Specialty Tiers and Pricing Audit¶
Blitz Eternal: Adventures Beyond the Mists — v0.3 Draft¶
The cost rule for Specialties, and an audit of the whole catalog against it. The tier definitions here are the canon version; character-creation, Advancement, carries the short form. Recommendations below are proposals, not yet applied to the individual files.
The three tiers¶
- Tier 1 (1 point), minor or non-combat. An out-of-combat, exploration, or social edge, or a narrow always-on convenience that does not touch combat math.
- Tier 2 (2 points), standard combat Specialty. A real, repeatable combat effect: a once-per-Combat extra die or Condition removal, a reactive negation, +2 Hit Points, a positional tool, a small area effect. The workhorse tier, where most Specialties sit.
- Tier 3 (3 points), build-defining. An effect that reshapes how the Character plays or delivers an outsized, recurring payoff: preventing a Fall, re-imposing Unaware each turn, adding a personal die, raising Command Capacity, a screen-pierce, or a signature economy shift.
Anchors already fixed elsewhere in the book that this scale must agree with: a Named Weapon (adds a personal die) is 3; Gain a Skill is 2; a Court Specialty is 1 or 2.
What the audit found¶
The 1-point tier is clean: all eleven current 1-point Specialties are correctly minor or non-combat. The 2-point tier is almost entirely correct and holds most of the catalog. The mispricing sits in two places, and both are the same mistake: the two fleshed-out class menus, the Witch's and the Errant's, were written with a flat "a Specialty costs 3" assumption from the old rule, so several standard-power effects there carry a 3 that the equivalent universal Specialty carries a 2. A couple of universal entries drift the other way.
The single clearest inconsistency is Hit Points. The Errant's Hard to Kill buys +1 Hit Point for 2 points; the Guardian set's Iron Constitution buys +2 Hit Points for the same 2 points. Same currency, double the value on one side. That one should be reconciled regardless of what else changes.
Recommended re-prices (confident)¶
| Specialty | Source | Now | To | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hard to Kill | Errant | 2 (+1 HP) | 2 for +2 HP, or 1 for +1 HP | Align with Iron Constitution (+2 HP for 2). Pick one HP rate for the whole game. |
| Arcane Ward | Witch | 3 | 2 | Standard reactive damage reduction. Matches Mist-Step and Diplomatic Immunity at 2. |
| Dice Alteration | Witch | 3 | 2 | A small, per-1 die nudge. Standard at most. |
| Hex | Witch | 3 | 2 | Single-target Stun paid for in Mana. Support Condition effects (Standard Bearer's Word, Unstoppable) are Tier 2. |
| Overdraw | Witch | 3 | 2 | A situational resource trade, not a build-definer. |
| Fluid Footwork | Universal | 3 | 2 | A turn-economy convenience, useful to everyone but not build-defining. |
| Hit and Run | Errant | 3 | 2 | Mobility plus no-Disengage-Punish. Free Runner does as much for 2. |
Borderline, worth a decision¶
| Specialty | Source | Now | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick Hands | Universal | 2 | Narrow and consumable-gated; a case for Tier 1. The file already flags 1-versus-2. |
| Empty Hand | Universal | 2 | A small consolation on an opening whiff; arguably Tier 1. |
| Overcome the Wound | Errant | 3 | One wound ignored at an Action's cost; leans Tier 2. |
| Whirlwind | Errant | 3 | Once-per-Combat area strike; near Suppressing Fire (2), though it deals damage. |
| Sympathetic Siphon | Witch | 3 | A party-wide Mana engine; keep at 3 if you read it as economy-defining, drop to 2 if not. |
| Perfect Opening | Universal | 2 | Grants a new pattern read plus a screen-pierce, the same shape as Breakthrough at 3. Its big payoff is heavily gated, which is the argument for keeping it at 2. |
| Parry, Never Caught, Duelist | Errant | 3 | Each is defensible at 3 (a per-round negation, a whole immunity, a tier-widen), but each could read as 2. Decide as a set. |
| Volley | Ranger | 3 | An area attack; borderline against Suppressing Fire at 2. |
| Rider | Universal | 2 | The strongest Tier 2: build-defining in effect, held at 2 by real drawbacks and the mount's narrative gate. Recommend keeping 2, noting it as the ceiling of the tier. |
Confirmed correct (no change)¶
- All eleven Tier 1 Specialties: Contortionist, Shadowed Sight, Never Unarmed, Nondescript, Reopen the Question, Bonded, Friend of Beasts, Pathfinder, Fight Anywhere, Mindlink, Life Sense.
- The Tier 3 marquees that earn it: Vanish (re-impose Unaware each turn), Rally (prevent a Fall), Breakthrough (screen-pierce), the Witch's The Fourth Apprentice (raise Command Capacity) and A Named Focus (adds a die), the Errant's Faster First Step, Second Early Blitz, and Last Gamble (chain and Life economy), Refuse to Fall and Bloodied Ferocity, and the Chancellor's To the Rescue.
- The bulk of the 2-point tier: Iron Constitution, Encourage, Create Opening, Standard Bearer's Word, Hold the Line, Immovable Object, Unstoppable, Retribution, Practiced Blade, Steady Draw, Crippling Strike, and the rest of the standard combat effects.
- The Warden menu (Interpose 2, Bulwark 3, Stand Your Ground 2, Living Rampart 2) and the Ranger menu (Quarry 2, Patient Aim 2, Sixth Sense 2, Volley 3 pending the review above) are already priced by the scale.
Net effect if applied¶
The confident changes move seven Specialties, six of them downward, and settle the one HP inconsistency. The Witch menu goes from all-3 to a 2-and-3 mix that matches every other combat class. The borderline set is a further handful of possible drops, all from 3 to 2, none upward except the one open question of whether Perfect Opening should rise to 3. Nothing in the catalog is underpriced enough to need a jump except that single case. The through-line is that the old flat-3 rule inflated the class menus, and bringing them onto the tier scale mostly means recognizing that a standard combat effect is a standard combat effect wherever it lives.
New Witch specialties priced on the scale (2026-08-02)¶
Four Witch specialties were added this pass (classes/witch.md, Specialty Menu). They enter the menu at the flat 3 that every current Witch entry still carries, since the tier re-pricing above remains not yet applied to the class files. Their tier recommendations, folded into that same pending batch, are below.
| Specialty | Tier | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| The Besom | 3 | A mount unlock that flies, ignoring the terrain and reach counters that hold Rider at Tier 2 (universal-specialties, Mounts). Removing a mount's hard counters is build-defining mobility, so it climbs a tier above Rider. The open question is whether it is instead a true sidegrade to Rider (no charge, +3 Speed rather than +4, ranged exposure for melee safety), which would argue 2; logged in open-questions. Ship at 3. |
| The Familiar | 2 | Utility that touches the combat economy: it carries banked Mana across the fight reset and extends casting range. More than a minor non-combat convenience (Tier 1), less than build-defining. If the carried Mana proves minor in play it could fall to 1; if it defines opening turns it holds at 2 or rises to 3. |
| The Poppet | 3 | Build-defining single-target control: auto-landing curses and a no-roll damage-plus-Stun against one bound enemy. Belongs beside The Fourth Apprentice and A Named Focus, not beside Hex. |
| The Coven Working | 3 | A signature economy shift: the intended gate onto the 4-plus difficulty band, casting one band above raw Mana. Marquee Tier 3 by the same logic as the other class capstones. |
None of these reopen the borderline set above; they are new entries. Applying their recommended tiers lands with the same sign-off that applies the rest of this audit to the class files.