Bloodline Talent Action Rolls

Hello Folks,

Figured I’d toss this out there, not sure whether it should be addressed in the Errata document.

Currently bloodrank is very rarely applicable to, well, anything. There are a couple bloodline talents that do reference it (such as Cadic Guides My Hand or Anshar’s Mighty Strides), but generally bloodrank doesn’t matter (aside from the bonus to social skills).

There are a number of bloodline talents which require an action roll against an enemy’s defences:

All Knowledge is His (val’Abebi)
His Radiant Glory (val’Assante)
Word of Illir (val’Assante)
The Fires of Heaven (val’Virdan/val’Emman)
As We Suffer, So Shall They (val’Inares)
Our Goddess’ Righteous Gaze (val’Ishi)
The Crushing Waves (val’Ossan)
Redeem What is His (val’Ossan)
The Temptation of the Flesh (val’Sheem)
Touch of Pleasure (val’Sheem)
Hurrian’s Wrath (val’Tensen)
The Thunder’s Gift (val’Tensen)
The Tempest (val’Tensen)

I see two issues with the above talents. First, the talents in blue all require a straight attribute action roll (no bonus) against enemy defence. This is a sketchy proposition at low level, and at higher level when enemy defences get into the 25-30 range it will be rare to affect anyone without a crit or exploding attribute die. The errata document does address Redeem What is His by providing a bonus equal to bloodrank x2, but the other talents set up this way receive no such treatment.

Second, the other talents require a skill roll of some sort against defences. Especially when looking at a T5 bloodline talent, if the talent requires a skill that the character is not trained in, it is effectively worthless for the character. In my case, The Fires of Heaven requires Ranged (Marksman) or (Thrown), while the character has an in-game reason for not obtaining training in those skills.

Instead of tying these talents to a specific skill, what I’d like to propose is that all bloodline talents which require an action roll against enemy defences be resolved the same way, namely an attribute action roll with a bonus which involves bloodrank. This will actually make bloodrank matter, and make Potent Blood more useful.

I think it would be reasonable to make the bonus either bloodrank x2 (as in the errata document), or Hero Tier + bloodrank. The first option would give a modifier at T5 of 10-14, while the second would be 10-12 (both excluding Potent Blood, and depending on number of bloodline talents learned).

Just my two cents.