I'm talking about the expendable, refresheble variant here, not the burn-and-get-an-extra-life kind. Have any of you tried something like this? Would it be terribly upsetting to the game balance?
My thoughs of a FATE-like set of House Rules:
In addition to regular uses of FPs, you may spend a Fate Point to:
-
Invoke a Talent or Trait to get a +10 on any roll, after you have rolled the dice.
(Not just get an extra DoS if you succeed, but turn that near-hit into a success) - Make a Declaration based on your skills, Traits or Talents.
Your Talents and Traits may now also be Compelled, and this gives you a Fate point (which can be used as above, but is not a permanent "extra life" point).
Compelling a Talent or Trait results in
- You are forced to re-roll the dice
- You take a -10 to a roll, after you have rolled the dice
- Something bad happens
This should be used to promote interesting story twists, not just to mess with the Characters (allthough that might be fun too).
Examples:
Léon aims and shoots at the young lady he is hired to assassinate, but rolls 63 v his effective BS of 57 (with all bonuses from Aim, etc). According to the RAW he may spend a Fate Point to re-roll, but now instead he Invokes his Marksman Talent (which everyone is relevant to this situation) and spends his fate point to add +10 to his roll, raising his target to 67 thus scoring a hit.
Casey is shadowing his mark through the crowded market venues in the Corscarla district. He rolls his Shadowing v. his opponents Awareness, and fails his roll by a small margin. He invokes his Accustomed to Crowds trait as a Hiver and spends a Fate Point to gain a retroactive +10 bonus to his roll, claiming he is in his prefered element, and knows how to blend in with his environment. The GM agrees, and Casey succeeds on his test.
The characters have an important day, and need to argue their case in front of a magistrate. The legalities are complex, and the defendants need to prepare a clear and compelling line of arguments to convince the court. "Oh, too bad you're such a Light Sleeper, then Charles. I guess you didn't get much sleep last night and due to your mental fatigue you get your notes mixed up". This could force Charles to re-roll (or perhaps fail) a test, or simply lead to an interesting outcome where he (and the others?) are sentenced to some horrible suicide mission that the GM intended them to go on anyway
And Charles gets a Fate Point for his inconvenience.