Veteran Advances and Crews/Ghosts/Hulls/Vampires

Blades in the Dark
1

I had some questions about Veteran Advances, and how they work with Crews, and with Ghosts/Hulls/Vampires.

  1. Where are the rules for Veteran Advances? I am new to the game, and haven’t been able to find them in the book.

  2. Do Veteran Advances apply between Crew Playbooks as well, or just Character Playbooks?

  3. Can Ghosts/Hulls/Vampires get Veteran Advances from each other, or from Character Playbooks? They seem to lose basically all abilities they had in life, but are they allowed to relearn those abilities thereafter, or are they restricted from accessing them? And can they borrow from each other’s playbooks, if it seems appropriate?

  4. Can humans borrow from Ghost/Hull/Vampire abilities through Veteran Advances? Like if a character has a mechanical arm, can they use a Veteran Advance to obtain the Compartments hull trait? (To store items in your arm) Could you obtain the Possess ghost trait, perhaps leaving your own body behind to control somebody else’s?

p.s. I may have found the answer for #4 on page 213:

“The traits on spirit playbooks are not special abilities, and cannot be taken by living characters by using a veteran advance.”

Assuming “spirit” applies to ghosts, hulls, and vampires alike, living characters cannot gain their traits.

2

Hi ZoGo

Welcome to the BitD community!

  1. Veteran advances rules are missing from the book and are not well explained in the playbooks.
    to sum up:
  • They just mean “special abilities from another playbook”
  • You can take them whenever you get a new SA, even as a first SA at character creation (you are not limited to the SA from your chosen playbook)
  • They cost the same as the SA and are not limited in number (not limited to 2 or 3 as it could seem from the number of dots on the playbook)

  1. Yes. Crews can take special abilities from the crews.

  2. Yes for Ghosts and Vampires. No for Hulls. Check the playbooks.

1 Like
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In all the three special playbooks the “special abilities” are called “traits”, so I suppose they aren’t S.A., so you can’t choose them with the Veteran advance.