This is the thread for discussion of Fate Core, rules questions pertaining to Fate Core etc.

Okay, here's a question for you...

I'm developing a character for Fate Core in a SF setting, wherein the character is a a master Chef & Alchemist.

What skill should be the pinnacle skill?  Lore?  Crafts?

Sure, I know I can clarify anything with stunts.   How would you do this?

Well assuming you don't want to alter the Default Skill list in your game, I'd probably go with Lore since Crafts, IIRC, is for Engineering etc, and it seems like someone who is an alchemist is more closely aligned with Scholarly pursuits than they would be repairing or designing heavy machinery. That might just be me though.

Like you said, you can use Stunts or Extras to flesh out your Alchemy.

Yeah, that was my interpretation as well.  But Crafts is all about the use of tools... and cooking is also all about the use of tools.  So there is a cognitive association there for me.

Since it's not at all a key skill for the story or game-setting,  I'm not suggesting a change to the skill lien-up.  The alchemy art is to justify the cooking and the darker side of the character... poisons and the like.

I just couldn't see any other approach to it.

I believe you have it backwards. Many skills are about using tools. Crafts is about building, modifying, and repairing tools.

Being an expert cook would simply be an Aspect. Most of the time there won't be any game mechanics involved in cooking. Want to make a nice meal for yourself and some friends, just declare that you do and use the Aspect to justify it.

When there are game mechanics involved, you will use one of the skills.

Want to make a good impression with your cooking? Use Rapport.

Make money? Your cooking Aspect justifies a high Resources skill.

Want to detect a poison hidden in food or drink? Use Notice or Investigate.

Want to poison someone? Best fit, Lore. Some GMs might go with Shoot - inflicting damage at range using a weapon (in this case toxic food).

In all of these cases, you can spend a Fate point and invoke your Cooking Aspect for a +2 or reroll.

Remember, your Aspects are always there. If you have an Expert Cook Aspect, even when not rolling what you cook is better.

I thought I made it clear that I didn't think Crafts was a good fit.   Similarly, I do not feel that an Aspect alone adequately models such a pinnacle-skill.  To accurately model it, we need both an Aspect and a skill.

As a player making a specific point of having such a character, I am saying to the GM (and the table) that I want this skill to matter.  I expect there to be situations in-game where the use of this background and skill are important. And that means mechanics.

A character with a Mediocre(+0) ranked Rapport can, indeed, attain a Fantastic(+6) impact because of her meal.  But it can never--ever--be more than that, and there's only a 1.2% chance of that happening and only with the Aspect invocation.

Rapport does make sense as a fundamental skill to tie it to.  It's all about the impact the food has on people, after all.  I'm sure none of the players or GM really cares about the intricacies of filleting a mud-borne blowfish.  Even if it does mean carefully removing the poison-sac.

I think, to make this work, I need an Aspect, A high Lore skill, high Rapport skill and at least one stunt.  Probably (Lore: Specialization).

I think the specifics of preparing food would be covered in craft but I would say that there is more to being a chef than just preparing food. You need to work under pressure and work as a team so I think rapport is important.

If cooking would indeed be an important skill to the setting, I'd say go ahead and add it, but the player needs to keep in mind that by buying that skill, they're limiting access to other skills that, if important, could seriously hamper their ability to participate in other kinds of skill tests. Another thing to consider is, would this skill be utilized by anoyone else? This wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, many good stories have people with rather unique skills, but unless you're going to RP NPCs to have cooking contests with, the utility of the skill would be rather narrow.

If it were my game, I would definitely make it an aspect and then use a stunt, (maybe one that doesn't have to be powered, since it's so specific), for them to have a +2 to rapport if they are able to cook for someone. This ties the outcome of the food and the outcome of the schmoozing to one roll and leaves the character's apex skill to be something that'd be useful in other scenarios.

An alchemist in a SF setting presents another unique challenge. Maybe you'd want to split craft into engineering and chemistry and their apex skill could be chemistry with a broad, powered stunt to provide alchemical effects with their chemistry? Or just make a separate skill for alchemy, since its uses are far more utilitarian. This could be similar to the "Magic" skill for The Subtle Art found in the System Toolkit, basically it enables a person to write an aspect (luck, charisma, clarity, health, etc) appropriate to a curse or a blessing on their target, in this case, someone that drinks a potion. They suggest this lasts for 3 days or 7 if you succeed with style.

Since we don't have advice thread, I'll have to ask it here.


Any cool thoughts on how to turn raging dwarven berserker into Fate Core. My table has forced Pathfinder to Fate Core conversion on me and I've picked WarCraft III: Fall of Lordaeron as the setting. It's not that I don't have ideas how to make berserker cool in Fate Core, it's more about granulating them into individual aspects and stunts, rather than doing an unique type of character.

Could you explain to me what a raging dwarven berseker is in your setting?

If I go from the little I know about dnd, I'd say that dwarven berseker could be the core aspect and rage a stunt that gives a bonus to an attack roll using whatever offensive skill you choose to include (fight, brawl, hammer, axe ... don't know how specific you get in your skills) with the restriction that you can only start to rage right after you received a physical consequence?

That's a start. We'll call it a class rule. Every time he takes damage must spend a Fate point or rage. Then we add rage powers as stunts.


(Minor issue) Any thoughts on rage duration?


One other thing to consider that when he inflicts a consequence he can strike multiple foes. This would probably be a stunt, as well as converting physical to mental stress, two weapon fighting and several others.

Let me start with pointing out that Fate is more about the story than the crunch. If a character wants to fight with two weapons, he fights with two weapons. It's cosmetic, it's flavor, and those are not bad, because they make things look better and taste better. Though some hacks give stats to weapons. I don't advise it though, it only distracts from the fiction by adding number crunching. My general rule for fate is that if you can do it simple, don't complicate it.

The step from dnd to Fate is not only a system change, but also a genre change. You are no longer fighting against a GM to win an encounter, you are working together with them to create an epic story. In Fate, death is optional. Protagonists don't die, and you are a protagonist. So putting all focus on combat is no longer needed.

I'm not sure if the rules state you can cleave if you succeed with style, but I think it's standard in Fate. If you inflict more stress on a character than it can take, I think you can carry it over to another nearby character if you want and if it makes sense in the narrative. We could however give him a stunt that makes him better at it. Something like: "Because you are a Dwarven Barbarian, you get +2 on your attack with fight if your attack inflicted more stress that your opponent could take." Which would mean that you can take two more stress to the next in line, if I'm not mistaken. This might be a bit OP, but I think the limitations are big enough, depending on how you are doing weapons (as just flavour, or as adding extra damage). I haven't run many battles yet in this system.

As to the rage stunt, for duration I was thinking for the rest of the scene, but I also like how 5th edition DnD seems to handle it, as long as you are either dealing damage or receiving damage, once that stops, your rage fades. Or you could make it more powerfull by adding danger, that when you rage and you fail to hit an enemy, you hit the nearest ally in range (if any) in your blind rage.

Also, you might try this:

http://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/skill-modes

If I remember correctly, when you strike a mob, or mooks the excess damage goes over to the next. It was stated in the core or toolkit, that using weapon damage class is so potent, because dmg 4 great sword will take out 4 mooks in a single swing.

I happened to convert one of my old Warhammer 2ed characters to fate today and he was a Norse berserker. I made him a following stunt:

Unstoppable blows: +2 to attack or create advantage with Fight, unless the opponent defends with athletics or has equal or greater physique.

Maybe it is too potent, but I tried to imitate the fact that berserkers are usually strong, but not so good at actually hitting things.

I just did a little brainstorm. Not finished yet, but could give you an approach to character creation or something.

Dwarven Barbarian
As a dwarf you know and are good in drinking very different kinds of ale, beer and alcohol, except perhaps the elvish invention of wine and the halfling or gnomish atrocity called cocktails. You are good in everything that is dwarven culture and can recognise and identify any type of stone and ore on sight. You are also very, very fond of gold and tend to keep grudges. You are sturdy and can take a hit.

As a Barbarian you are very good at hitting things and becoming angry, making you hit even harder. You can take a beating that a normal person of your race cannot survive. You are so strong that you can basically bend iron bars.

Common troubles for dwarves:
Alcoholic, Greedy, Grudge (name it/describe it), proud, goldfever

Common troubles for Barbarians:
Dimwitted, Overconfident, Careless, Illiterate, Clueless, Violent Temper

Possible Stunts
Because I am a Dwarf ...
... I get a +2 to skill checks to defend against intoxication effects.
... One time per session I can shrug off all stress that is inflicted in a single attack/overcome.
... I can shrug off stress done in a single attack at the cost of a fate point. (alternative for the above one, if overpowered, increase fate point cost, or charge a fate point per consequence avoided)
... I get a +2 when fighting with axes and hammers
... I get a +2 when fighting goblins or giants (pick one)
... I cannot get lost when travelling underground (possibly overpowered)
... I can sustain myself on stone alone when out of food. (could just be always true because of the aspect being always true, or it could be special training for certain dwarves)

Frili, for someone who feels I'm making things too complicated, you sure look like you're having fun. :}

Anyway, dwarven part I have covered. Basically all you wrote I put under invoke/compel dwarf part of high concept.


Because I am a Dwarf ...
... One time per session I can shrug off all stress that is inflicted in a single attack/overcome.
... I can shrug off stress done in a single attack at the cost of a fate point. (alternative for the above one, if overpowered, increase fate point cost, or charge a fate point per consequence avoided)

These two are really good. I was thinking about converting physical stress into mental instead. Thoughts?


For Cleave, good thing about it is that literally everyone has done it. Here are my thoughts.


Cleave Fate Core way a la Tzuppy
You can hit another character when you inflict a consequence, rather than when you take him out.

Cleave WarCraft III way
In addition to standard stress you inflict, you also inflict splash damage to nearby characters.
Level 1: 33% stress is splash
Level 2: 50% stress is splash
Level 3: 80% stress is splash

Cleave Dungeon: the Dragon way
When you successfully hit an opponent and you score double the number of shifts than opponent's defense rating, you can hit the next opponent and so on. If defender scores more than half your number of shifts, each shift defender scores above half, reduces strength of your subsequent attack by 2.

Cleave WarCraft III way a la Tzuppy
When you score more shifts than unit's chicken leg rating (or spend a Fate Point), you hit the next unit.


Actually the last two approaches work for a wide variety of WarCraft powers, like Bash, Pulverize and such.



Thorfred, personally I don't see a berserker creating advantage often. How would that work?

Hahah. I've got a creative brain. Once it's set in motion I can't help but think about it untill I make something from it. I don't see me complicating it though, but rather defining what a dwarf an barbarian are.

As for physical to mental stress/consequenses, I think Atomic Robo has something for it, but I feel like it's very meta unless it fits in the narrative. It would otherwise kind of shake my immersion. For a barbarian it could be aspects of rage. A mental consequense might be that the barbarian goes full offense, not being able to defend. Or that he targets the one that hurt him (or her) until slain, even if it is not a wise strategic desision, and that he has to persue until either them or he are dead.

Edited in: Also, I like to look at dungeon world for the phase trio aspect ideas. Mainly things like bonds and alignment statements that drive character. In Fate you have the fun of rephrasing it though.

A barbarian might be on a quest for vengeance, and while it also seems fitting for a dwarf, a dwarf might also be on a quest for Gold.
A barbarian might want the world to bathe in blood, or might want to take over a rival ruler, or form a horde to conquer all.
A dwarf might be prospecting, hunting lost treasure, restore honor to a family ...

Then again, I'm just basing myself on vanilla fantasy fare.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:19, Fri 24 Apr 2015.

Hello  :)

I've just started reading Fate Core and have questions about situational aspects, consequences and stunts.

During a conflict, if anyone wants to use a situational aspect related to the environment like 'Dense Vegitation' or 'Lots of Rubble', do they have to spend a fate point?

Likewise if you're using a character's Consequences against them, like 'twisted ankle' or 'lost his nerve', do you have to spend a fate point?

And suppose my PC is Ryu. And I have a combat stunt named Hadouken. Do I have to spend a Fate Point to fire a Hadouken?

It depends on if you have any free invokes on those aspects. If you do, then you can use those instead of spending a Fate point. The rules and/or the GM will let know when that is the case.

As for the stunt, that depends on if the stunt says that it costs a Fate point when you create it. If it doesn't, then its use is free. If it does, then it costs a Fate point. That, again, is decided between player and GM when the stunt is created.