More Powers!
Each Power is preceded with a brief explanation, and followed by the Powers it's intended to replace.
If I could get some help with the problems I point out here, that'd be fantastic. And if I've made any grievous mistakes in my sleep-deprived state, please point them out.
First up, the merged knowledge Power. Every knowledge Power contained an Inexplicable Knowledge trapping, so I made that the root of the Power. I tried to represent everything that the various Powers did with upgrades. I'm a bit iffy on Dangerous Knowledge. The wording seems slightly off and I wish I could think of a good limit for it.
INEXPLICABLE KNOWLEDGE [-1]
Description: You know things. More things than you ought to know.
Musts: You must have an Aspect related to your knowledge.
Skills Affected: Knowledge skills.
Effects:Inexplicable Knowledge. You can learn or already know absolutely anything by making a successful roll with an appropriate knowledge skill. (If no skill seems appropriate, use Lore or Scholarship.) The difficulty of these rolls is set by the GM. If your knowledge is limited somehow, like by the sum total of all written information, resolve such limitations through Compels.
Dangerous Knowledge [-1]. Whenever you fail a knowledge roll, you may choose to succeed automatically. If you do so, you suffer a weapon 0 mental attack with an accuracy equal to the difficulty of the knowledge roll that you failed. Use your Discipline to defend against this attack. At the GM's discretion, you may be able to pay some other cost (in Fate Points, consequences, or something else) in order to know something without an attack.
Mental Library [-1]. Your memories constitute a library on every subject that you are familiar with. The rating of the library on a given subject is equal to the skill that is used for knowledge of that subject. You may access this library freely, and other characters may use it by questioning you in detail.
Superior Mental Library [-1]. (Requires Mental Library) Increase the rating of each of your mental libraries by two.
Searchable Mental Library [-1]. (Requires Mental Library) All research using your mental library is two time increments faster.
Mnemosyne's Shadow [-2]
Description: Normally filed beside similar abilities like Cassandra's Tears and Prescience, with Mnemosyne's Shadow you learn things without previouse experience or exposure to the subject matter. You literally pull knowledge out of thin air. You Know things....
Billy: "Where does their knowledge come from Bob? "
Bob: "That's still being debated. Mnemosyne is just the popular theory. It could be any number of things including a form of ranged Psychometry or a version of The Sight."
Skills Affected: Lore
Musts: Must have a High Concept or Trouble that reflects the ability and can be compelled frequently. Examples: The High Concept Mnemosyne's Errand Boy or the Troubles Knows Way Too Much or Insufferable Know-it-all.
Effects:
Strange Knowledge: You can use your Lore Skill to get Answers about a subject for a Scene. The difficulty of the Lore check set by the GM should reflect not just how general the knowledge is, but also how secret it is. However, you can't control the breadth or the accuracy of the information gained. You almost always get fairly random knowledge in addition to what is being looked for. For example, if you use the Shadow to gain knowledge about a Clued-in Mobster you may get information about not only his known aliases, but also his shoe size, favorite foods, number of sexual conquests, etc. If using it to find out the combintation to the safe, you might get every combination the safe has ever used and the significance of the digits to the safe's owner.
Dangerous Knowledge: For a price, you can get potentially "Game-breaking" pieces of knowledge such as the Dark Sorcerer's True Name. The Price is negotiated with the GM the same way as an escalated compel. Information such as this that could potentially break a storyline could be worth as little as a few Fate Points or as much as a Serious Mental Consequence.
Access to the Akashic records [-3]
Also known as the Library of Fate, The Source of all Knowledge and the Root of Magic. The Akashic records holds all the knowledge since the begging of the cosmos.
All Knowledge Gathered: Some one with access to the Akashic record can learn anything with a sufficiently successful scholarship roll (for balance purposes the GM gets to decide what sufficiently successful is).
Embracing Eternity: Someone with access to the Akashic records can boost their scholarship roll by taking mental stress (up to limit of the mental stress track) this involves them streaming massive quantities of information through their mind whilst searching for something specific, this method of browsing comes with the significant danger of losing your mind in the streams of data.
MENTAL LIBRARY [-2]
Description: Your knowledge is so extensive that you have no need for printed libraries. This power can represent a perfect memory, a computer in your head, knowledge of everything ever written down, or a number of other things.
Musts: You must have an aspect reflecting your extensive knowledge.
Skills Affected: Lore, Scholarship, possibly others
Effects:Mental Library. Your memories constitute a library on every subject that you are familiar with. The rating of the library on a given subject is equal to the skill that is used for knowledge of that subject. You may access this library freely, and other characters may use it by questioning you in detail.
Inexplicable Knowledge. You are no longer bound by the normal human limits on knowledge. You may make assessments and declarations concerning things that you cannot observe directly, either looking back through your memories to examine the thing again or perceiving that thing in mysterious and incomprehensible ways. Players should work together with the GM to work out the exact limits of this power.
Improved Mental Library [-1]. Increase the rating of each of your mental libraries by two.
Instant Recall [-1]. All research using your mental library is two time increments faster.
Next up, spellcasting with odd skills. Nothing much to see here, except that it costs 1 Refresh. I decided that making people buy each skill with stunts seemed unnecessarily punitive. Plus, this gets around the possibility of 1-skill casting while avoiding Supernatural Stunt nonsense.
ALTERNATE MAGICAL PARADIGM [-1]
Description: Your magic is different from everyone else's. Where most practitioners cast spells with mental strength and magical knowledge, you use other methods.
Musts: You must possess at least one spellcasting power in order to take this one.
Skills Affected: Any three.
Effects:Alternate Magical Paradigm. Pick three skills. For the purposes of any spellcasting powers you possess, use the first in place of your Conviction, the second in place of your Discipline, and the third in place of your Lore.
One of the first Powers I ever wrote was an attempt at DFRPG magical martial arts. It was called Special Techniques, and it was bad. Recently, I realized I could salvage Special Techniques while fixing Sacred Guardian by making a mental-stress-for-combat-boost toolbox Power. I like a lot about this Power, but the wording is iffy. And I'm slightly nervous about Rapid Flurry Technique. I'm still looking for more technique ideas.
SUPERNATURAL MARTIAL ARTS [-1]
Description: You can improve your performance in combat by channelling magical energy.
Skills Affected: Combat skills.
Effects:Special Techniques. You know three techniques from the following list. You may enhance your physical attacks and defences with them by taking a mental stress hit with a value equal to the combined cost of the techniques that you're using. You must declare technique use before rolling. You may only use any given technique once per roll.
- Enhanced Offence (1 stress): Add 1 to a physical attack roll.
- Enhanced Defence (1 stress): Add 1 to a physical defence roll.
- Holy Strike (2 stress): The enhanced attack is Holy, and satisfies all appropriate Catches.
- Brutal Strike (2 stress): The enhanced attack inflicts 2 additional stress.
- Resist Strike (2 stress): Add 2 to your armour against a physical attack.
- Whirlwind Attack (3 stress): You may apply your attack to an entire zone within its range, without risk of hitting yourself.
- Pierce Armour (4 stress): The enhanced attack ignores all armour.
- Distant Target Technique (X stress): Add X zones to the range of the enhanced attack.
- Rapid Flurry Technique (X stress): Replace the enhanced attack with X attacks. Each of those attacks suffers a -X penalty, but all of them benefit from whatever techniques enhanced the original enhanced attack.
More Techniques [-1]. You know three additional techniques. You may take this upgrade more than once.
Special Techniques [-varies]
Description: Supernatural martial arts moves, more or less. A staple of any decent fighting manga.
Skills Affected: Fists, Weapons, Guns
Effect:
Special Techniques - When you take this power, choose fists, weapons, or guns. Then pick a number of techniques from the technique list equal to the number of refresh points you spent on this power. Whenever you make an attack with the chosen skill, you may spend a fate point to add the effects of one of your chosen techniques to the attack.
Technique List
Long Range Strike. The range of this attack is increased by 2 zones. (This works for melee attacks).
Armor Piercing Strike. This attack ignores all of the target’s armor.
Area Strike. This attack hits everyone in the target zone (except yourself).
Rapid Strike. You can make a number of attacks up to your skill with one action. Each attack suffers a penalty equal to the number of extra attacks made.
Brutal Strike. The attack suffers a -1 penalty but inflicts 5 extra stress.
Sacred Guardian (Canonical)
And of course there's prophecy. This one's an obvious idea, so of course it's been done before. Here's my take. It does not include short-term King Bradley-style divination, which I think belongs in a separate Power. I'm not totally certain about the rightness of that decision, though.
PROPHECY [-1]
Description: You can see the future, or at least determine its shape somehow.
Skills Affected: Lore.
Effects:Divination. Add a Divination trapping to your Lore skill. Use that trapping for Assessments, Declarations, and knowledge rolls related to what will happen in the future.
Visions. The GM can cause you to have an infallibly-accurate vision of the future whenever he or she feels inclined.
Prophetic Visions [-1]
Bits and Pieces: Once per scene, this character may roll Lore against a target of Good (+3) to make an assessment or declaration regarding the scene or a character in it. This represents flashes of insight and relevant info being pulled out of the character's otherwise difficult to interpret visions. For an Assessment, the GM determines what aspect is revealed, while for a Declaration, the player may invent a suitable aspect, so long as the GM and other players approve. These aspects may be tagged/invoked as usual. This ability may not be used repeatedly to assess/declare aspects regarding the same character encountered across multiple scenes.
I've Done This Already: In exchange for a Fate point, this character may roll Lore in place of any other skill, except as an attack in combat. This represents a vision in which the character sees himself performing the action in the future, so he already knows what to do.
Major Prophecy: The GM has license to give this character a major vision, usually about once per session, describing its contents and possibly asking for a Lore or other roll to interpret it. These visions tend to reveal one or more important but vague aspects that exist in every scene until the prophecy is fulfilled. The player is encouraged to remind the GM of this power, as it can provide good plot hooks and potentially compels on the character's reactions to these visions.
Haruspicy [-2]
Reading the entrails of sacred animals (dependent on cultural or supernatural heritage) is more of an art than a science. The ability to divine omens from the liver, heart, etc. functions like Cassandra's tears - without the Catch, but with much more viscera.
