Based on something Ynnen said over in the Slayers thread in the WHFRP forums..

New Talent: Glory in Death

Prerequisite 4+ Fate points

Availability Every career path

This talent allows a dying character to make one last attack in the name of something they believe in, be it the Emperor, the Tau'va or the Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

The character must be on the brink of death, IE reduced to enough wounds to actually die.
They Burn1 Fate point to take a Standard action: Attack
Each Fate point after that must be used in one of two ways:
1: Gain +10% attack chance
2: Gain +1d10 damage

The player Must use up (Burn) all of their fate points , and not save any to “Miraculously Survive” the attack that would have killed them.

This allows a character to make one last action in the name of what they believe in, in the hope of bringing down their foe and make for really cool “Bragging Rights” outside of the game.

What's to prevent them from burning FP they just spent?

Edited to change "Spend" to Burn

With a prerequisite of 4 or more fate poins, this talent won't be readily availible to the majority of PC though, or do people think 4 fate points are easy to get? If so, you must have a really generous GM, awarding fate points left and right, and not making you face dangerous enemies as well. And would you lose the use of this talent if you burn your way down to 3 fate points?

Furthermore I don't see there being that much use of this talent anyway, you obviously have the fate points to survive that killing blow if you so wish, so where would be the situation you'd like to die and kill one more enemy? Why wouldn't you want to burn one fate point and try to survive? Did the GM put the PC in a situation where they couldn't win and it was just a matter of ending with a bang? Talk about an anti-climatical ending to an adventure.

I don't have any problems with it, but I don't think I would ever take the talent.

This thread is what got me thinking about the Talent idea

Whilst the character in the thread ~(and the career)~ is a Slayer, it would apply to any character who seems to keep surviving (no doubt through the player Spending or Burning Fate Points). Its one of those things like a Destiny or Dark Fate, something BIG is out there that will be the Final confontation for the character, not some little gretchin or Chaos Worshiping PDF Guardsmen.

It could be seen as more of a Story telling based talent. The character might be getting a bit (dare i say it) bored with the character and asks the ref for a Swansong encounter.

Its certainly not something i'd let any character buy in any of my games unless they'd reached atleast rank 5, perhaps even higher and spend/burnt a considerable number of FP's through out their time surviving.

And would you lose the use of this talent if you burn your way down to 3 fate points?

Technically the character would already be dead (ie they choose NOT to use any FP's) but it gives a good plot device for the rest of the group to get away whilst say Cpt Jenkins of the Mordian 6th holds off the hordes Gribblies or some form of greater daemon but knows he's going to fail ultimately (what with the last attack technically Killing him..)

And would you lose the use of this talent if you burn your way down to 3 fate points?

If you had exactly 4 FP's to spend and didnt want the character to survive, you use 1fp to activate the talent and then spend the other 3FP's as you see fit.

If they had more than 4 FP's then they'd burn 1 to again activate it, and the rest of ther FP's as they saw fit, going in to WS/BS or in to Damage.

They Could always do enough damage to incapacitate the Big Bad, they'd still be dead mind you, and it lets the rest of the group either run like hell (if they're not already running) or pump in the last amount of damage to finish the thing off.

Velvetears said:

A misstake I'm sure, but you quoted the same line twice and gave two different answers, just so you know. =)

I assume the first quote was supposed to be me asking why you would want to use this talent.

But you did misstake my meaning. I was wondering what if you purchased the talent and later burned fate points to survive until you only had 3 fate points left, could you still activate this talent, or would you be prohibited to, due to the fact that you only had 3 fate points left?

Since the effectiveness of this talent is directly related to the number of fate points you have, you'd still have to have a quite generous GM, who will give out more than a few fate points. I started my current game with 3 fate points and as of 4800XP, I've gained 1 and burned 2. And I'm playing an adept, so I don't get caught in crossfire as much as my fellow player who currently has no fate points left, after burning 4.

And when you finally use this talent, the attack would be just as easy to parry or dodge anyway, right?

I think the attack is, far, far too weak. given the character is definitely dead at the end I'd make it auto hit and auto Righteous Fury as well. Failing that standard attack after dooming your character is about the lamest thing that could happen, ever.

I'd also remove the Fate point requirement, it seems totally unneccesary.

Been a bit ill recently but i'm back on to answer to this now

Thanks for the replies so far, i can see where i've worded things could be confusing, so heres one we dummy tested in a game in the last couple of days that seemed to work pretty well...

Glory In Death (Talent)

Prerequisite : Character ~technically~ Dies (the last attack on them would have killed them)

Availability : Every career path from the 3rd tier of progression

Cost : 200xp

1. The player Burns a Fate Point to activate an out of turn action: Attack (For Melee attacks it counts as All Out Attack, for any guns it counts as Full Auto (or the next best attack option that does the most damage(Burst if possible, failing that then a regular Single Shot)
2. If using a Psychic power the player is forced to use the most damaging attack they have access to, However any Psychic Phenomena rolls are at -25 on the chart. Should the Psyker roll a natural 100 however they still have to roll on the Perils of the Warp chart with a +25 to the dice roll.
3. The attack Automatically hits.
4. The attack gains an Additional +2 Pen.
5. For each Fate Point a player spends (not Burns) they do additional damage (roll the damage dice and include all damage modifiers as per normal).
6. Emperors Wrath occurs on a 9 & 10, instead of the normal 10.

The Character can still survive however, by Burning a Fate Point as per normal.

This way the character essentially has to Burn 1 FP to activate the account, Spend any additional FP's for more damage and then if they're able to Burn an additional FP to some how survive the attack that would have killed them.

We dummy tested this with a Psyker and a Cleric and both kicked butt!

Any allies of the Psyker are best advised to run away fast before they activate this talent however incase thing go Bad with lots of 9's...

Why would you want to regulate a glorious act of roleplaying by rules?

In our group we have few character death's, but if it happens it's always an event to remember, if a character sacrifices itself we always allow a few words or some act of greatness.
We've never seen cause to make rules for it.

For Example:
My character in one of our 7th Sea campaigns was on top of the cathedral with the female main villain who made our lives more than miserable, he was severely wounded and the next attack would have slain him, no way to survive except by retreating (that was not going to happen).

So I declared my character would charge her, grapple her and would crash down the tower along with her, well it succeeded, my character didn't have any unarmed skills but since it was the end of the campaign and was dramatic (the main villain was his true love (star crossed lover flaw) the GM allowed it.
Result, we had to play an additional session to roleplay my character burial. This made the campaign very memorable, my character was a true hero of the empire, had a state burial and a few statues erected in his name.

My point is, don't use rules for heroic death, make it an excellent rpg occasion...

Santiago, Hopefully you'd have read through the thread that lead me to make the talent, it'll go a long way as to helping you understand why such a Talent could come about.

Also, last time i checked, we're playing DH, not 7Seas.

What's good for one system doesnt work in another.

Not at all trying to "regulate Roleplay by rules" just posting a talent which fits in pretty much with the ethos of the game itself, IE: all doom & gloom and only in death can we sometimes do that one good thing in our lives.

"don't use rules for heroic death, make it an excellent rpg occasion"

Again, the talent fits in with both, it's a rule that aids in the occasion of a heroic death, seeing as almost all deaths in DH are pretty unheroic (how many of us have died from a rumble in the alley behind a cheap bar room for example), i thought it'd be good to have a mechanic (if only for our group) that allows that one last defining act of the character, otherwise it's just another pointless death behind the bar room kind of thing.

Look at the world of media where such things occur, it's a staple in most Heroic Fantasy books, the guy that for a while was a bit of a jerk gets his death scene and is pretty much redeemed in that scene by allowing every one else to get away whilst he keeps the enemy back.

Borromir is perhaps a classic example of this style of heroic death that allows others to survive and is redeemed in his death (Even if he doesnt kill The Big Bad, it sets it up for some one to do so very nicely).

What Your ref done in that game was allow you to use skills you didnt possess to kill the Big Bad, this is merely a Ruled version of what your ref allowed.

Imagine how unclimatic it would have been if the ref said "No, you dont have the right skills to do that, so no grappling for you today", you'd have been stuck on top of the cathedral and would have died one of those "behind the cheap bar room deaths" with no glory and the like.

I've read through both threads but I don't see the need to make rules for pc's to have a glorious death.

If the pc's sacrifice themselves for the better good of the story, a love interest, the party and it creates a great scene, go for it, bend or break the rules in his favor as long as it doesn't ruin the suspense of disbelief...

It seems like a GM that needs such a talent just wants to limit his players, rule X doesn't allow this so I'll introduce Talent Y to rob you of some XP. One should never forget the "Golden Rule", rules that hinder roleplaying can on occasion be broken.

GrtZ,

Santiago

I would allow players to do this without a talent. If they want to go down in a blaze of glory then I'm not one to get in the way of such an awesome farewell.

I don't think I would require a talent for my players to do something like that. I tend to be a little more freeform as a GM. If something has awesome roleplay potential but the character lacks the skill for something, I might still allow it. It really depends on the situation.

You said: "Imagine how unclimatic it would have been if the ref said "No, you dont have the right skills to do that, so no grappling for you today""

I say: "Imagine how unclimactic it would have been if the ref said "No, you dont have the right talent to do that, so no heroic death for you today"

Within reason... good roleplay trumps skills or talents. A perfect example would be Inquiry. In some cases dice rolls are a replacement for roleplay. I say some cases because I think chance is still somewhat necessary in certain aspects of the game.