Tuesday, August 6, 2013

FATEsy Heartbreaker: Monsters and Treasure part 1


Treasure
In Dungeons & Dragons wealth serves a very specific purpose. It is a reward for doing well in an encounter. It also serves to help increase your personal power, through the buying of magical weapons, armor, potions, wands, and assorted sundry.

So to help do this within the confines of Fate, I felt it necessary to come up with a new system for wealth. I am not certain it will work, or be anything but an interesting mechanical aside. Feel free to ignore this section if you don't want to use it. As I said when I started this, this project is mostly for me to play around with new ideas I have had. As such it might be full of clever but useless things. Or heaven forbid, stupid and useless things.

Wealth in the Heartbreaker is handled through the use of a wealth points and a wealth cap. Wealth points work like fate points in most regards. However you can use them in an interesting way. You can spend a wealth point to get any piece of standard gear(weapon, armor, or whatever) or normal service(services can cost more if they are very rare or difficult). The wealth cap is the maximum amount of wealth points you can accrue.

Wealth points carry over from session to session. So unlike fate points they do not refresh. If it is the first session of a game, you either start with no wealth points or a predetermined amount should the GM or Table consensus wish to see the players start with more stuff.

 Wealth cap starts at the same level as your refresh, and every time your refresh increases so too does your wealth cap.The wealth cap can be permanently increased by decreasing your fate point refresh by one. this can only be done once at character creation and during significant or major milestones. Wealth cap is decreased when you acquire a magical item of some sort. Each will have its own cost in wealth, your wealth cap is decreased by that amount when you acquire the item

Magical Items
There are two kinds of magic items, Tokens, and Artifacts. Tokens are generally small items that can only be used once. Things like healing potions and scrolls fall under the category of Tokens. Artifacts are far more powerful. They can be reused and tend to really increase a characters power in an encounter.

Here is a listing of some sample tokens and their cost in wealth points.
Healing Potion: Depending on the type of Potion you get it will remove stress from one stress box once. A lesser healing potion costs 1 wealth points and removes the stress from the one stress box. The fair healing potion costs 2 wealth points and removes the stress from the two stress box. The greater healing potion costs 3 wealth points and removes the stress from the three stress box. Finally the master healing potion costs 4 wealth points and removes the stress from the four stress box.
Scroll: A scroll costs 1 wealth point for a blank one and 2 for one with a specific spell already inscribed on it. Scrolls can only be used by a wizard or a cleric, unless you are a rogue and take the Use Magic Device power. It allows you to store one spell for use later. Store one free use of a spell.
Magic Arrow: There are several kind of magic arrows. An adamantine arrow costs 1 wealth point and ignores armor for one shot. An arrow of accuracy costs 2 wealth points and grants a bonus of +4 to a single shot. A flaming arrow costs 1 wealth point and places the aspect of "on fire" on a successful hit. An arrow of wounding costs 2 wealth points and causes an extra three stress on a successful hit.
Potion of Resistance: When you purchase this potion you must decide on an element it provides resistance for, fire, poison, cold, acid, sonic, blinding, or something like that. For one round of combat you negate all such effects on your person and are immune to anything else of that same effect. The cost is 2 wealth points.

Magical Artifacts are far more powerful and dangerous than Tokens. All magic Artifacts have an Ego rating and a Purpose aspect. All magical Artifacts will reduce your wealth cap by at least one, sometimes more for a really powerful Artifact. When a player decides on an action that runs counter to the Purpose aspect of the Artifact a mental conflict with the item begins. The player rolls their Charisma against the Artifact's Ego. The Artifact has a number of stress boxes equal to its ego rating. If the player wins then the artifact will do as the player wishes for one week. If the player concedes then the artifact gets its way for a moment and the character does not take the action they were going to take. If the Artifact succeeds then the artifact rewrites one of the players aspects to coincide with the artifact's purpose. A fighter with the right power can alter the purpose of the artifact if the fighter wins the conflict. I have assembled hear a list of some sample Artifacts.

Gauntlets of Might
Ego: +2
Purpose: Might Makes Right
Effect: you gain a +1 to all strength rolls
Cost: -2 wealth cap

Sword of Dragon Slaying
Ego: +4
Purpose: Dragons Must Die

Effect: When facing a dragon you gain a +2 to all rolls versus that dragon.
Cost: -4 wealth cap

Wand of Wizardly Acumen
Ego: +3
Purpose: Wizards are the best for ANY situation
Effect: You may store three spells within this wand to be cast later. You can swap them out during an eight hour rest with an average intelligence roll. This can only be used by wizards.
Cost: -3 wealth cap

Bag of Holding
Ego: +1
Purpose: Everything Precious Must Be Kept
Effect: you can store any amount of items within this bag, provided it will fit through the bags opening.
Cost: -1

Boots of Elvenkind
Ego: +1
Purpose: Never make a loud noise
Effect: These boots make grant a +2 bonus to any attempt to do something quietly.
Cost: -1 wealth cap

Cloak of Invisibility
Ego: +2
Purpose: Always take the hidden path
Effect: when you wear this cloak you are invisible. you can only be tracked by sound or through clever use of aspects. You gain a +2 to any roll for stealth plus you can hide when normally it would be impossible.
Cost: -2 wealth cap

1 comment:

  1. I like this, but I find reducing the wealth cap for magic items somewhat countering hit I've. I get that you're trying to make a parallel to how Refresh works, but it just feels weird that a guy would be prevented from, say, stealing a chest of gold simply because he has a pair of elven boots and an elven cloak.

    Also, you don't explicitly say your wealth cap goes up when the item is lost, stolen, or used, though that's probably obvious.

    Not sure how I'd fix my first point other than possibly saying that Tokens are commodities that can be bought for wealth points (not cap), but Artifacts are a cost in both Wealth and Refresh, or perhaps are not for sale and can only get bought out of Refresh.

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