Hey everyone, Reecius here to a deep dive into what the Fighter class has to offer in the upcoming adventure board game: Blood Throne!
Hey everyone, Reecius here to take a deep dive into the Fighter Class for Blood Throne!
Blood Throne is a class based system in regards to character creation and party management. Think D&D’s classes or Final Fantasy’s job system for analogs. This is in opposition to skill based character creation systems such as Skyrim or Fallout where you can mold the hero you want as you go.
In my opinion, skill based systems work fantastically when the player is controlling a single character. In a game like Blood Throne which is a party based game, having defined roles helps to differentiate the various classes and adds a layer of depth to the play experience of choosing the right classes for the task at hand.
The Fighter class is one of the most iconic in fantasy gaming. The triumvirate of archetypes in fantasy RPGs are typically the fighter, wizard and rogue. Under those umbrellas are obviously a lot of derivations but the fighter is the prototypical melee oriented hero archetype.
When working through the morass of how we would design our classes, assign stats, special abilities, etc.–which was a LONG process–I decided to start with the Fighter as the first class to nail down and use as a baseline to compare all other classes to. The fighter felt like a known quantity.
In this podcast, I go into great depth on the process for anyone more interested. And in this podcast I go into great depth on how the dice mechanics work.
As for the mechanics of the fighter, and specifically tips for playing the pre-made fighter in the Core Box, Ajax, let’s dive in!
As a quick aside, all cards and tokens are color coordinated to make it easy to keep things organized. The Fighter class is color coded grey with the symbol you see above. So at a glance if you see that color and symbol you know it is one of the Fighter’s components and you can keep them all stored in their conveniently in the Fighter (or whichever class’) tuck box which looks identical.
Class Skills
All classes in Blood Throne are designed with three skill trees for their selection of Class Skills. As a recap, Class Skills are the special abilities available to each hero class represented by cards a player puts in their Hero Deck for each hero under their command. Examples of which would be casting Fireball for a wizard or backstab for a Rogue.
These three skill trees are not spelled out in their character sheets, it is a design choice I made when writing the Class Skills in order to have a structure and balance for the classes as well as to guide them thematically. As a reminder, every hero in your party has a number of Class Skill selections available to them based on their Skill stat. The Skill stat starts at 1 as a default so that every Hero always gets at least one of their Class Skills, and is increased via the intelligence stat during character creation and any other modifiers. All heroes start with their Class Ability and 3 class skill options at level 1, and gain a new Class Skill option every even level thereafter to the maximum level of 10 where they unlock their Ultimate Class Skill!
So to sum up the Class Skill system: every Hero has a suite of skills to choose from that increases in number and power as they level up, and the number of cards they can select from these options is determined by their Skill stat. This Skill stat can be increased as they level up and gain new gear. Class Skills, unlike Class Feats which are chosen and cannot be changed, are chosen before each game based on what the player thinks they will need.
A common modifier to the Skill stat that comes up is opting to take Class Garb as your armor choice during hero creation. Class Garb doesn’t provide any physical protection but is lightweight so doesn’t take up much of your encumbrance (which is the limit on how much and how heavy of equipment you can select when creating a hero), and it gives you +1 Class Skill choice. Think of a Wizard’s Robe as a practical example, it doesn’t offer you much protection from swords and arrows but with all the hidden pockets and places to store scrolls and spell components it allows the Wizard to select another spell for his Hero Deck to be more flexible during a game.
Primary Skill Tree
The primary skill tree constitutes a hero’s main special abilities and defines the role the class will play in the party. In this case, the Fighter’s primary skill tree is defense, or in gamer parlance, the Fighter is your main tank. The Class Ability for each class will almost always fall within this skill tree.
The Class Ability is like a class skill differing in the fact that your Class Ability is automatically included in your hero deck each game. It is the quintessential ability of said class. In the case of the Fighter it is the class ability: Untiring. Each turn when the Fighter activates they heal +2 HP as a Free Action, reflecting their intense physical conditioning and disciplined manner of fighting, always saving some endurance.
As you can see on the card, there is an option for an upgrade to this skill card called Supreme Conditioning, which increases the amount of HP healed. Some Feats, which we will cover below, upgrade skill cards and the verbiage for these is included on the card for convenience if you select this option when leveling up your heroes.
This combined with their many ways to reduce the amount of incoming damage they receive means they have true staying power on the tabletop. They just need to be wary of Raw Damage, which ignores armor and cannot be blocked by a non-magical shield. Raw Damage comes from particularly powerful attacks such as magic, poison, critical hits, etc. A savvy opponent facing a Fighter will focus on hitting them with these types of attacks to avoid their high defenses to mundane attacks. Below are the Class Skills for the Fighter in their primary skill tree of defense:
Shielded Advance is a great 1st level Class Skill, meaning it is available to the Fighter immediately. It allows you to make a Move and Defend Action as a single action. The Fighter moves forward with their shield held high allowing them to get into a key position. The Defense status which in addition to giving +2 to all defenses, also means you have no rear arc while the effect is in play. This is really important as in Blood Throne model positioning is key. If an enemy gets behind you, they get a bonus to hit and you cannot make any active defenses against them such as blocking with your shield! Additionally this Class Skill allows you to remove Hobbled, which is a negative Status Effect which halves your movement.
Skilled Defender is a Class Skill that becomes available to select once the Fighter hits level 4. This is an exceptional ability as for one, it is a Reactive Action which means you can use it while the Fighter is not the active model. In layman’s terms, this is a free action the Fighter can make once per Activation to give themselves a huge defensive buff when they are targeted by an attack or ability. They give themselves two extra defensive dice and it costs them no actions to use! As Fighters have a low Will defense, they are often very vulnerable to Special Actions that target their mind or spirit, this gives them a great buff against those types of attacks which can be crippling to your melee Heroes.
The Fighter’s Ultimate Class Skill, Perfect Defense, attained at level 10 is a doozy! If your hero achieves level 10, max level in Blood Throne, they automatically get their Ultimate ability, they don’t have to select it for their Hero Deck. Once per game the Fighter becomes invulnerable for a turn! Status effects will still impact them but they take 0 damage from all attacks for one Activation.
Secondary Skill Tree
The secondary skill tree reflects the class’ other area of expertise. They have a number of choices to make within this niche and this rounds out the overall feel of the class. In the case of the fighter, their secondary skill tree is melee striking, or melee DPS. So with these points in mind you can already see the Fighter is designed to get stuck in, absorb damage and dish it back. Here are the choices available to the Fighter:
Intro the Fray allows the Fighter to increase their movement on the charge and includes a powerful debuff status effect! Knocked Down means the target model is both stunned, losing one action, and they have the Vulnerable status which means the first attack that targets them once they have this status effect counts as originating in their rear arc, making them much more, well, vulnerable! This works great if the Fighter can use their fist action for Into the Fray, knocking their opponent down, then using their second action to hit them with a melee attack while they are vulnerable.
Shield Bash is a great, reliable choice for the Fighter at level 2. They smack an opponent with their shield dealing damage and giving them the Stunned affliction which causes them to lose an Action. Simple but always useful. It also targets Fortitude which is important as it allows you to bypass the target’s Evasion defense if it is the higher stat. Options of which defense to target are good to have in Blood Throne to maximize your offensive output.
Get your Captain America on! Jokes aside, Throw Shield is a very useful level 6 Class Skill for the Fighter class as it gives them an option to deal damage at medium range. In addition to this obvious benefit to a class that is otherwise going to be limited to melee or reach range at best, this skill also allows you to push another model. Any ability that lets you move another model is extremely useful. You can push a monster out of engagement with a vulnerable ally, into engagement with an ally so they can attack them, off of an objective, out of line of sight to prevent them from attacking, or if you can line it up, knocking a monster or opposing hero off of a building to take fall damage is always fun!
The Fighter’s most powerful offensive ability, Masterful Strike, is extremely strong and comes at level 8. Once per game you can opt to automatically hit your target and convert all of your Damage Dice into Raw Dice. This is basically a one shot kill against all but mini-boss and boss monsters in most cases. Raw dice are critical hit damage, ignoring armor and unable to be blocked or parried. Save this card for when you need it most and enjoy the pure power! Just be mindful as in a PvP game you can rest assured your opponent is going to be looking to block this skill if at all possible with a denial class.
Tertiary Skill Tree
The tertiary skill tree is there to add flavor to the class and make it distinct. These abilities are available in very limited quantities, typically. As we designed the game with a set number of classes and class archetypes for each faction, we wanted a way to make one faction’s tank class different from another’s while still retaining their primary function. In the case of the Fighter we gave them crowd control as their tertiary skill tree, best exemplified in the Fighter’s Taunt class skill.
Most of you as gamers will be very familiar with this ability as it is commonly implemented for tank style classes in video games. It fits as it forces the monster or other player to hit your tank which they typically don’t want to do as the tank, well, tanks! So hitting them is doing what they want you to do as that damage isn’t going to more vulnerable party members. It also targets the Will defense which is typically the weakest defense for martial oriented monsters and opposing heroes. Lastly, as a Simple Action, it doesn’t stop the Fighter from doing what he does best: smacking enemies in melee! Once you get stuck into some foes, you can use the Class Skill consistently without feeling like you miss out on DPS.
Feats
Feats are passive benefits all classes have available to them as they level up. There are two kinds of Feats, Class Feats which like Class Skills are unique to each class and help define their role in the group. These are available at even levels. Secondly, there are General Feats which are available to all classes and come up at odd levels. The exceptions to this are level 1 (character creation) where you get 2 feats (and the heroes in the core box and expansion have these pre-selected) and level 10 when each class unlocks their ultimate Class Skill, and no feats are available. To balance this, you automatically get your ultimate Class Skill when building your Hero Deck so you do not have to use one of your Skill slots to take it.
Class Feats will allow you to emphasize one aspect of the class to customize them to your playstyle as you progress through the game. Each level you may select one Feat from those available to you. The choice is permanent so choose wisely!
Broadly, the Fighter has a choice between increasing their defense or offense at each juncture. At level two you can either make your Fighter more accurate or harder to hit. At level 4 you can make your Fighter more efficient at blocking with their shield as skull results on the Block Dice block no damage so re-rolling these means they will consistently take less damage, or you can opt to increase your power by +1 which increases the damage the Fighter does every attack.
At level 6 you have a tough choice! You can either increase their damage reduction by +1 which means you could have a static damage reduction of 4 if you opted for Heavy Armor, which the Fighter is one of the few classes that can take the sturdiest armor. This is extremely good as each point of Damage Reduction removes a Damage Dice from the dice pool of anyone attacking the fighter! Alternatively, you can opt to allow the Fighter to make melee attacks as a Simple Action. Each hero has one simple action available per Activation which normally is used for minor actions and cannot be used to do things like attack or move. This does not allow you to attack a third time per activation as all action keywords may only be attempted twice per Activation regardless of the number of Actions available to your Hero for balance reasons. What it does is increase your action economy dramatically. You could move, then attack twice, or if already engaged in melee, attack twice and then defend! It is very versatile. Both options are potent, so it comes down to how you prefer to use your Fighter on the table.
At level 8 you have two defensive choices, emphasizing the Fighter’s tanky nature. You can opt to passively heal 4 HP every time the model activates, which is very strong as the Fighter is very good at reducing the amount of damage they take, making each additional HP even more valuable for them. You can combine this with magical items that also cause passive healing to make this class a true headache for anyone trying to chew through their prodigious defense. Alternatively, you can opt to allow them to put a Raw Dice in their dice pool when Blocking. These dice as we have stated have no result of 0 so they always reduce damage and they can block other Raw Dice, so you can stop critical hits, reduce magical damage, etc. This means the Fighter will be consistently taking less damage every time they are hit if you opt to Block.
As you can see, Feats are a fun and potent way to increase the power of your heroes and customize them to your playstyle.
Playing Ajax
Ajax is one of the 12 heroes available in the Blood Throne core box. As stated, he is the party’s tank and we built him to reflect this. We allocated most of his stat points to defense and then maxed his Power stat at 4 to reflect his awesome strength. He also wears Heavy Armor, meaning he has the highest Damage Reduction of all the Core Heroes, and he bears a Heavy Shield to boot, giving him a whopping +4 to his Evasion and allowing him to Block, which further reduces damage from attacks originating in his Front Arc (don’t let enemies get behind him if you can stop it!)
What this means is Ajax is very hard to hit, has a boatload of HP to keep him in the fight and hits like a truck adding 4 damage dice to each attack! The tradeoff is that his Accuracy is quite low as we allocated none of his stat points to Perception which is the stat that increases accuracy with physical attacks. This is offset by his Gladius having the Accurate keyword, meaning he counts Swirl results on the Action Dice as hits, which helps him overcome his low Accuracy to an extent by increasing the number of die results that result in a hit. In simple terms it would mean going from hitting on a 5+ on either D8 to a 4+ on either die. You can also opt to increase his Accuracy as you level up via Feats as we saw above.
The key to getting the most out of Ajax is to get him stuck into the toughest enemy monsters or heroes as quickly as you can. Into the Fray is a great choice as by wearing Heavy Armor his movement is reduced to 4. This skill lets him close quickly with a key enemy model. Once stuck in, you can use Taunt to keep the enemies attacking you as well, allowing your other party members to either flank the monsters and take them out, or go after mission winning objectives while the big man tanks the enemy’s heavy hitters. Unlike many martial heroes which tend to have a lower Intelligence stat and thus fewer Class Skill selections, Ajax took a level 1 General Feat called Extended Training which gives him +2 Class Skill choices, so he starts the game with a respectable 3 Class Skill options!
Ajax loves support buffs! If you have him successfully doing his job and taking the heat for the rest of the party, throwing buffs on him such as Brother Boldstand’s Protection of Faith blessing to give him an additional +2 Evasion for the whole game, or Amara’s Brace Yourself command which gives him the Defense status and +1 Damage Reduction is another great choice to make him even harder to take out. Lastly, and obviously, you want to keep some form of healing on hand to ensure he doesn’t get dropped at a critical moment leaving the rest of the party vulnerable.
Ajax has very low Will defense, making him particularly vulnerable to attacks that target the mind and spirit. He is also very vulnerable to attacks that deal Raw Dice damage as they bypass his defenses. Magic, critical hits, poison and other DoTs (damage over time) effects can cut him down quickly if you are not careful.
Ajax is an easy hero to play as his role is so clearly defined, making him a great choice for casual players. The only downside to this is you end up wanting to take him on every mission! As Heroes must take time to rest if injured or after playing two missions in a row, you do want to be selective in when you take him as in key Plot Scenarios which are critical to winning the campaign and are more challenging to accomplish, you will want to be sure to have access to your favorite heroes when you need them most. So at times the strategic advantage is in knowing when NOT to use a specific hero so you have them later.
As a final note, Ajax is themed to one of the factions in the game, the Panhelios League. He has a Roman/Greek feel to his aesthetic which lets you see where we went in design choices for that faction, but when creating your own Fighter, or any class, via the hero creation rules in the Hero Expansion, you can opt for whichever aesthetic you desire. Your Fighter does not have to look like Ajax, for example. This is why the art we chose for the classes will have a similar feel to them in overall tone but may not look like the specific heroes we put in the core game and expansion!
Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy all the fighter class, and Ajax specifically bring to your games of Blood Throne!
