Why is basic Pattern worth 50 points?

[RPGPundit]

Amber won the war against chaos because the elder Amberites just plain kick ass.  They kick ass enough by themselves without having to say "just having pattern makes you have an invulnerable force field so that Logrus can never hurt you in any way".

After all, the point is they KICKED ASS; not that they just went in there walking and no one could even come near them.

I mean, by your logic Merlin should never have been able to even touch Luke or Dalt with his logrus active, and yet I seem to recall that he did so with Luke on more than one occasion.

In my game, an Amberite always gets something of a creepy feeling when the Logrus manifests, and vice-versa, but that's it unless an active logrus user touches a tendril to an active pattern defense.

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[Croaker]

Amber won the war against chaos because the elder Amberites just plain kick ass.  They kick ass enough by themselves without having to say "just having pattern makes you have an invulnerable force field so that Logrus can never hurt you in any way".

You said it very well yourself: They can't hurt you directly.
They can still hurl things at you, yield swords from a distance, and have a huge advantage with spells.
So no, you're far from invulnerable to it, but it even the odds.

You asked why the pattern is worth 50 points? In my opinion, here's one of the reasons.

I mean, by your logic Merlin should never have been able to even touch Luke or Dalt with his logrus active, and yet I seem to recall that he did so with Luke on more than one occasion.

I may very well be wrong, but I can't seem to recall either of it.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Do you guys consider that this superiority of the Pattern over the Logrus may change depending if the confrontation happens close to the Court of Chaos ?

Croaker summed it up nicely.
Also...
The Pattern wielder may be at distance from the Pattern, but they carry it within themselves, so in truth, they are never far from it.

[RPGPundit]

Croaker: it sounds to me like you've taken the exact opposite tact I have.  Do spells work in your games against an Amberite? If so, you've made Sorcery more powerful than Logrus, haven't you?

In my game, Pattern Defense makes you basically immune to targeted spells, and to Logrus Contact, while not having the pattern actively summoned in your mind means that you are vulnerable to both (but generally spells are much easier to get around than Logrus, which is a REAL power, and not a shadow-based power like magic).

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[Croaker]

To me, spells work against an Amberite, yes, unless you've brought up pattern defense, which protects you against them.
However, still in my game, sorcery, being a Shadow Power, has difficulties affecting anything real, so it requires more energy to use sorcery to affect an Amberite or Chaosite, unless it's been made "real" by incorporating a True Power in it

In a way, yes, it makes sorcery a little more effective than Logrus against amberites, but, as gabriel said, Amberites carry the Pattern within themselves, which protects them against direct logrus contact, because, all real that it is, the logrus is especially vulnerable to Pattern. This does nothing against, say, Broken Pattern extensions (although Pattern Defense trumps this easily).

It's funny, it seems that, on all points save this one, we've got a very similar view :lol:

[Nihilistic Mind]

I'm not buying that. If it was just some odd shadow substance slowing his progression why did he have to summon an image of the pattern in order to force the way ? The black road isn't the Logrus, but there's a link.

In Zelazny's Amber Universe, remember that Chaos is Logrus-less until Merlin's series, when we get an account of its Power first hand. My opinion is that the Black Road is a Construct of the Logrus, but very much an independent force.

Interestingly enough, I don't recall Corwin go up against effects of the Logrus itself, unless perhaps we assume that Brand's 'Living Trump' powers were all the effects of the Logrus.

Anyways, back on topic:
Fifty points... I always thought it was kind of over-priced. What I usually do to influence the Power base of a campaign is to offer a power for free. If it's an Amber based campaign, basic Pattern will be free. If it's a Chaos based campaign, Shapeshifting is free.

For all other campaigns, ran the way the ADRPG recommends, I make the players pay for it. They always have the choice of using Broken Pattern, etc...

Either way, a great player with the Power of Pattern is pretty unstoppable in Shadow. This always has a tendency to bring things back to Primal Realms, where Pattern doesn't have as much influence over.

[jibbajibba]

my final 2 penneth.

It is important to separate the cost in rpg from the actual effectiveness of The Pattern in the books. In the books it is fairly obvious to see that they are equally matched. I have mentioned previously that I think Trump is the dominant forceand that the Logrus and the Pattern are just abstract trumps of the universe.

The reason why Chaos does not destroy Amber is simply becuase it does not want to. By any standard Chaos has the materiel to destroy Amber the only restriction being the path there was difficult to negotiate with a large force. I see the destruction of Amber as trivial to most Chaosites who instead are focused on their own political inflighting.

The whole cost of pattern discussion lends itself to one conclusion to me. Partial powers are far better than the straight costs from the books. 50 points spent in Pattern should give a character a similar power level as 50 spent in trump or even (and here I speak pure heresy) an attribute such as Endurance.

[RPGPundit]

No, I disagree. The sense of how things turned out was that it was a huge embarrassment for Chaos to have lost the Patternfall war, and that they were very eager to destroy Amber, and couldn't believe that a single "clan" held off all the clans of Chaos, then brought the war back to them, and then kicked their asses.

The Chaosians THOUGHT they could destroy Amber, only they couldn't reach it easily (and its not so much even that, but that most demons couldn't survive for long outside of chaos, much less in Amber, except for the corrupting influence of the black road).

They were so shocked that some of them started to worship their conquerors, like the vietcong worshipping Dr.Manhattan.

The Amberites won not because they were untouchable thanks to the pattern, but because when united, as a family all working together, they were immensely powerful. That's kind of a major point of the story you know, since Amber is really not about multiverses or great powers, its about a dysfunctional family.

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[Croaker]

Well, although I agree with you in my opinion that Chaos wanted to win and was surprised to lose, you should remember that erick himself considered the opportunity that only those chaosites who cared might have engaged in the Patternfall War.

Yet, IMO, to discover that all their logrus abilities couldn't be used directly on "something containing the pattern, like an amberite", was, along with corwin's guns and the fact that the black road limited chaosite's options, one of the keys to victory. Note that this kind of surprise-ace-in-the-hole is more in keeping with the backstabbing feel of Amber than any "they won because they were better" explanation (although this, too, is one of the reasons of their victory).

Hum... To come back with the original question, in game, I have always found logrus being slightly vulnerable to direct contact with amberites to be one of the great strengths of pattern, one which actually even the playing field and make the characters choose between the 2 powers instead of all wanting to have the Logrus.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Good point Pundit!

[weilide]

Two interesting quotes, both from The Courts of Chaos.

Dara, on Oberon: “I only know that Brand effected his presence in a shadow far enough from Amber that he could be taken there. I believe it involved a fake quest for a nonexistent magical tool which might heal the Pattern. He realizes now that only the Jewel can do it.”

Although this is not explicitly about Pattern vs. Logrus, it does seem to imply that Oberon would be more secure near Amber, and not just because he would have an army at his back. That's just my reading.

Oberon on Dara: “She will make you a good queen, son. I trust the blood of Chaos for strength. It was time for a fresh infusion. You will take the throne already provided with an heir. By the time he is ready for it Merlin will long have been weaned from his upbringing.”

Although I agree that Amber won Patternfall by aggressively and consistently kicking ass, it is telling that Oberon (the chief ass-kicker) sees the blood of Chaos as a serious force to be reckoned with and, if possible, co-opted.

[jibbajibba]

No, I disagree. The sense of how things turned out was that it was a huge embarrassment for Chaos to have lost the Patternfall war, and that they were very eager to destroy Amber, and couldn't believe that a single "clan" held off all the clans of Chaos, then brought the war back to them, and then kicked their asses.

The Chaosians THOUGHT they could destroy Amber, only they couldn't reach it easily (and its not so much even that, but that most demons couldn't survive for long outside of chaos, much less in Amber, except for the corrupting influence of the black road).

They were so shocked that some of them started to worship their conquerors, like the vietcong worshipping Dr.Manhattan.

The Amberites won not because they were untouchable thanks to the pattern, but because when united, as a family all working together, they were immensely powerful. That's kind of a major point of the story you know, since Amber is really not about multiverses or great powers, its about a dysfunctional family.

RPGPundit

I agree that the people who were fighting Amber thought they would win, but when we learn more about Choas in the Merlin books we see that though Amber is a dysfunctional family, Chaos is far from being a single headed beast.
I see Chaos like China in the Ming era (14th - 16th centuries). They have huge resources and if they wished they could put together a navy/army that could conquer Europe. However, most of the people running the show have absolutely no interest in Europe and only care about their own local powerbase and their position at court. So when a force is assembled  it only have backing of 20% of people that matter and another 10% are working behind the scenes to undermine it in order to prevent that 20% from suceeding and gaining more local power.

[RPGPundit]

Jibba: That's certainly an image that wouldn't be inconsistent with the Amber setting, but it is also an image that is mostly something you are creating as a hypothesis.
The thing is that there are other perspectives available. It seems like, yes, there is conflict between the Chaos Houses in the setting, but those conflicts are all being held down by a powerful head-man, King Swayvil.  Its only once the Patternfall war is lost in what can only be described as a catastrophe for all of Chaos, and Swayvill himself begins to fall ill and is dying, that all that tension boils over into actual action. Hence the rash of assassinations that happen when Swayvill is on death's door; this sort of thing wasn't just par for the course in the Courts, it was a really unusual situation that was happening as a result of the succession chaos.

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[Xenon]

Chaos lost patternfall because Oberon repaired the pattern, and because the combined forces of Amber were more powerfull than what chaos had in the field. While chaos had a strong opening and took the fight to Arden, they were then turned back by a surprise (guns of avalon) that nobody could expect, and the forces that let them in changed considerably- both Corwin's curse against eric ending as his brother died, and Eric's blessing on amber making it stronger. That right there was a 20-point change in stuff for Amber. Once the pattern was whole again, the good stuff tipped the scales. Probably also resulted in the slow death of the king of chaos- Perhaps Merlin is chosen in that he alone would be safe from Eric's curse, as he could not have expected having the Blood of Amber crowned King of Chaos to be a problem when he died. King Merlin would tip the scales back from the curse that lost them the war.

Pattern is very much worth 50 points if used properly. it can do the same work of conjuring, to find an item rather than crafting it slowly in one place. It can travel shadow either at hellride speeds, or slowly leading entire armies through. It is an absolute defense against magic, trump, and logrus. It can find a shadow of desire that will stay that way, unlike logrus that changes a shadow but the changes degrade. it can change things of shadow such as whats in your pocket, or the car you drive, even how the dice will land. but perhaps most importantly, it allows for the incredible power of the Blood Curse. A power that makes killing a prince of Amber slowly a VERY dangerous thing to do. even a quicker kill may backfire if you leave them enough breath to voice a dying curse.

so not only do you get most of what logrus can do, you can do it *better*, and get a backwards sort of conjuring as well, all without the perquisite of shapeshifting. And Pattern has more innate control over shadow than Logrus does. Logrus merely holds the advantage with sorcery and physical manipulations- something that Advanced pattern and a broken pattern can solve for less than basic logrus cost (75 versus 80).

[RPGPundit]

Good arguments.

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