The Feat Variations
The Fourth in Mr J Gray’s series on Castle Falkenstein rules variations, this booklet deals with both the use of the cards in your hand to achieve success in Feats (actions) and the range of difficulty that can be set for any particular Feat.
“The Hard Limit Variation” which helps stop “Hand Dumping” where some players always use all of their cards on one Feat.
“The Half-Off Variation” which allows more cards in your hand to give more points towards a Feat. Over use of this variation can be countered by the “Ability Harmonics Option” in which the Host (GM) can apply slightly negative effects on players who use unaligned cards
Finally, “The Dwarfish Requirement Variation” increases the range of difficulty levels the Host has available to assign to a Feat. This means that the Host can get away without having to play cards from their hand purely to make a Feat trickier. The most useful part of this section of the booklet is a list of all the Abilities with examples of the sort of result that might be achieved at each level.
As always, there are options within each Variation to adapt the new rules should you wish to.
We are using all three of these variations. The “Ability Harmonics Option” has led to some enjoyable, random sub-plots appearing based upon the results. With “The Dwarfish Requirement Variation”, I have found that as I no longer need to use my Host hand on general Feats, I now keep it purely to apply to Host Characters (NPCs) who can think about where to apply their actions. This has sped up the play. The list of examples by Ability is really helpful and the table provided makes quick reference easy.
Yet another handy addition to Castle Falkenstein and as we use all three Variations, it’s a five out of five, thank you, Mister Gray.
