One of my group rolled up a Guard character this week which gave me no end of hassle. Fun, no doubt, but a git to kill. Hes got 6 fate points.

Step 1: Imperial world, roll up 3 fate

Step 2: Become Maccebus Qunntus +1 fate up to 4

Step 3: Divination: roll +1 fate up to 5

Step 4: Take Mara Landing Massacre for a +1 fate for a grand total of 6

We also worked out that you could also be a lucky mindwiped guard (roll fate 4) and still take the last two steps for a total fate 6 too.

anyone else come across this 'problem' yet? Did you cap the Fate? or just asume the Emperor loves them and get on with?

I think that it's a little bit much for a player to have 6 fate points and I'd probably have a word to try and convince any player in my games that chose that option to tone it down a bit. Otherwise they become an unstoppable force in your universe without introducing threates that would wipe the group (bar him). It's hard to make the player use the Fate without it seeming as though you're persecuting them as a player for what is a legit character too though the Emperor must know the character is going to be in a lot of peril if he's watching that closely...

Of course you could also introduce the fact that he is so blessed as a story line and have people start to revere him as a Saint in the making or something similar. There's always an angle for him to get shafted by the GM if you so wish and pretty much any boon can become a curse if manipulated correctly.

Having 6 'get out of jail free' cards is lots though in anyone's book. My guardsman spent a lot of XP after a particularly heroic series of actions to get his 3rd and then had to burn it not to have his legs removed by a gribbly monster 2 sessions later so I'm back to 2. C'est la vie!

It's not the staving off death and dismemberment which makes a high number of fate points attractive, it's the re-rolls and the other "lesser" uses of them. You're looking at 6 rerolls a session, or the ability to regain between 6 and 30 wounds a session, or the ability to ignore stunning effects or just go first in every round of combat. Having 6 fate points kicking about gives you a great deal of liberty since you don't need to worry about hoarding them for a rainy day (or when someone shoots you with a bolter).

That said it is legitimate, if somewhat unsavoury, but you definitely should make the whopping number of fate points is reflected in the character. Those with a great destiny will always find themselves drawn into the most exceptional (and horrible) of circumstances. Perhaps the character realises that he's blessed and acts rashly because of it, trusting in the Emperor to protect him. Or maybe, as Novafix suggested, people will notice that he's been blessed by the Saints. Possibly very powerful people with specific uses in mind for such an individual.

Can you imagine if he was void-born and could get the Fate Points back after spending them?

Then again, there was that awesome story about the acolyte with the concealed cavity who killed upteen million people, collecting weapons and armour as he went to escape a high-security prison thanks to his huge array of Fate Points.

I dont see anything wrong with it at all.

I wouldn't stress, its not game breaking. You could end up with a character with an invincibility complex, which would be fun to play.

Its only an issue if you want the character to die and fail, which is a horrible way to be a GM.

The question isnt whether or not the player can handle it, but can the GM?

I mean are you going to get mad at him if he takes the flagellant talent?

Seems to me this PC is destined for greatness.

Which is what the Fate points are supposed to represent right?

Of course, you're the GM so its up to you what you want to do with the game (remembering it is a game and you're players have to have fun too), but i think you'd be pretty rough to censure this player or reduce his PC Fate Points. And the worst thing would be to make the game more deadly to victimise this PC...it'll be unfair to this and the other players.

As Agmar_Strick says, this PC will presumably end up with a superiority complex - and excellent roleplaying opportunity.

Personally i'd really play this up.

Have NPC 'sages' keep saying things like 'you're destined for greatness; i see it in your stars', etc.

Have NPCs somehow 'sense' the PCs greatness and ask him to do all manner of dangerous things.

And presumably the other PCs will also 'sense' his greatness and expect him to taske on the obviously dangerous tasks...

Warning alarms blared across the ship as the magnetic containment fields around the plasma engines started to buckle. Soon the ship would explode killing the 1000's on board including the PCs

PC Tech Priest - 0 Fate: '3 minutes to critical containment failure. All the servitors are dead. One of us is going to have to go in there and manually open the pressure release valves'.

PC Adept - 2 Fate: 'You're right. there's no avoiding it. If we don't vent the pressure, the plasma drive is going critical'.

PC Arbitrator - 1 Fate: 'In there? Are you insane?! Its hot enough to melt lead in there. Whoever goes in isn't coming out. Only someone blessed by the Emperor might have a chance.'

All eyes turn to the PC Guardsman...

PC Guardsman - 6 Fate: 'What are you looking at me for?'

There is of course a partial solution to this...as GM you roll each PCs starting Fate Point total and keep it secret from the players. Sure they'll know their 'add ons' but they'll never be sure how many their starting total was...

Or you could 'go nuclear' and ditch the whole Fate Point rules, but that seems a bit vindictive just because one player read the rules and decided to max out his FPs...

Personally I like the idea that more fate points equals the character is destined for more greatness. The more fate points my group has the nastier I can be without having to worry about my game falling apart or characters dying untimely deaths. Sure fate points are kinda like cheat codes or extra lives in a video game, but unlike most video games the difficulty here does not have to remain static.

Luddite that is brilliant. I could kiss you, but I wont, I dont know where you have been.

That should actually be in the rules as well. Maybe even the more "touched" you are the more the Warp has it in for you.

Its the Ash from Army of Darkness Chosen One Syndrome!

THIS IS MY BOOM STICK!

Luddite pretty much said it with that legion-vast great example!

I reckon it's pretty shabby to censure a player for having made an extremely lucky character generation. It's one of the times a GM and a player should be making the most out of it story and character wise. Just like they would say, a low score on something. (Which happens all the time and I rarely see a GM arguing about that eh.)

Seneca said:

You can´t. "Mind wiped" counts as "world back ground". So, if you are "mind wiped" you do not count as "imperial world" which is a preq for one of your "last two steps".

But as already been said... no problem with that.

Has there been any discussion of taking the luck out of creation.

A point buy system may work in the game. Has anyone tried this?

I have a (somewhat) related problem involving Fate:

My two (seperate) player groups have adopted a House Rule variant on Fate Point use: a player can decide to use one for an automatic success instead of rolling. This can only be done PRIOR to attempting a dice roll. However, this success counts as having no degrees to it, so an opposed roll could still beat it.

Seemed pretty fair, but now the characters have very little challenge, understandably. They automatically pass the first Fear test or Dodge test in most battles (since most fights last only a handful of rounds, this is a BIG deal).

That, coupled with a bit of power gaming here and there (clever combination of Talent choices) make certain characters unbeatable and un-phased by any danger presented.

I tried to retract this rule and met nearly violent opposition! Oh well. I've learned my lesson.

In my experience, the guy with lots of fate points also spends them rather quickly in sessions... He re-rolls every little thing, ending up with too few when it really matters. No problem for me.

If you have used a FP, is it unavailable if you need to burn a FP?

The more fate you have, the easier it is to spend them on crap. Also, it would seem that in the game I'm playing in, the more fate you have, the more your 'destiny' is drawn to you. Detiny, in this case, is represented int he form of laz cannon fire.

Trust me when I say a lot of Fate Points do not make you immortal. My arbitrator recently died in a rather adventure packed game session from an adventure in a certain newly printed book. They make you bloody hard to kill, but not impossible to kill.

Fate points aren't there to make you immortal, they're there to stave off the dice doing stupid things to your character. That tier 0 scum just got lucky and blew your characters head off on the first scenerio of the game. You just missed an important shot on a character you needed to take down, spend a fate point.

Now that said, my GM did make Fate Points diminishing returns. Each session each time you wanted to tempt fate, it cost you +1 fate points to do. So first one was 1 fate, the second time cost 2 fate, and the third time 3 fate. He's also rather stingy on when we get out fate points back as well, helping to control it. At the end of the session it resets and we get to start all over again. The GM sees Fate as being the Emperor's Blessing. He'll help you out definatly once for cheap, but the Emperor wants you to rely on yourself, and not on him, so he makes it more difficult each time you call on him in too short a time.

Xathess Wolfe said:

So having an even number of fate points is useless?

1 fate point can do 1 "fate call" per game.

2 fate points can do 1 "fate call" per game, but only has 1 left so cant pay the 2 FP fee for a second one, and so forth.

No your right that's not right. This explains why you shouldn't wake up in the morning and post before coffee.

What I meant to say is that each session each time you want to tempt fate on the same type of fate use, it costs extra points.

So in one session

So if I want to recover wounds.. 1 fate point.

Recover from being stunned... 1 fate point.

Recover wounds again (same session).. 2 fate points

Re-roll... 1 fate point

Re-roll again (same session)... 2 fate points

Gah... sorry about that. So no there is a use for even number fate points, but you just can't keep spending fate points on the exact same thing through the entire session without consequences.

We have a house rule where you invert your wounds roll to figure your Fate Points, so any character with lots of Fate Points is really gonna need 'em.

You can only recover wounds with fate points once per session.

See I gave my players fate points after the last mission. They were happy. I then let them know that because they had the extra safety net I could increase the danger levels (they haven't been strongly tested in combat really).

I don't mind them having lots of fate points. It means I can run combats that WILL frighten them, but in turn probably won't wipe the team.

This makes me think all the more that there should be an alternative points based system for character building.

Allowing random rolls to over-power characters at character creation is a problem. Especially with something as powerful as fate points.

Anyway, I know there are proponents against point based systems because power gamers can pick it apart as well, but at least you can try to plan for that in the design of the game itself.

I had a similar thing with the Psyker in my group getting jammy and rolling EVERY possible bonus to WP resulting in a Psyker with loads of WP and a stack of powers right from the start. Leads to funny situations though where the party runs and she's like "a daemon? no problem guys lets go...guys?..er guys?".

I like that fated for great things though. They could have a disastrous background too like being the only survivor in a mag rail crash etc.