There have been a few threads asking for possible names for human archetypes themed around Agility, Cunning, and Willpower (to go along with the Average Human, Laborer, Intellectual, and Aristocrat from the Core Rulebook). What I haven't seen much of is ideas for what those archetypes' special abilities might be.

Now, if we go by the four human archetypes in the book, human special abilities all seem to fall into the pattern of "Once per session, your character may spend a Story Point as an out-of-turn incidental. If they do so, X happens." Would the following special abilities be balanced compared to what we see in the book?

Nimble: Once per session, your character may spend a Story Point as an out-of-turn incidental to perform an immediate free maneuver. This maneuver does not count against your two-maneuver limit for your next turn.

I think this ability is neat for an Agility-based archetype, but I wonder if it's overpowered, even with the once-per-session and Story Point limitations.

Backup Plan: Once per session, your character may spend a Story Point as an incidental. If they do so, they gain the normal benefits of using the Story Point, but the Story Point remains in the players' pool and is not added to the Game Master's pool.

This fits the Cunning archetype, and almost mimics the effects of the Average Human's ability. The difference is that this ability requires the Story Point to be used immediately, while the Average Human ability can be used simply to prevent the GM from having access to a Story Point. That said, I wonder if this ability needs something more to make it at least as good as the Average Human's ability.

Force of Will: Once per session, your character may spend a Story Point as an incidental. If they do so, during the next check they make during that turn, you count their ranks in the skill being used as equal to their Willpower.

This is just a Willpower-based archetype reskin of the Intellectual's special ability. As such, it's a bit ho-hum. Anyone have other suggestions?

Nobody? My main concern is that the newer abilities may be overpowered or not powerful enough to be worthwhile. Another idea that could go for the Cunning archetype or the Willpower archetype:

Slippery (Cunning) / Force of Will (Willpower): Once per session as an out-of-turn incidental, when the Game Master spends a Story Point, you may block the move and prevent the Story Point from being spent. [And perhaps it gets added to the players' pool anyway?]

Nimble: Once per session spend a Story Point to take an immediate manoeuvre, this may be out of turn or you may choose to take a third manoeuvre in a round. This is a free manoeuvre and as such no Strain is required to use it, although any strain from the manoeuvre itself is suffered as normal.

in other words it’s a great example of powerful but limited. Definitely the right choice

On 27/04/2018 at 2:55 PM, SavageBob said:

Force of Will: Once per session, your character may spend a Story Point as an incidental. If they do so, during the next check they make during that turn, you count their ranks in the skill being used as equal to their Willpower.

Why not simply replace the characteristic normally used with the skill?

Opportunist :

Once per session, when you are making an Opposed Skill Check, treat the opponents Characteristic as Two and their Skill Ranks as Zero.

6 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Why not simply replace the characteristic normally used with the skill?

The wording for this one is straight out of the CRB; I've just substituted Willpower for Intellect. I suppose it's because using Intellect for skill ranks (or, by extension in my home-brew, Willpower) yields better results more of the time on average. Unless your Intellectual has bought several ranks of the skill in question, using Intellect to substitute for skill ranks is probably going to be more useful more often than simply transposing the skill to Intellect, but I can see it being done either way. But, ultimately, I was just parroting what's in the CRB.

I'm still on the fence about this ability versus one that lets you reject a GM use of a Story Point. GM: "I'm going to use a Story Point to upgrade that attack." PC: "I'm using Force of Will. Your Story Point has no effect."

6 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Opportunist :

Once per session, when you are making an Opposed Skill Check, treat the opponents Characteristic as Two and their Skill Ranks as Zero.

This could also be used for a Willpower-based archetype (again, called "Force of Will" or "Undaunted" or something). I rather like this one for Willpower and may use it instead of the Brilliant! reskin above, just to distinguish the two archetypes better.

Not related to the special abilities, but the names I use for the other three human characteristic-based archetypes are:

Agility - Athlete

Cunning - Survivor

Willpower - Executive

17 minutes ago, Direach said:

Not related to the special abilities, but the names I use for the other three human characteristic-based archetypes are:

Agility - Athlete

Cunning - Survivor

Willpower - Executive

I like those. I'm going with Tumbler, Trickster, and Disciple currently. I thought about Athlete, but it seems weird when Athletics and Resilience are Brawn-based .

28 minutes ago, Direach said:

Not related to the special abilities, but the names I use for the other three human characteristic-based archetypes are:

Agility - Athlete

Cunning - Survivor

Willpower - Executive

I went with Competitor for Agility and Opportunist for Cunning. I hadn't put together a Willpower archetype yet.

9 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

I like those. I'm going with Tumbler, Trickster, and Disciple currently. I thought about Athlete, but it seems weird when Athletics and Resilience are Brawn-based .

These are actually really good for a fantasy campaign world.

On 4/27/2018 at 10:05 AM, SavageBob said:

Nobody? My main concern is that the newer abilities may be overpowered or not powerful enough to be worthwhile. Another idea that could go for the Cunning archetype or the Willpower archetype:

Slippery (Cunning) / Force of Will (Willpower): Once per session as an out-of-turn incidental, when the Game Master spends a Story Point, you may block the move and prevent the Story Point from being spent. [And perhaps it gets added to the players' pool anyway?]

This would be slightly overpowered at its base ability. If you were to add the point to the player pool, it would be moreso. (For comparison, the base human ability allows the player to take a point from the GM's pool and put it in the player pool. This would do that, plus prevent the GM from using the point.) My biggest concern, however, would be that this ability would remove, in some small degree, GM agency.

35 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

This would be slightly overpowered at its base ability. If you were to add the point to the player pool, it would be moreso. (For comparison, the base human ability allows the player to take a point from the GM's pool and put it in the player pool. This would do that, plus prevent the GM from using the point.) My biggest concern, however, would be that this ability would remove, in some small degree, GM agency.

Yeah, I can see the GM agency thing. I think the game should be player-focused anyway, so a once-a-session PC veto on a GM Story Point is kind of fun in my opinion. But it would require the GM to agree that a once-per-session veto isn't stepping on their toes too much. Maybe to exercise the veto, the Cunning PC has to also use a PC Story Point? That way, the choice to veto comes with a slight setback (losing a Story Point from the players' pool).