacks at turn at +10 to hit.

The game's fundamental core assumption, when balancing its monsters, is that the PCs will have a Magic Weapon Gift and an AC gift. If you're lacking one or the other, you will be *significantly* disadvantaged.

>What, exactly, causes the Sword Word to "shine" here? Is it the +0.3 points of average damage, assuming you did not throw out an Unerring Blade? Is it the +1 point of average damage on a damage roll read straight? This is assuming you actually wasted a gift on Steel Without End, of course.
Yes, it's the +.3 damage, because the difference between making the threshold to deal 4 damage and not making it is HUGE. It's a significant advantage that can't be obtained in any other fashion, and I just don't understand why you seem to be incapable of comprehending it. It's the difference between killing a 4 HD enemy (like a low-level Uncreated) in one hit or two; an 8 HD enemy (like a theotechnical construct) in two hits or four; a 12 HD enemy (like a mid-level Uncreated) in three hits or six. When you see how much damage that even mid-level enemies output, the difference becomes apparent very quickly.

>Except that it's not; it's the difference between one-shotting a 4 HD enemy and needing two blows to kill them.
If you have a 4 HD enemy in front of you (e.g. a minor hero from the Bestiary), then spend Effort for the scene and take them out instantaneously with Bolt of Unerring Skill or Unerring Blade. The damage increase from a weapon gift will make not a bit of difference when activating such a gift.

>narrative fluff
Last I checked, narrative-warping was not exactly "narrative fluff." Utility gifts like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, and Banner of Passion can wreak absolute havoc on a scenario. Take it from someone who knows how powerful they are on paper, and someone who has played over a dozen sessions as a utility-focused character using gifts just like these.

>fundamental core assumption, when balancing its monsters, is that the PCs will have a Magic Weapon Gift and an AC gift. If you're lacking one or the other, you will be *significantly* disadvantaged.
I have already stated my reasons above: the damage increase from a magic weapon gift is negligible (please remember that Bow and Sword treat all weapons as magical by default), and Hardiness and Evasion rarely come up. Given that such benefits are marginal, you might as well spend the gift points on utility instead.

But maybe you need some anecdotal evidence. In two out of three Godbound games I have played so far, I have created the character sheets of literally every other player at table. (Yes, they allowed me to do so.) I have built combatants and part-combatants, and I selected not a single weapon or AC gift for them. We did not just do "fine"; we did splendidly well and were able to coordinate our alpha strikes efficiently. We had not a single moment wherein any of us went, "A weapon gift would have been useful now" or "Oh no, I had better not fail this Hardiness/Evasion save!"

>threshold to deal 4 damage
Bolt of Invincible Skill/Unerring Blade.

Here is what a level 1, dedicated alpha striking build might look like:

Universal Lesser Gift: Effort of the Word

Word: Bow (used to summon throwing knives)
Lesser Gift: Bolt of Invincible Skill
Greater Gift: Rain of Sorrow

Word: Might
Greater Gift: Loosening God's Teeth

Word: Any noncombat utility Word

Important Fact: Mastery of the Lesser Strife of the Bitter Rival.

Combat opens up against...

Scenario A: Small Mob of 2 HD veteran soldiers, plus a major hero. Not a problem. Bolt of Invincible Skill + Rain of Sorrow. On anything but a natural 1, the Mob is 100% dead. The rest of the party can then take out the major hero.

Scenario B: Misbegotten titanic beast. Act before the rest of the party, before things devolve away from "single combat." Loosening God's Teeth as an action, rolling twice for the attack roll, with a Bolt of Invincible Skill if that still misses. Bonus attack, Bolt of Invincible Skill to pump the enemy with 4 automatic damage. By now, the enemy has hopefully been weakened enough for the rest of the party to finish off.

Scenario C: Several worthy foes not in a Mob. This is where the build has trouble, but Bolt of Invincible Skill and Loosening God's Teeth can still harass enemies meaningfully.

Level 2 purchases depend on the character's third Word (and hopefully a lineage or a lesser lineage). I can see Nine Iron Walls, Purity of Brilliant Law (shuts down Nine Iron Walls!), and Name Their Doom all being useful lesser gifts.

This is assuming that the GM does not allow artifacts.

>If you have a 4 HD enemy in front of you (e.g. a minor hero from the Bestiary), then spend Effort for the scene and take them out instantaneously with Bolt of Unerring Skill or Unerring Blade. The damage increase from a weapon gift will make not a bit of difference when activating such a gift.
And when you can't (because you're out of Effort because you spent it all Alpha Striking) or shouldn't (because they're an Unshaped or Lomite godhunter with The Cold Breath)?

>Last I checked, narrative-warping was not exactly "narrative fluff." Utility gifts like Ten Thousand Tools, A Thousand Loyal Troops, Deceiver's Unblinking Eye, and Banner of Passion can wreak absolute havoc on a scenario. Take it from someone who knows how powerful they are on paper, and someone who has played over a dozen sessions as a utility-focused character using gifts just like these.
Yeah, sure, but none of that matters if you're bleeding out on the floor. I don't know if you've noticed, but this was designed primarily as a combat-focused game, with the non-combat stuff as an aside to do between combat encounters.

>I have already stated my reasons above: the damage increase from a magic weapon gift is negligible (please remember that Bow and Sword treat all weapons as magical by default),
Except that they're not.

> and Hardiness and Evasion rarely come up
Only if your DM is letting you walk all over the opposition, instead of playing the setting as written. Enemy poisons your food? Hardiness save. Enemy tosses an AoE damage effect? Reflex save. Enemy lights the battlefield on fire? Reflex save. Going to the slums to help the poor? Hardiness save to avoid disease. Fighting a ninja? Hardiness saves every time he hits you with his poisoned weapons. And so on, and so forth. There's more to combat than just AoE Smites.

The problem isn't with the game; the problem is that you're playing it wrong.

>And when you can't
There are going to be some situations wherein a weapon gift will save the day and push you up to that crucial 4-damage hit, yes. I am not contesting that. What I am contesting is that it will occur often enough to warrant actually incinerating a gift point on such a weapon gift, rather than something for a good deal of utility that can help in many, many more situations. Have a look at the build in ; it does not even have room for a weapon gift.

>combat-focused
Conversely, there will always be a noncombat side to the game, and you can heavily, heavily distort that noncombat side even with a single lesser gift. Ten Thousand Tools can turn many an Impossible project merely Improbable, Banner of Passion can bewitch an entire army of lesser foes, and A Thousand Loyal Troops lets you recruit a legion of lesser creatures to work under you, and none of these even require Effort for the scene or day.

>poisons your food?
Between Facts, Words, and gifts, that can establish a lack of need to eat as an incidental perk in addition to their main benefits, and Godbound who can use costless abilities to just make food appear (e.g. Wealth Word intrinsic benefit), food is a non-issue.

>Enemy tosses an AoE damage effect? Reflex save. Enemy lights the battlefield on fire?
I have already covered this in ; quite a few blasts do not even offer a saving throw.

>Hardiness save to avoid disease.
A disease from a slum is going to be completely negligible to a Godbound, and if it somehow turns out serious regardless a few days down the line, it is simply 1 Effort for the day from being cured.

>Fighting a ninja? Hardiness saves every time he hits you with his poisoned weapons.
I spent a minute Ctrl+F-ing every Godbound book for the mechanics on poisons, and I can find no actual rules on poisoned weapons in Godbound. I cannot argue this point because we do not know the precedent; it might or might not involve Hardiness, and we do not know.

No, that's not a dedicated Alpha Strike build. An Alpha Strike build is designed to deal as much damage to a single target as possible, using all of the resources you have available channeled into a single burst. This is a much better Alpha Strike build:

Words: Sword, Might, anything else
Fact: Mastery of Strife of the Hunting Beast
Fact: Possesses an Artifact Sword (Wrath of the Word, 3 points of Effort - minimum Level 6 to create, could be up to Level 10)
Alazar Bloodline

Gifts:
The God that Prowls, Faster than Fate, Walk Between the Rain (Alazar bloodline), Steel Without End, Unerring Blade, Effort of the Word (Sword)

Turn 1, Spend an Effort to activate Faster than Fate to get an extra attack, activate the God that Prowls, and if they succeed on their save, spend another Effort to activate the Unerring Blade instead. Then you activate your Artifact and fire off a maximum-damage Smite, followed up by an auto-hitting regular attack, for a total of 14-16 damage (or more, if the GM lets you increase the level of your sword past the minimum needed to craft it).

After that, you're on empty (that is, by definition, what an Alpha Strike seeks to accomplish), but here's where the enhanced base stats from the Sword word come into play: you continue to make above-par attacks for the rest of the scene, interspersed with a couple more Smites from your sword.

And, before you go "Oh, but ranged attackers have better range", you don't, because that Smite could be Alacrity- or Sword-based, and cause them to teleport or superspeed into melee combat.

Now, this particular build is quite redundant (two double-attack abilities, three autohit abilities, and likely to gain a second magic weapon Gift through the True Strife of the Hunting Beast). Once they hit Level 3, though, and they've finished off the True Strife of the Hunting Beast, both their burst damage and their sustained damage goes through the roof, once they unlock Red Jaws of Frenzy.

>Between Facts, Words, and gifts, that can establish a lack of need to eat as an incidental perk in addition to their main benefits, and Godbound who can use costless abilities to just make food appear (e.g. Wealth Word intrinsic benefit), food is a non-issue.
Three words (Health, Endurance, and Wealth). Four if you count Sorcery for having the one Taoist spell that lets you summon a spell that summons a smell that replaces your need to eat (and poisons you if you've eaten any grain-based foods recently). No bloodlines (not even the Con-flavored ones) remove the need to eat entirely, and neither can Facts.

The vast majority of PCs will need to eat, and once they start attaining wealth and power, they're likely to start delegating food preparation to chefs and cooks - once they get an army, they're going to be getting people to cook their food simply due to logistical issues. That means that assassins poisoning their meals is a real concern.

>I have already covered this in ; quite a few blasts do not even offer a saving throw.
I'm not talking about Smite gifts. I'm talking about them taking a barrel full of napalm and spraying it out of the back of a plane, or lighting the battlefield on fire with the "create a zone of danger" Miracle. Someone tosses a black-powder grenade at you? Reflex save.

>I spent a minute Ctrl+F-ing every Godbound book for the mechanics on poisons, and I can find no actual rules on poisoned weapons in Godbound. I cannot argue this point because we do not know the precedent; it might or might not involve Hardiness, and we do not know.
It's an OSR game. You'd be lucky if it's not "Make a save vs poisons or die instantly".

>Fact: Mastery of Strife of the Hunting Beast
I am not too great a fan of this one. The extra attack costs Effort for the day, which is a non-negligible investment, especially if you are looking at multiple battles in a day.

>Fact: Possesses an Artifact Sword (Wrath of the Word, 3 points of Effort - minimum Level 6 to create, could be up to Level 10)
Level-based artifact abuse is why I said in , "This is assuming that the GM does not allow artifacts." If the GM does allow artifacts, and ones that abuse levels, then you might as well just rely on a level 10 Divine Wrath artifact to get you through combat. The build in could very well pick up such an artifact.

>The God That Prowls
I am not a great fan of this either since it allows worthy foes a Spirit save.

>Faster than Fate
It is incompatible with the Might Word's Strength 19, sadly.

Your build is lacking in the "damage roll read straight" department from Loosening God's Teeth, and also lacks a Mob-slayer like Rain of Sorrow, so you are more specialized against singular major opponents.

But very well; if we want to bring artifacts with level abuse into play, then there is one build in particular that makes better use of that than any other.

I will get to this later.

>Three words (Health, Endurance, and Wealth). Four if you count Sorcery for having the one Taoist spell that lets you summon a spell that summons a smell that replaces your need to eat (and poisons you if you've eaten any grain-based foods recently).
I am not seeing your point here.

>No bloodlines (not even the Con-flavored ones) remove the need to eat entirely, and neither can Facts.
Facts are "make up your own benefit." Page 78 lets any character take a variety of exotic Facts to represent minor abilities, and from what it seems, judging from Word intrinsic benefits and gifts, "I do not need to eat" is given minimal mechanical value.

>and once they start attaining wealth and power, they're likely to start delegating food preparation to chefs and cooks
That is quite a large presumption you are making. By that logic, PCs might as well also be hiring NPCs to visibly purify all food and drink before them, or hire NPCs to cast Fragrance of the Heavenly Kitchen. That is assuming the PCs eat to begin with.

>I'm talking about them taking a barrel full of napalm and spraying it out of the back of a plane, or lighting the battlefield on fire with the "create a zone of danger" Miracle. Someone tosses a black-powder grenade at you? Reflex save.
Explosives and the like target AC, not Reflex: plus.google.com/109542481433257987536/posts/YdRqBUb2bhe

Walls and zones of danger created by miracles do not involve saving throws. See page 27 of the core rulebook.

>It's an OSR game. You'd be lucky if it's not "Make a save vs poisons or die instantly".
This is what Effort for the day is for. You seem to be assuming that characters will face poison and disease *so often* that they will be forced to spend Effort on a regular basis simply countering this. You would think that after the first time it happened, they would secure safer methods of consuming food, if they still need to eat at all.

>I am not a great fan of this either since it allows worthy foes a Spirit save.
It's also totally free to use.

>Your build is lacking in the "damage roll read straight" department from Loosening God's Teeth, and also lacks a Mob-slayer like Rain of Sorrow, so you are more specialized against singular major opponents.
Loosening God's Teeth isn't compatible with damage-maximizer Gifts. I suppose it could increase the burst damage when used in conjunction with a Smite, though. If you wanted to, I guess you could dump The God that Prowls and Steel Without End for it, and then have a burst damage round that'd look like this:

Activate Faster than Fate. Gain extra attack that autohits; +2/4 damage. Activate Loosening God's Teeth, applying it to your sword's Smite attack, and deal 6 * 4.5 = 27 damage on average, and a total of about 30 damage on average, letting you one-shot anything but the most powerful Parasite Gods, Made Gods, Uncreated Lords, Angelic Tyrants, et cetera.

>Facts are "make up your own benefit." Page 78 lets any character take a variety of exotic Facts to represent minor abilities, and from what it seems, judging from Word intrinsic benefits and gifts, "I do not need to eat" is given minimal mechanical value.
Facts are representative of your history *before* you became a Godbound, when you were an ordinary human, and grant you abilities as such. They don't give you any abilities that a normal human wouldn't be capable of obtaining.

>It's also totally free to use.
1 gift point is not "free."

>Loosening God's Teeth isn't compatible with damage-maximizer Gifts.
1d10+4 damage is 8.5 average damage, a little more than twice that of a Bolt of Invincible Skill or an Unerring Blade.

>applying it to your sword's Smite attack
Once again, smites are not attacks. Page 20 says: "A combatant’s action for the round might be an attack, the use of a special power or gift..."
Some gifts call for attacks, but Divine Wrath is not one of those gifts.

The same page tells us: "To hit with an attack, the assailant rolls 1d20 and adds their attack bonus."
Divine Wrath involves no attack roll, because it is not an attack.

>artifacts
I will get to this in a moment. Artifact abuse is completely useless when discussing balance and builds in Godbound, because the right artifact can let *anyone* break the game, regardless of what their build actually is.

Between all of the transhumans and the legacy-bearers of the world, the definition of "human" is a loose one in Arcem.

The following is why artifacts are completely pointless to bring up in any balance or build discussion.

For one, they are more GM-dependent than lineages. Lineages are simply a matter of "Qualify for the attribute prerequisite and say you are part of a lineage, or just make up a lesser lineage and choose a lesser gift," no GM intervention needed.

Artifacts, on the other hand:
Page 177: "At the GM's discretion, a PC can start play with an artifact."

For two, artifacts that abuse levels are utterly broken.
Page 177: "Artifacts use their gifts at an effective level equal to their creator's level or their wielder's level, whichever is greater. If the wielder is an NPC with hit dice instead of levels, use a third of their maximum hit dice as their level, up to a maximum of 10. Such details are likely to be irrelevant unless the artifact uses a gift that has an effect that hinges on the wielder's level, such as Divine Wrath."

Let us take this to the logical conclusion: a level 10 artifact with Sea's Tsunami Hand and 2 points of Effort.

Tsunami Hand (Smite), Action
Commit Effort for the scene. You strike a blow which becomes a crashing wave, rushing up to 200 feet in width, 30 feet in height and 100 feet in length before it drains away. Small buildings and fragile structures are destroyed, and creatures take your level in points of damage, tripled for Mobs. The wave can be cast in a smaller area if desired, does not harm targets you wish preserved, and vanishes after it breaks so as not to leave the area inundated.

Picture a party of four level 1 Godbound who each devote a Fact to owning such an artifact. Some of them might also spend 1 gift point on Sun's Purity of Brilliant Law, shutting down enemy defenses.

Such a party opens up combat by dealing 40 damage (120 vs. Mobs) to all designated enemies in a wave 200 feet in width, 30 feet in height and 100 feet in length. This is ally-friendly.

Now, they need not even invest in any combat gifts beyond the artifact.

Godbound has a ton of problems but I think optimization/balance is nowhere near the top of that list. It's designed poorly for what it claims to be about, and really shouldn't be trying for OSR or using d20s at all.

Its draw, the power fantasy for PCs, is almost no more structured than freeform, and, amazingly, arguably worse arbitrated.

It's a neat idea, it has a cool premise, but it does not play well. It would have been much better served with a more narrativist design philosophy that took burden off the GM and system, and put it to the players. Godbound would have worked a lot better as a game like Kingdom or Microscope.

I can agree with this wholeheartedly. In the last thread, I went over a few of my grievances with Godbound ( archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51050072/#51054482 ).

My latest Godbound game has seen my Artifice/Command/Knowledge character rise to level 4 alongside an Alacrity/Passion/Sword character, and an extreme amount of cracks in the system have been readily apparent.

My biggest point of frustration is the Influence/Dominion subsystem, which is so utterly lopsided and gameable. It is a complete mess, and that is ignoring how the faction system is utterly insane (a farming hamlet is only slightly weaker than a grand empire's capital city).

It is quite vexing how much wasted potential Godbound is.

What does Godbound well?

Godbound does. Ignore /2hu/.

Hey touhoufag do you have links for your d&d 4e character builds/general autism about the system? I've been looking through the archives but your lack of name/tripfagging makes it difficult.

It's a fine enough system, it's just that if you are the type of player who deeply cares about, say, how much damage the Fire Word does compared to Death or Bow or what not (which is fine, different strokes for different folks and all that), you'll probably want something far more tightly designed. It's got a good enough feeling for me and that's why I like it, but I can get why the touhou guy doesn't exactly dig it.

Anyways, I like the power management system a lot. It's pretty simple and does what it sets out to do very well, with the minor exception that it should not have dailies but instead divide everything by scene. I also like the setting, which is pretty fun. Grim but your characters are in the perfect spot to fix it.

Power management should be based not just on scenes, but on sessions/"episodes" as well.

I have mentioned this in this thread and the last, but information-gathering miracles (e.g. Knowledge, obviously, but also Fate and Time) are completely broken during long strings of downtime. It does not help that the Influence and Dominion subsystem has no guidelines for intel-gathering.

I am the co-player of , and we have had to implement kludgy house rules to restrict intel-gathering miracle abuse during strings of downtime.

As well, the entirety of the faction subsystem and the Influence and Dominion subsystem should be reworked from scratch.

The faction system is kludgy and heavily demanding from the GM, and it makes no sense that a farming hamlet is only slightly weaker than a grand empire's capital city.

Influence and Dominion expand in scope far too rapidly (1 point for a village, 2 points for a major city, 4 points for a region, 8 points for a whole nation, 16 points for the entire world), and the degrees of changes leave little granularity (×1 for a Plausible change, ×2 for an Implausible Change, ×4 and a pile of celestial shards for an Impossible Change).

Why bother with 16 village-scale Plausible changes (which come with 16 points of Problems) when you could aim for a single nation-scale Implausible change instead (which comes with only 1 point of Problems)? Eliminate the opposition, then make the biggest changes possible; do not settle for many smaller changes, because that is shooting yourself in the foot. You can even use the rules for expanding changes to make every one of your changes as large in scope as possible.

Lastly, cults need to be less abusable ( archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51050072/#51054813 ).

The strategic-scale rules of Godbound are even worse than the tactical-scale rules. To quote my co-player, "I am also almost sure now that the whole downtime part of the game is just heavily abstracted afterthought."

>The faction system is kludgy and heavily demanding from the GM, and it makes no sense that a farming hamlet is only slightly weaker than a grand empire's capital city.

I'd probably count, to use real life examples, a city such as Rome at the peak Roman Empire or London circa the Industrial Revolution as a Province, as they could feasibly count as a province on their own right.

>Influence and Dominion expand in scope far too rapidly (1 point for a village, 2 points for a major city, 4 points for a region, 8 points for a whole nation, 16 points for the entire world), and the degrees of changes leave little granularity (×1 for a Plausible change, ×2 for an Implausible Change, ×4 and a pile of celestial shards for an Impossible Change).

Agreed. Numbers get a little messy here, and that's weird considering how minimalistic the power system is for characters.

>
Why bother with 16 village-scale Plausible changes (which come with 16 points of Problems) when you could aim for a single nation-scale Implausible change instead (which comes with only 1 point of Problems)? Eliminate the opposition, then make the biggest changes possible; do not settle for many smaller changes, because that is shooting yourself in the foot. You can even use the rules for expanding changes to make every one of your changes as large in scope as possible.

Isn't the implication that a bigger change incurs a bigger and more difficult problem? Say you decide to go FULL COMMUNISM NOW on your empire and decide to redistribute the wealth and give the proletariat the means of production. You most likely will incur a nastier problem (nobles now hate your guts, system is a hot mess bureaucratically as it's never been implemented before in this world, et cetera) then if you did this to a village or gradually introduced it to your empire piece by piece.

This is actually why you should always buy the use your words to turn you sword magical gift. Then fluff it as using the sword itself as a long range attack.

>, but information-gathering miracles (e.g. Knowledge, obviously, but also Fate and Time) are completely broken during long strings of downtime.

If you want to see something really broken. I know one player who pretty much used the word of artifice to shove like 2-3 gifts from most of those words into one artifact. Most with a constant effect.

This breaks it even harder because now he can cast 2-3 info gathering gifts a day for one effort.

What's a good game to play demigods that is NOT Godbound or Exalted?

What does Godbound *do* well?

Nothing, honestly. It is an extremely unimpressive system the more you delve into it. Its boss fights are solely decided via rocket tag, its Faction rules are practically unusable, and you are going to find yourself making up more rules than you're actually using from the game system.

It is literally style over substance trying to appeal to the Exalted crowd.

GURPS or FATE!

I have no idea. Nobilis? Some kind of Apocalypse World hack? I think that games like that are better if made with more narrativist mindset rather than on trying to simulate everything.

>Isn't the implication that a bigger change incurs a bigger and more difficult problem?
There is a sidebar on page 132 that says:
>every time the Godbound adds a new Feature to a faction with their Influence or Dominion, the faction gains a one-point Problem related to the undesirable consequences of the change.
One point Problems are pretty minor. They are much wider-reaching and serious if put on bigger factions but still not that earthshaking.

Just to add to this I will say that Godbound is, in fact, fun in a way. This is a simple fun than any higher-powered game can produce. As long as you can slice up giant abominations and make kingdoms into idyllic utopias it will be fun! But I am not sure what this game tries to be, frankly. Its combat mechanics are simple and contain only basic resource management system. There is no tactics or positioning involved and you are incentivized to just alpha strike every major opponent because they are much scarier than you. The fun here comes mostly from describing how you wade through legions of foes which is not even the merit of the game's system itself. I think the most potential for some fun is trying to be creative with your Miracles and using them to overcome foes that cant be just stabbed to death but those are costly, especially at the beginning when you don't have much Effort. So, combat mechanics aren't really something Godbound does exceptionally well.

(cont)

(cont'd)

Maybe dungeon crawling, then? Hell, it's an OSR game, just cranked up to 11! Frankly, we haven't done much of that so I will stay my judgement on this but I am not sure how classic dungeon crawling can be done when you can just almost freeform through most obstacles with your gifts. That means that obstacles become just Effort sinks meant to make you weaker between fights but fights aren't very fun when you have no Effort available... But as I said, I am not the GM and I did not read the GM's section of the book. Maybe there are some ideas for demigod-worthy dungeons there, with cosmic pitfalls and supernal rolling boulders.

What about domain management? There is an entire long discussion above me just about that! It looks like the downtime/domain part of the game was meant to be resolved in 15 minutes at most, as a break between angel slaying. The system looks good on paper but it is indeed easy to game and break if you try. Of course you may say that games shouldn't be purposefully broken and exploited and you would be right but they also shouldn't be made in a half-assed "they will make it work for them" way. How Knowledge Gifts work during downtime is just a big mistake. I don't know about you but spoiling the whole plot and being basically omniscient is not that fun. Maybe that's just how Knowledge Word was supposed to work, I don't know, bu tafter some time it becomes a license for asking your GM about what you should do know every scene.

Overall, I think Godbound has a nice premise but it should just make its own system and then polish and playtest it better. Set a goal and then strive for it rather than just trying to make all-purpose demigod game where some parts are unbalanced or half-assed. I can say I agree to a degree with in my conclusions, overall. It is not horrible but it is also not very good

It would not be unreasonable to say that Godbound caters mostly to the OSR crowd, and that anyone coming into Godbound from outside of the OSR crowd is likely to be dazzled by the RPG at first, and then thrust into the grim reality of OSR gaming's loosey-goosey-ness and lack of robust rules.