Hi. New player to BitD. I’m very excited about this game and can’t wait to run it, but there are some things I’m just not getting. I’ve read the book and watched the Roll Play Blades series in it’s entirety, but I’m still stuck.
Another thread here asked about combat examples and most of the answers pointed to the youtube series’, and again, I’ve watched (and enjoyed) all 80 hours of the show, and yet combat still eludes me. I would so love to see a half dozen or so clearly written examples of combat.
Watching Roll Play Blades, it appears as if John Harper sometimes uses clocks to track enemy health, and sometimes just seems to have enemies die after taking a couple of hits. Which is it, and how does it work?
During one combat with a group of dockworker thugs he was clearly using a clock to track them, but I couldn’t figure out how the clock mapped onto the actual health of the thugs. During a later encounter with the crew going up against a bunch of sailors on a boat, he was clearly just having them die individually after taking damage.
The book just isn’t clear about how combat is run and damage is tracked, and the problem with watching the youtube series is that you don’t get to watch what Harper is doing off screen as far as figuring out damage, or how his clocks relate to multiple foes, etc.
I’m chomping at the bit to run this game, but until I wrap my head around how combat is run I don’t even want to attempt it. Any help would be very much appreciated. I’m sure these questions have been asked before, so forgive me for asking again.