#BladesAgainstDarkness
“When you eat a monster’s still warm heart.”
Maxime Girard asked about magic and monsters in B.a.D so I thought I’d show you my answer to the wizard, The Chimera. The Chimera draws their power from eating the hearts of monsters and twisting their own flesh into unnatural shapes. Monsters are the source of most magic in B.a.D and they are strange, mysterious, and, most imporatnly, delicious.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4bjxjnr2p_IaV9LT0EwQzVDTG8/view?usp=sharing
Wow i love the concept!
So, regarding the “Monsterhearts” power, will the Chimera be able to amass an infinite amount of monster powers, choosing between them as the player sees fit? It seems like that’s progression beyond what’s available to most BitD or BaD playbooks.
Also: delicious monsters is a fantastic idea!
This is pretty cool! Monsterhearts, Bonesmith and Summoner all look super sweet. I have two reservations however.
Altered Beast – I don’t understand what the benefit of this ability is. You roll resistance as normal but also take a harm? Normally you resist to avoid harm, and it only costs stress. Using this ability seems strictly worse than not using it.
The Hunger – perhaps Harm, and healing Harm works differently in this Hack, but healing a harm every time you kill something seems too good. That ability would be a huge in the game of Blades I currently play, why even bother resisting harm anymore? Unless being able to eat a monster heart is a rare occurrence or has other unintended consequences.
Thanks for sharing this playbook, I love reading your stuff!
Johan Nilsson Mark Griffin Alright I’m back from vacation and ready to answer questions.
Regarding Monsterhearts: Infinite amount of player progression: I guess I’m not sure what the concern is here? Perhaps eating every monster you come across might start to fill up you sheet with too many moving parts? Perhaps some upper ceiling of how many abilities you can have is a good idea, just to limit complexity (Perhaps a clock attached to this…). On the other hand, The Wizard has always been the hardest class to play with the most moving parts.
If the concern is that the ability to gain an infinite number of spells makes the class to powerful I’d point out that Ritual already lets a player achieve any effect they desire and doesn’t require you to kill and butcher a monster in the field while actually trying to do another job.
Altered Beast: You give up a wound slot to take a semi-permanent mutation to your character. If you ate a Dire Bat you could write down “Wings” for instance. This fictionally positions you to fly something you couldn’t normally do. This one’s probably too complex to make sense in the limited space on the sheet. Supplementary material in the full hack will be necessary.
The Hunger: You make a good point. I may just limit this one to consuming a person’s heart.
Dylan Green, you’re probably right about the balance. I’m more thinking about the book-keeping involved. But it may be a non-issue for most groups.
Dylan Green Upon a further readings of Altered Beast I figured it was something like that. Sounds pretty cool. And if you’re treading a line with a bunch of mutations and limited wound slots, being able to heal yourself quickly would be important. If you don’t have any mutations it seems like you’d just be particularly resilient. Maybe resiliency is not a bad idea for this class.
I guess the part I find confusing about Altered Beast is the resistance roll? Why is that the trigger for the mutation? Is it just so that the trigger is different from Monsterhearts? Because the ability talks about resisting harm, I first thought that was all it was good for. I only realize that wasn’t the case because otherwise the ability is no good, and I figured you wouldn’t do that.
So, here’s the intent…
Warping your body into a new shape still requires costs stress AND it also costs a wound slot. But it gives you a new ability as long as you want it. Say, for instance you fall down a hole and, as the GM, I say “You break a leg.” You could say, in the core rules “No I don’t. I’m a bad-ass. I just tough it out with vigor.” And you could roll resistance, take stress, and it doesn’t happen.
Altered beast lets you say. “No I grow wings and fly out of the hole.” Roll resistance (Vigor), take stress and sacrifice a wound slot to write down “wings” on a your sheet. Now you can fly. Probably with Vault. As long as you have wings.
So, you take stress and sacrifice a wound slot, but you get a semi-permanent new ability.
Perhaps Resisting harm isn’t the right place for this. Maybe it would be simpler to just let people do it whenever… this would allow the Chimera to solve problems by shaping their body and not require them to resist harm to do so.
Dylan Green That last bit was my thought too. If the PC has eaten part of a dire bat and wants to grow wings to fly over a chasm, he shouldn’t have to fall down the hole first. Something like “Spend 2 stress and mark a wound box to gain a mutation.” I’m curious if the mutations go away between jobs, or whenever the player wants? Is it really that easy for wings to fall off/be reabsorbed, or does it take a few days? The move doesn’t specify either way.