Non magical weapons with abilities

[Stonelaird01]

Hi all.

        I've been trying to create a hunter character somewhere between the Grimm brothers (movie) and the characters from the book The Historian. I wanted to keep him pure mortal but still give him the ability to stand toe to toe with more powerful characters. I decided one of the ways I could do this was to give him a weapon with stunts attached to it much like the item of power rules.

            GRIMM BLADE

                Stunts:

                           Grimm Purpose: In days long past this sword was used to slay untold numbers of fairytale creatures. Those that survived       remember those events with dread . +2 intimidation to any checks vs fae

                            Perfectly balanced blade: +1 ws when carrying this blade (similar to +1ws when weilding specific weapon types)


                             Crafted by a master smith: Ignores 2points of armour on sucessful hit




None of the effects are magical ,they are created more by the psychological reaction to the blade and by the unusually high skill with which the blade was manafactured rather than just going into walmart and picking up a random weapon off the shelf.

Another thing I thought that might give him an edge were common rituals. I didn't want him to be a magic user so the ability to reenforce his defences much like the defensive circles used in the literature without becoming a supernatural character seemed like a good idea. I remembered reading that common rituals should be rare from a previous post and I thought from a story point of view relying on aspects for their effects didn't seem like a good idea. I also thought that if it was to have an impact on story and gameplay it should cost something So after creating my sword I decided to do something similar for common ritual:
                         

  Stoker Grimoire


Stunts:

              Common Ritual: Defence of the homestead
+2 to the strength of the threshhold of the building you perform this ritual on . Building must have a threshhold to begin with. Ritual only lasts for as many days as your lore




I would be grateful for feedback...

[InFerrumVeritas]

As long as the character pays the refresh for the stunts and there is no discount (Pure Mortals should be able to use them, but shouldn't get the discount without losing their bonus refresh), you should be good.

[Papa Gruff]

As far as I can see the stunts are valid by the rules. I'd probably allow it like this and probably would even give a small refund due to linking the stunts to a particular item the character can be parted from. Yet it wouldn't be +3 like IoP ... more like +1 or something.

That said I can't see why you'd link them to the item like this. I'd probably simply put similar stunts on the PC and make one of his/her aspects an item aspect strongly linking him to the weapon. These stunts could even have the particular sword in them as a limiting factor, not needing any more restricting circumstances in this case.

[MAK]

I have used the gadget rules from Spirit of the Century for similar purpose. You buy "personal gadgets" with stunts and can the modify existing equipment in various ways.

Link to gadgets in SotC SRD: http://www.faterpg.com/dl/sotc-srd.html#improving-things

The rules as written assume a 1920's level of technology, so there may be some need for tweaking.

[BumblingBear]

This is an interesting thread.

I've actually been thinking of tempting my players with IOP weapons that have multiple abilities... and 0 refresh... but with a catch like a curse or something.

It may not be RAW, but the SPIRIT of the rules and the story is that no power is free.

I may just run with that.

[HumAnnoyd]

Several other FATE games (Diaspora, LoA and SoF for example)  use Aspects for stuff like this.  To use them you tag them like any other Aspect.  I find this a rather elegant solution myself.

[BumblingBear]

Several other FATE games (Diaspora, LoA and SoF for example)  use Aspects for stuff like this.  To use them you tag them like any other Aspect.  I find this a rather elegant solution myself.

That's good for fluff, or for folks with more than 7 fate points at any given time, but a creative player who did a good job on his or her aspects can usually find a way to invoke their aspects with fate points almost regardless of the situation, or at least the situations they built their character to deal with.