Heroes vs. Gangs (and free Intimidates, and Power Tricks)

[fairytalejedi]

So here are some house rules that have emerged in our BASH! Fantasy game.

Heroes vs. Gangs
When attacking an entire gang by RAW, for every 5 points by which your attack roll exceeds a minion's defense, you can hit one additional minion in the gang, making one damage roll which is taken by every minion that was hit.

We add the following options when you score extra hits:

1) You can choose to hit a single minion more than once, applying the damage roll to that one target two (or more) times, if a single damage roll isn't enough to take down the minion.

2) Instead of "spending" your awesomeness on extra hits, you can instead gain 1 Hero Point for each hit that you don't spend. This way extra hits aren't wasted, above and beyond the number of minions remaining; and also you can "bank" your extra successes against minions to give yourself more awesomeness later in the adventure.

3) The extra hit rule also applies to ranged weapons (which somewhat diminishes the value of the Rapid Reloader talent, but that talent could still be useful, particularly in boss fights). With bows, each hit counts as an extra hit. With crossbows, two hits count as one hit (so you would gain a second hit if your attack roll is +15 over the target number, a third hit if your attack roll is +25 over the target number, etc. since crossbows take longer to reload).

Free Intimidate
If you inflict double the damage which would be needed to one-shot an enemy at full health, you can make a free Intimidate action. (So if a minion had a base 20 hits, 10 soak and you did 60+ damage, you can use Intimidate as a free action). When intimidating gangs, you intimidate an extra minion for every 5 points by which your roll exceeds the minions' base mental defense (i.e. if their mental defense is 7 and you roll 22 on your intimidate action - standard or with a free intimidate - you would intimidate up to 4 minions at once).

Power Tricks
Power stunting magical powers has been replaced with Power Tricks (single use) which cost a number of Hero Points equal to the cost of the power (so a Level 1 power costs 1 Hero Point; Level 2 power costs 3 Hero Points; and Level 3 power costs 6 Hero Points).

In our setting specifically, this is the revised norm for elven magic. Since elves are inherently magical but usually don't train in specific spells, they often have the Magic advantage but no specific powers that they know, relying instead on power tricks, which most often take the form of subtle nature magic, woodland camouflage, etc.