Charm Schticks (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

Actor

Inherent

You are a character actor, well able to maintain a role. You like to immense yourself in your assumed persona, and seem able to change your personality and demeanor on cue.

When you use Acting & Disguise, you only need to make rolls when confronted with people familiar with your assumed role. You can also disguise yourself as a different race, gender or as a specific person as long as you can conceal any obvious physical differences; your method acting convinces people to overlook minor oddities in your appearance.

Ablative Clothing

Inherent

When in action, you have a marvelous ability to lose your clothes. Blows miss you by the sheerest margin, slashing your outfit. Branches conspire to rip your clothes. Claws gore clothes instead of flesh. This schtick is just as common among hunks and babes. Conan has it, as does many fantasy barbarians and bimbos in all genres.

Use this schtick to ignore the effects of any one physical attack or stunt. You can also use it to ignore difficult ground or other adverse terrain effects, in which case you can ignore such conditions for one Round. This rips up your clothes beyond repair. You cannot use this schtick while naked or in ripped clothes, and can only use it once per session.

Once you have used this you are as naked as they day you were born (or as naked as the genre will allow). Any function your clothes once had is gone. You no longer have any armor. This can serve to activate Bulletproof Nudity.

Acumen

Basic Action

You can use the Sense Motive stunt as a Basic Action, but you still need to observe your target in a social context. You can only attempt Acumen once per scene on a particular target.

Art Appreciation

Standard Action

You can evaluate and give insightful and charming commentary on art of all kinds. In a setting where art is prominent (exhibition, performance and so on) you can engage another in commentary on the art and make a Charm roll against Charm or Know roll. If you succeed, further Charm checks this scene are Routine as long as they somehow relate to the art or the mood the art is trying to create.

By studying someone's home or art collection, you can make the same roll to gain important insights about that person. For the rest of the session, your Charm checks are Routine, and that even on actions unrelated to art. You also gain the benefits of a successful Sense Motive stunt.

If you fail an art appreciation check against someone, you cannot try again this session.

Beauty Mask

Inherent

The Crying Freeman has this schtick, and any character can have it in almost any juncture.

This schtick gives a sort of anonymity, even when not in disguise. Your features are idealized and forgettable. People can't seem to remember just exactly what you looked like when giving a description, tought they will readily recognize you if you meet again. They know someone was there, but they just can't think of what you looked like. "He looked kinda like a movie star."

If an observer or interrogator spends a Limit Break, an opposed Charm gives a basic description.

Betrayal

Limit Break

Use this when you are with someone who trusts you implicitly and has lowered his guard to you and who you can hold or embrace without them resisting you. It works both inside and outside of combat.

You can do a Finisher against your target, just as if you had just defeated him in combat.

Blind Eye

Trigger Action

Win an opposed Charm check to convince the target that something it would normally not accept is in fact acceptable. The target turns a blind eye to the problem and acts normally despite the situation. The target overlooks what would normally be unacceptable identity, behavior, or appearance, going so far as to ignore rules and social conventions. The target turns a blind eye to a single situation and its direct natural repercussions. For example, having accepted a barbarian at a cocktail party, the target will not react to that barbarian again until he does something truly outrageous. Any direct threat of harm breaks the charm.

Captivating Captive

Trigger Action (Focus)

When you are a helpless captive or otherwise at the mercy of your opposition, you can focus.

Consummate Charm

Inherent

When you make a successful Charm stunt, you can add three to the Outcome of the action, increasing the chance to score a Setback.

Cosmopolite

Inherent

You are at home in all cultures, able to understand and adopt to strange manners and customs. Negate any penalties on Charm or Impress rolls related to alien cultures. You automatically succeed on social skill rolls made solely to make contact.

This schtick does not cover languages; use Linguist for that.

Cute

Inherent

There is something about you that makes others care for you. Depending on their personality, this might make them want to kidnap and possess you or just give you a smile and favorable treatment. You automatically have at least the minimal effect of Charm on everyone you meet, making them see you as special and pleasant to be with. This makes it easy for you to get into social events, make acquaintances, and generally be very popular in a non-domineering sort of way.

Fascination

Basic Action

By meeting someone's eye, you can fascinate them, distracting them and giving you an opportunity to interact socially with them.

This mainly eases first contact. A successful opposed Charm roll distracts your target and focuses his attention on you. He will follow you a short way and be willing to sit down to be seduced, bluffed or intimidated. This also works to distract guards, focusing their attention on you instead of on what they should be doing.

In an action scene, the target must either lose three shots or make you his objective, moving adjacent to you and focusing on getting some private time with you for the rest of the round. If your Outcome matches the target's Mind, he suffers both results.

Does not work on creatures incapable of communication.

Fainting Flower

Inherent

Whenever you are affected by a stunt or take damage, you can choose to ignore the effect and instead swoon beautifully. This costs you all shots for this round, but lets you ignore all damage while swooning. Enemies can use Trigger Actions (Finishers) against you, as long as you do not take further damage from them.

Fainting Flower does not help against truly indiscriminate dangers such as a bomb or rockfall, tough it does help against normal area attacks. Nor can you use this schtick to defend against attempts to capture, carry away, or otherwise take possession of you; in fact you are helpless against such attacks; your Dodge is zero against them for the remainder of the round. You cannot use this to escape confinement or whatever nefarious death-traps you might be placed in while in a swoon.

Frisk

Varies

Make a quick examination of someone, looking for hidden weapons, contraband, and so on. This is an opposed roll compared to the target's Charm, Create, or Impress skill. Depending on what you are looking for and how you do it, there are several modifiers. In order to even try to hide an item like this, the character must be carrying enough clothes.

Circumstance	Modifier
You are using a detection device of the same or higher sophistication that the item sought.	+3
You know exactly what you are looking for.	+3
Person carries the object inside his body (swallowed, surgically implanted).	-5
Type of search	Modifier
No Action Passive search; you are not actively searching, but the concealed object would attract your notice if you did search (not an action)	-5
Trigger Action Visual observation only.	-3
Basic Action Pat-down	+0
Limit Break Body cavity search	+5

In general, you only get one chance at frisking. But if you can change your modifiers so you get better odds, you can try again.

Sometimes, the GM will give you hints even on a failed roll, especially if the plot demands it; you generally get a bad feeling about a the situation even if you failed to find exactly what you looked for as long as you did not fail by a margin greater than your Mind. This realization might not come at once, and you might not be certain who your suspect is, but it gives you incentive to look more closely. By the same token, the GM might delay the result of a successful roll to heighten tension and move the plot along.

When a player tries to smuggle something past a guard, the GM should generally let the player roll their Charm, Create, or Impress skill against the guard's modified Recon; it is much more interesting to have the players be the active party.

Various stunts can be used to distract a guard or fool someone into revealing what they carry, these generally modify the Recon check further. A Setback on such a stunt makes either avoidance or discovery automatic.

Now and then the GM will have to fudge these rolls; generally to allow either a hero or villain to pass inspection but still cause suspicion - this is often the best setup for an exiting action scene.

Gambler

Basic Action

You have a knack for gambling. Cinematic gambling has little to do with real-world gambling, and is not about calculating odds and folding at the right time; it is all about absurd luck. This schtick gives you the ability to draw just the right card to fill out your glorious hand or to give your race horse that little extra burst of speed.

You can take a Basic Action know the difficulty of a certain proposed task. You can make others accept a bet for a trivial stake by succeeding on an opposed Charm roll, with higher outcomes indicating bigger wagers. An outcome matching the target's Mind allows stakes the target really cannot afford to lose, the equivalent of a Setback.

You make Confident Rolls when gambling. Whenever you have a bet hanging on a trivial event, one whose main repercussion is to win or lose a bet, you can make a Charm check and substitute the result for whatever skill check would normally determine success. You don't need to be the one performing this action, this is an aspect of your luck.

Help From My Friends

Trigger Action (Focus)

When surrounded by friends, championing their cause, you gain confidence. When within 30 meters of 12 or more people that support your actions, wish you well, and generally are on your side, you can focus.

Honest Joe

Trigger Action

You have a way with people, and inspire trust and confidence without really trying to. Any basically good and law-abiding people gladly give you a hand, though there must be a reason if they are to accept discomfort or danger to help you. This lets you charm people without really trying to, and tends to make you a leaders of mobs and posses. You may come into conflict with official authority figures. Sometimes, you can even inspire this trust in goons and villains, but usually only after you have soundly trounced them.

You can make a roll to find Common Ground as a Finisher, when you rescue someone from danger, and upon first meeting good-natured, law-abiding people.

Infiltrator

Limit Break

You can convincingly pass yourself off as nearly anyone with a little time and preparation. To use this ability, you temporarily stop playing. Your character is presumed to have donned a disguise and gone "off camera". At any subsequent point during play you may choose any nameless, filler character (a villain’s minion, a bellboy in the hotel, the cop who just pulled you over) in a scene and reveal that that character is actually you in disguise. Make an opposed Charm roll against the most skilled opponent on the scene. If this roll succeeds, you get to pick an NPC minion who is really you in disguise. If the roll fails, the opposition chooses who you are replacing, which can often put you in a dangerous position.

You may remain in disguise for as long as you like, but if anyone is tipped off that you might be nearby, an opposed Charm roll can be performed as a Limit Break. If the spotter wins, that player (or GM) gets to decide what nameless character on the scene you infiltrated as - and generally does so when you are alone and vulnerable.

Influential Friend

Inherent

You have a friend in a high places. This can be a king, hero, high official, monster, or even a god. You are childhood friends, accidental acquaintances, lovers, or otherwise know each other privately.

Inclined to act in your favor, an influential friend has many other obligations and this makes him unreliable. Your friend likes you and wants to correspond with you and spend time with you, but is aware that showing you preferential treatment is somewhat irresponsible and thus does not provide all the support he could. He will give plenty of hints, rumors, and tidbits of information as well as the occasional gift and favor. Pressuring an influential friend for more help may produce grand results in the short term, but can easily backlash. At times, your influential friend might need your help, having you act secretly as their agent in the world.

Inspiration

Inherent

You are an inspiration to others. Whenever someone else performs an action that you heartily endorse, you can use Inspiration to give them a Fortune point they must immediately spend. You lose this Fortune point as if you spent it yourself. This schtick can even be used when you are not present, but you then need to describe a montage of something you did or told them that can inspire them in the current crisis.

Lip Reading

Basic Action

You have the ability to decipher what people are saying merely from looking at their lips moving. As long as you can get a reasonably good view of a speaker's lips and know the language, you can get the gist of what is said. Certain parts may be obscure or missing, depending on your skill roll and the needs of the plot.

Medium

Limit Break

You are sensitive to psychic impressions, and can often catch the mood of a place and get glimpses of important events that happened there in the past. Make a Charm check to seek answers, which works much like Contacts, only the answers are colored by the nature of the place instead of your contacts.

Protector

Limit Break

You have a protector, usually a Henchman Extra with a maximum skill equal to your Charm who looks out for your interest and will accompany you on adventures. Often somewhat dim witted, he is nonetheless a loyal defender and trusty companion. He generally thinks of himself as the true hero and you as the sidekick to be protected.

Your protector need not be a specific person, and can actually be someone you had never seen before you met at the adventure site, or one of the villains henchmen overcome by your charms.

You often get separated from your protector early in the story, but he generally reappears in the dramatic scene, having made his way into the den of evil to rescue you just as he is needed (when you take the limit break). You can also use a Limit Break to inspire your protector, restoring any Hits he might have taken. After a rescue, he will expect some measure of attention and devotion from you, just as if you had seduced him.

Self-Made

Inherent

You are successful in business and thus financially independent. And you can do it again; if you was washed up on a pacific island, you would be king of the clamshells (or whatever) in a day or two.

Silver Tongue

Basic Action

People tend to tell you things, and you tend to learn more than they intended from what they say. This is active all the time. You can make an opposed Charm roll to make a character say way to much, even if they are on their guard. When you make a knowledge roll for the Charm skill or an active stunt to get someone to brag or otherwise drop information, the roll is routine.

Sleight of Hand

Basic Action

Your training gives yous several advantages when trying to use Palm Object.

Make an opposed Charm roll. On a success you can swipe a small object and the theft will not be immediately noticed. If you fail and score a negative Outcome matching your Reflexes the attempt is noticed. To swipe an object that is larger than your hand, is in use, or that is closely supervised you must score a positive outcome matching the observer's Mind.

Spin Yarn

Inherent

By continually speaking, you may keep your audience captive with outrageous tales, distracting them. You can keep this up beyond all reason. You must first engage the victim in conversation, and then make an opposed Charm roll. You can target several people at once with no penalties, but use the highest value in the audience for a difficulty.

For each point of outcome, you keep going for a minute. You can then try again. If the outcome exceeds your victims' Mind, they give you some boon, either out of sympathy or in an effort to get away.

Failing the roll, combat, an alarm, and other direct threats and immediate situations will break your hold on people. You might have to use your Spin Yarn on someone who comes to interrupt, or lose your audience.

Star Stuff

Limit Break

You are an expressive performer who can enthrall an audience and inspire a great range of emotion. You are famous in your field, and can easily get into social events or arrange performances.

When on stage performing, you are supremely confident. Any Charm and Impress rolls you make while on stage are Confident Rolls. This aspect of Star Stuff is inherent and always active.

You can set a scene and create a feeling, shaping the social atmosphere to be conductive to a certain emotion. This can range from a rousing song to inspire bravery or arranging a romantic dinner to charming people into spending more on shopping. This can be done trough various means; performance, interior decoration, lighting, scents, and most often a combination of several factors.

As a Limit Break, you can make an opposed Charm roll to set the emotion for a scene. Make a single roll and compare it against each of their Charm skills to see who in the audience you affect. Interaction rolls that go along with the emotion you set become Routine against someone so influenced. This can be done anywhere, tough it is easier when you are on stage due to the first ability of this schtick.

Steal the Story

Trigger Action

While another individual attempts to give an account of an event or use Charm as a basic action or limit break, you can make an opposed Charm check to deftly interject comments or statements over the course of the storytelling that cause the individual to muddle specific details. This will discredit, insult, and humiliate the speaker. If the check succeeds, the speaker does not succeed at informing listeners about what she was trying to say and the attitude of anyone who heard the altered story becomes distant. If your Charm check fails the target realizes that you made deliberate attempts to confuse the story.

The Kiss

Basic Action, Trigger Action (Focus)

You dramatically kiss someone. This is a romantic kiss, not an inconspicuous kiss on the cheek. Kissing someone is a Basic Action. The creature kissed then has the option to take a Trigger Action to accept the kiss and focus - in which case you both become focused.

For this to work out of combat, there needs to be some romantic tension and some kind of a development in your relationship, tough the kiss itself can be but one small step.

Truthseer

Trigger Action (Defense)

Use this when you suppose a lie is being spoken; you gain a +5 bonus (usually to Charm, but sometimes to other skills used as defenses) to resist interactions based on lies. If no lies are spoken or perpetuated, there is no bonus. "Lies" in this context includes disguise, illusion and other direct falsehoods, but not deceptive but technically true statements.

At any time, when an interaction based on lies fails, you realize which statements were lies but cannot tell the truth.