Powers (FiD)
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| Starfox's Blades in the Dark Powers |
Powers turn Blades in the Dark games from dark low fantasy into colorful high fantasy.
Introducing Powers
Rather than the fantastical being rare and poorly understood, adding powers makes fantastic elements reliable, easy to use, and common among player characters. This gives characters entirely new abilities they can reliably use. Introducing these into a game changes the game world, making it more fantastical. Your game will change from the typical grim blades in the dark setting into something different and higher powered, though possibly just as grim.
Using Powers
Powers consist of two elements — Playbooks and Forms. Playbooks are frameworks for which powers you can use and how you use them. Forms and their listed abilities describe what you can do, enabled by your rating in al the Actions
Here follows links to power playbooks and powers, explained in the rules below.
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Power Playbooks
Projects
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Power is a term used for the concept of exceptional abilities. A Form is a set of power abilities linked by a common theme, such as Darkness or Fire. Each Form has four Powers linked to each of the Actions of Blades in the Dark abilities in tiers called Basic, Advanced, Master, and Apex. These are referred to like this: Apex Hunt Darkness or Advanced Study Fire. Most Forms follow the same scheme of abilities, for example Advanced Hunt powers are almost always a ranged attack. The basic pattern of powers is given here: Typical Power Details but is then modified by the specific form to greater or lesser degree. Barrier Powers have very little in common with the basic frame, while Metal Powers follow the frame very closely.
Power Playbooks
Playbooks are the frames for acquiring powers. The playbooks are the power traditions of your world, roles such as wizard, sorcerer, saint, monster, or artificer. Each playbook gives you access to certain Forms, which are chosen as if they were special abilities. A power playbook in itself does not grant any abilities, you need to pick a Form first. A power playbook also has regular special abilities to choose from, but fewer than an ordinary playbook.
Finally, each power playbook gives you a trauma condition. This means you can't survive as much new trauma as characters who have not meddled with the powers. The actual trauma condition generally affects how you use powers, imposing conditions you must fulfill in order to use powers. You only very rarely get extra experience points from your power playbook trauma condition.
This is in addition to all the normal features of a playbook. Some power playbooks include items that allow limited use of powers without access to an entire Form.
Multiple Power Playbooks You cannot pick special abilities from a power playbook unless you are using that playbook. It is possible to add a power playbook by selecting this as a special ability. If you already have a power playbook, you can gain multiple power playbooks this way, giving you a wider range of powers at the price of more trauma conditions and thus more restrictions on the use of all of your powers.
Forms and Abilities
Forms are what actually gives you exceptional abilities. An ability is a combination of an Action, a Form, and a degree of complexity. There are four degrees of complexity for each combination of Action and Form, from easiest to most advanced these are Basic, Advanced, Master, and Apex. With 12 Actions and four degrees of complexity, this gives each Form 48 abilities, much more than a normal special ability, but there are costs and limitations on how you can use them. A specific ability is referenced in the order complexity - Action - Form, such as Master Attune Fire or Apex Consort Illusion.
In many cases, powers work as a replacement for equipment, empowering your normal actions. More complex powers gives abilities beyond what normal equipment can do.
Using Powers
A power playbook doesn't give you any power abilities unless you select a Form from that playbook's list in Special Abilities. Once you select a Form, you gain all abilities of that Form, but your ability to actually use these Powers are governed by your Actions. So if you select the Electricity Form, you can use Hunt shoot lightning, Tinker to power electric engines, Wreck to cause short-circuits, and Attune summon electric creatures, but you have no control over fire, even if they start as a consequence of using Electricity.
Most forms are similar in what abilities they have with each Action. This reduces the utility of learning multiple Forms, making most power-users specialists in a few Forms. Just because a Form allows something does not mean that you can't do it without that Form. Attacks with weapons do not lose any effectiveness just because there is a power that does the same. Fine items can be more effective than powers, and once you select an item of equipment, you usually have it for the rest of the score unlike Powers which risk Stress with each use. Attune allows the identification of supernatural creatures even without using a power, tough powers are more precise in detecting things tied to that particular power.
Stress Cost
You use your Actions to activate Powers, but there is an associated cost in stress. Each category of power requires a greater degree of success to avoid stress. The cost when you fail these goals is 2 Stress.
- Basic powers require you to not fumble to avoid Stress, the die selected can't be a 1.
- Advanced powers require a success to avoid Stress, the selected die must be 4 or higher.
- Master powers need a full success to avoid Stress, the selected die must be 6.
- Apex powers need a critical success to avoid Stress, you need to roll 2 or more 6s.
Powers are Inflexible
Unlike normal actions, which are flexible, powers are specific. If you want to make a ranged attack using your power, that is done with Hunt action unless the particular power description says otherwise, you cannot fudge this with another action as you normally can.
Powers are Flexible
The abilities described for each combination of power and action are typical examples that can be expanded upon. The drift of the ability is set, but the particulars can be changed. If a character wants to do something that seems appropriate to their power but no description fits, find an appropriate Action and modify a similar ability to allow it. There is no specific Electricity ability to start a fire, but Tinker Electricity can create an arc hot enough to ignite most things over time.
| Effect and Outcome There are really two kinds of effect in Blades in the Dark, and the power rules use this concept so much it needs to be explained. To keep them apart, I have introduced the term Outcome for one of these types of effect. The first kind, that I call Effect, is the initial effect of the action. This comes from the negotiation between player and game master and depends entirely on the situation at hand and how suitable the player's proposed action is to the situation at hand. I call the other kind of effect Outcome. This is the final effect after all modifications due to such things as a difference in Tier, Pushing for effect, and Set Up actions. |
Combining Powers
When combining different aspects of Powers, he stress cost is that of the most difficult effect you use.
Combining Complexities
The use of a high-complexity ability can include the use of lower-complexity abilities from the same Action and Form. For example, if you use an Advanced Survey ability to scry from a specific object, you can use the Basic ability of the same Form to locate such an object with the same roll. This gives you a range of objects to choose from when you scry, but you don't know in advance which will be the most useful.
Combining Forms
If you know several Forms, you can combine all of them in a single action, as long as this makes sense. So if you know both the Fire and Plant Forms, you can dismiss, command, or sway using both at once, without needing to know if your target is a Fire or Plant creature. An attack that combines Fire and Plant makes less sense, as the Fire would burn the Plant part of a combined attack, but might be relevant in certain cases. Everyone will remember that popcorn attack you improvised!
Combining Actions
Combining different Actions in one roll is harder, such as using Consort to transmute yourself an Finesse to attack in your new form. You have to use the lowest of all the involved action ratings. This lower rating must then satisfy the highest die requirement involved.
Cooperative Powers
It is possible for multiple characters to cooperate in using a power in a group action. Each member contributes the powers they know to the final effect. If multiple actions are involved, different people in the group can roll using different actions, as long as it makes sense. This can be exploited by adding nonsensical effects to a cooperative power use just to allow the use of different actions, keep an eye out for this. This is usually best played out as an Assist or Set Up action, where the assistant also supplies knowledge of an additional Form.
A group of scoundrels want to summon a demon. This is a Master Attune Darkness effect. One player suggests turning this into a group action by adding a Hunt Plant effect to create a bower in the shape of a pentagram. This draws some chuckles from around the game table, no-one else thinks this a meaningful group action. Instead the GM suggests this as a Set Up action to use Plant to create a magical pattern for the summoner to use. Another player suggests that all the characters who know the Darkness form should cooperate in the summoning, and the table agrees.
The Plant user creates the magical pentagram as a Set-Up, all characters who know Darkness perform a Group Action using Attune to summon, and one of those who does not know either Plant or Darkness can Assist.
Power Duration
There are no general rules for the duration of powers. In general they last as long as makes sense in the fiction, very rarely lasting long after the end of a score.
- Most powers last for a single use of one action: you use the power, the effect happens, and then the power ends but the effects of the power remains. An attack is the typical example of this. You create a bolt of energy using a Form like Electricity, fight with it for the time it takes to make a single die roll (this can be involve several maneuvers in the fiction), then the power ends but any damage or other effects remain.
- Some powers have a specified duration, usually a scene. This is a single exchange between PCs and a challenge of some sort, usually involving die rolls. The end of a scene is often marked by moving to a different location or encountering a new set of personalities or problems.
- Powers that last longer usually last for an entire score, but this depends on the degree of success and on what builds tension. A possible consequence is that a power suddenly ends at an inappropriate moment.
Power Area
Some powers explicitly affect an area, and this has no additional cost. Depending on your Outcome, this may affect some or all targets in an area. But even powers that do not say so can affect additional targets when it makes sense in the fictions, usually at the cost of lower Outcome or rolling fewer dice.
Powers Gated by Dice
No dice, no power — Xinpitz, street shaman.
Power effects are gated by the number of dice rolled for the Action to use that Power. This means that pushing, assists, and anything else that gives additional dice enhances the effect of your power.
- 'Basic abilities have no die requirement.
- Advanced abilities requires you to roll 2d or more.
- Master abilities requires you to roll 4d or more. In the early game this requires added dice.
- Apex abilities requires you to roll 6d or more. This always requires additional dice.
Optional Rule
Abilities Gated by Tier
If power abilities seem to powerful for low-tier adventures, you can tier-lock powers. This meshes with the Poor Beginnings optional rule, p 231.
- At tier zero, you can only use Basic powers.
- At tiers 1-2 you can use Basic and Advanced powers.
- At tier 3-4 you can use Basic, Advanced, and Master powers abilities.
- At tier 5 and up, you can use all powers.
Long-term projects allows use of powers as if you were two tiers higher. This makes powers almost useless at tier zero and weak until tier 3. Make sure to limit exceptional equipment like bombs and grenades in a similar manner, see Poor Beginnings, p 231.
Availability and Genre
Not all power abilities exist in every setting. A setting determines which 'Power Playbooks', 'Forms', and 'Action-Power combinations' are available. If you allow all options, your setting becomes rich but risks being confusing.
The primary distinction between settings is the Power Playbooks in use. These are built on common ideas in myth and fiction and fit in different cultural contexts. This is the easiest lever to regulate Powers in a particular setting.
- Artificer Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard gives the powers common in dungeoneering.
- Artificer, Chi, Mystic, Ninja, and Saint creates a more oriental feel.
Many settings restrict powers to a limited subset of Actions, such as combat and movement, while excluding others such as divination, charm, or long-range perception.
- Many settings, especially those in manga and comics, focus on combat powers, primarily Hunt but also Finesse, Skirmish, and Wreck.
- More mystic settings may use Attune, Study, Survey, and Tinker.
- Mind control are common in horror and intrigue settings, using Command, Prowl, and Sway.
- Wondrous settings feature the transmutations of Consort, Prowl, and Tinker.
A setting can also focus on certain forms.
- The classic elemental forms of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water creates an alchemical feel.
- The ethical forms of Darkness, Flux, Light, and Order naturally create a setting of competing groups aligned with cosmic powers.
- Powers like Kinesis, Space, and Time creates a pseudo-scientific feel suitable to space fantasy.
- Removing attune removes summoning and anti-power abilities, making the setting decidedly less mystical.
- Removing command and sway powers make powers more physical and less subtle.
- Removing consort makes a creature's form more definite, making the setting less confusing.
- Removing finesse, hunt, skirmish, and wreck removes exceptional attacks, making the setting less flashy.
- Removing prowl limits how people move, also making the setting less flashy.
- Removing study and survey removes information powers, making the setting more mundane.
It is also possible to limit sub-categories of power playbooks, making certain components secret and something that has to be earned. You can also lock certain action/power combinations behind an additional cost, such as requiring a separate ability to use Survey power if you dislike scrying. The ability to use Survey Plant and the ability to use Pant in general become different choices. Looking at the touchstones, low-magic settings usually begin with the divination abilites of Study and Survey, while high-power fantasy often excludes precisely those making powers be about war and little else.