1/ We’ve a discussion on the “Panther-like grace” special ability on Reddit and Discord and there was a lot of different answers, no consensus. So I’d like to have the opinion of the more experienced people here.
The relevant text of the ability goes like this: “When you are quick and carrying no armor, any harm you take starts as one level lower. If this reduces the harm to level 0, you negate the harm entirely. You are considered to have fine equipment when evaluating threat.”
And now the question: is the “considered as having fine equipment”, here, which would mak you Threat 2, the fictional explanation of why you get one less level Harm? Or is it a separate, distinct benefit? And more importantly, if it is a distinct benefit, do the two benefits stack? Do you consider the Scout with the ability to be T2 when calculating Harm in a combat situation, and then reduce the Harm one more level? (which would in most situations reduce the Harm by two levels compared to a Scout without the ability, if not in Heavy load).
EDIT: Just to say that one of the authors answered the question on Reddit (thanks again!), and indeed the two benefits do stack.
2/ I have a question on a specific wording about corruption. Probably my English is not 100% so I misunderstand it: “Vast (5): (…). Accepting a mark of allegiance from a Broken.” When I first read that, I understood it as “a Broken swears allegiance to you”, which I immediately thought was probably a wrong interpretation. (The confusion comes from the fact that in French, “giving a mark of allegeance” means “swearing allegence to…”) So is the “mark of allegiance”, instead, something that the Broken would give or impose on you, that proves that you are now an underling/servant of him?
I would consider that as separate. There are two things going on; you have have effectively unlimited armour uses, and that ‘armour’ also counts as Fine.
Yes, I took that to mean you are marked by the Broken as one of theirs.
For “Panther…” there are clearly two camps of interpretation. If you are right, it really makes it a very powerful ability, and the Scout could probably be considered as better protected than even a Heavy in Fitted heavy plate, with the Tenacious ability…
Well, PLG can only soak as if it were one level of armour. A Heavy with heavy plate and a shield can reduce a level 4 to a level 1 harm. PLG reduces 4 to 3, but repeatedly.
Yes, but the Heavy only does that once…
In practice PLG makes the character very efficient and well protected against lesser undeads, but still vulnerable against higher threat ones. When you think of it, it fits with the fiction of the Scout as an advance force, having to stay as light as possible, avoiding combat but able to survive almost unscathed a few unexpected encounters with enemy scouts.
Make it a Panyar Traveler and you get Superscout…
Or you can twist the concept by making a Tough Zemyati Scout with the Tenacious veteran ability, give them a shield and a hand weapon from the utility load and you got yourself the best elite Light Infantry you can dream of…
But, unless I’m mistaken, these abilities don’t protect at all against Corruption and that’ll for sure take you out of the game.
Obviously that isn’t the point of really any FitD game, but I’d hazard most characters fall from Trauma or Blight long before Harm, ya know?
As far as I’m concerned- let the player have their fantasy to bypass harm like a champ, but leverage your Goals, Principles, and Best Practices to give them those “Kryptonite” moments when exposed to Stress and Corruption.
I would say that in Band of Blades, as compared to Bitd, Characters can fall from Harm quite easily (with the difference in Threat added to Harm, which makes it much more lethal than in vanilla Blades), then from Trauma (maybe in first place, depending on style of Play), then from Corruption as a distant third.
But sure, min-maxing your combat prowess should not be the main objective. In fact I mostly don’t see characters built like this, most players choose things that fit their story better.