DeAnno
Sometimes words have two meanings
I think the larger issue than the exact value of the passives is that the passives of many arts are so spread out that they lose narrative weight. Compare these two arts:
This is a golden child of passives. Two categories that aren't conditional and provide a significant bonus, and both are clearly part of the Art's Domain. They just add into Derived Attributes quietly and do their thing with zero overhead. Such a wonderfully efficient set of passives mechanically. Compare to:
First, there's a conditional bonus to perception alongside a nonconditional bonus. In my opinion if the art wants to be about illusion perception, it should offer a large bonus to actually make that visibly different, and if it's not it should just be normal perception. Those two bonuses should be either "+30 to all Perception vs. Illusions" or "+7 to all Perception". The former would be more thematic and make the art more useful as a sideboard.
Second there are small bonuses to an array of many Attributes and skills and even a Derived Attribute. Passive bonuses to Attributes are especially problematic in this system because of how Derived Attributes work (meaning you get a weird situation where the bonus doesn't give the whole usual attribute effect very often, which is misleading), and I think they should probably be abolished and just target DAs instead. Small bonuses to skills are better assuming something ever happens where being in between ranks of a skill matters. But there are so many little unfocused and different valued bonuses here anyways, imagine if it was:
+10 to Resist
+15 to Empathy
These are much clearer effects. Empathy in particular is the skill of those three which I think is the closest to what AM is actually about. So look now at the new more focused passives an Art like AM 5 might have:
Doesn't that look so much nicer? Doesn't it evoke what AM is about so much more clearly, and result in so much less cruft? It even gives a sense of times when you might want to equip AM back on despite it being a depreciated Art in the future, when you need its Empathy or are afraid of Illusions, and it gives bonuses that are big enough to matter. And it doesn't have any weird mechanic bonuses to Attributes either.
+10 to Resist
+10 to Spiritual Armor
+10 to Spiritual Armor
This is a golden child of passives. Two categories that aren't conditional and provide a significant bonus, and both are clearly part of the Art's Domain. They just add into Derived Attributes quietly and do their thing with zero overhead. Such a wonderfully efficient set of passives mechanically. Compare to:
+10 bonus to all Perception vs. Illusions
+5 bonus to all Perception
+3 bonus to Composure, Resolve, and Resist
+5 bonus to Survival, Investigation, and Empathy
+10 bonus to Spiritual Avoid
-Allows the user to determine the Derived Attributes of a target, depending on Perception, to determine a living things primary elemental alignments, spirit binding connections and overall level of qi with sufficient Perception.
+5 bonus to all Perception
+3 bonus to Composure, Resolve, and Resist
+5 bonus to Survival, Investigation, and Empathy
+10 bonus to Spiritual Avoid
-Allows the user to determine the Derived Attributes of a target, depending on Perception, to determine a living things primary elemental alignments, spirit binding connections and overall level of qi with sufficient Perception.
First, there's a conditional bonus to perception alongside a nonconditional bonus. In my opinion if the art wants to be about illusion perception, it should offer a large bonus to actually make that visibly different, and if it's not it should just be normal perception. Those two bonuses should be either "+30 to all Perception vs. Illusions" or "+7 to all Perception". The former would be more thematic and make the art more useful as a sideboard.
Second there are small bonuses to an array of many Attributes and skills and even a Derived Attribute. Passive bonuses to Attributes are especially problematic in this system because of how Derived Attributes work (meaning you get a weird situation where the bonus doesn't give the whole usual attribute effect very often, which is misleading), and I think they should probably be abolished and just target DAs instead. Small bonuses to skills are better assuming something ever happens where being in between ranks of a skill matters. But there are so many little unfocused and different valued bonuses here anyways, imagine if it was:
+10 to Resist
+15 to Empathy
These are much clearer effects. Empathy in particular is the skill of those three which I think is the closest to what AM is actually about. So look now at the new more focused passives an Art like AM 5 might have:
+30 bonus to all Perception vs. Illusions
+10 to Resist
+15 to Empathy
+10 bonus to Spiritual Avoid
-Allows the user to determine the Derived Attributes of a target, depending on Perception, to determine a living things primary elemental alignments, spirit binding connections and overall level of qi with sufficient Perception.
+10 to Resist
+15 to Empathy
+10 bonus to Spiritual Avoid
-Allows the user to determine the Derived Attributes of a target, depending on Perception, to determine a living things primary elemental alignments, spirit binding connections and overall level of qi with sufficient Perception.
Doesn't that look so much nicer? Doesn't it evoke what AM is about so much more clearly, and result in so much less cruft? It even gives a sense of times when you might want to equip AM back on despite it being a depreciated Art in the future, when you need its Empathy or are afraid of Illusions, and it gives bonuses that are big enough to matter. And it doesn't have any weird mechanic bonuses to Attributes either.
