Revelation upgrades - Hate Point Abilities

[mica]

I tend to find that I almost always end up using Weariness of the Heart as the rest are either not particularly useful or simply don't have enough bite. Further, with most weapons needing a save of 14-16 anyone with even modest armour and a reasonable body is virtually immune to becoming wounded. It is almost always the case that they end up wearied, often having never rolled a protection test.

I have been knocking about a couple of ideas to make armour feel like something more than an overpriced insurance policy in the face of a revelation episode.

Wicked Blade - before a protection test is rolled spend 1 hate to increase injury TN by 2.
Mortal Blow - after a great or extraordinary success, spend 1 hate to reduce the edge rating by 1 which may then result in a piercing blow.
Cruel Strike - before a protection test is rolled spend 1 hate to prevent the use of hope.
Barbs - increase damage by 3 against targets with no armour.
Spikes - increase damage by 2 against targets with no armour and by 1 against targets with leather armour.
Cursed Blade - spend 1 hate after successfully wounding a target to make target miserable.

Flank - spend 1 hate to prevent target selecting the defensive stance in the next round
Feint - spend 1 hate to make this adversary the nominated character's next target

[Falenthal]

They look like cool combat abilities that could also be useful for some special adversaries, aside from the Revelation episodes upgrades.

I only have some doubts with 3 of them:

Barbs - increase damage by 3 against targets with no armour.
Spikes - increase damage by 2 against targets with no armour and by 1 against targets with leather armour.

Do your players go without armour? The abilities are nice, but I'd probably do something like:
Barbs - increase damage by 2 per level of success against targets with leather or no armour.
Spikes - increase damage by 1 per level of succes against targets with leather or no armour.

And also:

Cursed Blade - spend 1 hate after successfully wounding a target to make target Miserable.

That can be really nasty and powerful. Not that it shouldn't exist, only that is something that I'd be cautious to use only with the most fearsome and wicked enemies. Probably only with direct agents of the Shadow. Making someone Miserable in Combat means that he will have a Bout of Madness by his next Eye. And during Combat, dice get rolled a lot.
Could also be used as a power by Undead Lords.

[Angelalex242]

Cursed Blade is obviously based on the Nazgul's blade. I'd give that to the Nine. Not sure anyone else deserves that particular power.

The damage vs. unarmored is more for killing hostages than PCs. But lethal for that.

[mica]

Do your players go without armour? The abilities are nice, but I'd probably do something like:
Barbs - increase damage by 2 per level of success against targets with leather or no armour.
Spikes - increase damage by 1 per level of succes against targets with leather or no armour.

Most wear armour but also moan about the dubious benefits of armour.
It is largely due to:

• No immediate effect from taking a wound. It does seem odd that the character does not even suffer a penalty when taking a blow that would remove an orc's head.
• Often quickly becoming weary which also has an adverse effect on protection tests.

I wanted more reasons to be continually thankful for the extra layer of leather and metal between the character's skin and the edge of a weapon.