Fatefinder update

So here is what I have put together for character creation, included are new magic rules, influenced heavily by Ed Hastings work.  Please give me thoughts.

You may access my google doc of this information Here: Fatefinder

FATEFINDER
A Fate Core Conversion of Pathfinder
Ayrphish Arts

Part 1:  Character Creation

Your Character Idea:

You should have a high concept and trouble as per the Fate CRB.  You should make 3 additional aspects.  One of those should be similar to a campaign trait,  it should be your connection to the campaign.  If you are a magic user, you must take another aspect which indicates your magical training, or something similar, (if your powers were a gift from a god, the aspect should indicate that) this aspect must make it clear that are a wielder of magic in some way.  The other aspect(s) are up to you.

Skills

Acumen (Knowledge Skills, Appraise, Linguistics)
Allure (Diplomacy, Perform)
Aptitude (Craft: all non-magic, Profession: all)
Arcane (Arcane Magic, Spellcraft)
Athletics (Climb, Swim)
Ballistics (Ranged Attack/Defense)
Burglary (Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Disable Device)
Celerity (Reflex Saves, Initiative)
Deceive (Disguise, Bluff)
Divine (Divine Magic, Spellcraft)
Finesse (Fly, Acrobatics, Escape Artist)
Investigate (Perception)
Mend (Heal)
Nature (Handle Animal, Survival, Ride)
Physique (Fortitude Saves, CMD, Physical Stress)
Resolve (Will Saves, Sense Motive, Mental Stress)
Tenacity (Melee Attack/Defense, and CMB)
Thaumaturgy (UMD, Craft Magic Items/Potions/Scrolls)

Skills will be distributed as per the Fate CRB.

Stunts

Stunts will be made as per the Fate CRB.

Magic
(Thanks to Ed Hastings and his FAE - Pathfinder conversion)

In order to practice magic, a character must meet the following requirements:

• Skill ranks in the Arcane/Divine skill of +3 or higher  (You may rename these to something that fits your concept pending GM approval.  For example, you might want to rename Arcane to Psionic, or Divine to Primal.
• An aspect that indicates where your magic powers came from
• Lower your refresh by 1 if you plan on using 1 magic skill; by 2 if you plan on using 2 magic skills.

Arcane Skill

The Arcane Skill represents your mastery and knowledge of arcane magic.  The source of that magic could vary from training and research, powers inherent in your blood, etc.  The Arcane Skill should be coupled with an aspect that provides detail of the source of your arcane power.

Spells are not restricted to be drawn exclusively from pathfinder source material, but that may serve as general guideline as to what you are capable of doing with your magic.  In general Arcane magic is good for attacking and bending the rules of reality.

All arcane casters should have some sort of focus that will be defined as an extra.  This extra serves to limit what kind of spells you are capable of casting a given time.  If your focus is on evocation, that is to say, attack type of magic, it is unreasonable to assume that in a given scenario you use your magic to enchant your enemies.  Sometimes there may be some overlap, it will be up to the group and the GM to decide if your intended use of magic is consistent with what your character has practiced and demonstrated in the past.

Overcome:  The Arcane Skill may be used to overcome barriers created by other arcane magics.  Think of it like “Dispel Magic.”  When this occurs, you will make an arcane check vs the creators arcane check.  There maybe other uses of arcane magic to overcome barriers, such as locked doors, poor lighting, fog, etc.  Use of this magic must be justified by the caster’s focus, or if the barrier in question is a minor inconvenience, or something that could be overcome with mundane means, such as a locked door, there will be a passive difficulty assigned, possibly with a  +2 bonus.

Create an Advantage:  The Arcane Skill may be used to create an advantage.  In most of these instances, you will create an aspect that mirrors a spell from pathfinder source material.  Such as “invisibility.”  There will be a base difficulty assigned based on the spells level in the source material, see the chart below.

Source Material Spell Level / Base difficulty to cast
0    +0
1-2  +1
3-4  +2
5-6  +3
7-8  +4
9    +5

Success of the check will operate as per the original fate core rules.  Extra Shifts in the success may translate into extra invokes, this will be decided by the GM and the players at the time of the casting of the spell, and the number of shifts generated.

Spells that have a passive duration will generally last 1 scene.  That may be extended based on shifts generated during the casting of the spell.

Conjuring and summoning is also covered by creating an advantage.  (The below is taken verbatim from Ed Hastings magic system)
“Rather than allocating extra shifts from the Create An Advantage action used to summon the servitor towards setting a difficulty to be overcome, or buying additional invokes, extra shifts can be used to "buy" Aspects, Stunts, pluses to 4dF rolls for specific things, and stress boxes for a servitor's write up.
Stunts cost 2 shifts each, while extra Aspects, additional +1 skill-like ability bonuses, and stress boxes cost 1 point each.
Servitors can also be spellcasters, but must have a relevant skill-like ability at +3 or better.
Servitors are not necessarily obedient to their caster, but an Obedient Aspect (or similar) can be added to the Servitor to ensure compliancy, at the cost of a shift.
Servitors act on their own, but unless they have a skill-like ability, Aspect, or Stunt that suggests otherwise, they have initiative 0.”

Attack:  The Arcane Skill may be used to make attacks targeting a particular save (based on the pathfinder source material, or decided by the GM and the players at the time of the cast.)  This will be resolved the same way as all other attacks.  Shifts will translate to damage.  There are no dice pool  upgrades, so higher level spells from the source material do not translate to extra damage in this magic system.  To affect more than 1 target, the spell caster will need an aspect and spend a fate point to effectively utilize area of effects.

Defend:  The Arcane Skill is not used for defense.

Divine Skill:
(And any other created magic skill like psionic, primal, etc)

The divine skill will operate in all ways like the Arcane Skill above.  Focus should be described in different ways, and you should draw from divine spells in the pathfinder source material.

Fatefinder - Spells and Magic

Progress is coming along in the Pathfinder to Fate conversion.  Today I did some thinking on how I would want magic to work in the game.  The first thing I wanted to do, is try to balance the spell casters with the non-spell casters.  If the front line guy can attack over and over with his weapon, than the wizard should be able to do the same with her spells.  So I got rid of the idea that there were a limited number of spells that someone could cast 'per day.'  This will require me to pay attention to what spells someone creates so that they don't have world changing magic that can be cast over and over and over again.

In the next couple days, I'll set out some rules for creating spells, and the arcane/divine difference.  But what follows will be the bare-bones of the magic system.

I have also changed up my skill list a little bit.  So I will post my changes made after the section dealing with magic.

Magic

 For a person to use magic, they must have an aspect that shows where that magic comes from, how they got it.  They also must take either the Arcane or Divine skill.  Finally, they will have an Extra which will define how many spells a spell caster has at their disposal.

 That extra will likely mirror a pathfinder counterpart.  For instance, a spellbook, a familiar, a bloodline, a gift from a god, etc.  This extra should be consistent with the aspect that gave the character her magic.

 You will then define spells that will be ‘stored’ in that extra. The extra acts as your spell repository.  When creating and adding spells to your extra, it must be clear which of the four actions from the  Fate CRB the spell will do for you.

 Your extra may only house a certain number of spells.  The number of spells stored in your extra should be the total of your Arcane or Divine skill modifer, and add how many milestones your character has completed.   A significant milestone will add an additional spell to the extra.

 Example:
Kiera is a witch, who stores her spells in a familiar.  She has an arcane skill at +4.  Before completing any milestones, Keira may have 4 spells in her familiar.  Once she has completed her first milestone, she may have 5, 6 after the second, and so on.

 If a character has skill in both arcane and divine, you add the two skills together, and divide by two to determine the number of  spells known.


Example:
Ayr is a mystic theurge with a +4 in divine and a +3 in arcane.  Before completing any milestones, he would be able to know 3 spells.

Skills

Acumen (Knowledge Skills, Appraise, Linguistics)
Allure (Diplomacy, Perform)
Aptitude (Craft: all non-magic, Profession: all)
Arcane (Arcane Magic, Spellcraft)
Athletics (Climb, Swim)
Ballistics (Ranged Attack/Defense)
Burglary (Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Disable Device)
Celerity (Reflex Saves, Initiative)
Deceive (Disguise, Bluff)
Divine (Divine Magic, Spellcraft)
Finesse (Fly, Acrobatics, Escape Artist)
Investigate (Perception)
Mend (Heal)
Nature (Handle Animal, Survival, Ride)
Physique (Fortitude Saves, CMD)
Resolve (Will Saves, Sense Motive)
Tenacity (Melee Attack/Defense, and CMB)
Thaumaturgy (UMD, Craft Magic Items/Potions/Scrolls)

These changes were to spread things out a little more, and allow for some more specialization.  I think I like this list a little better than the first draft.

Fatefinder - Converting Pathfinder Skills to FATE Core

My game group is at an odd crossroads.  Some of us want to explore new game systems, and others are committed to the status quo.  None of us really want to quit playing pathfinder, but most of us could stand a change in the system.

Enter Fate Core.  This system prides itself on being "Hackable" and able to fit any setting.  So can it handle Pathfinder?  Specifically, can it handle the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path?  Mythic Levels?  I don't have all of those answers yet, but here goes the first post of many into a conversion process.

You will be able to find other conversions online, and they are all quite good.  I had no qualms with these other systems, but stubbornly enough, wanted to reinvent my own wheel.

So here is the first step in the process.  Taking the Fate Core skills, and merging them with Pathfinder skills, saves, attacks, and magic.  At this point, I'm not sure what to do with the primary ability scores, right now, I just don't plan on using them.

Fate revolves around skills to do most things in the game, and there are fewer of them then there are pathfinder 'skills.'  Job 1 is to merge somethings into the Fate skill system.  So here is the list I came up.  The name on the left is the name of the skill for my game.  The  skills in parentheses are what pathfinder skills it will cover.

Fatefinder Skills:
Athletics (Acrobatics, Climb, Swim, Escape Artist)
Burglary (Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Disguise, Disable Device)
Speechcraft (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Linguistics)
Investigate (Perception, Appraise)
Lore (All of the knowledge skills)
Profession (Craft: All, and Profession: All)
Nature (Handle Animal, Survival, Ride)
Fly (Fly)
Heal (Heal)
Sense Motive (Sense Motive)
Initiative (Initiative)
Melee (melee attack rolls, CMDs, CMBs)
Ranged (Ranged attack rolls)
Fortitude (Fort Saves)
Reflex (Reflex Saves)
Will (Will Saves)
Divine (Allows for Divine Spells, UMD, Spellcraft)
Arcane (Allows for Arcane Spells, UMD, Spellcraft)

That's all I have for now.  More to come.  What are your thoughts?

A Reevaluation of House Rules - Ability Scores

It was about a year ago, when I decided "Hey, my table needs some house-rules, that's what all the 'cool' gms do, and ya... I'M that cool..."

In the past year, there have been some successes with those rules, and there have been some failures with those house rules, and now I am considering version 2.  Let's talk about one of those rules I have been using, and what changes I am considering.

The biggest rule as far as how impacts the game, as well as the rule that I want to change the most is the rule governing ability scores.  Right now, our house rules say that each character starts with a 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8.  If they write a back-story, and include relevant traits, they get three free points to distribute however they want.  After racial adjustments, nothing can be higher than 20, there can only be 1 score less than 10, and nothing less than 7.  The original intent of this rule was to create balanced characters that really couldn't be min-maxed.  For those purposes, it has worked.

The problem with this rule, is that is has shoe-horned classes to certain races.  Having a race with a -2 becomes hard to use, as typically you would use a race that has a -2 to an ability score that you don't need.  So, that's where you want to assign the 8 as well.  However, this creates a 6 which is too low.  You can't let the -2 go to your second 'dump stat' and give it the 10, as then you would have two scores less than 10.

As I consider how to address this problem, I am considering two options.  The first is to go old school and roll for those scores.  That's how the Core Rule Book says to do it anyway.  The other option is a point buy, 15 or 20 most likely.  Neither of these options create definite character balance, and point buy certainly opens the door to min-maxing.  As I write this though, I ask myself, so what?  In the real world, some people are better at others at certain skills.  Even in fantasy fiction, some characters do some things better than others.  Balance is widely a myth, both for realism and for fantasy fiction.  Min maxing is the same.  Both methods, point buy, and dice rolling, are the methods advocated in the CRB.  So maybe the house rule that I used to make the game better, didn't really achieve that.  I should have just followed the core rule book all along.

How do you generate ability scores in your game?  What's your advice to a fellow GM?