Comments on Gary’s “Blood Ability Points” document.

Ok, first of all that title is too long, so I’m just going to shorten it to
BAPdoc.

On a first read-through, I found it very cool. I think you did a good job,
and I think you met your criterion that they all be useful in almost all
instances. I like the awnsheigh/ersheigh PrCs. Here’s just a few notes
and/or questions.

1. Animal Affinity. Another type of reduction you might consider is to have
the ability influence a single individual animal (at a time) rather than all
animals of a type. For example, then I could create pirate captain Don Dirk
with an animal affinity for Pepperkin Pie, his pet parrot. This would
involve starting with a Basaia bloodline, expanding it once for all birds,
but then contracting it for a single individual creature.

2. Detect Life. A good enhancement would be to make it a free action. I can
also see it offering ‘uncanny dodge’ equivalents and upgrades.

3. Elemental control. Note that you have two difference mechanisms that
extend how long the summoned elementals remain. Is this intentional? I guess
I can see how it might be, but my first thought was that they were
alternates and you forgot to delete one.

4. Fear. Seems this might also be enhancable to ranged touch attacks. The
ability to cause someone to freeze in terror (and thus not raise alarms)
rather than run away might also be interesting.

5. Heightened Ability. Note that the boost to secondary ability scores
described in the enhancements does not agree with the example (+2 vs +1).

6. Poison sense. Seems a logical enhancement would be to neutralize a poison
affecting someone else. “Ah, yes, I see that you have come into contact with
the distilled resin of the stinging marsh bramble, known to the Rjurik
clansmen of the north as fergif, a very painful and debilitating
poison. Too bad I can’t do anything about it, my liege.”

7. Resistance. This seems phenomenally powerful. SR 20 vs. evocation for
only 2 BP? Well, except for Masela’s derivation, which seems practically
useless in comparison. And how does a scion of Reynir resist a
weather-related spell?

8. Touch of Decay. You refer to this ability as “Touch of Death” in the
description.

9. Travel. Can scions of Basaia sense where large fires are located? Do they
have to target a specific fire (i.e. know where a large fire can be found,
be familiar with the fire`s location), or does the attempt send them to the
nearest large fire to their desired location? If scions do get some idea of
available locations, that might suggest that the ability to see those
distant places should logically precede the ability to travel there. I.e.
scions of Basaia might be able to peer out through fires and see what`s
going on around distant fires, and scions of masela ensure that there are no
watchers or guards near the stretch of river where they want to emerge. On
the other hand, this is problematic for those derivations which have
temporal limitations rather than locational limitations to the ability.

Brenna’s version seems a little bit too powerful, or anyway least limited.
How about limiting it by the inability to pass gates and thresholds? This
would at least prevent them from appearing within sealed city walls, and I
think it makes sense. Gates and thresholds are symbolically and ritually
important, so the extrapolation to being magically important seems logical.

Mark V.

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