Ok, so lets say you have some Gnosis 0 human whose family is murdered by a greater elemental or something (Gnosis 30-35). Having lost all he loved, he dedicates his miserable life to ki development as a method of one day brutally slaying it. Cut forward a number of years, and the human is now a level 30 ki user (tao or technician). He finds the Gnosis 30-35 creature, and finds because he's gnosis 0, he can't kill it. So thus he must destroy all of reality, emptying it into the void of oblivion, so that the laws of reality that dictate he can't kill it, no longer apply. Thus he may murder his tormentor.

...It seems that requiring everyone with a beef against a high gnosis being to destroy reality to settle the score is a bad way of building a game. Did the writers ever consider a sliding scale in which your Gnosis at least 'matched' your ability to annihilate all of existence in an angry vengeful fury? Just saying.

I was under the impression that a character's Gnosis increases as their power(level) does. Since as their abilities grow, they can influence the events of the world more and so are of a greater importance (higher Gnosis) to fates plan. I know in the core book it doesn't say how one increases their Gnosis.... and I don't have Gaia or TWWA yet..... but that seems the more fluid and natural way to me.... but then I'm still a bit of a noob on this stuff so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You would think. But the Gaia book specifically says that those values never change.

"When the Game master begins a campaign he must grant Gnosis as considered appropriate to each character depending on what plans he has in store for them. This value is unique and will NEVER change throughout their existence; it is the important fate they have from the moment they are born" (Gaia: Beyond the Dream, pg. 291). This almost dictates that any campaign has to end with the players annihilating the setting, in order to work around the hard pat limitation on not killing 'your high-Gnosis betters'. Maybe because this was produced in Europe, and they like the idea of godlike royalty beyond the ability of pathatic plebian mortals to actually harm...except if they 'nuke' the world (maybe a carry over from the cold war?). Seems kind of nihilistic to me, but I didn't write the game.

Gnosis does not increase naturally, but Magic can increase your Gnosis. The spell Chimera gives you 25, Ascension can give you 45+.

Chimera lets you kill a being of up to 50 Gnosis, Ascension can kill 70+ Gnosis. There is no reason to destroy reality, just find a Creation mage or Creation/Light mage (ascension is Divine magic, but there are ways around any. problem).

Oh and I change Gnosis whenever I feel like it in my games. I'm the GM, I can do whatever I want .

Well like I said, I don't have the Gaia book as of yet, but thank you for correcting me on that Sabaki.

But I think I will do an increase for the characters in my campaigns based off their level and what they have accomplished to change the world, like Lia Valenth said "I'm, the GM. I can do whatever I want."

Oh, I absolutely agree. I can't see any GM doing anything else. For the obvious reasons we've discussed. I just find it odd that the designers put such a badly conceived rule into the game, given its broad effects over the world. Might be why the supernatural were hunted in Gaia's history actually. Because the supernatural literally *needed* to die, to remove those types of 'creation must be destroyed in order for me to murder this A**hole who killed my family' scenarios. Also would explain why the War of God ended like it did. Those stupid rules of reality were preventing positive change, so reality needs to be negated for the greater good.

Like I said above, magic solves this problem. Albeit using magic is akin to rewriting the rules of reality...

Personally, Sabaki, I think that's the wrong way of looking at Gnosis, considering that Gnosis is a measure of one's "Destiny" or "Fate" and how much they able to influence reality vs. reality influence them.

In other words, the way I see it is that your Gnosis 0 human lacks the destiny to ever become powerful enough to face said greater elemental. He may leave on his quest to train and seek vengence, but the ultimate fate that awaits him is nothing more than your mere commoner can hope for: getting killed by bandits, starving after his travel funds are exhausted, or giving up to pursue an average life at some point along his quest.

If he was Gnosis 5, then perhaps his quest may bear some fruit--he may find a Ki Master willing to teach him the arts of manipulating Ki. He may be able to learn the martial arts necessary to serve as a proud warrior in his land. But never will he once again encounter his sworn foe. Or perhaps he may be lucky enough to encounter it once again-only to fulfill his fate of dying at its hands after leaving a student of his own behind (who perhaps was born luckier, with 10 Gnosis, and the possibility of slaying his master's executioner.) The best he could possibly hope for is that his Gnosis 5 destiny brings him to a mage who will free him from his fate (cast Chimera), but perhaps at a very steep price.

The way I see it, your human only begins to have a remote chance of facing this greater elemental in combat once more if he was lucky enough to be born with Gnosis 10. Without being born with a Gnosis of 10, he never has a chance of facing the elemental on anything near an even scale, let alone reaching level 30.

See, this is that brain damaged view point I was talking about. I call it brain damaged because you're literally forcing your 'end goals' down the throats of players. And If everything in the game is 'fated', what is the point of playing the game? You could wrap it into a two hour movie, and not force the players to subject themselves to it. As to level, there is no stated link between level and gnosis in the system. Meaning nothing is to stop the character from reaching level thirty. That you attempt to link the two, is you trying to **** the players for their invested time. It's the worst type heavy-handed storytelling, and anyone trying to pass that type of refuse off on their players should be ignored.

As to finding their enemy again. That falls under the 'I destroy the world, I'll probably get him in there somewhere' category.

I think, to call it "brain damaged" is a little bit harsh. If you, as GM, would want that the player can kill someone, you shouldn't make such a huge different in Gnosis in the first place.

You could also say, the real world is "brain damaged" because an one year-old baby with a plastic milk bottle has absolute no chance against an wrestling pro (okay, the example is a little bit streched, bit I hope you get my point).

Natural you can say "there is no level limit", but look at the Gaia Book, the highest lvl I have found was AFAIR 12 or 13 (and one of this 12-leveler had lived for ages and had the rang of "god killer").

So, I think it is the "different way" around: If your Gnosis isn't high enough you wouldn't get to high level, because if a Gnosis 0 Humon would be level 30, he should have an influence on the world because of his level, but he shouldn't have big influence on the would because of his Gnosis. This would be a contradiction.

Also: My players don't know their Gnosis (they only now, that it isn't high enough to simple learn high magic (gnosis 25 or higher) but that it is higher than the average Gnosis). So, if I think the value, which they got from me at the beginning, isn't good, I will change it.

And for the "the GM can use Gnosis to force his end goals down the throats of the player". You can remove the whole concept of Gnosis from the system and their would nothing change. The GM is something like god in the rpg-world, if he want, he can "force anything down the throats" of the players (his "end goals" included). But with such a GM I wouldn't play, except his "end goals" would be fun for me. Everyone on the table should have fun, the players an the GM. If someone (the GM is included), destroys the fun for others, he should leave.

So long

I also think your missing one important thing: Players Characters break the rules. Gnosis makes perfect sense for NPC's, as that their actions and entire life is in the hands of the GM. There is no way for them to change this because the GM makes them and decides what they do.

For PC's on the other hand this does not work. But then again, PC's break rules whenever they feel like it. They are closer to gods than the actual gods, as that they can do things you (the GM) would not wish them to do. Therefore, I think you are mistaken in believing Gnosis applies to Player Characters. It does not, while it does limit them slightly (by making them unable to do certain things you do not wish them to do yet, such as use Divine Magic) they can do anything because you do not control them.

To Summerize: Gnosis makes perfect sense for NPC's, because their stories are preset by you. PC's have actual free will so Gnosis doesn't really work on them.

To Summerize the Summery: Player Characters break the universes rules by existing.

I concede that point and fully agree...

Ahh, well I can concede that point. Though isn't there an ability in the game that lets you rate Gnosis? Eyes of Destiny or something. If it does, and these things are static, then you can change those levels right up until someone pops it off.

Also, consider this scenario. Your PCs manage to get a hold of some artifact that could destroy the world. But instead of using it, or destroying it, they find the nearest Gnosis 0 homeless street urchin, and let that urchin decide the fate of the world. Is it still Gnosis 0 (lacking the ability to effect the world) but with the button over the world's ability to continue, or is fate malleable under the influence of PCs.

Well, I typically try to run my games with some manner of story in mind, so for me, the Gnosis I assigned my PCs is my expectation for how far the campaign will reach in terms of the PCs stories and their affect on the world as a whole. If the campaign continues longer than I intended and their actions exceed my expectations for world-alteration, then it simply means the PCs were born with more Gnosis than I first thought.

But I do not think that a Gnosis 0 person would be able of reaching the heights of such vast power as a lvl 30 Ki user. If he WAS able to reach such heights, then he was never a Gnosis 0 human in the first place.

The way I see it is that Gnosis 0-9 reflects the millions of NPCs populating Gaia--your farmers, your town guards, etc. People who are all essential to making the world go round, but who will never accomplish anything of importance and leave their name in history. These are the cogs in the wheel which turn in accordance to the other cogs around them.

Meanwhile, someone like Rah or Zhorne Giovanni would be a person of Gnosis 30-40. They were figures with power and destiny so great that they were capable of changing the world and slaying gods (Beings of Gnosis 45-50). These are the enormous cogs in the wheel, which when they turn cause hundreds and thousands of lesser cogs to turn as well, whether they know it or not, drastically altering the course of fate.

And someone like the Lord of War, Tadeus Van Horsman, who was unable to stop the fate of Remo's destruction, but was capable of bolstering the reign of the new Empress falls more in the realm of your typical PC character-at Gnosis 10-25. They cannot stop more powerful fates from occurring, but they can cause important events. Also, while those important events may not be grand, with enough of them strung together through the help of others like them, they can cause greater events to occur. These are the cogs in the wheel capable of resisting the spin of other cogs. Their resistance can cause other cogs to fight back as well, sometimes changing the course in which the wheel of fate spins by a few slight degrees.

My point is more that if you, as the DM, intend for your players to reach levels of power and change such as Rah, then you should assign them the proper Gnosis to begin with. But for me, I find the more entertaining campaign to be one where there are things the PCs can and cannot change, which places them more in the range of Gnosis 10-25, just as the Core Book says most PCs fall.

Sabaki said:

In this case, I would say the urchin is subject to the destiny of the artifact. If it was fated to acheive its purpose of destroying the world at that moment, then the urchin will be compelled to activate it. But the artifact could be fated to pass down to the urchin's future offspring, or to fall into the hands of an organization in the shadows, such as Black Sun or Wissencraft, in which case the urchin may live or die as those more powerful deign, because he does not have the power to resist his fate.

Regardless of the outcome, the PCs have already made their slight alteration to fate by removing the artifact from where it should be and placing it where it wasn't supposed to. Had the PCs retained control of the artifact, they may have been able to continue fighting it's destiny, provided they possesed the power to do so. However, since the urchin lacks the power to resist fate, his will be altered by the fate of the artifact and the world's attempt to correct fate.

I think, that here are two opinions about Gnosis:

1. Gnosis equals fate. If the Gnosis is high enough, the fate of the person/creature is important

2. Gnosis equals "impact". Higher Gnosis means higher "impact" through the person/creature.

I believe, that Gnosis isn't "fate", it is "impact". Someone with Gnosis 0 can't destroy an creature with Gnosis 30, because it would be a great "impact", to great for his Gnosis. If you look hat Gnosis as "fate" it couldn't be used for PC (except you say, that their totally confused action where "fated"), but if you look at it as "impact", than it isn't abnormal, that the PCs can act everyway.

Also: In the core book, Gnosis is never described as "fate".

And back to the lvl 30 Technican with Gnosis 0: Also with the "impact"-viewpoint we have a contradiction: If he is lvl 30, he should be really mighty, so, that he could slay whole armies in the blink of an eye, but this would be a "great impact" (thousend deaths through one person is a impact), but his Gnosis 0 says, he couldn't have such a "impact" on the world, therefore: Contradiction.

So long,

I would quote DBZ Abridged in the case of Gnosis: "Either I'm dreaming, or Power Levels or ****!"