So given that the Black Company books are listed as inspiration for Band of Blades, I couldn’t help but think what a wizard like Goblin or One-Eye would look like in the game. And I might end up using BoB rules for a game set in a different setting where a low powered wizard would come in handy.
The book talks about no wizards existing in the world, but this playbook is made to be on the low magic end of the scale. No fireballs here to destroy entire armies or something, just a few useful parlor tricks. so I hope Strass and John will forgive me for bending the lore a little.
I’d love to hear people’s feedback.
If the wizard playbook is used, they can fulfill the Specialist requirement for Religious and Recon missions, changing the requirements list to the following:
Assault: Heavy, Medic, or Sniper
Religious: Medic, Officer or Wizard
Recon: Scout, Sniper or Wizard
Supply: Heavy, Officer, or Scout
Playbook: Wizard
Starting Abilities
- Weave: 1
- Research: 1
- Rig: 2
- Consort: 1
- Sway: 1
Weave
A Weave use will allow you to identify if something is an artifact or to detect magical or divine presence.
Special Abilities
- Magical Preparation: When you are about to roll for an action, you can spend a point of Weave and narrate a short flashback scene to describe how you made a one-use magical implement for just this kind of occasion. You can then use your rank in Rig to determine the number of dice to roll. You gain this ability for free when you become a wizard.
- Divine Instruments: All Reliquaries the squad carry count as Fine Reliquaries. When a Reliquary is used, the user rolls +1d on the resistance roll.
- Foresight: When the wizard is assigned on the primary mission, you can ask a single intel question from the zero intel list of the Commander. Additionally, gain +1d Insight resist.
- Illusionary Reinforcements: You can spend a point of Weave to have the squad fight at increased scale for one action.
- Soothing Enchantment: When you assist a squad mate, they also recover 1 point of stress.
- Sorcerous Insight You can push yourself to do one of the following things – Take control for a scene of a single threat 1 Undead – Look at a nearby area, for example a different room, as if you were there yourself.
- Protective Amulets: When choosing your load for the mission, choose an attribute and another person going on the mission. Both you and them gain +1d to resist with the chosen attribute.
Equipment:
Light
- Books and Scrolls
- Fine Hand Weapon
- Reliquary
Medium
- Fine Pistol
- Ammo
- Armor
Heavy
- Fine Reliquary (replaces Reliquary from Light Load)
- Shield
Design Notes
- I went with the same number of required actions as the medic, given the playbook is a little more advanced.
- Research 2 instead of Rig 2 made more sense originally, but given that the Medic already has Research 2 as a starting ability and the overall design seems to be to have each playbook have a different starting action at 2, I ended up going with Rig and incorporating it into the playbook further
- Weave is in the book specifically for making new playbooks, so who am I to not use it here. However, Weave by itself might not always be as useful during every mission, so I added a free ability, like the Medic gets, to get an alternative use for Weave. Magical Preparation is an allusion to stuff like One-Eye’s spear.
- Divine Instruments: Reliquaries seemed to not be referenced a lot by the other playbooks, so make an ability here that centers around them made sense.
- Foresight: The wizards in the Black Company seem to have some remote sensing abilities, so this seemed like a nice way to portray that. The +1d Insight resist addition idea came from the Scout’s ‘Like the Wind’ ability.
- Illusionary Reinforcements: Inspired by a trick Goblin and One-Eye pull a lot in the books. However, this might be stepping too much on the toes of the Heavy or the Officer, who already deal with scale manipulation. Might need some adjustments at least.
- Soothing Enchantment: A way to signify that the wizard assisting someone may have a slight magical connotation. I did just realize two wizards with this could keep assisting each other indefinitely. But then again, that sounds exactly like Goblin and One-Eye bickering.
- Sorcerous Insight: Another remote viewing trick and stepping a little into manipulating the undead themselves. Might be going too far against tone and intent of the game itself
- Protective Amulets: Not entirely sure about this one. It kept switching places with the two rejected abilities below. Cool design space I think, but might be a little too potent
Rejected Abilities
These two abilities were in there at some point, but got cut for now. Might make it back in if they make more sense
Taking One for the Team: When an ally nearby takes corruption, you can take that corruption instead and reduce the total amount of corruption by 1. This corruption cannot be reduced below 1 (not even with a subsequent resistance roll).
Divine Defenses: You can spend points of Weave as armor against fear or corruption.