Stras Acimovic I have some Band of Blades questions:
(my game technically isn’t starting til september but I’m really into the concept and structure of BoB as well as the lore so I figured I’d ask questions now and note the answers)
1. What happens to Chosen after they’ve served the purpose they were Chosen for? Do they become mortal again, or do they just die?
2. Can gods Choose multiple people? The Zemyati Living God seems to have multiple active Chosen for a very long time.
3. How do muskets work in melee? In your streamed game you mention muskets having bayonets, and of course you can do a decent amount of damage with the butt of a musket, but the item description doesn’t reference using them in this way. If you can use muskets in melee, what’s the use of a rookie spending a load slot on a hand weapon? (other than fictional stuff)
4. How long can the Legion stay in one location? Is there anything that can force them to move on? In your streamed game, it seemed like the Legion was forced to leave Plainsworth by the advancing undead, but I can’t find anything in the rules to say the GM can force that (unless it’s the back at camp scene about the Legion having to relocate its camp, but that seems a bit too powerful for something like that).
5. Should the GM let players know about the special missions available in the area, or should they be kept in the dark? Many of the extra dice during the final battle at Skydagger Keep (Lighting the fires at Kevala, the head or chain of a Chosen, etc.) relate to things that may never be available to the Legion due to GM dice rolls, which seems a little unfair given how much of an emphasis BoB places on strategic planning from the Generals. Can the Quartermaster have long-term projects to pursue specific missions/objectives, or is that restricted to the Spymaster?
5b. Can the Quartermaster or Spymaster lure out/ambush a Broken via a long-term project, creating a scenario like the Archangel Bridge or Cavern Collapse missions?
5c. Can those campaign rewards from Special missions be gained via normal missions or long-term projects? Obviously this is context-specific, but if a squad decides to bring back a Warding Stone during a mission and pulls it off, do they get the bonus?
6. What kind of Traits do the Aldermanni have? Obviously there won’t be many Aldermanni in the Legion to begin with given their hostility to vestiges of the old Empire, but if players pick up Aldermanni recruits and play them, what traits do they get?
7. How are there still people living in the Dar if that’s where the Cinder King arose? (presuming the Crown of True Flame at the centre of the Dar was the same one the Cinder King now wears)
7b. Relatedly, given that Zora is apparently responsible for the current fate of Dar, is there a connection between that crown and her fiery circlet? Is that anything to do with Vlaisim and Zora’s apparent mission to kill the Cinder King?
8. What’s the date in the campaign? The timeline in the quickstart states that the current year is 843, but has prior events in 845. Adding the 427 years since the Legion’s founding in the Lorekeeper sheet to the Legion’s founding date in the timeline gives a date of 849.
9. Can Soldiers and Specialists put xp into the ‘Specialist’ Attribute to gain ranks in other Specialist actions? Does a Soldier keep their Grit when they Promote to a Specialist?
10. Does the Cavalry action trigger on the Quartermaster simply having horses, or do they need to specifically spend them for you to start mounted?
11. Can soldiers take items that are part of a higher Load level as Utility items? i know Rookies can take armour and hand weapons at Light load despite those being part of higher Loads, but can, say, a Heavy bring a Tower Shield at Normal load if they want? Can you discard items to get more Utility slots?
12. Is there a specific kind of template for Mercenary Work, or can it theoretically take the form of any mission but for money/supply? Would, say, clearing out a bandit camp for a merchant be a valid Mercenary Work mission?
13. When the Quartermaster rolls to acquire assets, can they specify what kind of asset they’re looking for, or is the kind of asset determined by the roll?
14. How does Tough stack with other harm reduction mechanics? If I Resist a Level 2 harm to Level 1, does Tough then activate to let me ignore it entirely? What about if I use armour? Does it stack with Tenacious to let me effectively ignore everything except Level 2 Harm? Can I resist Level 4 Harm entirely just by burning an armour and a Resist? Or am I reading this wrong, and ‘harm penalties’ refers to the mechanical impact of having Harm, not Harm itself?
15. Is this going to be a full game in the manner of Scum and Villainy, or an expansion to BitD?
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Adding John LeBoeuf-Little as well but I’ll give my two cents on some of these.
1. Pretty sure Chosen usually burn out and die. That’s part of what makes the Chosen of the Living God notable. Also, their imbued body parts are what make up reliquaries.
4. The longer you stay in one location the more time and pressure you build up. Once you advance, pressure gets translated into time (presumably having to fight your way through the hordes slows you down). Since you need to advance to finish the campaign (can’t get to Skydagger without advancing after all), if you sit at one location for too long you could potentially lose via maxing out your time clocks.
The GM doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t, in my opinion) force the Commander to move. Deciding how long you can stay at any location to pick up needed resources before leaving is an integral part of the Generals-level gameplay.
5. First of all, if the Commander spends 1 Intel they can access a special mission in the current location (I think GM randomly picks). The Spymaster has a research longterm assignment that allows you to get special missions, as does the loremaster telling a tale of the Legion’s founding. I would let the players know that Special missions are a thing, so they can use their various means to try for them. I personally would also add in the fiction some foreshadowing to each of these events so that they don’t necessarily come out of nowhere.
9. Yes and Yes.
10. The former. You just have to have available horses.
13. You pick what you want to acquire, but you need to roll well enough. If you wanted a new Mercy but only rolled a 5, then you either settle for a Standard asset, or you boost twice to get up to Exceptional.
14. Tough ignores harm penalties, but you still take the harm. If you reduce level 2 harm to level 1 due to armour, you still take the 1 harm, but your rolls don’t have less effect. I think your reading of the stack with Tenacious is correct (even with level 3 harm you only take -1D). You can resist level 4 harm with a resist, depending on the fiction yes. Harm penalties is the mechanical impact of having Harm, not the Harm itself.
15. I believe Off Guard Games has said they both plan to flesh out this game, as well as make later campaigns (ie, what happens after Skydagger) if interest is there.
Duan Bailey Thanks! I’d missed that bit about spending intel to get special missions.
WRT the Cavalry question, though: what, then, is the mechanical point of the Quartermaster spending resources on certain mission types? If your Soldier can have horses on a Scout mission, or your rookies can have Black Shot on an Assault, without the Quartermaster spending resources, what’s the fictional reason for not having that extra engagement die? Conversely, if the Quartermaster has spent those resources, how come I can have a loadout without those things?
I get that the ultimate answer is ‘this is to make the dwindling resources on the campaign layer matter to the missions’ but it seems to end up in a weird place, unless we simply handwave and say that most of the rookies don’t have that stuff.
Ultimately I would defer to Stras and John, but I would say that when the Quartermaster is spending resources, they are spending resources. When the quartermaster spends horses during an advance, in the fiction you’re authorizing the Legionnaires to ride their horses as hard and as fast as they can without rest – in such a way that you lose horses. Same with spending horses on a Scouting mission. Maybe you have a relay set up where you’re taking multiple horses and switching out when one gets tired, but it means leaving a trail of tired horses behind – all to get the advantage of speed.
For blackshot, anyone can take it as their utility load, so it seems easy enough to say that this time they didn’t have room to pack it, or their isn’t enough to go around, supplies are low, etc. When the quartermaster spends blackshot, they have extra on top of whatever they were already carrying. That means they could be flush with double the usual amount, or they get to carry extra toys into battle they don’t usually have in addition to the blackshot. Seems like that would be an advantage?
Duan Bailey True. This feels like something that might be cleared up/elaborated in the upcoming revisions. I like the idea of NPC rookies carrying extra blackshot on assault missions.
Turns out I missed something on the Quartermaster sheet: if the Quartermaster spends blackshot or reliquaries or food, you just get that for free on top of Load restrictions, whereas if you don’t it costs Load.
Extra question: If I’m reading the opening missions right, each allows four Specialists, with players not needing to play rookies if they don’t want to, unlike other missions. Is this correct? I know in the streamed games, there seems to only be one extra specialist allowed.
I’m pretty sure that’s only true for Zora’s mission? But conversely that one’s supposed to be extra hard (more opposition) to compensate.
Hey! I love questions, and I’m excited that you’re super into BoB. Let’s do this!
Duan Bailey thanks for being on top of stuff ^_^ I’ll just add a little extra answers where applicable.
1. Duan is right 100%. Most chosen (aside from those of the living god) if they survive tend to burn out after a year or three at most—they just die. The human body isn’t meant to hold the divine power. There will be more notes in the full book, but they sometimes teach at a temple and offer up their body, wander into the wilds etc.
2. Not normally, no. The Living God is strange in that. I’m leaving myself some wiggle room for the future so I don’t contradict myself, but it’s generally not the case ^_~
3. Remember that the game is about fictional positioning. So if a rookie has a musket, and they are trying to hit someone with the butt of one, and the opponent has say a sword, they are probably in a risky or desparate situation, and most consequences will involve their gun getting damaged so it can’t fire, or it will aim poorly. It can work, and it works fine in a pinch (so would a big rock nearby), but the situation becomes desparate/limited much faster if you’re not equipped for the type of combat you’re engaging in. A musket with a bayonet is standard equipment, but a smart rookie will bring a spare weapon.
4. Duan is 100% and explained this very well.
5. Duan mostly covered this. The commander does have an Intel question (intel 1: what resources are available at a specific location ahead) which can prompt for specific outcomes. That’s usually how they get heads up about missions in a location ahead.
5b. Long term projects are good ways to break the rules and do cool stuff like that. Good luck. Just remember Broken are full of tricks, powers that the Legion can’t compensate for easily, and very, very difficult to kill.
5c. I don’t see why not. We have occasionally take TWO mission penalties to run a completely player designed mission #4 to get something off brand, so it’s up to your table. Just respect and follow the fiction and remember to follow through on the consequences of not doing priorities.
6. This isn’t part of the core book. If BoB does well and it gets an expansion like we hope it might, you’ll find out down the road (literally I don’t know, we haven’t designed this yet). If you’re super into it, think about the culture and make something up for your table. There’s probably one or two skills, a trauma condition and something unusual ^_~ Good luck.
7. Funny you should ask this. That’s all I’m saying.
7b. Yes and Yes. Also funny you should ask this.
8. The correct year is 848 OEF I believe. That’s on me. We’re working on 1.1 which fixes some small errors like that, but it’s been held up by John LL going to gencon and us wanting to put in a full writeup for the Generals for folks.
9. Duan 100%. Yes and Yes.
10. Duan 100%. Simply having in reserve. Though if you lose half a dozen horses in the mission the GM may follow the fiction and knock off a bubble. (There will be more on this in the full text obvs).
11. Remember that load isn’t mostly about weight, it’s also about availability of resources and what the military unit percieves as a standard loadout. So you CAN requisition the QM (or their helpers) dispense higher level gear to you even if you’re taking normal resources. You can’t however hand back some of your standard pack and ask for something different (at least as a matter of fact).
If you want to play out that scene, maybe there’s some sway rolls involved and there will probably be favors exchanged. It’s up to your table.
12. There isn’t a template. The legion is a military unit, with military objectives usually. When someone needs muscle (guarding caravans, guard duty in a town, escorting someone, clearing out bandits) and they’re willing to pay in goods or coin—that’s mercenary work.
Clearing out a bandit camp sounds perfectly legit.
13. Duan has it.
14. Duan is 100% correct. And it’s ignoring the penalties, not just removing the harm from your sheet.
15. Full. And Duan is right. We have ideas for a few more campaigns and some additional content if there’s interest (the chosen/broken you don’t see in the core text, additional heritages, some special playbooks like playing spies or alchemists—that sort of stuff). We’ll see. Gotta finish the core game first!
Glad you’re asking questions, and looking forward to your campaign!
I have some more questions, Stras Acimovic and John LeBoeuf-Little, if you guys don’t mind/aren’t too busy with GenCon (congrats on S&V, by the way! My preorder has shipped, I should get it soon):
A) What does the “+danger” on the Scout Mission 6 result objective mean? I presume it means either there’s a high-threat Undead there or there’s some kind of ticking clock that will have major consequences if the mission isn’t done before then, but I wanted to check
B) In Zora and the Horned One’s opening missions, there’s a fight between the Chosen and an Infamous, where the GM is instructed to ‘make a 10-clock’. Does this mean a pair of duelling 10-clocks for both the Chosen and the Infamous that each rolls on, or a single clock where bad results for the Chosen will fill it?
C) I’ve been assuming that abilities stack with each other and with traits, so that a Bold, Stubborn Rookie with the Devil’s Own Luck gets +3d to Resolve resist on a Desperate action, or a Heavy with Vanguard and War Machine can effectively push themselves from zero effect to Great depending on the situation for 2 stress. Is this correct?
D) I noticed that while Zora’s mission requires 4 specialists and a squad of rookies, Alanna and the Horned One’s missions have no specification. Are they standard 2-Specialist 1-Squad deployments?
E) What does the “+1 Specialist” on the Mission Count chart mean? Does it mean you get an extra Specialist as a reward, or that you can take an extra Specialist on it?
F) Am I reading the Soldier’s Loadout correctly in that they can take 1 Fine Utility item at Normal load and another at Heavy? And am I right that a Heavy load Soldier with Loaded For Bear would get 6 utility items, 2 of them Fine?
G) Does the Marshal’s Engagement Roll start from 1d before modifiers or 0d? Is a Chosen considered ‘Oathsworn to the Legion’ for the purposes of that roll?
H) My group (and I as well) are brand new to Blades – which Chosen would you recommend to ease them in as gently as BoB allows?
+Joel Short I’ll answer these as I can.
A) +Danger means that the mission is especially dangerous, often involving an elite or lieutenant.
B) The contexts for Zora and The Horned One are different. In the case of the Horned One, you have two ten-clocks, each representing the will to fight / health of the character in question. In Zora’s case, the ten-clock simply represents how much distraction Zora has left. She’s never in actual danger – but her offensive doesn’t last forever. Does that make sense?
C) Yeah, like in blades, everything stacks. Some builds do a thing REALLY well, and that’s awesome. Let us know your favorite combinations!
D) No, all the starting missions are ‘everyone plays a specialist’. The intention there is that you’ve just made a character, and now you probably want to play that character.
E) On the mission count chart, +1 Specialist means bring a third specialist.
F) Sort of. You do gain a Utility to spend, and that is fine quality. Some things, such as Black Shot or Reliquaries, are 2 Utility for the item because they’re harder to get, which means you either need to spend both your fine Utility allotment to get a fine Reliquary (for example) or just get two fine items that are easier to get, such as a pistol or lantern.
G) 0d. The Chosen is not Oathsworn to the legion, nor are Alchemists or Mercies.
H) Alanna is probably the easiest. I would choose either Book of Hours or Ostarra’s Mercy as her power.
Some follow-up questions, now I’m planning missions:
1) The ‘Troops’ reward on Scout Missions (Roll a 4 on Reward, Intel + Asset/Troops). I presume this means you get Rookies, but how many is appropriate? I’ve set up a mission where the Legion must sneak into one of Blighter’s labs to steal a poison formula and synthesize an antidote for an ailing Orite lady, with a couple of the Lady’s attendants as prisoners in the lab.
Currently, my setup is that, should the Legion succeed, they’ll get the Lady and her attendants as Rookies (with how many they get determined by how many they manage to rescue) up to a maximum of five Rookies. Is that too many?
(this is also gonna be the first mission phase after the introduction, so if there aren’t enough free slots I’ll need to substitute something else. Currently I’m torn between Morale and Horses, but I don’t know how I’d divide Horses charges up)
2) (I feel like I’ve seen an answer to this but I can’t remember it) Does ‘GM’s choice’ on the mission type chart allow the GM to offer a mission outside the normal restrictions per location? Or does it simply let the GM choose whichever they like?
3) What numerical value should a ‘pressure’ penalty have? I’ve currently got the Undead cutting off a road as a penalty for an Assault mission as 1 Pressure and Blighter’s troops developing a new poison unmolested as 1, but is that enough?
4) What guidelines would you recommend for level of opposition? How many enemies of each Threat level? Or should I just come up with something that seems right for the situation and let the players figure out how to achieve their objective?
(cc’ing Stras Acimovic and John LeBoeuf-Little because it’s been a while)
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We were at BigBadCon. You’re generally not going to get responses from us when we’re out of town 😉
1) Rookies and 5. The math is based on 1 supply becoming a recruit action.
2) No. But it’s a good hack to put in the hacking chapter. If you want to run it that way it shouldn’t mess up anything too badly.
3) In general, one. The math (again) is based on horses cost to offset. If you do set it higher be very very careful about how often you do that.
4) Generally, come up with something that seems right, and provide some interesting tools and set pieces and trust the players to deal with it. For example this weekend we had a scenario with wagons, an infamous (red hook), a horror, half a dozen crows, ~30 rotters and some gut sacks, all in a convoy. We managed to steal the wagons we wanted and clear out without anyone dying (mostly it involved using a Grenadier to bring down a cliff-face on the worst of them, and sticking to the objective—the wagon capture—rather than trying to hack through everything).
We do list standard unit deploys on each Broken sheets, but it’s on you to think about how many units the Lieutenant in charge of that leg of the war would be sending on a given mission.
Do they need speed? Would they send a single unit with a small handful of fast elites to fetch something?
Are they protecting a village? Maybe there’s 3-5 units deployed (2 on perimeter patrol, one in town, one protecting the infamous doing whatever their mission is).
Go with your gut and just remember to be consistent and fair.