How a Blades roll reads
Roll your dice and read the single highest die. A 6 is a full success and two or more 6s are a critical. A 4 or 5 is a partial success: you do it, with a consequence. 1-3 is a bad outcome. Position sets how bad the consequences get; effect sets how much you get done.
Example: Prowl 2, risky, with a push. 3 dice show 6, 4 and 2, so the 6 counts: you do it, with standard effect. Pushing costs 2 stress. Before rolling, those 3 dice had a 42.1% chance of a 6 or better and 12.5% of 1-3.
Stress, resistance and trauma
Resisting a consequence costs 6 stress minus your highest die, and a critical clears 1 stress instead. Mark your last stress box and you take trauma. Keep your stress in the tracker and the roller shows your chance of trauma before you resist, and of overindulging before you indulge your vice.
The Blades in the Dark dice probability tables list every pool from 0 to 8 dice, stress costs and trauma chances in one printable page.
Questions
What are the odds with 1, 2, 3 or 4 dice?
A 4 or better comes up 50% of the time on 1 die, 75% on 2, 87.5% on 3 and 93.8% on 4. A 6 or better: 16.7%, 30.6%, 42.1% and 51.8%. A critical needs two 6s: 2.8% on 2 dice, 7.4% on 3, 13.2% on 4.
What happens if I have zero dice?
Roll two dice and keep the lower one. You can't roll a critical. A 6 then needs double sixes (2.8%), a 4 or 5 comes up 22.2% of the time, and 1-3 is 75%.
How much stress does a resistance roll cost?
6 minus your highest die, so a 6 costs nothing and a 1 costs 5. A critical also clears 1 stress. You commit before rolling: you can't see the cost and then decide not to resist. With 2 dice the average cost is 1.5 stress.
When do I take trauma?
When you mark your last stress box. The sheet has 9 (Composed or Steady add one). Set your stress in the tracker and the Resist roll shows the chance of trauma: with 6 stress marked and 2 dice it is 25%.
Should I push myself or take the Devil's bargain?
The die is the same, so the odds are the same. Pushing costs 2 stress, the bargain costs something in the story. You can't have both on one roll. A teammate's assist is a separate +1d, and they take the 1 stress.
How does a group action work?
Everyone involved rolls the same action and the single best result counts for all of them. The leader takes 1 stress for each PC whose best die was 1-3. Since only the best roll counts, 6s on two different players' rolls are not a critical.
Does this work for other Forged in the Dark games?
If your game reads the highest d6 the same way, the action, fortune and resistance odds are the same. Check your game's own rules for stress boxes and what each result means.
Rules from the Blades in the Dark rules reference (core system, action roll, stress and trauma, teamwork) and the Player Kit. Odds are worked out exactly, not simulated. Your GM has the final say.
This work is based on Blades in the Dark, product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Unofficial fan tool, not endorsed by One Seven Design.