In Blades, Actions are sorted four each into three Attributes. Are there spiritual similarities that link Actions across Attributes? Is Skirmish the Prowess Survey, for example?
In Blades, Actions are sorted four each into three Attributes.
In Blades, Actions are sorted four each into three Attributes.
Spiritual similarities as in…. To use your example: skirmishing to read a situation (per the description of survey)?
Nope.
Simple enough, thanks John Harper! Kerby Lambert, I was thinking of something in the vein of World of Darkness, where attributes can be laid out conceptually on a 3×3 grid: Mind/Body/Social vs. Power/Finesse/Resist.
That is an interesting idea, but yeah, not going on here.
In my experience, those kind of breakdowns can end up being too forced to fit the pattern.
There isn’t that sort of strict correspondence across attributes, but I do think one of the strengths of the design (and I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, John) is that, for any situation, there will likely be actions in different attributes that will be useful. For a fight, the Prowess actions will likely be most useful, but you can also get a lot of value out of Hunt, Survey, Attune and Command to get your way. If you’re at the governor’s ball, Sway and Consort will probably do the heavy lifting, but Finesse, Study and Survey will help too. And if you’re sneaking around, Prowl and Hunt will probably be most effective, but you can also Sway guards or Tinker with locks or Finesse the keys from someone’s pocket.
I think that overlap not only between actions, but also across the attributes, really helps every character always feel involved in the action (or at least, capable of being involved), no matter where it goes. Even if you’ve spent all your XP on Insight, you can help out in a fight.
Yep, that was intentional. 🙂