Blood and Doom uses a proprietary d10 Dice Pool system to determine whether challenging actions succeed or fail, which is done by rolling a handful of d10 (known as ‘Action Dice’). Each result of 8 or 9 counts as one success, while a result of 10 counts as two successes. Depending on the Difficulty of the action, you may need anywhere between 1 to 5 successes to succeed. Now, let’s delve in a little deeper.
Abilities & Action Dice
So how do you know how many Action Dice to roll? Well, all Characters in Blood and Doom have 15 Abilities that determine how good they are at performing certain actions or overcoming challenges. Each Ability is represented by an Ability Score, which equals how many Action Dice you get to roll when using that Ability.
Abilities include characteristics like Strength, Toughness, Wisdom, Focus, Courage and Insight for example. Your Character also has Skills, which represent more specific training and experience, such as ‘Nature & Healing’ or ‘Climbing & Caving;. Skills allow you to roll additional Action Dice whenever relevant, which you then add to those granted from your Ability Score.
When you attempt a challenging action, the Doomsayer always lets you know which Ability to use, while you as the Player get to pick an appropriate Skill, if any. Players should always let the Doomsayer know which Skill they think can be helpful to perform their action, at which point the Doomsayer has final say over whether it can be used or not.
Example 1: Josh’s character, Bakir, is making his way through the Jungles of Mararoka together with a party of adventurers, in search of lost treasures and relics only spoken about in myth. They have stumbled upon an abandoned camp, so Bakir wants to search for tracks and possibly follow them deeper into the jungle to see where they may lead.
The Doomsayer asks to make a Wisdom Roll, Difficulty 2, and Josh, says he would like to use Bakir’s ‘Hunting & Tracking’ Skill, since it seems to be the appropriate here. The Doomsayer agrees, and now, instead of the 4 Action Dice for Bakir’s Wisdom Score, Josh gets to roll an additional 2 Action Dice – one for each Rank Bakir has in the Hunting & Tracking Skill.
Josh rolls a grand total of 6 Action Dice, with a result of 2, 3, 3, 6, 8 and 9: that’s 2 successes (8 and 9), which is just enough to beat the Difficulty of 2! The Doomsayer describes how the tracks lead away from the camp to the north, through some strange-looking shrubbery with barbed leaves.
If Josh had scored at least one more success, the Doomsayer would also have told him that there are only enough tracks to account for three people, while the camp was clearly set up for a party of five. Rolling even more successes than that could perhaps have revealed the camp wasn’t as ‘abandoned’ as it seemed…
It is now up to the Josh and the other players to determine how the story continues, and whether they wish to follow the tracks or perhaps investigate the camp more.
Your Dice Pool may also be influenced by situational modifiers and other kinds of bonuses or penalties, but we’ll cover those in a later blog post. For now, let’s take a closer look at the 15 Abilities and what they represent. They are broadly divided into 3 categories: Body, Mind, and Soul. If these Abilities don’t seem self-evident to you, don’t worry about it: the Blood and Doom Core Rulebook and Doomsayer’s Guide, which will be Kickstarting on the 21st of March, 2023, contain a lot of advice on which Abilities to use in what situation.
Ability Overview
BODY
Strength Physical strength, and muscle power.
Dexterity Finesse, balancing, and crafting.
Toughness Stamina, resilience, and constitution.
Reflex Reactiveness and speed.
Stealth Moving stealthily and hiding.
MIND
Intellect Brainpower, abstract knowledge, and logical thinking.
Wisdom Good judgement, practical applied knowledge, healing, and survival.
Lore General acquired knowledge about culture, history, and myth.
Awareness Perception and awareness of surroundings.
Focus Mental stability.
SOUL
Heart Empathy, social adeptness, and integrity.
Mystique Secrecy, deception, and seduction.
Courage Bravery, composure, and leadership.
Insight Natural instinct, sensing intentions, and deceit.
Willpower Steadfastness and resisting corruption and evil.
Abilities In-Depth
When playing a Character, it’s always fun to create a unique individual – an adventurer whose accomplishments might become the stuff of legend and the subject of songs crafted by the best Minstrels of Athyr. This is accomplished in two ways: by crafting a great story together and, in a more mechanical way, by creating a Character whose combination of stats feels unique. After all, only truly special individuals have the wits, strength, stomach or courage to go against the cults and their sinister plans.
With no less than 15 Abilities, an even higher number of Skills to choose from, and various Traits, Powers and Magic, no two Characters will be alike, even if they happen to be the exact same Class. Characters may be strong, but not very dexterous; intelligent, but lacking in perceptiveness, adept at lying, but also empathic or courageous; and almost anything else you might think of.
Having 15 Abilities ensures that the Doomsayer can always easily find an Ability specific to the challenge at hand, and that all rolls made in the game operate the same way mechanically. ‘The Action Roll’, as it is called, it the only type of roll Players make in Blood and Doom, and it covers anything from swinging your sword at a foe, resisting magical influences, or dodging out of the way from harm.
Example 2: Reginald Treimaster, a renowned Guardian from Evandyr, is in way over his head. His party has split up (which is rarely a good idea) and Reginald was sent in to investigate a foul-smelling arcane smoke cloud rising up from the catacombs of the ancient Sorcerer-King Illumed Kamud.
After opening Kamud’s sarcophagus, Reginald was attacked by the late regent’s Mummy and the hapless adventurer had to flee in another direction than he came from. Unfortunately, he’s stumbled on a crevice, with only a single rope to get to the other end.
With the undead creature hot on his trail, Reginald might decide to rely on his sense of balance and try to climb the rope (Dexterity), jump to the other side (Strength), or survey his surroundings a bit closer to see if there may be another option to escape (Awareness).
Example 3: Gor the Barbarian and his fellow adventurers are in trouble! They have succeeded in finding the princess who was taken captive by a local Yiukashin cult chapter, but she’s still in shock and unwilling to escape with them. The group only has a few minutes before the cultists discover that the ghouls who were guarding their lair have all been slaughtered and Gor is considering throwing the royal over his shoulders (using his Strength).
Luckily, Marianne, who is playing the wise Ishtan Druid Lalalayka, realizes the princess is likely to scream and alert the Yiukashin if he does so. She stops him and kneels next to the princess, gently touching her shoulders while softly talking to her, trying to make a connection. The Doomsayer asks Marianne to make a Heart Roll to see if she can bring the princess out of her shocked state-of-mind.
Meanwhile, her fellow adventurer, Fornak, has found a cultist’s robe and an ivory mask in the antechamber. If all else fails, he is planning on buying the group some time by posing as a cultist (requiring a Mystique Roll)…
With all this being said, let’s wrap up this blogpost for now and hopefully you’ve gained a bit of insight in how Abilities are used in Blood and Doom!
