In Fate 3.0, characters tend to be on the level of heroes – they start with 5 boxes of wounds, and get 1 more for each level of Toughness they get. This may make them nigh undefeatable. The following set of rules is actually inspired by Unknown Armies‘ combat rules and changes combat by introducing less wound boxes, higher damage from combat and use of armour.
Wound Boxes
Ordinary characters have no wound boxes – upon a hit, they will take a consquence immediately or are taken out. Your character’s levels in Toughness, Might and Atheltics will determine the amount of Wound Boxes you have. For every 2 levels in any of those skill, you will get one wound. However, you can’t get more than 4 wound boxes this way. For every 4th wound box and above, you will need an Aspect to describe your capability to withstand damage, such as “Giant size” or “Durant”.
Damage
Instead of giving a damage rating for all weapons possible, try using this simple system. A weapon that is sharp will give a +1 damage; large weapons which require two hands to wield grant another +1 damage and heavy weapons get another +1. A typical longsword would have +2 damage for being sharp and heavy. The GM is free to add more modifiers to it – for example, a super-sharp mono-filament sword may have +2 sharpness.
If you strike in combat, you do damage equal to the weapon’s damage rating multiplied by the amount of shifts you have gained. If you generate spin, you may also add an aspect. Depending on the damage, it is either sticky or non-sticky. It is sticky if you manage to cause a roll-up on the wounds track otherwise, it is temporary.
Taking this out for a spin, a longsword with +2 damage with a shift of +2 will do +4 damage, which is enough to take down most characters with a blow. Aspects and Fate Points can be invoked by the defender to reduce the amount of damage taken (-2 for each Aspect invoked).
For firearms, the damage is equal to the roll (not number of shifts, but you must generate at least 1 shift) multipied by the number of shifts. If you manage to generate a spin, you increase your shift by 1. Guns can do deadly damage in this case, but for each type of guns, there’s a maximum damage. For example, a revolver may only have Damage +3 – no matter what your roll is, you will never do more than +3 damage.
Armour
Damage goes to armour first, then to the wounds; so wearing a suit of armour is like having a few more wound boxes. However, certain weapons with the Piercing skill directly ignores armour – the level of the piercing skill determine the amount of piercing damage done which is not absorbed by armour, and is equal to the level of piercing skill multiplied by the number of shifts obtained.
Usually, padded armour gives 1 additional wound box, chain mail gives 2, plate gives 4 and full plates gives 6. It is recommended, though, that characters have a relevant Aspect for being able to wear armour from plate onwards. In Fate Fantasy, there is an Armour Training skill which determine the heaviest type of armour that one can wear.
The wound box given by Armour are put in front of the existing wound boxes which the character. Hence, a character with Toughness 2 wearing padded armour will have 2 wound boxes.
For firefight, the armour would be simple Kevlar chest-plate, full combat suit and so on. Those are generally more effective against bullets than close combat weapons though.
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