A few rules questions cropped up this evening during our session finishing off Damned Cities. Usually we iron things out quite quickly and come to a democratic decision but this evening we struggled to come to a concensus and not wanting to bog the game down I had to make some quick decisions. See what you think:

Marshall Skarmen used the psychic power compel to order the Cleric to give him the last piece of the glass shard that she carried . The description of the power does not state when the controlled player performs their action. I went with on their existing initiative place but some players felt it should happen immediately and then they act normally on their initiative sequence, that just felt plain wrong to me hence my decision.

Secondly in a feat of heroic endeavour the assassin plunged the Luminous Reproach into the newly constructed mirror before the demon could fully manifest. Going on exactly the same initiative Skarmen opened up on semi automatic with his bolt pistol. Skarmen hit twice, the assassin failed to dodge and the assassin was already on -3 crit damage. I rolled damage for the first shot and this shot put the assassin on -10, it was clear that he would have to burn a fate point to survive. I then rolled damage for the second shot and this also killed him, it therefore felt he needed to burn another fate point to survive the second bullet. He slightly disagreed and felt the burning of the one fate point initially should means he survived the attack in general. As I knew that I would be awarding him a bonus fate point for his heroics i strongly felt the encounter needed to at least have some consequences for the character. So i decided to stand firm on my decision to require the burning of two fate points, he was fairly happy enough but I just wondered what others think of this scenario?

Hmm regarding the fate point, I believe 1 fate point saves the character from any death from a single attack regardless whether its a single shot, burst fire or even auto fire generating 8 hits each of them killing him.

If you make him pay for each hit actually killing him, auto fire just becomes even more insane than it already is as that could lead to potentially 5+ FPs being burned depending on the situation.

On your first rules issue, I'd take your side of the argument. A compelled character would indeed act on their turn to complete the command. After all, I can't see how being compelled mentally by someone else would make your body react much faster then it normally would. Besides that, it can safely be assumed that a character is wrapping up what ever it was they were doing the previous turn while actions continue around them until it's their turn again. After all, those who go last in a combat round don't have only a split second to do what they are going to do then stand about for a few seconds before doing something for a split second again. So, when a compulsion is placed on a character, chances are, that character is in the final movement of what ever action they were previously engaged in and as soon as they can recover from the fallow-through of their previous action (read, their next turn) they will then complete the compulsion that was implanted in them. I could see a case for the character acting immediately after the command is given, but in that situation that most definitely would NOT get to act normally when their normal turn time came as they already would have acted. There's no way that mentally compelling a person could make them move twice as fast and thus let them get two things done in a span of time in which they would have normally only gotten one thing done.

On the Fate Point issue, I would have actually done both things (the results of burning and the awarding of a fate point) differently but the end results would have been exactly the same.

When someone burns a Fate Point, they survive the situation that would have normally killed them, not the exact specific thing, otherwise things get a bit silly. If someone blows a character away in a full-auto rain of death, the FP Burn would save them from the situation of dying in a hail of bullets in that instant, not surviving the exact bullet that would have done them in only to die by the next bullet a split second latter. If someone Burns a Fate Point to not die after falling in spiked pit, they wo0uldn't survive the spikes only to die when they splat on the bottom. If someone burned a FP to survive being sucked out into the vacuum of space, they wouldn't have to burn another to survive again because they're still out in the vacuum. If someone gets stuck in poison-gas, failed their toughness check to fight off the poison, and then burned a fate point to survive, they wouldn't have to burn a second one a second latter because they're still in the gas and breathing. In other words, if they burn the FP, they survive the situation they burned it to survive by what ever way I can Deus ex Machina such a survival for the character.

On the flip-side, I would award a Fate Point for actions such as you described... but only if the character survives it without burning a fate point first. After all, if the character has to burn a Fate Point to survive the situation, then Fate has already had it's say in the matter. If the player doesn't invoke Fate, then fate still might have something to say on the matter and thus, a Fate Point would be awarded. That is, of course, just my justification to keep things from devolving into: stuck in a no-win situation? Things gotten to dangerous? No problem, just heroically sacrifice your self and no matter what, you can burn a fate point and it'll be awarded right back so you can keep on surviving perpetually! So, in my game, if a character preforms some great and heroic deed of epic danger and awesome, heroically sacrifices themselves, or completely embodies their Divination in a grand fashion, they get a fate point, but only if they can survive such without having to burn a fate point in the process -an act of epic awsome both in game and out of game as well in other words ;-)

So, in the end, in both our games, different approaches would have lead to the same end: the Assassin would have ended up in the same shape, one FP lighter.

On the FP issue: I'm pretty sure the book says burning a Fate Point allows you to escape the certain death scenario completely, regardless of how many bullet hits you, or if you are immedeately crushed by a steamroller afterwards... When you burn FP Fate simply does not allow you to die, but that does not preclude having every bone in your body crushed, losing hands, eyes, legs and anything short of the head.

I also allow the burning of FP to avoid certain disability - permanent damage to the character that cannot be compensated for through powers or technology... but that's a house rule.

A GM that demanded that I spent all my FPs just to avoid dying from an Autogun burst (and once you are at lvl 8 crit every hit will be autokill) is a GM I stop playing with.