Born to be Kings

FATE: FUDGE Amber Tabletop Entertainment

Born to be Kings

Born to be Kings: The RPG

Born to be Kings features a similar, though altered, version of the FUDGE Amber rules I used for Crown of Amber. This document therefore stands alone as the rules of record for Kings, assuming a familiarity with FUDGE.

This document covers the core concepts of the FUDGE Amber RPG used by Kings. Campaign-specific RPG details, however, are covered in another document.

Character Generation

Levels

FUDGE Amber features an expanded results/skill levels continuum, adding the ranks of Awful at the low end, Average in the middle, and Epic and Legendary at the high end.

Level	Effective Number
Awful	-4 or worse
Terrible	-3
Poor	-2
Mediocre	-1
Average	0

Level	Effective Number
Fair	+1
Good	+2
Great	+3
Superb	+4
Epic	+5
Legendary	+6

Intrinsics

Intrinsics are the aspects of a character that are innate, difficult to change, hard to add. They are primarily defined at character generation time, rather than during advancement periods.

Things such as being the blood of Amber, being a shapeshifter, or being touched by Tir-na Nog'th at birth, are examples of Intrinsics. In most cases these are simply aspects of your character that affect play "ambiently"; these Intrinsics are GM-controlled.

At other times (such as with the Shapeshifter Intrinsic) their conscious application is represented by an skill (e.g., Shapeshifting). These are at least partially player-controlled Intrinsics.

Beyond these, however, and most prevalent as Intrinsics, are superlative and inferior Attributes.

Attributes

Attributes, per se, do not exist in FUDGE Amber; everyone is assumed to have a "basic package" that puts them more or less on an even footing with each other (among PCs and NPCs of a similar caliber). However, there are times when an attribute is beyond the pale, either negatively or positively; in those cases, they are bought as Intrinsics, or as Flaws, depending on whether it is a positive or a negative.

When bought as Intrinsics, the attribute is superlative in some way. You can purchase these Intrinsics with more than one level if so desired, creating a clear stratification if another character has the same superlative.

When bought as Flaws, the attribute is inferior in some way. It is not recommended to take the same attribute multiple times as a Flaw.

In play, when a situation arises that could be influenced by the attribute, it is up to the GM to determine if any modifiers are to be had, or whether to influence the results in light of the superlative or inferior attribute.

Examples of attributes include Strength, Stamina, Willpower, Manual Dexterity, Voice, and so on. You should discuss the scope of your Attribute with the GM at the time of selecting it so any potential ambiguities are clarified prior to the commencement of the game.

Resources

Everyone has temporary resources -- your clothes, that army you raised in shadow, and so on -- and then there are the Resources that are Yours (e.g., Greyswandir, to take an extreme, or Shadow Avalon). Those indisputable personal items, places, and -- well -- resources are represented by this category of Gifts.

Like Attributes, Resources have a level associated with them that indicates their "quality". Often this is colored by a particular way in which the quality manifests; one might have an army of Good size, while another would have a small team of Good knights. In the former case, the quality manifests in an advantage of numbers, where in the other, the quality manifests in the skills of the individual members.

Resources may have multiple qualities. The cost of the resource depends on the breadth of those qualities, and an overall judgement call by the GM (this is outlined below).

How a given quality comes into play is best determined by the GM, but your description of the Resource certainly helps.

Opportunities

Some doorways are closed to you until you encounter the right teacher, situation, or power that grants you the key. In FUDGE Amber, these keys are called Opportunities.

Opportunities represent accomplishments and special training that open the way to learn new skills that you cannot learn without the appropriate Opportunity to do so. The best examples of these are Pattern Attunement (giving the Pattern Use skill), Trump Artistry Instruction (giving the Trump Draw skill), and Sorcerous Training (giving the Sorcery skill).

What Opportunities are necessary for certain skills are defined by the GM. For example, in some campaigns, the existence of Trumps may be closely guarded, in which case one might need a Trump Training Opportunity to get the Trump Use skill.

Flaws

Flaws are disadvantages for your character that hinder him or her in some way, by limiting behavior, capacity, and other aspects of the character. In the end, they are really "negations" of the various Gift types -- you can have an inferior Attribute, a Resource that is more burden than help, or an "Opportunity" that isn't to your advantage (like, say, a Blood Curse upon you).

Flaws, in the end, give you more points (and, if your GM is sufficiently cruel, plenty of plot hooks). Players are encouraged to take one or two flaws for their characters for dramatic interest, if not points.

Skills

Skills in FUDGE Amber are a fairly freeform exercise. There is no defined "skill list", save for those which the GM wishes to mention explicitly.

Skills are rated, in that they have levels associated with them, and skills have a type, in that they are Vital (or major) skills or they are Color (or minor) skills.

Vital skills cost more than Color skills; more on that below. Vital skills cover the specific categories of "powers" use (Trumps, Pattern, Sorcery, Shapeshifting) and combat use (Swordfighting, Fencing, Kung Fu, Strategy). Color skills are pretty much everything else, from Diplomacy to Drumming to Decorating. Some Color skills may actually be Vital if the GM determines it to be so; make sure you check your list of desired skills with your GM before you start assigning points.

Skills also, to an extent, have a breadth. Broad skills generally have less "finesse" than specific skills, in the way that a general chemist can cover more ground, but a biochemist can cover a specific ground more deeply.

A more in-genre example of this contrast would be with someone who chooses Swordfighting versus someone who chooses Fencing. Your swordfighter will be able to handle all kinds of swords and swordlike weaponry capably, while your fencer is primarily limited to lightweight swords. However, your swordfighter is unlikely to be very tricky in his use of various swords, while your fencer has all kinds of tricks up his sleeves thanks to his focus and specialization.

In any FUDGE Amber game, it is generally a good idea to take at least a few Vital skills in combat and several Color skills in the political/social arena, along with any Vital skills to support the powers you have at your disposal.

Vocations

Vocations help to define a character in terms of his or her archetypes; archetypal elements are key to giving characters in Amber the kind of vivid life that we get from the characters in the books. It's a bit of a yawn to say that Corwin had Superb fencing and Great horsemanship -- and quite another thing to say he was a Superb Scoundrel, and a Great Prince.

Vocations are, essentially, skill packages which, in turn, give you a cost savings -- basically three skills for the price of two. A Vocation itself has a single rating on it, which applies to the three skills grouped into it. Those skills do not advance individually; the Vocation improves, and so its three representative skills advance with it.

Additionally, a GM may regard a Vocation as having a number of unlisted "minor skills" (Color skills, essentially, on a secondary footing to the core three) implicit due to its nature.

The cost of a vocation depends on the kind of skills put into it. More details on this are outlined below.

A Vocation can never have a skill in it that has a prerequesite, be that an Intrinsic (Shapeshifter), an Opportunity (Pattern Attunement), or another Skill (Trump Use at Great).

Costs

Often FUDGE games are stated in terms of a number of "Gift levels" and "Skill levels" and "Minimum number of flaws" and "Attribute levels" and so forth. This is not the case with FUDGE Amber; everything is, instead, in terms of "Character levels" or, if you dare, "points". This is partly because the designer has no patience for coming up with conversions for a multi-currency gaming system, and partly because the granularity and variety of the Gifts available in FUDGE Amber are interesting enough to warrant an overall single cost type. I say all this as a sidebar; you can ignore this paragraph and still get all you need from this document.

Points

The number of points you get is set by the GM for his or her specific game, and is really to the taste of that GM.

Gift Costs

Intrinsics base their cost on the scope of the thing. A superlative strength is a broad Intrinsic, while superlative vision is a middling Intrinsic, while a superlative singing voice is a narrow Intrinsic (make that voice work in situations other than singing, though, and it becomes middling to broad). Most intrinsics only need the first level to be effective, though if you wish to make yours graded (as the Attribute subset is), you may. The scope is judged by your GM; the costs are as follows:

Level	Narrow	Middling	Broad
Fair	2	3	5
Good	3	6	9
Great	5	9	14
Superb	8	15	23
Epic	12	24	36
Legendary	20	40	60

Resources base their cost on the qualities (round up fractions). Qualities have scope as well, and a Resource may have multiple qualities. The scope of a quality is, again, judged by your GM. We add, here, a 'Universal' aspect of scope, to cover that special quality that means all (or enough as to make this make sense for the cost of a thing) aspects of a Resource are at that level.

Regardless of the quality of a Resource, you still have to arrange circumstances to bring it to bear; thus, the costs are somewhat cheaper than Intrinsics until you start layering the qualities on thickly.

The cost for each quality on a Resource is taken from this table:

Level	Narrow	Middling	Broad	Universal
Fair	.5	1	2	3
Good	1	2	3	6
Great	2	3	5	9
Superb	3	5	8	15
Epic	4	8	12	24
Legendary	7	13	20	40

If you have two or more Broad qualities in a Resource of similar or equal level, you are, naturally, best off calling it Universally that level (Greyswandir was Legendarily sharp, resilient, and overall powerful; it cost 40 points).

Resources are meant to represent things which you very often have reliably at hand. The GM may alter the effective Scope of a given Resource's qualities if he feels the degree to which you can make use of your resource is over and above the baseline (increasing the scope), or in some way below the baseline (decreasing the scope).

As an example, if you are the head of a Thieves' Guild in Amber, the members of which average out to being Good at what they do, you have a Universal Quality Good resource (6 points) (the quality in question is Thievely Stuff In Amber). If you're not the head, but merely an influential member, it might only rate as a Broad Quality Good resource (3 points) -- you can still access the resource with some frequency, but it's not as solidly available as the full-access/influence version. More limited still would be if you were just a member of the resource; in which case, it might cost you nothing -- because it's not enough yours to warrant spending points on it -- or it might drop down to a Middling or Narrow Quality Good resource (2 or 1 points), if you still wanted that membership to be fairly unshakeable.

Ultimately, spending points on a resource provides some amount of guarantees about that resource; and the scope of the qualities of a resource indicate the degrees to which you can bring the resource to bear on average. In the end, it's the GM's call as to what is what.

Opportunities base their cost on the availability and difficulty of the opportunity. Refer to the following matrix to determine the rank of the Opportunity, and its cost.

		Availability
		Plentiful	Moderate	Rare	Unique
E f f o r t	Easy	Average	Fair	Good	Great
	Middling	Fair	Good	Great	Superb
	Difficult	Good	Great	Superb	Epic
	Arduous	Great	Superb	Epic	Legendary

Rank	Cost
Average	1
Fair	2
Good	4
Great	6
Superb	10
Epic	16
Legendary	26

If you need special training to learn Kung Fu, but the monastaries that teach it are widespread, then it is Plentiful; however, if completing that training is difficult, it might be Arduous to fulfill the Opportunity to learn Kung Fu -- thus, it is a Great opportunity (6 points).

Walking a Pattern is a Rare opportunity (you must be the Blood of Amber, and have access to the Pattern), and can be Difficult to cross and survive. It is a Superb opportunity (10 points).

If a GM wishes Trump Use to be governed by instruction in how to use them, Trump Training is Rare, but Easy, and thus a Good opportunity (4 points). Similarly, if you must purchase the Opportunity to be the blood of Amber or Chaos, it's Rare but Easy, and again, four points.

Unique is reserved for those situations where you need a unique thing to make the Opportunity work (the Jewel of Judgement is Unique versus the Pattern being Rare) or something that almost no one gets a chance to use (the Fount). Jewel Attunement would be Unique and Difficult, and thus Epic (16 points), while taking a bath in the Fount is Unique and Arduous -- inasmuch as you eventually go crazy/lose your soul/etc -- and thus Legendary (26 points).

Opportunities nearly always have skills associated with them; they are, therefore, cheaper than most Intrinsics, because there is additional cost beyond the acqusition of the Opportunity. Typically, the higher in rank the Opportunity, the more potent the application of the associated skill or skills.

The Skills provided by Opportunities are always Vital.

Skill Costs

Skills are cheap to come by, but plentiful. You'll often spend more points on Skills than on Gifts, and well you should. To repeat advice given above, you should always take a few combat Vital skills, a few social or political Color skills, and all the Vital powers skills afforded you by your Intrinsics and Opportunities as a baseline for your character.

Vocations are also cheap, and cheaper still for the cost wins they give you. If your Vocation contains one or more Vital skills, it is a Vital vocation; if your Vocation contains no Vital skills, it is a Color vocation. You may only specify three primary skills for a given Vocation.

A Vocation can never have a skill in it that has a prerequesite, be that an Intrinsic, an Opportunity, or another Skill. Thoroughly Vital Vocations are discouraged, and may even be disallowed by your GM unless a very good reason is given.

The costs for both Skills and Vocations are outlined below.

Level	Color Sk	Vital Sk	Color Vo	Vital Vo
Mediocre	0	.5	0	1
Average	.5	1	1	2
Fair	1	2	2	4
Good	2	3	3	5
Great	3	4	4	8
Superb	4	7	7	13
Epic	7	11	11	21
Legendary	11	17	17	34

Color skills can be said to default to Mediocre, and Vital skills can be said to default to Poor, where defaults are allowed at all.

Flaw Returns

You can expect to get a number of points returned to you depending on the severity of the Flaw and the scope to which it applies. Use the Intrinsics table to determine the points returned. A Epic-in-its-severity flaw that applies only in a Narrow scope (e.g., the vulnerable heel of a certain Achilles) would return 12 points, and so on.

FUDGE Points

FUDGE (fate) Points are a situationally spendable resource. If you want the GM to tilt things a little bit in your favor, you can spend a FUDGE point to get that effect. This may be a bonus to a skill roll, an improvement in your timing (you come in at the right moment), a good first impression, and so on. They're cheap, but when you spend them, they're gone.

You can get 4 FUDGE points for every 1 character point you spend (they're a good way to get rid of that extra half point you have after you've rounded your character out).

An incomplete list of what you can do with FUDGE points follows:

Invoke a story element, such as showing up at the right time, finding just the chandelier you need to swing on close at hand, etc.
Get a +1 to a roll.
Modify your initiative pool or your initiative precedence (see below).
Reduce the severity of a wound (see below).

Advancement

Advancement in FUDGE is often a problem because of the granularity and other issues. FUDGE Amber doesn't worry about this too much; advancement in FUDGE Amber is not meteoric the way it can be in a Dungeons & Dragons game, nor should it be.

Characters start at a certain baseline and over time refine their character. Additional power can be grown into, but in the scope of a campaign, takes time to develop (in the scope of an immortal's lifetime, it's a pittance, but games seldom run that long).

What's most important in FUDGE Amber is facilitating the continued story growth of the character; second to that is the "stats race".

Advancement should be awarded on two fronts: Character points and FUDGE points. FUDGE points should be given liberally -- they're a spendable allowance, and they give the player a mechanic for imposing their will on the storyline in some way. Character points should be given carefully and in small quantity per segment of a story arc. Keep an eye on the Skills costs table; the points between each rung give you a sense of how much is too much.

A significant story arc should be completed in order for someone to move from an Epic Vital Vocation to a Legendary Vital Vocation -- and that's 13 character points.

Debt

Sometimes characters get ahead of their points in the course of play. This is fine, but it's up to the responsible, caring GM to punish them for it.

Figure out how much the character has gone into debt (attuned to the Pattern for 10 points with only 3 available -- debt of 7, and you have them spend the 3 on the spot); that is the extent of the temporary Flaw that is in effect during that time (7's enough for a Good, Middling Flaw -- like an influential enemy at court -- with another point to give you 4 "anti-FUDGE" points to use to dink with the character at whim). They should not be able to spend character points on anything other than the debt until it is at an end, with the Flaw steadily diminishing over time.

Sizing Your Game

As a GM, when you determine the number of points available for your game, you should figure out what you want your standard character to be able to do, and then test the extremes.

For example, you may want three Vital Vocations at Good (15 points), Pattern Attunement (10 points), Pattern Use at Fair (2 points), Trump Use at Average (1 point), 4 FUDGE Points (1 point) and a few more points for customization -- say, 6, enough for a Great Opportunity, beefed up Vocations, a Good, Middling Superlative Attribute or whatever. That's a total of 35 points.

If someone wanted to blow most of those points, they could take a Epic, Broad Attribute (say, Strength) at 36 points, a Broad, Fair Flaw (Gigantism, to steal from GURPS) for 5 points back, and spend their remaining 4 on a Bash Things Vital Skill of Great, and go to town. They'd be horribly limited, of course, which is a good sign that your 35 points doesn't allow for easy abuse on the Gifts side.

To test against Skill monsters, you propose a Legendary Vital Vocation of 34 points (Swordfighting, Archery, and Riding -- a Mongol) with 4 FUDGE points. Not too bad -- but take that down one notch and get a Khan -- Epic Mongol (21 points) and Superb Chieftain (13 points; Leadership, Strategy [vital], Wilderness Lore), and you've got someone who is very capable. Your controlling factor here is your Gifts; this guy doesn't have any -- though he could get a minor resource if he wanted -- and so he's limited to predominately mundane activities (no Opportunities to say otherwise). Take it down another notch, of course, and you can get a giftless wonder with three Vital Vocations at Superb, Superb, and Great -- but once you're there it doesn't sound quite so bad.

Stack each of these extremers up against your core standard character and let their areas of expertise come into play, and your standard character will get hurt ... Then again, your standard character can walk into the next shadow, cast a few spells, and apply himself in a few more situations than the others.

Combat

It's not Amber if there's no fighting.

Initiative

Phases

FUDGE Amber uses an initiative system that divides a round into five phases -- the ++ (double-plus), + (plus), blank, - (minus) and -- (double-minus) phases -- which proceed in that order.

Everyone automatically gets to act on the double-minus phase.

The determination of which phases you act on go in the following order:

Determine your initiative pool.
Barter extra + dice for more phase actions (optional).
Claim any temporary FUDGE points by sacrificing remaining + dice (optional).
Determine in-phase precedence
Commence the round

Pool

To determine your initiative pool, roll 4dF. Each different die face that turns up represents a phase on which you may take a phase action (see below). For example, if you roll four blanks, you only get to act on the blank phase; if you roll two blanks, a minus, and a plus, you get to act on the plus, blank, and minus phases.

You can get extra plusses in your pool in two ways, each of which you may only invoke once per round (at initiative time):

You can spend a FUDGE point to get an extra + (only one).
You can take -1 on all your rolls that turn to get an extra + (only one).

Additionally, certain Intrinsics (GM's call) may give you an extra plus.

Barter

Once your total pool is determined, you may barter any one of your plusses in order to change one of the other dice in your initiative pool.

When a plus is bartered, it is removed from your pool; the affected die in turn moves one rung up or down the phase "ladder" -- but only one rung: minus to blank, blank to minus or plus, plus to blank or double-plus. There's no point in moving a minus to double-minus -- everyone gets that phase for free. The only way to get a phase action in the double-plus phase is to barter one of your plusses to turn another one of your plusses into a double-plus.

Two examples to help clarify how bartering works:

In the ideal situation, someone rolls +, +, blank, -. That person then takes a -1 on every roll or spends a fudge point for one more +, getting a total set of +, +, +, blank, -. One + is spent to give ++, +, blank, -. This person would then act on all phases of the round (++, +, blank, -, and --, the last because it's free.)

In a less ideal situation, someone rolls four blanks. They could spend a FUDGE point to get a +, and thus would act on +, blank(x4), and --. They could additionally take a -1 on all rolls and get another +, and spend that to turn one of their blanks into a -, acting on +, blank(x3), -, and --.

Temporary FUDGE

After you have concluded your bartering decisions, you may exchange any plusses (double-plusses do not count) remaining in your pool for a temporary FUDGE point that goes away at the end of the round (so spend it in the fight!). You may do this even if you only have one plus in your pool -- in which case you are opting not to go on the plus phase. (Some GM's may use this aspect as a way of simulating the benefits of aiming.)

Precedence

Once all the above is taken care of, the round may actually begin, and the phases you act on are locked in place. You signify the locking of your initiative by determining your phase precedence.

Phase precidence indicates the sequence you and others act on in a given single phase. Lower phase precedence numbers act earlier in the phase. Precedence is determined by the following procedure:

Start with your base precedence: 3.
Add the number of phase actions you have (giving a range of 4 to 8).
Subtract the number of redundant dice you have (e.g., if you have two blanks, subtract one). Since you've already locked your temporary fudge points and bartered your extra plus dice, you can subtract any remaining extra plus dice at this time. You may sacrifice a phase action by defining the only die for that phase as an "extra"; this includes the "double-minus die" you get for free.
Spend a FUDGE point to subtract one from your precedence (optional).
Tell your GM what phases you're acting on and what your precedence number is.

The expectation is that in most cases, people will act on most of the phases in a round, with an average of 3 to 4 out of the 5. Once people are used to the mechanic, it should take about 10 seconds per person to resolve initiative -- if not, try dropping the bartering part and just let people roll more dice instead of getting extra plusses.

A guide on the side of a character sheet that has boxes for each of the five rounds is recommended as well -- players can place their dice as rolled in the boxes and do the shuffling/bartering from there (the visual aid helps).

The Round

Once phases are determined, the round progresses from phase to phase, with those who have the option to act in a phase taking action then.

Phases are small increments of time, no better than a handful of moments. In a phase, you can do one of these (referred to as Phase Actions):

Cover some ground (move a lot)
Step (move a little) and do one of the following:
- Fight (optionally adopting a fighting stance)
Stay put (don't move) and do one of the following:
- Prepare a power (spellcasting, shapeshifting) or artifact (trump, jewel of judgement) for use (may require several phases depending on GM's call)
- Use a power or artifact that is prepared
Do any of the above and toss a sentence or two of banter back and forth for added flair.

The GM determines order within a phase (usually the person with the most phases -- who gets to do the most things in a round -- acts later in a given acting phase than someone with the least phases).

Fighting

One kind of phase action is the most used kind: Fighting. This section breaks down the components of fighting.

An attack is done with the attacker rolling their attack skill, and comparing that result to the defender's defense value (see below). The relative degree of success is the amount of damage done (pre-modifiers). See the Wounding section below for more about how damage works.

Defense value defaults to your "fighting skill" or "defense skill" that has been determined to be used that round. Default is not to roll for the defense, but if you wish to "actively defend", you may roll the dice -- but you have to take a negative result if you do so. Some special defense options may require a rolled defense.

Situations

Combat is all about taking advantage of the situations and opportunities that present themselves. This section talks very briefly and generally about applying modifiers for special circumstances.

It should be kept in mind that, in FUDGE, a +1 is potent, and a +2 is very potent. No single bonus should exceed +2 as a general rule, though stacking several bonuses from several factors is certainly appropriate (hence the Stances and Stunts sections, below).

If something proposes a solid advantage or disadvantage, a +1 or -1 is appropriate. For example, an unarmed person in a fight with an armed person should defend and attack at -1 unless they have skills to compensate for it; someone behind partial cover should get a +1 to their defense. To give a concrete example from the later Wounding section, someone who is Hurt takes a -1 to their actions.

If something proposes an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage, a +2 or -2 is appropriate. Julian gets a +2 to defend Arden due to his centuries-long familiarity and fortification of the place; Corwin defends at -2 against the mob waiting for him at the top of the Kolvir stairs, he's so outnumbered. To give a concrete example from the later Wounding section, someone who is Very Hurt takes a -2 to their actions.

Situational modifiers are 100% GM moderated.

Stances

Fighting stances include the following five:

Standard
Aggressive (+1 attack, -1 defense until next acting phase)
All-out Attack (+2 attack, -2 defense until next acting phase)
Defensive (-1 attack, +1 defense until next acting phase)
All-out Defense (-2 attack, +2 defense until next acting phase)

You may take any of these stances when you are taking a Fighting phase action, and they may be combined with any special attack/defense option.

Stunts

Sometimes your defense is your best offense; sometimes you fight dirty; sometimes you baffle with a cloak, feint towards the eyes, and strike true to the heart... Sometimes you need a stunt to pull off what you want to do in a fight.

This section is by no means exhaustive; it covers some example stunts that your GM may or may not wish to incorporate into a FUDGE Amber game. It's their call.

As stunts are more difficult than regular attacks or defenses, there is always a penalty to your roll, a sacrifice to make, or both. At the GM's option, these penalties can be mitigated or eliminated by an appropriate Gift of some sort -- most often a low cost Opportunity covering special training in that kind of stunt.

If a stunt requires a phase action sacrifice, and you have no phases left in the round to sacrifice, you can not do that stunt. Sacrificing a phase action to pull a stunt does not affect your phase precedence.

Here is a short list of possible stunts:

Feint (Attack, -1).: Attack at -1. If you succeed, you do not damage your target. Instead, you retain your success margin and use that as a bonus on your very next attack roll against that target. That next attack must be on your next available phase, or the bonus is lost.
Fortify (Defense, Special, Sacrifice).: Pick an opponent. For each phase action you sacrifice (up to a maximum of one less than the number of phase actions you have available to you this round), you gain +1 to all defenses against that opponent for the round, with the provision that only the phases which have already occurred are eligible to produce that bonus at the time you defend (If you sacrifice the ++ and the blank, and are attacked on the + phase, you only get +1 to your defense; if attacked on the blank or later phases, you get +2). You can't initiate a Fortify stunt until your first phase action in a round (though you may sacrifice that round as it happens as part of the initiation).
Riposte (Defense, -1, Sacrifice, Off-Phase).: You invoke this stunt when an opponent attacks you. Roll your defense against that opponent at -1 and sacrifice your next phase action. If you succeed, you not only defend against the opponent's blow, you also land a blow doing damage equal to your defense's relative degree of success.
Lunge (Attack, -1, Sacrifice, Off-Phase).: If you wish to make an attack in a current phase where you do not have a phase action, you may sacrifice your next phase action and take a -1 to your attack to act on the current phase.
Study (Attack, Special, Sacrifice).: Pick an opponent. For each phase action you sacrifice (up to a maximum of one less than the number of phase actions you have available to you this round), you gain +1 to all attacks against that opponent for the round, with the provision that only the phases which have already occurred are eligible to produce that bonus at the time you attack (If you sacrifice the ++ and the blank, and attack on the + phase, you only get +1 to your attack; if you attack on the blank or later phases, you get +2). You can't initiate a Study stunt until your first phase action in a round (though you may sacrifice that round as it happens as part of the initiation).

Wounding

Modulo Intrinsics that would alter it, we use a standard FUDGE wounding system.

The amount of damage one does in an attack is always a minimum of 1 if successful; damage done is reflected (at its most basic) as attacker's roll+skill minus defender's roll+skill. If this is zero, 1 point is done, and no modifiers to damage are applied. If this is greater than zero, any damage modifiers can then be applied.

The amount of damage keys to a wound level; each person has a certain number of boxes for each wound level; if all the boxes for the applicable level are filled, the wound is one level worse, and so on, until an empty box is found.

Characters can take a 6 scratches (each scratch is a wound of 1-2 points of damage), 3 hurts (3-4), 2 very hurts (5-6), 1 incapacitated (7-8), and 1 near death (9+). Consider that in the worst case, equivalent skills rolling best and worst (+4 and -4) will result in a base damage of 8, and on average will deal a lot of scratches to each other. This fits the sense of the series -- it's hard to whittle your brother down unless you stack the odds.

If you are Hurt, you're at -1 to everything. If you're Very Hurt, you're at -2 to everything. If you're Incapacitated, you can't use any Vital skills -- there's too much strain -- without spending a FUDGE point per roll (you're still at -2, too). At Near Death, it's no use -- you can't do a thing except bleed and hope for help.

It should be pointed out that the expenditure of FUDGE points on your defense can reduce the severity of a wound (more cheaply than to raise a wound level on your opponent -- but that's intentional); each FUDGE point spent can reduce the level of severity of a wound you just took by one level. You can't reduce wounds after the fact; you have to take care of it at the time that the wound is "incoming".

Armor

Armor is a minor concern. This is because damage in FUDGE Amber is more a function of how good you are at circumventing an opponent's defenses, armor included; and also because a single +1 or +2 is very large in terms of the granularity of the system.

Any armor you have that provides a bonus subtracts from damage after you are hit (this distinction is important for effects which just require touch, and other things, so it is made).

Wearing no armor is no bonus.

Wearing light to medium armor gives a +1. Leather or chain is a good example here.

Wearing heavy armor gives a +2, and may incur some penalties to your attacks and some actions. Platemail is a good example here.

Wearing heavy and effectively seamless armor gives a +3 or a +4, depending on GM's call. You might see this in the case of certain demonic forms, for example.

Weaponry

Weapon damage bonuses are a minor concern. This is for the same reasons cited in the section on Armor, above.

Any weapon you have that provides a damage bonus adds to damage after you hit the target.

If you fight without a weapon, you do -1 damage if you are trying to injure your opponent (normal damage), or +0 damage if you are just trying to knock your opponent out (stun damage, which occupies boxes but goes away quickly after a fight).

If you fight with a light or medium weapon, you do damage as you roll it.

If you fight with a heavier weapon, you can do +1 or +2 damage; +1 generally comes with no penalty, while +2 may incur some defensive penalties.

Few weapons do more than +2 damage. Guns do +2 or +3 if you can find a place to use them, and Greyswandir probably does +4 damage against certain kinds of creatures.