A Little Position/Effect/Harm Calculator

Forged in the Dark Band of Blades
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Hi folks! I’m about to run my third session of Band this Friday and, after downloading & reading lots of helpful material from others (most of it here), I am starting to feel like I have a grasp of how to bring together all the factors involved in determining how much harm/consequence is coming at people in conflicts.

But during the last session there was a bit where the group decided to go with an all-out frontal assault that had me juggling way more than I was used to for a few minutes, constantly referencing the cheat sheet I’d grabbed as well as page 27, and totally feeling like I was just sorta making it up as I went.

To keep that from happening again, I worked the last few days at coming up with a simple Google Sheets page that allows you to enter the relevant information about the Legionnaire taking the action and have it spit out a (simplified, as I just needed a reminder) default Roll result as well as a quick-and-dirty level of Harm coming at the Legionnaire if they have triggered some.

I hope that others might also find it helpful, at least as a rough guide (because I am sure I could have added more detail & options to make it more accurate to various situation, and probably messed up some terminology).

Just go to File and select “Make a Copy” to have your own version to edit.

Google Sheet Link

And, of course, any feedback or advice is always welcome.

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I don’t know if this is user error on my part, or if something is off with the sheet, but whenever I pick Scale for a Legion member (selecting anything other than “Pick Scale”) the Effect/Base Harm and thus the Total Harm/Consequence entries show #N/A. Changing the Potency entry doesn’t appear to affect anything on the sheet, either.

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This was an issue with how the cell was reading that selection, and I think I managed to fix it pretty quickly. It didn’t do that during my initial test of that part, but I probably adjusted something along the way and didn’t realize the system would get annoyed by it.

Try making another copy and trying again?

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Thanks for the quick update! Scale seems to be working properly now.

First, I would change “Effect/Base Harm” to “Consequences/Base Harm”, or just drop the part before the slash entirely. (Using the term “Effect” seems needlessly confusing here, given it is also a system term.)

Next, Potency isn’t altering anything here (it shouldn’t), even though you have Push altering “Effect/Base Harm” (but it shouldn’t, either). These need some changes, so a couple system notes:

Push would not alter the base Harm or Consequences done to you by an opponent, which is determined by Position. Push only improves a character’s level of Effect and how much that character can accomplish with a successful Action – it does not alter Position.

Potency may or may not alter the Harm done to a character, and would change consequences suffered by the character only if the Potency relates to resisting or avoiding the Harm being done.

EXAMPLES
For purposes of illustration here we’re going to pretend a single Rotter has a clock (but they wouldn’t):

A Rookie armed with Blackshot is Potent against a Rotter. Both are Scale 1. Both are Threat 1.

If the Position-Effect is Risky Standard, then the Rotter could do 2 Harm to the Rookie, regardless if the Rookie Pushes, and despite their Potency (which here wouldn’t apply to defending themselves).

Conversely, the Rookie could mark 3 ticks on the Rotter’s clock, because the Blackshot moves Effect from Standard up to Great for harming the Rotter; if the Rookie Pushed for Effect, they could mark one additional Tick on the Rotter’s clock due to increased Effect.

If the Rookie were Potent against the Harm the Rotter could inflict, then the Rotter could only do 1 Harm to the Rookie in a Risky position. Otherwise, again, neither Potency nor Pushing would change the 2 Harm the Rotter can do to the Rookie.

As another example: a single Specialist (Threat 2, Scale 1) against a squad of Rotters (Threat 1, Scale 2), on a Risky-Standard roll could be dealt 2 Harm, and could mark 2 ticks on the Rotters’ clock (3 if they Push for Effect). However, remember that Specialists are only Threat 2 because they are usually equipped with Fine equipment.

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Interesting! See, this is just making me realize how many gaps I still have in my knowledge of how these things work, and a few of the gaps should have been clear even with what I did know.

Serious ones, it seems.

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I know I already mentioned this to you in PM, but for any other rookies to the game reading this: start slow, the system is complex, but it won’t break if you only use the basics until you’re comfortable with them. You don’t have to throw every rule into the sink all at once.