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| A player has to announce her character is using a Drama Point during the Intentions phase of a Turn, or before rolling during non-combat situations. Drama Points can be used in several ways:
Heroic Feat: By spending a Drama Point, the character gets a +10 bonus on some value. This can be an attack or defense roll, or any use of a skill, or even for a Fear or Survival Test. The Heroic Feat can also make things hurt more; the +10 bonus is added to the base damage in addition to any Success Level bonuses (then armour, damage type and other modifiers are applied). Also, only one Heroic Feat may be performed in a Turn. I Think I’m OK: For a mere Drama Point, half the Life Point damage (round down) the character has taken up to that point is healed up. I Think I’m Okay can be used only once per Turn, but it can be used several Turns in a row, each use halving whatever damage remains. If the character had suffered enough damage to be incapacitated or unconscious, however, healing does not necessarily awaken her. You decide if the time is right for the character to revive and join the action. Example: If Jess, our White Hat from the Injury section, spent a Drama Point to aid her Consciousness Test, she would add + 10 to her base modifier, for a total of +3. So she could stay conscious and try to defend herself against the nasty, cross-burned vampire with a roll of six or better. An even better use of the Drama Point would be to halve the damage done immediately, reducing it from 51 to 25 pts. This leaves her in positive Life Point territory, lucky 13, negating the need for the tests at all! She’s still not "the hills are alive" fine, but able to hold on for now. Next Turn, she’ll be able to use another Drama Point to further reduce the damage from 25 pts to 12. Then ol’ Cross-Face better watch out! Plot Twist: Once per game session, each character can spend a Drama Point and get a "break." This is not a Get Out of Jail Free Card. If the heroine stupidly walked into a vampires’ lair and she is surrounded by a horde of bloodsuckers, a Plot Twist won’t allow her to escape unscathed. If you decide that a Plot Twist is not possible, the player gets back the Drama Point. Righteous Fury: By spending two Drama Points, the character gets a +5 bonus to all attack actions, including magical attacks, for the duration of the fight. These benefits are cumulative with Heroic Feats, above. Problem is, an appropriate provocation is necessary to invoke the Righteous Fury rule. A player can’t decide her character is pissed about the existence of vampires, or global warming, or even the mystery meatloaf they served at school that morning. She needs to be truly provoked. Magic The dark (and not-so-dark) arts are part and parcel of the Buffyverse, where anyone with the right books can summon forces from the beyond. Of course, calling on these occult powers does not mean your character can control and use them with impunity. More often than not, magic has unintended consequences. But the real kicker is that even succeeding does not mean everything works perfectly. There is always a price, both for success and failure. You have been warned. Each spell has a Power Level. This determines the overall strength of the spell—the higher the Power Level of a spell, the more difficult it is to cast properly, and the more damaging the consequences of failure. Additionally, spells have Requirements—the ingredients or ritual components needed to attempt the magical endeavor. Finally, spells have an Effect. This is usually descriptive ("all the body hair is removed from the victim," for example), but can also include rules concepts like damage inflicted, area affected, and duration. Once everything is in place, casting a spell requires a roll using Willpower and Occultism. Drama Points can be used normally to increase the spell’s chance to succeed. Witches, meaning those with true power (or in this case, the Sorcery Quality), have an advantage when casting spells. Characters add their Sorcery level to any spellcasting roll, to a maximum bonus of +5. After that, additional levels of Sorcery stop adding up (although they still have other uses). With this bonus, Witches can cast high-power spells with a better chance of success than your typical book-reading spell-flinger. If the roll fails (i.e, the total is less than nine), the spell doesn’t work — the ritual simply fails. Generally, there’s no other down side here; your character just wasted some time, candlepower and pretty speechifying. If successful, the roll’s Success Levels are compared to the spell’s Power Level. If the number of Success Levels is less than the spell’s Power Level, something magical happens—but it may not be exactly what the caster intended. The spell’s intent may be twisted or perverted, and the caster may be injured — or even killed — as the magicks draw on her life force to fulfill their purpose. You can decide what happens, or you can roll on the Spell Side Effect Table. |