Musings

So I'm trying to figure out what direction I'm going to go with this blog next. I've got some more 3.5/Pathfinder campaign stuff that I'll end up posting here, but I've also got some other thigns that have been pecking at my brain lately.

I've been wanting to do more Fate conversions for old characters, which will require some Character Profiles to be created. I also got the bug to go through old campaign ideas and write them down.

The only problem there is that I've been wanting to actually run these ideas at some point and I don't want to ruin the surprise for some of them for people who might one day potentially play them (on the rare chance that anyone actually reads this blog...). I have to have realistic expectations though, and I know that the likelihood of getting to run these things is slim to nil. So really I want to write about the ideas but I don't wan to write them because I don't want to ruin them.

I'm really conflicted about it and may decided at some point over the next few weeks whether or not it will be worth it to attempt it.

I also want to write some short stories, but I keep getting hit with life and AD/HD based laziness. My wife has challenged me to complete at least one 3000+ word story within the next few months though, so we'll see if that happens. Don't know what I'm trying to accomplish here other than writing SOMETHING to keep me doing this writing thing.

Fate Character Creation: Makass, Part 2

So this next part was a bit harder as I mentioned in my last post. This part of character creation is where you select your Skills, Stunts and Extras. Skills are the same type of thing they always are in an RPG, the statistical representation of how good at particular things you are. Stunts are neat things you can do with your Skills and abilities. They are the way to add flavor to your character’s actions and abilities which help to distinguish your character from someone with exactly the same statistics as you, usually through things like some type of particular training, personality quirk, or raw talent (it’s really loose on the specifics, which is a good thing). Meanwhile Extras are special powers that help define some unique ability your character might have, like Magic, Cybernetics, Superpowers, or in Makass’ case, Psionic Powers.

So first things first, let’s look at Skills. Everway wasn’t exactly a skills based system. 4 stats with a single specialty in each category didn’t exactly lend itself to micromanaging the character’s skills. So Makass’ actual skills were never fleshed out back then and since everything else I’ve used the character in was a Class based system or an MMORPG, they still haven’t really been developed and established. Fate 3.0 uses what they call the Skill Pyramid to speed along character creation. It is simple and easy to figure out. The view of it on the character sheet really spells it out for you. Alternatively you can use the 20-point skill column system that is used in the Dresden Files RPG as they suggest, but that is more for advanced play and takes a little bit more time and familiarity with the system. So for now I’m going to stick with the Pyramid.

Okay, when you select your character’s skills you get the following: 1 skill at Great (+4), 2 at Good (+3), 3 at Fair (+2), and 4 at Average (+1). The numbers determine how much of a boost you get to the particular skill, just like any other game with dice and a skill set out there. Roll your Fudge dice, and add the skill total to the results along with your other factors (for more information on mechanics I recommend my buddy’s blog).

So for Makass I’m going with the following for now:
Great    (+4): Will
Good     (+3): Intimidation, Lore
Fair         (+2): Deceit, Notice, and [Reserved]
Avg.       (+1): Resources, Investigation, Empathy, and [Reserved]

I’m figuring as a Psionic character, Will is going to be his most important stat and very likely his casting stat so it goes right to the top. Intimidation plays into his personality while Lore is there because he’s a former member of a Psionic Order, of course they made him study. The rest is a bunch of general skills that make sense for him. I didn’t use two slots because I wasn’t exactly sure what to put there. In an actual character creation scenario for this game this would be perfectly acceptable and recommended early in the campaign so that the character can be adapted to the circumstances that arise that no one was expecting. It keeps the character and setting organic and evolving without punishing the players.

So, onto Stunts and Extras. Everyone in this game gets one Stunt for free. If you take only one Stunt you start off with a Refresh Rating of 3. Refresh determines what your starting Fate Point total is at the start of each Session. You can take up to 3 Stunts at creation per the baseline rules (this is always flexible though and depends upon the setting you’re trying to build). If you take 2 Stunts you start with a Refresh of 2, while 3 leaves you with a Refresh of 1. You can’t hit 0 or lower Refresh. If you do your character becomes unplayable. (The Dresden RPG explained that away as your character succumbing to their abilities/powers/nature and losing their Free Will in the process.)

Stunts let you change the way a Skill works for you. It indicates a lot of different things, like special training, genetic alterations, or any endless variety of things that make your character special. Skills are considered unique for the character and are used to show why they’re different than that other guy with the same Deceit Skill level. Typically speaking the way you design a Stunt is by following one of these three paths (Book examples in parenthesis.). You’re either adding a new action to a skill (Backstab: Use Stealth to make a physical attack as long as your presence isn’t discovered by the target), adding a bonus to an action (Arcane Expert: Gain a +2 Bonus to create an advantage with Lore vs things of Occult or Supernatural origin), or creating a rules exception (Riposte: If you “Succeed with Style” [kinda like a crit] on a Fighting Defense, you can choose to inflict a 2-shift hit rather than take a boost).

You have to try and keep your Stunts balanced though. They shouldn’t completely replace the use of a different skill. It should be something you use every once in a while to make something cool happen. If it’s too powerful you can balance it by requiring a Fate Point to be spent to activate it, limit it to a certain number of uses per scene, or require some type of Consequence or Stress to be inflicted upon the character. There are no hard and fast rules on this though so you need to work with your group to determine what makes the most sense.

For Makass I’m going to use his free Stunt to take one I call “Make an Example of Him.” When invoking his aspect “Shock and Awe” to defeat an opponent, Makass may use his Intimidate skill to make defensive combat actions for the remainder of the scene against foes who saw his target get taken out. This represents his opponents hesitating to go after him because of how brutally he took out his last target. This is a little bit too powerful just to have without an activation cost, so I figure the requirement of him spending a fate point to invoke Shock and Awe specifically to defeat a target allows him to activate this Stunt. Which is just allowing him to use Intimidation as a defensive action against physical attacks. Obviously I’d have to clear this with the GM, but I feel it is properly balanced, very cool, appropriately thematic, and falls within the guidelines laid out by the rulebook.

Extras are something more nebulous though. It has taken a ton of effort to come up with this parts. Extras, as mentioned before, are the unique powers and abilities of your character. These are your Cybernetics, Secret Societies, Magic, Superpowers, gadgets, and so on.

Now this is where this whole thing gets tricky. With me as the only arbiter of the powers I’m about to bestow upon Makass I could be doing a rather large disservice to this system in the following paragraphs. At the time of writing this I’m bouncing my ideas off of one other person, but since he’s not the actual GM watching over him it takes out some of his stake in fight, so to speak.

Extra creation is generally free form with a bunch of different ways to integrate things. You can have a flat Refresh cost, it could be based in an Aspect or a Stunt. It can come in the form of a magic sword or a suit of gigantic robot armor. It’s all about how you go about doing it, how you word it, and how it fits into and contributes the setting. This was honestly the hardest part to try to grasp in this section. The initial rule book for the 3rd edition came with only a couple of poorly explained examples, but fortunately the internet is full of useful things, including an updated Extras section for the core rulebook that is leaps and bounds better than the initial Kickstarter release. So I’ve put way more work than I should have into grasping this concept and this is the culmination of this particular endeavor.

So Makass is all about his psionics. I want him to be able to use it with impunity. He should be able to do simple, everyday tasks, like eating while using them without so much as batting an eye, let alone spending a Fate point to use them. I also want them to feel organic and flexible. I don't want to have to be limited by a spell list, or other items that make it seem like a set of rules. So after some heavy research I decided to start from an example from the updated extras chapter.

This particular example is called Collegia Arcana Magic. This example basically allows anyone in the particular setting with a high enough Lore skill and the proper training to use magic. The advantage of the way this Extra works is that it is entirely an organic process. There is no spell list, just a general idea of what it can do when you decide to use it to complete one of the 4 basic actions. It's simple and works similar to what I was wanting so I'll use it as the baseline for Makass' Psionics.

So Permissions are part of an Extra. It's some type of requirment that you have to meet in order to have access to them. It basically just means that you have to meet certain requirements that you and your GM work out before hand. Typically it will be reflected in your High Concept or other aspects, but it can come from the other areas too, as always the system is flexible and at your mercy. So in Makass' case his permissions will be an Aspect reflecting the fact he has abilities. Which is more than covered by his High Concept.

The next thing to work out is Costs. The example I pulled from only requires you to have Skill ranks in Lore. It makes sense for the setting they're building because magic can be used by anyone with the proper training. It isn't based upon your inherited traits. Makass' powers on the other hand are a birthright and are only possible because his mind was awakened by the nature of his blood. So because this isn't just a common feature of his world that everyone has access to, there needs to be another set of costs associated with it.

Costs can come from anything. Most likely you'll see it come from Skills, Refresh, or an Aspect. So because this power set is coming from the College Arcana baseline I will have to use a skill that controls the power. Lore doesn't quit fit with the theme of his abilities so I'll go with Will instead. Okay, that one was easy, but it is still missing something that makes it feel like it's a birthright. Maybe I need to add a Refresh cost to it to help with that.

The power gamer in me screams at me when I say that though. From a gameplay mechanics perspective this doesn't sounds fair or balanced, at least not at face value. So to remedy this feeling I began some more research. I decided to look through the Dresden Files RPG for inspiration since it is a very well fleshed out setting that is already established. Looking through there I found the Channeling power. It's a lesser form of Evocation magic that only deals with 1 element, like Force for example. Well that sounded like a good place to look into further so I did.

Evocation magic in Dresden has similar functions to what I described above, with having the magic just be a free form extension of the casting stat. There is a lot more under the hood of the Dresden RPG though. Two special casting Skills, mental stress damage, magic item slots, counterspelling, and a whole mess of other things that take a ton of explaination to understand the nuances of it all. All I was interested in was an idea to enhance the psychic abilities of Makass to make that point of Refresh seem worth it.

So looking at the cost of Channelling, it's worth 2 Refesh. For that you get the same things as what I have from the Collegia but with a few more things. The only ones that really interest me are the ability to use Mental Stress boxes to give you bonuses to your "spells". I don't want these things to get super complicated and slow down gameplay so I will only use that. I don't need spells, focus items, or those other things.

So after tweaking it and bouncing the ideas back and forth with someone else a few times I figured out exactly how it should play out from a gameplay standpoint.

Extra: Psionic Powers: Telekinesis (Shut up, the name needs work)
Permissions: One Aspect reflecting that you've unlocked your psionic potential
Costs: Skill Ranks (Will), -2 Refresh

People who have unlocked the psionic potential within their own minds are able to use Will to manipulate the world around them through sheer force of will. This Extra adds the following Actions to he Will Skill.

Overcome: Use Will to apply force to objects. This can be used in place of Athletics or Physique to overcome obstacles/etc. Allows use of skills like Craft from a distance at a -2 penalty

Create an Advantage: Use Will to Alter the environment or place physical impediments on a target. This could be things like Entangling Psychic Tendrils, Psionics Dust Storm, or Waves of Force.

Attack: Use Will to directly harm an opponent. Typically manifested in either pure bolts of force or in psychically launched objects.

Defend: Use Will to directly defend from physical attacks.

The psionic may also enhance their powers by taking points of Mental Stress. The Psionic may gain a number of additional shifts equal to their Will for 1 shift of Mental Stress on their power manifestation. You can buy additional Shifts on a 1 for 1 swap of Mental Stress. (E.G. A Psionic with a Will of 4 may take a 4 Shift Mental Stress hit to gain 7 Shifts on their next manifestation. Will 4 + 3 Extra Shifts = 4 Mental Stress Hit).

There are a couple additional rules that can be translated over from the Dresden RPG for shaping these abilities but we don't really need to go over them here. It makes for a good set of examples of Shift costs for a GM to work with though.

All in total his Starting Refresh will be a 1, so he's going to be having to deal with a lot of Compels every session in order to gain a decent stock of Fate points to use during gameplay. I don't actually see that as a downside though.

So with that figured out I think we have a very good baseline for Makass at the beginning of his adventures. Here's everything put together (I will make up a character sheet for him and post it, but right now you can deal with this):

Name: Makass

Aspects:

High Concept: Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse
Trouble: I WILL Be The Best, The Consequences Be Damned!
Phase 1 Aspect: Weak? I’ll Show You Who’s Weak!
Phase 2 Aspect: Shock and Awe
Phase 3 Aspect: You’re Wasting My Time, Chattel…

Refresh: 1

Skills:
Great    (+4): Will
Good     (+3): Intimidation, Lore
Fair         (+2): Deceit, Notice, and [Reserved]
Avg.       (+1): Resources, Investigation, Empathy, and [Reserved]

Stunts:
Make an Example Out of Him - Once per Scene, when Makass invokes his Aspect "Shock and Awe" while defeating an opponent, he may for the remainder of the scene he may use Intimidate as a defense action against combat actions against opponents who witnessed the take down.

Extras:
Psionic Powers: Telekinesis
Permissions: One Aspect reflecting that you've unlocked your psionic potential
Costs: Skill Ranks (Will), -2 Refresh

People who have unlocked the psionic potential within their own minds are able to use Will to manipulate the world around them through sheer force of will. This Extra adds the following Actions to he Will Skill.

Overcome: Use Will to apply force to objects. This can be used in place of Athletics or Physique to overcome obstacles/etc. Allows use of skills like Craft from a distance at a -2 penalty

Create an Advantage: Use Will to Alter the environment or place physical impediments on a target. This could be things like Entangling Psychic Tendrils, Psionics Dust Storm, or Waves of Force.

Attack: Use Will to directly harm an opponent. Typically manifested in either pure bolts of force or in psychically launched objects.

Defend: Use Will to directly defend from physical attacks.

The psionic may also enhance their powers by taking points of Mental Stress. The Psionic may gain a number of additional shifts equal to their Will for 1 shift of Mental Stress on their power manifestation. You can buy additional Shifts on a 1 for 1 swap of Mental Stress.

Okay so that looks like a good build and a great example for the translation. I think I'm going to do a few more of these in the next couple weeks. This was surprising fun. Sorry for how long this was, hopefully the next one will be less long winded as I won't have to explain some of the details.

Fate Character Creation: Makass, Part 1

So I’ve been having fun playing around with Fate’s character creation system for the past few days and have been going through the process of Turning Makass into a Fate System character. Not technically difficult, but it’s been interesting to figure out some of the parts of it in order to get what I wanted out of the system. Which is exactly what I was trying for with this exercise.

Character creation in Fate is pretty straight forward. You start with your character idea. This consists of 3 things, your High Concept Aspect, your Trouble Aspect, and your character’s name. Like I said, pretty straight forward and simple, right?

The thing with the two Aspects you’re determining here though is that because they are Aspects you need to come up with a way of wording them that will allow them to come up in gameplay often. It is part of what makes the character who they are and why they do what they do. The more creative and/or double edged the phrasing the better (For use in Compels/Invoking). Some examples of what I think are good High Concepts included in the book so far include; Infamous Girl with a Sword, Wizard Private Eye (I wonder who that is…), Scar Triad’s Patsy in Riverton, Reluctant Lead Detective, Monster-Slaying Accountant (Owen Pitt reference!?!) and Ambitious Low-level Thug.

Each one of those concepts has some way of being both Invoked and Compelled by the players and GM to not only encourage RP, but it also says a lot about the character as well. For Makass, I’m building him as though he’s just starting out fresh again. He is an ambitious young telekinetic with untapped potential. So for his High Concept I’ve chosen to use “Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse.” It is short, sweet and has multiple layers of use for Compels and Invocations.

The next step is to determine your character’s Trouble Aspect. This is basically what complicates your character’s life. In here there are two types of Troubles, Personal Struggles and Problematic Relationships. Personal Struggles are going to be things that the character is struggling with about themselves while Problematic Relationships are going to involve other people. The book lists things like Sucker for a Pretty Face, Tempted By Shiny Things, The Bottle Calls to Me, and The Manners of a Goat for Personal Struggles. For Problematic Relationships it gives Family Man, Debt to the Mob, The Scar Triad Wants Me Dead, and Rivals in the Collegia Arcane.

This particular aspect is more negative than the others and is meant for you to be compelled by it semi-often. (It can be used just like any other Aspect though, just because it’s “bad” doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to you) It is also not a trivial matter either. This is something that your character has to struggle to overcome over the course of a long storyline. You don’t want it to sound dull either. Yeah you could put “Alcoholic” down, but that doesn’t have the same ring as “The Bottle Calls To Me” does. The first sounds clinical, the second makes it sound like he’s got a real reason why it calls to him. What happened to cause this? Another example the book gives is “The Criminal Underworld Hates me” as the Trouble for someone with the High Concept “Lead Detective.” It calls it kind of a boring aspect. Which it really is. Of course the Underworld hates you, you’re a lead detective. How can you spice it up? Well, they recommend something like “Don Giovanni Personally Hates Me.” Boom! You have a specific character with an obviously personal reason for disliking him. It gives you something that can be resolved, a rival that will complicate the story, and a history between the two characters that you can build on.

So Makass has some things about him that are potential Trouble Aspects. First off, he’s an impatient, arrogant prick. That’s okay, but is really too general for a Trouble Aspect. He’s got a little bit of a case of psionic short man’s syndrome., another potential candidate, but that feels more like a general aspect to me rather than something that really complicates his life constantly. At this point in his life he has abandoned his responsibilities with the Pheonix Order to pursue expanding his powers on his own. The Order was never really established as an entity, just more as a general background concept. I always pictured them as a mostly-benevolent organization though and one that one wouldn’t be dealing with on a regular basis, so basing the Trouble on that doesn’t sound too appealing to me. His journey and story has always seemed more of a personal one to me anyways so basing a Trouble off of his relationship with an organization doesn’t feel right to me. But he is obsessed with gaining more strength to power and enhance his abilities to prove himself to said organization, and is constantly pushing himself to improve, sometimes at the detriment to his health and body. That feels like the right spot to start for me.

So he’s obsessed with power. That is in and of itself a good point to start with, but that seems a bit more evil than I’m wanting to make him, at least at the start of his journey. Just putting something along the lines of “pushes himself too hard” is also pretty weak and doesn’t seem to touch upon the darker side of his lust for power enough, plus both are pretty damn bland. So with those two extremes in mind, how do I come up with the right balance and wording? I’d go with “Has a Vegeta Complex” but that doesn’t fit the setting and only makes sense to those people who know DBZ well enough. Maybe a good way to word that is “I WILL be the best, the consequences be damned!” (Yes, with the Caps lock on). I think this appropriately captures his drive and obsession with the dark potential that lays at the edges of it all.

The next step is picking a Name, well that’s an easy one…

So, here’s how we look so far

Name: Makass
Aspects:
High Concept: Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse (signifies his abilities, his skill level, and his potential)
Trouble: “I WILL be the best, the consequences be damned!” (shows his obsession with expanding his powers and proving his strength no matter the cost)

Okay. that’s a really good start. Time to move on to the next step. In this new edition of Fate, the number of aspects a character starts with has been decreased from 7 to 5 (This includes Trouble and High Concept). So we have 3 more to create with this character. The idea behind this part of the process is to develop your character and their relationship to the world and the other members of the group. You do this using what they like to call the “Phase Trio.” An (obviously) 3 part process for exploring these. First step is Your First Adventure. What brought the character onto their current path? Second step is to randomly pass out your first adventure to a second person who then decides how they participated in that adventure. You decide how your character helped in that adventure and write up an aspect that reflects this. Step 3 is step 2 again, but with another character that you haven’t interacted with yet. Obviously this is designed to help connect the group in an organic and collaborative way.

Obviously this is really hard to do it exactly the way I just described in an exercise like this so I’m just going to not even attempt a half-assed version of it. Instead I’m going to try to explain the Aspects I’m picking and why. Maybe even give a basic description of what he’d do to justify that particular one.

So I previously mentioned his Inferiority complex/psionic short man’s syndrome and his Arrogant/Impatient Dickheadedness, so those are probably good things to turn into Aspects. Other things about the character are his willingness to use and abuse his powers for dramatic effect (and just because he can. He is also a firm believer in the concept of Shock and Awe, believing Intimidation and Fear are extremely useful tools in getting what he wants with less effort while still showing off his superior abilities. The using and abusing powers seems like something that can fit into all of the other potential aspects I’ve mentioned here so, if I word them right I can incorporate that idea into the character’s Aspects anyways.

So in our pseudo-phase 1, I come up with his adventure. This one is actually semi-important. In this he goes out with some other members of the order to face down some type of threat they’re sworn to defend against. He is either easily beaten by what they face, or his powers fail and it causes the deaths of others he is with. This is where he decides that the order isn’t doing him any good tapping into the potential he is told exists within him and starts to plan his departure. This leaves him with an inferiority complex related to his powers.

Implying any type of weakness in his abilities will make him want to show them off directly to that individual. Possibly through a direct exercise of his powers in an attempt to intimidate the person who slighted him. Now, Inferiority Complex or Psionic Short Man’s Syndrome are good starting points for this Aspect but don’t carry enough into the Invoke category for my tastes. Maybe it should be something he’d say, particularly irritated and defensive phrase. That might add the right edge of flavor to it. I think “Weak? I’ll Show You Who’s Weak!” is an appropriate statement. It combines the themes into an appropriately flavorful Aspect and lets it be used in as an Invoke more easily. It also adds a bit of flavor to his personality by giving a slight insight to how he speaks.

Pseudo-phase 2 is his interaction in someone else’s adventure. This is his first time participating with someone outside of the order so he’d likely want to establish some type of reputation quickly. This is where the Shock and Awe would likely show up. The phrasing of this one is already pretty good and can make for some good Compels as well as Invokes while being a phrase that creates a strong image in your head. So “Shock and Awe” it is.

Pseudo-phase 3 will be his 2nd interaction with the rest of the group. This seems like a good point for his attitude to come out, exposing just a bit more of who he really is to the other group members. “Arrogant, Impatient Prick” is a rather bland Aspect though. It also has very limited Invoke opportunities I’d think. So the phrasing needs to be worked on a bit. Hmmm… Well ,let’s think about this a little bit. Arrogance is overconfidence in ones abilities and/or status. So saying things like “Do you know who I am?” or “Do you know what I could do to you?” are appropriate. Those phrases also add that little bit of dickitude I’m going for, but they don’t quite reach that image of impatience I’m looking for here.

Impatience is obviously a lack of patience. So he wants things done quickly, so this implies a quote like “Why isn’t this done NOW!?!” or “I don’t have time for this” He wants it done by his command, completed quickly and all because he is better than those he’s telling to do something. OH! I know!“You’re Wasting My Time, Peasant…” is a good one. It implies he despises waiting, he sees his time as more important (possible inflated self worth), and he’s being a dick about it. Maybe replace the word Peasant with some type of derogatory term for non-psionic people. Maybe “Chattel,” yeah I like the sound of that one. “You’re Wasting My Time, Chattel…” is what I’ll go with for now. Impatience, arrogance, and dickheadedness in a phrase with a derogatory name for non-psionics thrown in for flavor.

Plus Chattel is a great word for this, “an item of moveable personal property” because he’s a telekinetic, get it!?!

Okay so that’s all 3 phases of the Phase Trio. Only one more step left in this process, but first let’s Recap where we are.

Name: Makass
Aspects:
High Concept: Aspiring Psionic Powerhouse
Trouble: I WILL Be The Best, The Consequences Be Damned!
Phase 1 Aspect: Weak? I’ll Show You Who’s Weak!
Phase 2 Aspect: Shock and Awe
Phase 3 Aspect: You’re Wasting My Time, Chattel…

I think that’s a good place to stop for today. Next time we’ll get into the hardest part of this for someone new to the system with minimal help, Stunts and Extras.

There's Something About FATE...

So I’ve been looking through the PDF of the new version of the FATE RPG and trying to get a firm grasp on the system. Everything I’ve read about it so far is wonderful and touches upon everything that I love about the RPG genre, which is primarily the story. The system is relatively simple and attempts to create a way to encourage Role Playing through some core mechanics. It looks like something extremely fun to do and reminds me of the wonderful times I had back when I was first being introduced to RPGs through Everway.

Basically the characters are based around “Aspects” which are simple depictions of your character’s personality, upbringing, etc that play into how they interact with the world. You can use an aspect to gain an advantage on a roll or give you a reroll by spending a Fate Point as long as it fits with the circumstances. Conversely, a character’s Aspects can be used in what they call a “Compel” to have them do something that the character would do, which in turn causes whoever was causing the compel to gain some type of advantage over you.. You can choose to ignore the Compel by spending a Fate Point or you can take the compel which gives someone the advantage, but also rewards the character with a free Fate Point.
I’m not going to go too deeply into the mechanics of it all right now because I’m pretty sure I did some of that already in a previous post somewhere back there when talking about the Dresden Files RPG, which uses this system as its baseline. There are some minor differences between FATE 3.0 and Dresden, but really they’re pretty minor differences in the long run and it won’t make much of a difference to talk about them here.

(If you want to read more about the system check out my buddy's blog or the FATE RPG's official website)

One thing I am wanting to do is to learn the character creation system of this game and to explore how flexible it is. To do that I am revisiting some of my old Everway characters and rebuilding them as Fate characters. Now, this isn’t exactly a perfect system here. Fate is something where there is a lot of interaction with the GM and other players to help ensure that the setting, group and abilities are all understood by those who are playing together and that all of their stories intertwine in a way that makes sense. Doing this with characters who are already established and have powers that are going to be a challenge to define without a GM giving their stamp of approval on them is going to be very difficult and may not be the best way to showcase the system right now.

That being said, it isn’t going to stop me and I’m going to attempt this exercise anyways so that I can learn the process and refine my own understanding of the system. Maybe I’ll even finish some more of the character profiles I enjoy doing so much along the way.

My next post will be my first attempt at this. I will take him through the steps the rulebook says, minus some of the interaction with other players stuff because it’s just me writing this thing up. I might attempt to bounce some ideas off people I know who are interested in this and reading the rulebook and gushing over it as much as I am (you know who you are!).

Anyways, I’m thinking that the first character to be converted will be Makass because he’s still one of my favorites and one of my most fleshed out characters from that time period.

Tony Stark, Master Articifer

So some buddies of mine have been doing a series of blog posts about translating the Avengers into Pathfinder characters. Nothing super specific, just the high concept and general path they’d take with the build. It’s a fun little exercise and pretty entertaining to read their counter points. (You can read those here.)

This week they did Ironman. I read both of their descriptions and disagreed heavily with both of them. That tends to happen when I see someone playing around with the high concepts of one of my favorite characters though. The first one made him into a power/steam armor Fighter, while the second made him into an Alchemist. The Alchemist build is closer to what I would consider to be a more accurate build, but it is still very far off from what I would consider to be Tony Stark. The Steam Armor Fighter build I’d think would be more accurate for Warmachine or one of Tony’s enemies, but not Stark himself.

That is what both of these are missing. The Alchemist build gets some of it right, but falls short of what you’d expect from Tony Stark. His strengths are not in his combat abilities, they are in his ingenuity, creativity, and intelligence. Take away his suit and he’ll just build a better one. He learned science while following in his father’s footsteps creating some of the most advanced technology in the Marvel Universe, and I mean he personally helped design and create this stuff. There is a very clear path to take here and that is a crafting Wizard.

Now as I go through this build you need to understand how I’m going about this. I am not trying to build an actual playable version of him, just trying to design him as he should be in keeping with his character themes, concepts and abilities. I am going to assume that he his funding is unlimited and I might downplay some aspects that are common characteristics of Superheroes because they don’t follow character creation rules.

So first we are going to start with his race and class. Obviously he’s Human, with Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma as his highest stats. His physical stats aren’t all that important because his crafted items will make up for them later. Very clearly he will be a Wizard, that’s the closest thing to an actual scientists that this setting has in it. He deals with insane theories, formulae and then crafts powerful items with that knowledge. Alchemist would work if they could craft to the extent that a Wizard could. I don’t see alchemist as his kind of thing because the bombs just don’t fit as well as the idea of him crafting wands of Scorching Ray.

Source

He would have an Amulet as his bonded object because that’s close enough to an Arc Reactor implanted in your chest. (The life saving aspects of all of this Arc Reactor stuff will need some tweaking since D20 style games don’t handle terminal illness in PCs very well. Lots of DM permissions here.) His feats would primarily consist of Craft related feats and the ability to use armor with lowered spell failure rates.

So for a full 20 levels of progression, the Wizard has 15 Feats, plus 2 more for Flaws, which he definitely should have. His list of feats must include Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Wand, Craft Construct, Forge Ring, Craft Rod, Arcane Armor Training, and Arcane Armor Mastery. The last two need to have the character to have some type of armor proficiency and so rather than having him waste two feats allowing him to get access to those feats he will take one level of Magus with the War Warder Archetype or one level of Fighter.
I put Create Construct in there for a very good reason. In the Ultimate Magic book there is a modification for any crafted Golem called Construct Armor. It basically turns your construct into a suit of power armor that only counts as a Breastplate for purposes of wearing it, which means that a guy who constructs Golem armor who also has feats reducing his penalties for casting while wearing armor is going to be able to fully utilize it in combat.

These items are the core of the character build. Without these you can’t have the Iron Man armor. Now the creation of the Construct Armor is a problem because of the way D20 systems run their construct creation systems, basically he either needs to be a high level Bard, Cleric, or be able to cast Wish in order to complete these constructs himself. With unlimited funding, as Tony Stark should have, obtaining the requisite ability to cast a 6th level Cleric/Bard spell (Animate Objects) shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s just annoying.
Anyways. After you work out how he’s building the armor you can move on to the easier stuff, creating magic items that mimic the abilities of the Iron Man Armor. Everything is just a handful of Spellcraft rolls away from this point on. Lasers/Repulsor blasts, flight, “sensors”? Easy to create magic items that do all of that. The only thing that will limit him at this point is funding.

Once you get the armor, the rest of this happens naturally

All of his remaining feats can be used to fill out your particular flavor of Iron Man as long as those key points are filled. Any failings that the Stark has can be overcome with his magic items (aka technology). Little bits and pieces can be altered as needed, maybe give him a specialty school, add some discoveries, different types of armor, etc. Hell you could even forgo the Construct crafting all together and just craft up different suits of armor.

My only problems with this build fall under the “little details” section. As usual, D20 class based systems don’t account for things that comic book superheroes are just able to do. It’s hard to simulate Tony Stark’s Craft Skills, Knowledge, Professional Knowledge and Charisma with such a low skilled character class.

Not sure what else I could really delve into on this particular entry. Anyone else got some thoughts on it?