Hello everybody
I am interested in your interpretation ot the Sniper’s “One Eye” Abilty, which reads like this: “You’ve replaced an eye with an alchemical construct. You can see invisible
targets clearly and identify supernatural forces.
Creatures such as the shades that lurk within Shadow Witches and the
supernatural effects like their hexes are plainly visible to you.”
What is “Supernatural” for you? Are all Undead “supernatural”? Are the effects of the Shadow’s Witches’ hexes also supernatural? More precisely, would this quite common Sniper’s ability render the Hexed’ capacity to pass as a normal person useless? Or even more precisely, would an alchemical eye detect the presence of the Infamous Hexed Elia’s essence in a living ?
So I’d absolutely say that all of those things would be detectable - but just because you can see something doesn’t mean you will notice it 100% of the time.
Maybe the Undead could use visual cover or smoke to shield themselves from the Sniper’s vision, because the ‘glow’ around them only becomes really noticeable in large numbers.
Maybe more powerful supernatural effects are more pronounced, so a Hexed might be almost unnoticeable whereas a Broken will light the world up like a distant volcano.
Maybe the Sniper has to be focussing on their supernatural vision for it to be 100% reliable - it’s an alchemical construct, after all - and so has less use of it when their other eye is open.
Maybe powerful supernatural effects in an area can make less powerful ones difficult to spot. If you’re standing near an Old Empire warding stone, you might not spot that the refugees you’re helping are all Hexed because of the magic leaching from the Stone.
Maybe the eye reveals the true nature of the supernatural - and the Undead? Their true nature is unpleasant. Stare too long and rely on the eye too much, and your Sniper might be on the first Orite locomotive to Traumaville.
(Conversely, maybe it doesn’t - are those townspeople approaching the Legion position Hexed? Or have they just been anointed in the local blessing pool? Is that the power of the Twins, or Breaker? Can your Sniper tell? Are they gonna take the shot anyway?)
BoB seems to have a very strong focus on the idea that there ain’t no free lunch, especially with magic, and so while I think the one-eye ability should be powerful - the character’s made a very Odin-like sacrifice for knowledge, after all - I also feel it should have risks for its use and not be 100% reliable.
Hi Joel,
all your answers are absolutely excellent. I specially like the suggestion that you detect the surnaturel… but you don’t know if it’s evil or neutral/good (to talk in old-school terms).
Thanks a lot!
So this came up in our game last night. The squad was in the sewer, which was blocked by a bloated corpse and the Sniper wanted to inspect the thing from a distance to see if it was a gutsack or not.
We finally decided that:
It’s not radar or x-ray vision. Anything that blocks line of sight blocks the effect.
The sensitivity is variable. So, for instance, strongly supernatural creatures are picked up by the eye. But if you want to use it to detect trace amounts of supernatural energy, that takes time and concentration. (Like, you’re taking a moment to adjust the sensitivity and calibration because if you had the thing dialed all the way up all the time it would give you a headache or get too distracting.)
I felt like this was a good compromise because in a lot of situations, time is a resource you don’t want to burn. Makes it easy to go, “well you can stop and be really cautious and inspect everything but then I’m going to start ticking this clock…”