House Rules for Spirit of the Century

From UTRPG

The following are house rules that we use whenever we remember to, until further notice:

[edit] Modified Consequences

from the Evil Hat wiki:

Make the stress track work like this: when you exceed your stress boxes, you're taken out. Period.

Consequences let you do this: reduce the amount of stress you take from a particular blow.

• Take a minor consequence for a -2 to the stress dealt.
• Take a major consequence for a -4 to the stress dealt.
• Take a severe consequence for a -6 to the stress dealt.

I find this makes fights pretty interesting. Suppose you have a 5-box stress track. Someone nails you massively, a 8 point hit. Taking a minor consequence isn't going to do it — that's a 6, and still beyond your stress track. You have to take a major one, at least, to make it work, taking it to a 4, and thankfully landing inside your stress track. The nice thing about this is it breaks up the predictability of the minor->major->severe consequence path.

Keep in mind, too, that if you use any stunts that force a consequence on the target, it doesn't come with any of the normal benefits. So, if I hit you for 4 stress and spend a fate point to use some stunt to inflict a consequence as well, you're still taking the 4 stress… you have to use another consequence to absorb the damage.

[edit] Minions as Barriers

A group of minions may act as a barrier: when a character is exiting a zone containing a group of minions that is currently acting against the character, the group may choose, if appropriate, to apply their group bonus to the border for the purposes of movement. This does not count as a supplemental action.

Example 1:

Derek Dynamo is trying to get past a group of thugs and into the hangar where Rocket Red is trying to sabotage Deliverance. The "hangar" zone is adjacent to the "runway" zone where Derek is, but the closed door provides a border value of 1. The thugs are not performing a block action, but there are four of them attacking Derek, giving a +2 to the border value for leaving the zone. If Derek wants to get into the hangar this exchange, he'll have to roll at least a Good (Mediocre + 1 border + 2 group) Athletics check.

Example 2:

Milo Phobos is in the same zone as Derek and, seeing that Derek is being kept from saving his precious plane, decides to head in and stop Red himself. Since the group of thugs is not acting against him this exchange, he can slip past them and into the hangar. He still needs to get through the door, however, but his athletics check is against a difficulty of only Average.

[edit] Stuntless

See Rob Donoghue's Stuntless FATE for details. Here is the 15-second version:

You have no stunts. Instead, your aspects can behave in stuntlike ways when you invoke them -- allowing you to substitute one skill for another, for example, or introduce a useful NPC. The idea is that aspects can now do everything stunts could.