What stops a person from never EVER taking a wound or trauma by using the fortune talent? They can effectively just become immortal… I thought there was a “Once Per Scene” rule like the sacrifice armor rule. But I can not find it anywhere. Am I just missing it?
How I read it and tackle it:
- You need fortune points
- The talent negates Wound/Trauma, not Wounds/Traumas. Therefore if the attack reduces you to 0 vigor and the next one causes 2 wounds for example…
The same principle is the sacrificial armor: negates Wound, not wounds. Otherwise it is even harder for someone to take damage, specially after they scavenge the battlefield for any type of armor.
Pretty much what Valyar said - the main issue here is that once players run through all 3 Fortune points, they can’t use the Talent anymore. Granted Fortune points are not terribly hard to come by but they aren’t as easy to get as Momentum either. Also remember that you are the one that controls the flow of Fortune points. If you have players abusing this Talent just slow down the rate at which they gain Fortune points.
To add to Valyar’s statement about only negating a singular Wound/Trauma, the Talent also states that all other damage is still taken, so if they use it to negate a Wound because they took 5 Vigor damage, then they still lose that Vigor. If they hit zero Vigor then they are going to start taking a Wound with every attack that hits them and deals damage, which will probably be completely untenable for that character after a couple of rounds.
So while that Talent is pretty good, it’s by no means an “Invincibility” button.
You only control the fortune if the PC didn’t also buy, “Make your own luck”, which I grant is 1600 raw XP to get all the required talents.
Now for 3 momentum you can buy 1 fortune. OR you can add 3 doom to the pool to gain it as well, although it says, immediate, it doesn’t say repeatable, so I would simply say this can be done once, but it still gives the PC the strong potential to negate 1 wound, maybe 2 per round…ONCE all their fortune is spent.
As for granted fortune. They better be RPing the heck out of how their luck is saving their ■■■. If they aren’t I am afraid I simply won’t be granting them that many fortune.
With all that being said I do think this is a problem, although not for the invincibility so much as it will quickly become dull to the other players as the scenario plays out.
I read it that the talent can be used when you suffer a wound. Ie I suffer wound from 0 vigor, spend 1 fortune, I suffer a wound from 5 points of damage, spend 1 fortune. It is by an Intense weapon? I spend 1 fortune.
3 wounds suffered, 3 fortune spent.
Its very poorly worded in any regards.
I think the saving grace would be what Ogedei stated, is that make your own luck is not repeatable, so you can only use your own fortune, PLUS one spend.
But the problem being is that is does say “When ever you suffer a wound/trauma …” you can spend a fortune, so if you do take two wounds, you can spend two fortune to negate both. (Thats the way I read it anyways)
But my biggest concern was the make your own luck talent being a way to abuse it… but that is solved I think for me now.
Thanks
Overcome a Weakness. A player character may spend a Fortune point to ignore the effects of all instances of a single type of Harm (physical, mental, etc.), until the end of the current scene.
As written this allows a player to choose wounds or trauma and they do not suffer from the difficulty increase that they would normally suffer from for that scene, being incapacitated at 4 or dead at 5.
It is not a single harm, it is a single type of harm. So all wounds obtained during a scene have no mechanical effect until the end of a scene, including ones inflicted after the fortune point was spent.
I believe this was created to let players have valiant last stand like moments where they can fight to the very end and die after slaying their foes.
I am not a fan of this and rule that it only effects the difficulty increase aspect. 4 harm is still incapacitated and 5 is still death.
Between voluntary failure, make your own luck, the starting 3 fortune points and gaining extra through play. Players have more than enough fortune.
-EDIT-
This also applies to Nemesis type enemies. Amusingly this means that RAW battles where two individuals are battling would not end if people used fortune in such a way unless one side forced a scene change 
This said, if the spend of fortune merely allowed you to ignore the difficulty increase it would be fine. So it is easily houseruled away.
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