The Basics - Powers

Rather than thinking in terms of individual powers, like "Level 3 This" and "Level 2 That", think of a character's Power as more akin to a certain friendly neighborhood wall-crawler's power: being a human spider! It's a collection of individual powers, sure, but they don't exist individually. If your character is a human cannonball—complete with speed, flight and explosivity—then that entire set of abilities is your power: Human Cannonball.

Once you have a relatively clear concept for a power, you are ready to proceed into the actual design process.

If you are playing a Super, you get six points for Stunts and three Refresh. Naturals have three Stunts and three Refresh. Here you might think, "Hey, that's not fair!" And you're right... mostly. Supers do get flashy powers and more points to play with, but they also get what is effectively a second Trouble in the form of a Drawback. With great power comes a great ability to have the Narrator use that power against you.

Basic Power

To start, think about what you want your power to do. What is your character’s shtick? What’s the big flashy thing you do that other people can’t do? Maybe you’re inhumanly fast, or super strong, or you can fly, or you shoot energy blasts from your hands.

Remember, this is just the most basic version of your character. If you were a spider lady, you might choose Super Dexterity here, or maybe Precognition if you think the senses of a spider are the real defining characteristic. Cannonball-Man would take Flight. Whichever power you feel matches your concept and buy its basic form. This is the stunt-like ability that covers the absolute minimum of what the power can do, and purchasing it costs one stunt. This is just the most stripped-down form of your power, so don’t worry if this sounds a little generic; you’ll make it more exciting in a moment.

Enhancements

An enhancement is an extra effect that you stack onto your basic power. Every enhancement costs one stunt. You can purchase as many enhancements as you can afford, and some enhancements can be purchased multiple times. For instance, most powers have an enhancement titled Master [Power Name], which just improves the basic power, usually by adding a +2 bonus to the appropriate rolls. You can buy that enhancement as many times as you want, knocking the bonus up to +4, +6, or beyond.

Power Synergy

A power synergy is another basic power added to your foundational power. You’re not making a new power from scratch: your power suite will still only have one drawback and one collateral damage effect. The synergy just adds a new facet to the power suite you’re creating. Purchasing a power synergy costs one stunt.

Each power has a short list of common synergies: powers that often work well with the foundational power. Your synergy might be a set of complementary powers—like being both super strong and super tough—or perhaps your synergy lets you use a power in a specific, new way—like combining your abilities to summon fire and to shoot energy blasts in order to throw fireballs at your enemy.

You are not limited to the suggested synergies, though. You can take any other power you want, as long as you can justify how they’re part of the same power suite. For instance, Wall-Crawling and Energy Blast don’t necessarily go together, but if you explain that the energy blast is really a concentrated ball of the same sticky stuff you use to climb walls, then you have a power synergy!

When you purchase a power synergy, you can also purchase any enhancements that apply to this additional ability. In addition, when it comes time to pick special effects, drawbacks, and collateral damage effects, you can pull from your foundational power or any of the power synergies you’ve added to it.

Special Effects and Improved Special Effects

A special effect is an extra-special thing you can pull off when you succeed with style. Whenever you succeed with style on a roll that utilizes one of your powers, you can forgo the normal benefits of succeeding with style to add one of your special effects instead. You can also spend a fate point to add a special effect to any successful roll, even if you’ve already got a special effect attached to that action. Special effects always happen in addition to the normal effects of success.

Your power starts with two special effects. If you want more, you can buy them with a stunt or refresh; each stunt or refresh you spend gets you two more special effects. If you need special effects, use the following list. If our suggestions don’t suffice, you can create your own special effects using this list as a guideline.

• Forced Movement: You move your target up to two zones.
• Area Attack: Attack everyone in a zone.
• Inflict Condition: You add an aspect to the target, which you can invoke once for free.
• Extra Movement: You can move up to two zones for free.
• Physical Recovery: You recover from all physical stress.
• Mental Recovery: You recover from all mental stress.
• Extra Action: You can split your shifts between two different yet related actions, adding a +1 to each action.

In addition, some powers have an improved special effect. An improved special effect works just like a special effect: you can use the effect when you succeed with style or spend a fate point while using your power. However, improved special effects are unique to their power and do bigger stuff than regular ones. The trade-off is that they’re more expensive: one stunt buys one improved special effect.

Drawbacks

Every power has a short list of possible drawbacks. These highlight problems that the power may bring you—a limitation on the power or a nasty side effect. Drawbacks are aspects, like a power’s trouble, but do not replace your character’s trouble. Choose one drawback or create one of your own.

Collateral Damage Effects

Superbeings throw a lot of power around, power that often has unintended consequences. Sometimes city blocks get leveled; sometimes innocent bystanders get hurt. Your collateral damage effect is an extra benefit—something super-potent you can do with your power, often to great narrative effect.

Each power description lists a number of collateral damage effects. Choose one from a power you’ve chosen, or make up one of your own.

You can choose to use this effect at any time, but using it comes at a cost: you inflict a situation aspect on the area around you that represents the collateral damage you’ve caused. The GM gets to determine the exact nature of that aspect each time you use it.

Other Collateral Damage Options

Instead of picking the collateral damage effect for a power you’ve purchased, you can pick a power that you don’t have, and either use a collateral damage effect from its list, or create a collateral damage effect from the basic power itself. This can represent an aspect of your character’s power suite that they haven’t trained with, or an application of their power that’s a bit outside what it should be able to do, which is why it causes collateral damage. Building a collateral damage effect like this is especially useful for adding versatility to a character, granting someone with a lot of utility powers a strong attack, or giving a character who’s built for fighting a way to get out of trouble fast.