Hi everyone! I’m a new Blades GM (30-year veteran of many other systems) and ran our first score last night. It was fun – our old group has a bit of adjustment to go yet but we can see the potential.
One thing that totally stumped us though was the Spiritbane Charm item on almost every playbook sheet. Its effects are vaguely described and I was happy to just make up that it helped keep at bay the first ghost that they encountered (the very first engagement roll they ever made was a 1-3 despite heavy prep and 4 dice :o) – BUT a sharp-eyed player spotted that it cost 0 Load.
Since carrying a Spiritbane charm is zero load, why wouldn’t every character who has access to one (all except Leech and Whisper) just always carry one? In which case, doesn’t that basically nullify its advantages if everyone always has one – that just becomes the baseline defence against spirits? I’m confused about how much advantage to factor in for that if they’re always carried.
Maybe I’m overthinking it in systems terms but in my head you burn a Load box to give you an advantage, but if it doesn’t add to your Load it’s just a freebie and so maybe shouldn’t be that useful in mechanical terms? On the fly I decided that against an average ghost it gave you a minimum of 1d instead of 0d if you had no Attune dots. How does everyone else handle this?
Thanks in advance!