I will use the following options by default in new Fate campaigns and one shot games that feature super powers. These options are taken from the Fate Core, Fate Accelerated, Fate Condensed, Fate System Toolkit, and Four Color FAE books.
In this campaign super powers are called aetheric powers. This document includes quick description with links and examples of how we will be handling aetheric powers.
Fate Condensed Skills list. https://fate-srd.com/fate-condensed/getting-started#skill-list This skill list may be altered at time of setting or character creation.
We will follow the guidelines about which skills can be used for which actions from the Fate Condensed section "Which skills can be used to attack and defend?":
- Fight and Shoot can be used to make physical attacks.
- Athletics can be used to defend against any physical attack.
- Fight can be used to defend against melee physical attacks.
- Provoke can be used to make a mental attack.
- Will can be used to defend against mental attacks.
Other skills may gain permission to attack or defend under special circumstances, as determined by the GM or table consensus. Some stunts may grant broader, guaranteed permission when circumstances might otherwise not do so. When a skill can’t be used to attack or defend but might help with it, prepare for it by using that skill with the create an advantage action, and use the free invokes generated on your next attack or defend roll.
Only 1 Fate Core style stress track (for combined Physical and Mental stress) with a 1 stress box and a 2 stress box. (i.e. [1] [2])
Only a single stress box may be used to soak the shifts from a given Attack.
I have removed the option of adding extra stress boxes or consequence slots for certain high skills. If a character is able to stay in a Conflict for longer than others, then they should take a stunt that gives them an extra consequence slot, or otherwise changes the rules surrounding that staying power.
Any of these stunts can be selected for a PC's free stunt slots, or at the cost of 1 Refresh.
If you want to use a stunt that is not on your sheet, you can spend a Fate point to "borrow" that stunt for the scene.
If you do this frequently with a particular stunt, you should swap stunts around to have it on your sheet, or spend a Refresh to add it to your sheet as another stunt.
We will use popcorn initiative as described in the Turn Order section of Fate Condensed.
https://fate-srd.com/fate-condensed/challenges-conflicts-and-contests#turn-order
At the start of a scene, the GM and players decide who goes first based on the situation, then the active player picks who goes next. The GM's characters are selected in the turn order just like the PCs, with the GM deciding who goes next after the NPCs have acted. After everyone has taken a turn, the last player picks who goes next at the start of the next exchange.
For characters who have aetherian powers, we will be following the rules from the Fate expansion book, Four Color FAE by Bill Garrett and Mike Lindsey, but with the Skills from Fate Condensed instead of the Approaches from Fate Accelerated.
Four Color FAE's only addition to stock Fate Core is the use of Power Facts, a very simple type of Extra.
Power facts are explained in the book better than I can:
Power facts are an enumerated list of narrative permissions conveyed by one or more of these aspects. Like any other Fate Accelerated game, your aspects establish facts. You define your powers by writing down these facts ahead of time.
Your list of power facts should have 3 to 10 items. Each fact can be as detailed or as vague as you want. Some groups will prefer very specific definitions for a given power ("I can run at 320 mph"), while others will be comfortable with generalities ("I can run at super-speeds"). If the group discovers that a power fact - particularly things like immunity or invulnerability - is too vague or too specific, the power fact can be edited during play with the GM's permission.
The skill used when a character uses an aetheric power will depend on what is being done with the power.
If you are using your Durable Metal Body and Shapeshifting power to change your hand into a sword, and use it to hack at someone in an effort to take them out, the Fight skill would be used.
If you are using your weather control to try to knock someone prone by hitting them with a blast of air from across the room, you would probably be rolling with the Shoot skill.
If you are trying to call upon the nearby root networks using your Druidic power to gain information about who has passed nearby, you would probably be rolling with the Empathy skill.
If you are trying to determine if there are animals nearby with your animal control power, you would probably be rolling with your Notice or Investigate skills.
If an aetheric power does something that changes the mechanics of a Fate Core rule, I will require a stunt to be taken to capture that changed mechanic.
For example, normally, to physically push another character prone, the Fight, Shoot, Physique or Athletics skill would be used. But if a character a has weather control Power Fact, "Can manipulate and generate sustained breezes and short gusts," it might make sense to try to Create the Advantage with Lore, instead, representing the character's special training to use their power to physically effect the world. For this situation I would require a stunt to be added to the character sheet:
Another example: If a power allows you to hurt someone with a punch more than if you were punching them without the power, you might like to take a stunt that gives you a bonus on your roll:
We are re-skinning the Fate Condensed Lore skill to be about knowledge of aetheric powers and how they are used.