“Ghost Recon” (sort of) in Blades!
Bound in Darkness with an Arcane Obelisk…a Lurk with Expertise (Prowl)…Synchronized…a Hound with a bird as their hunting pet as well as Mind Link.
“The bird soars over the courtyard as its master uses its eyes to Survey the area, noticing guard movements, patches of concealment and other useful bits of information. The crew Prowls across the courtyard, their minds and motions as one through dark magics…”
This kind of synergy is dope! The Hound telepathically informing the crew about what he sees through his bird’s eyes, the free use of Bound in Darkness from the Arcane Obelisk, the Lurk not being drained of Stress when leading group actions and others roll poorly, the criticals that occur as a group, the normally clumsy Spider drawing on the Lurk’s Prowl 3 to quietly dispatch a guard…it’s all so damn cool! The crew feels like a group of Spec Ops magical ninjas and I love it. 😀
I think that Blades is one of the first games where I encourage my players to max-out their character/crew that way. It may be munchkin, but it’s a cool looking munchkin with a awesome story to tell. And… it’s doesn’t matter how maxed-out you are, there’s alway some Tier IV faction to put you in your place 🙂
Stefan Struck, totally! Getting “All the Things” isn’t just about character-power it’s also (more?) about narrative-power. To me, “power-gaming” in Blades creates better group than individual moments. Even when most of the crew’s slinging 4 dice to Prowl on the regular while Synchronized, I’ve found its still really tense. Sure, they succeed/crit a lot, but I’ve noticed the group also pushed into Desperate territory more often. When shit did go sideways (as it inevitably will!), it was spectacular and felt even more impactful than normal. After the consequences settled, they’d pull it back a bit. After a while things went Desperate again, and so on. It was a great ebb and flow. It was great to see the game stayed fun at “higher levels”, so-to-speak. There are so many bits and bobs to cobble together some truly awesome stories and it’s really fun to discover a new combination.
I love this combo. 🙂
That’s a super cool combo. Also good breakdown of your game difficulty pace.