Watching Six Towers Gang Ep 3, and the discussion at the end about Haig being a bit Cutter, a bit Slide, and a bit Lurk, but DEFINITELY NOT some parts of each got me thinking: would there be anything wrong with swapping out whole special abilities with other playbooks, and creating frankenplaybooks? Use one as a base, like Cutter, and then take out the special abilities that just don’t fit for your character, and then put in the special abilities that might fit down the line from another playbook. This would require everyone to make sure there isn’t a crossing of streams – only one type of special armour, only one Ghost ability, etc.
Thoughts?
Nothing wrong with that at all. The playbook “niches” in Blades are pretty much an illusion just to make startup easier.
Hmmm… This opens up a few new possibilities.
Yup. I have a Lurk->Cutter that I’ve started poaching from hound and probably tomorrow Whisper abilities. Love the mix/match.
Also I think that there’s nothing wrong with multiple “special armor” abilities: you have just one use of “special armor” per score, so even if you have multiple uses for that, it’s still a one-time benefit.
Yeah, the addition of more Special Armour abilities hits that diminishing vertical returns pretty much right off the bat, and would be pure horizontal progression, probably best when you’ve got a whole lot of other advances already under your belt. But I was thinking of something very similar actually, pick up a Social-type armour maybe?
I also see them stacking as going against the point of the system: you’re Scoundrels who are supposed to suffer consequences. If all your abilities do is make you not have to engage with a mechanic the vast majority of the time, why both having either mechanic? Having one is great, because it shows you’re good at this one thing, and you get away from those consequences. More, however, starts to go off-brand.
True, to an extent. But on the other hand, very few scoundrels both start and stay one-dimensional, especially once you have risen up in tier of play and general character advances. Progression is somewhat limited vertically, you more or less have to begin progressing horizontally or simply stop progressing.
Once your character has progressed to that point, having developed resistances to more than one type of sticky situation does make sense, and is still bound by the armour abilities being tied to marking the Special Armour box, which is a once-per-score deal.
So, I see your point, and agree with you Ben; but I also know that past a certain point in play things change and it does work.
Aye, that’s a good point – at the end of the line, you’d be fine to take many. I’ve never seen a Blades character survive that long, tbh!
Yeah, I have one that’s starting to get to that point. It would be a few more sessions before I looked seriously at another armour move, but if he hasn’t flamed out yet by that point it is certainly a thought. He’s changed a good deal already over the course of the campaign, no expecting that he won’t keep doing so. Or trauma out, of course.
I think essentially every character I play turns into some kind of mashup, to greater or lesser extents.
As John Harper discussed in his AMA on twitch a player can just take veteran advances and take the abilities from other playbooks. The 3 dots on the character sheet per him, is not the limit. The choice of putting the 3 dots there is so player’s wouldn’t feel anxiety over taking other playbook abilities because of the false perception of a restriction.