they can be even more

flexible than they initially appear. If you take a look at the skill list, you can

see that every single skill has the overcome and create an advantage actions

checked. This opens a lot of possibilities, even for skills that don’t seem to have

a lot of interesting uses.

If a character has a high rank in a skill, Good (+3) or higher, this means

that they are an expert in that particular area of endeavor. They possess deep

knowledge within the narrow range covered by the skill. This knowledge

covers the tools and trappings used by the skill and knowledge of other people

who use the skill at the same high level.

The three attack skills—Fight, Shoot, and Provoke—are most often used in

combat. That doesn’t mean combat is the only situation where these skills are

useful. A character with the Shoot skill can identify ranged weapons, knows

details about their care and maintenance, and knows where to obtain them.

The same goes for Fight, regarding hand-to-hand weapons.

28FATE SYSTEM TOOLKIT

SKILLS28

This opens up lots of possibilities for overcome or create an advantage

actions. A Shoot expert could use their skill in an overcome action to find

a gun seller in a new place, for example. Shoot could be used to create an

advantage by identifying the type of gun by the sound of its shot and filling in

details on the limitations of the model, or by noticing that an enemy’s weapon

has not been properly cared for and could possibly malfunction.

Provoke might seem to be a harder skill to expand, but with Provoke, an

expert could create an advantage to discover an opponent is bluffing, or to

identify which person in a group of opponents is the biggest threat.

You can use other skills in a similar way. Burglary experts can find tools or

other practitioners of the trade, or even identify the trademark techniques of

other burglars they know by the traces they leave behind. Drive experts can
identify vehicles and use create an advantage to talk about the subtle edges or

disadvantages a particular make has when compared against another vehicle.

Skills that normally do not allow you to attack or defend—Burglary, Crafts,

Investigate, Lore, and Resources—have lots of options for additional actions,

and in the right circumstances might be used to attack or defend. In the right

situation, Crafts could be used to create an attack through the construction

of a dangerous trap, for instance. Burglary could be used for defense, if a

character sets up countermeasures based on their detailed knowledge of secu-

rity precautions. These should be very specific and very limited applications,

but it can be quite rewarding to allow players to use these skills in a way that

stretches their capabilities a bit.

Creativity is the order of the day. In almost any skill, a high level of ability

opens up many possibilities. As a GM, it’s important to allow flexibility and

logic to guide you, as your players are sure to surprise you. They should get the

chance to feel exceptionally competent in their character’s area of expertise.

When a player tries something new with a skill, consider the option carefully,

and be open to a creative interpretation of the skill. As a player, let yourself try

new things with your skills. If a situation arises where you think you would

be able to use your skill in an unusual way, give it a shot! Fate is more inter-

esting when the unexpected arises and players use an unexpected method to

overcome the situation at hand.

29CHAPTER 3

SKILLS29

SKILL MODES

A skill mode is a bundle of several skills that represents a broad area of compe-

tence. Modes are great for speeding up character creation even more than Fate

Core already does. Instead of picking and rating 10 individual skills, players

pick and rate three modes, and the skills come along for the ride.

Take a look at your game’s skill list and think about archetypes you’d like
to see in your setting. For each of these archetypes, choose five or six relevant

skills. Each of these skill groups is a mode. It’s okay if some skills show up in

more than one mode, but if any are so common that they’re in nearly every

mode, be aware that it’s going to lead to a certain sameness between characters.

Ideally, you want between four and eight modes—enough for variety, but

few enough that picking three is still fast.

Ben is planning a classic fantasy game of dungeon-delving, trea-

sure-grabbing, and the occasional dragon-slaying. This game’s skills

are Athletics, Burglary, Contacts, Deceit, Empathy, Intimidation,

Melee, Missile, Physique, Rapport, Stealth, Survival, and Will. Based

on that list, he comes up with four modes:

BATTLE TALK THIEVERY WOODCRAFT

Athletics Contacts Athletics Athletics

Intimidation Deceit Burglary Lore

Melee Empathy Deceit Notice

Missile Rapport Notice Stealth

Physique Will Stealth Survival

Ben notices that Athletics shows up in three of the four, but it’s

such a broadly applicable skill that he can’t imagine any of those

modes doing without it, either. Besides, the tomb-robber PCs are

going to need it.

Ratings

The usual Fate Core skill pyramid doesn’t apply to skills in modes. Instead,

each player picks three modes and rates them—one at Good (+3), one at

Fair (+2), and one at Average (+1)—and the mode’s rating becomes the default

rating for all of its skills. Skills at this rating are trained. Skills one step above

their mode’s level are focused, and skills two steps above are specialized.

One of Ben’s players, Will, wants to play a thief-type, so he picks

Good (+3) Thievery. This means Athletics, Burglary, Deceit, Notice,

and Stealth all start out trained, with a rating of Good (+3).

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SKILLS30

Reinforced Skills

If two or three of a character’s modes contain the same skill, it’s reinforced.

When this happens, write it down under its highest-rated mode, but not

under any other. No skill should appear more than once on a character sheet.

If a skill is reinforced once—meaning it’s shared by two modes—improve it

from trained to focused. If it’s reinforced twice—shared by all three modes—

improve it from trained to specialized.

In addition to his Good (+3) Thievery, Will’s also picked Fair (+2) Talk

and Average (+1) Battle. Both Battle and Thievery have Athletics,

so it goes from trained to focused—from Good (+3) to Great (+4)

under Thievery. Likewise, Talk and Thievery share Deceit, so that

skill’s also focused under Thievery. So far, Will’s modes look like this:

GOOD (+3)

THIEVERY

FAIR (+2)

TALK

AVERAGE (+1)

BATTLE

+5

+4 Athletics, Deceit

+3 Burglary, Notice,

Stealth

+2 Contacts, Empathy,

Rapport, Will

+1 Intimidation, Melee,

Missile, Physique
.

Improving Skills

After that, each player has 7 points to further improve skills.

IMPROVEMENT COST

Focus a trained skill 1

Specialize a focused skill 2

Specialize a trained skill 3

No skill can ever be improved beyond specialized.

31CHAPTER 3

SKILLS31

Will wants to be especially sneaky, so he spends 3 points to spe-

cialize Stealth, from Good (+3) to Superb (+5). He’d also like to be

capable in combat, so he spends another 3 to specialize Melee as

well, from Average (+1) to Good (+3). With his last point, he focuses

Contacts, from Fair (+2) to Good (+3), so he can be a little better

connected.

GOOD (+3)

THIEVERY

FAIR (+2)

TALK

AVERAGE (+1)

BATTLE

+5 Stealth

+4 Athletics, Deceit

+3 Burglary, Notice Contacts Melee

+2 Empathy,

Rapport, Will

+1 Intimidation,

Missile, Physique
.

Modes with Extras

Some modes offer access to extras—either because it contains a skill extra, or

because it unlocks an aspect extra. For each such extra associated with a mode,

the mode has one fewer skill than normal. For example, if standard modes

in your game have five skills, a mode with a skill extra would have only four.

Aspect extras are in addition to the usual number of aspects for your game.

Ben adds four modes to his list: Arcana and The Gods, for two dif-

ferent kinds of magic, and Dwarf and Elf, for…dwarves and elves.

The first two have two extras each—a skill and an aspect, both

related to magic—and the second two only have one—an aspect.

ARCANA THE GODS DWARF ELF

Lore Favor Intimidation Athletics

Magic Lore Lore Lore

Will Will Melee Missile

Skill Extra Skill Extra Physique Notice

Aspect Extra Aspect Extra Aspect Extra Aspect Extra

4STUNTS

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STUNTS34

NEW STUNT RUBRICS

Stunts as presented in Fate Core provide numerous ways to customize your

character, adding fun mechanical tweaks to the game. You get a little more out

of each skill when you pick up stunts, and this can be a lot of fun. If you want

to tweak your stunts even more, this section’s for you!

Flexible Stunts

This is the easiest option to implement, as it’s merely a shift in how you think

about stunts. In Fate Core, stunts are tied explicitly to skills. What if you
want your stunts to be skill-agnostic, or tied to multiple skills, or tied to some-

thing else entirely different, like an aspect or piece of gear or a stress track?

Some examples:

Ally’s Shield: You can invoke Dwarven Shield-Maiden when a nearby ally

suffers an attack. When you do, redirect that attack to yourself. Your defense

is Average (+1) against that attack.

Berserk Rage: When you suffer a physical consequence, you can invoke that

consequence for free on your next attack. If you suffer multiple physical con-

sequences, you get a free invocation for each.

Useful Little Things: Your pockets are full of useful little things. Whenever

you need something, you have it, provided it’s not something too unusual

(like a map to Jimmy Hoffa’s body) or too large to fit in a pocket, belt pouch,

or backpack. When you say you have something, the GM should be likely to

agree.

This isn’t really a mechanical change, just a shift in how you approach stunt

design. Any of the above three examples could be tied to a skill—Provoke,

Fighting, or Resources, for instance—but not thinking about which skill to tie

your stunt to frees you up to be a bit more creative with your design, moving

beyond +2s and skill swaps.

Aspected Stunts

For stunts which are tied to aspects, you might view some of their effects as

narrowly defined free invocations. Other aspected stunts might require an

invocation, as Ally’s Shield (above) does, but give something extra or particu-

larly unusual when the aspect is invoked. Such effects should be more potent

than a “vanilla” invocation. You could even design a stunt that triggers under

particular kinds of compels—just be careful you don’t end up neutering the

downside with the resulting benefit.

Charge Like Ox: Because you are Strong Like Ox, once per scene, as a single

action, you may move two zones in a straight line then make a physical attack.
Teflon Troublemaker: When your Can’t Keep His Big Mouth Shut aspect is

compelled to make you the target of an attack, you may immediately clear any

mild consequences you currently have, instead of taking a fate p