/tg/ - Traditional Games

I was told by a guy that fantasy craft is good shit. How do i make a join games and shit?

>>305704

>How do i make a join games and shit?

Wat.

Inquire at your FLGS. Go to the Crafty Forums. Trawl Game Finder threads. Introduce your GM to Fantasy Craft. Wind it and GM it yourself.

>>305706

Sorry, had a brain fart. What i ment to say was, how do i create a character and i don't have a gm.

>>305716

Read the book. They literally walk you through it step by step.

Also, maybe best to have a GM first, because the kind of game you are playing might affect a lot of your choices, like what races are available, what class you should take, and what gear you can buy.

>>305716

In addition to what the others said, come up with a general idea and look at what they game has. Maybe do a noncommittal walkthrough of creating a character so you know how to do it. Picking a class should be straightforward, along with species and specialty. Pay special attention to feats. That's where the variation comes in.

>>305972

give him one or two supporting NPCs. run them in combat as basic blobs that just "fight the enemy" while he does his thing. They don't need to be rolled for or tracked, they're just there to hold on to a couple extra enemies until they move in to attack Conan in numbers that he can handle, and give you an out to kill a few extra enemies if he's getting shafted this go 'round.

>How do I make it so that tavern brawls and back-alley muggings are balanced to be both easier and less rewarding XP-wise than a climactic duel with a powerful rival?

by making them easier, and rewarding them with less xp. the rules are there to help you, the moment they stop doing that, they are ignored.

So is Spellbound going to be released before 2020 or is it still in NEVER EVER territory?

>>306098

I usually stop by the Crafty booth at every GenCon and shoot the shit with Alex and or Pat. Nice dudes. Whenever Spellbound is mentioned, they either say it's in the works, or that it's on hold while they finish up another Mistborn supplement or Kickstarter.

>>305972

>On the more specific side, how do I balance out the rules for standard adversaries, special adversaries, and mobs?

Mobs of standard adversaries are meant to challenge a party just like individual special characters. This dynamic breaks down with just one PC. It's designed with parties ideally of 4-5 characters. You'd be best reducing the levels of all NPCs or having them all be standard and the ones who are supposed to be standard have the mook quality. Definitely build encounters with a single hero in mind. It'd probably be best to structure most adventures around 1-on-1 conflict (violent or social). Recomended Campaign Qualities:

>Beefy Heroes (damage resistance, not permanent)

>Bold Heroes (extra action dice to compete with yours, not permanent)

>Dominant Heroes (auto-crits when the PC or a special character scores a threat, not permanent)

>Fast Attributes, Fast Feats, Fast Levels, Fast Proficiencies to make the PC advance faster (all permanent)

>Hearty Heroes for faster healing (not permanent)

>Larger-Than-Life Heroes for more budget in attribute point buy (permanent)

>Monty Haul doubles the number of prizes and removes non-overencumbered weight penalties, to compensate for lack of a whole party worth of gear (permanent)

The non permanent qualities can be activated per scene with GM action dice if you don't want them on all the time.

This >>305974 is a good idea. Definitely recommend the Personal Lieutenant feat, Followers Feat, and Animal Partner feat as well.

Anyone running or playing in any games currently? How are they going? Whats been good or bad about it?

>>306138

My group said we'd go back to FC when Spellbound came out. That was 2 years ago.. I'm not joking. We were under the impression that it would be out soon and we didn't want to start a game and then have everyone roll new characters in mid-campaign to try all the new stuff.

Thinking about making a female giant character or a female ogre character. Thoughts/suggestions?

>>306160

The only benefit I see is a free sack of holding.

>>306164

How do you mean?

>>306167

Well usually a female can comfortably store little more than a roll of coins.

>>306169

OH. I went to go check the core rulebook before it hit me.

>>306339

>>can down her weight in booze thanks to ridiculous Con

Here's a homebrew/houserule question. Normally a character is strictly limited to a certain number of food/drink benefits per day. And there are no vanilla rules for intoxication. What would be a good system to allow characters to get drunk? I'm thinking each drink beyond the given amount (e.g. 2 for a character with Hearty Appetite) prompts a Con save and success grants the benefit while failure inflicts a graded condition. The DC should obviously increase based on the number of foods/drinks. What's a good way to make this work, DC 15 + 5 per drink over the limit? What about conditions:

>Drunk (I+, Special): Slowed. -2 penalty with attack checks and Dex- and Int-based skill checks. If you fail a save to avoid becoming drunk by 10 or more, you fall unconscious.

This is obviously not meant to represent 1 "Booze" = 1 pint or 1 shot, but enough of a drink to have an effect for a given character.

>>306548

I'd suggest adding a penalty to wis-based skill checks, most notably Notice and Sense Motive. Boozing somebody up to slip something by them is a time-honored tradition of storytelling in general.

>>306636

Seems a little strong having penalties to half the attributes that can stack as long as they don't fall unconscious. Maybe have Dex, Con, Int, and Wis scores each drop by 2 points (-1 penalty to the checks instead of -2). Then drop the unconscious extra because you fall unconscious when an attribute hits 0 anyway. Then have the drunk condition wear off one grade per time period. Maybe throw in a rule that while drunk you can't get proper rest, so you can become fatigued causing a hangover. I don't think there are rules for what happens if you don't sleep, but it should probably be to the effect of subdual damage.

So how exactly do you make NPC animal companions? This seems super confusing to puzzle out and the manual doesn't even have a lot of solid examples that go up to the 50XP limit without going over. Does it matter if you're a few points short? Every point seems pretty important which seems to scream 'do it yourself' but I don't actually know.

>>306883

I don't understand where you are getting stuck. You have 50 XP to spend in building it, so you buy NPC traits up to 50 XP. There is a whole chapter dedicated to making NPCs.

>>306889

There are too many options and I'm not sure how to use them to make what I want because I'm not familiar with the system enough to understand the relevance of all these effects. Like if I want to make a giant snake the poison quality doesn't seem to specify cost differences for different poisons but different poisons are obviously stronger and that doesn't seem right.

>>306890

Okay, I see what's happening. You're used to TOG and its unhealthy fascination with making caddy-corner rules for every little situation. Fantasy Craft doesn't do something stupid like that. If you see an option that you think is fun, whether because you think it's strong or flavorful, take it; it's balanced.

Now, as to making NPCs, it IS more of an art than a science. It does take a bit more system mastery to understand the nuances of the system. But, you're really thinking too much about it. The poison bit is fine. If you have any specific questions about making your Animal Partner, ask away.

>>306883

>So how exactly do you make NPC animal companions? This seems super confusing to puzzle out and the manual doesn't even have a lot of solid examples that go up to the 50XP limit without going over.

Check the Call From Beyond and Conjure Elemental spells to get an idea how this sort of thing works.

>Does it matter if you're a few points short?

No, because there's no benefit to being under the limit.

>>306890

Start with the core concept. If the animal has some unique trait like a chameleon's camoflage then figure that out first. Other than core things, start with the attribute scores, then do the Traits (Health, Resilience, Competence, etc.), then do the attacks. Then start messing with NPC qualities. You do these later because you have already used up more budget and you want as few of these as possible while still getting the concept right. This tool http://www.meadicus.plus.com/craftygames/npc-builder/NPCBuilder.html is very useful. You can even load an NPC by clicking "Load Previous NPC" and pasting its stat block in the dialog box. Since you're new I recommend copying one of the animal entries from the bestiary that's closest to what animal you want and then modifying it.

>Like if I want to make a giant snake the poison quality doesn't seem to specify cost differences for different poisons but different poisons are obviously stronger and that doesn't seem right.

The cost for the poisonous quality is constant because it's low, and it's low because poisons are not that powerful. They all have a DC 12 Fort save, which repeats until the character succeeds or dies from the effect. You can't apply upgrades to natural poisons (barring homebrew), so in Fantasy Craft it's impossible to have a monster that does super lethal poison effects for lower-middle level characters on up.

>>307645

That sounds really shitty for poison.

STALE BREAD

https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20170320043146/http://8ch.net/tg/res/228317.html

how the fuck did this thread get sent to the 404rest anyways? It's like the April 1st hack was a scheme to get rid of all our good threads.

>>307771

Take into account two things. First, accuracy increases faster than defense, and Second, you stabilize your damage by getting statistically more hits in.

Say you hit 60% of the time. Two attacks gives 120% (60 x 2) damage on average, while three with -2 will give 150% (50 x 3) and five attacks at -5 gives 175% (35 x 5). If you have a base 75% accuracy, it instead gives 150 / 195 / 250% damage in average. Only against high evasion target it is a worse trade off if being flat-footed puts you a risk.

And if you move and attack? With the base 60 and 75% accuracy, you end up with respectively 60 / 100 / 140 and 75 / 130 / 200 % damage on average, an ever larger gap. So… yes, there is a point to it as you can see.

>>307928

… And I have to thanks you for indirectly pointing me toward my mistake, as I forgot that it is a full action for Flashing Weapon, while I calculated it with a Half above. So yeah, my math is slightly off

>>307965

The versatility with 3-4 attacks per round comes into play with tricks you apply to those attacks or other bonuses you get from attacking. What tricks you varies wildly depending on your build. Alternatively, if you had Darting/Flashing Weapon and the Cleave feats then you could potentially line up four consecutive Cleave chains in a single round, if you're playing the type of game with loads and loads of mook or similarly weak enemies.

>>308475

You forgot the most important part. From the GM's side

>Not having to try and plan around casters fucking up your entire session with one goddamned spell.

I'm cross-posting this here to help advertise my game.

>>308631

>>308475

If anything FC is a bit too heavy on combat variety and sparse on magic (hence Spellbound) or support/skillmonkeys.

>>309003

Magic has a lot of versatility to begin with, but you don't have as much in the way of Tricks, but the number of combat tricks don't exactly measure up to the things you can do with spells.

>>309470

Sure, but in terms of just how much content there is for combat-based characters, the game is designed to be more combat heavy.

>>307965

Not mechanically possible at any point to have an orc with 40 strength. Not unless you're doing something I'm not seeing or, well, lore reasons are the exception here.

>>309475

40 STR is perfectly reachable:

18 Character creation

21 (+3) Racial

23 (+2) Talent

28 (+5) Attributes per level at Level 20

30 (+2) Lancer's excellence ability

31 (+1) Axe supremacy

32 (+1) Great sword supremacy

37 (+5) Rage supremacy (Stance)

38 (+1) Draconic legacy

47 (+9) Brawn IV (Spell)

54 (+7) Greater attribute bonus magic item

58 (+4) Strength path V (Via Blessed and spending Interests in your Path)

Combat focus, finally, to double the bonus from the attribute for (Basic combat feat) attacks for a little overkill

Even removing Brawn, which is the only temporary one, one can reach 49 Strength, and when not raging if you need skills, you reach 44 Strength either way. Granted that's Level 20, but still…

Seems the thread was reset a couple days ago, as the last messages are missing… for the one commenting about how 40 STR was unreachable still, I still got the content of the post there:

40 STR is perfectly reachable:

18 Character creation

21 (+3) Racial

23 (+2) Talent

28 (+5) Attributes per level at Level 20

30 (+2) Lancer's excellence ability

31 (+1) Axe supremacy

32 (+1) Great sword supremacy

37 (+5) Rage supremacy (Stance)

38 (+1) Draconic legacy

47 (+9) Brawn IV (Spell)

54 (+7) Greater attribute bonus magic item

58 (+4) Strength path V (Via Blessed and spending Interests in your Path)

Combat focus, finally, to double the bonus from the attribute for (Basic combat feat) attacks for a little overkill

Even removing Brawn, which is the only temporary one, one can reach 49 Strength, and when not raging if you need skills, you reach 44 Strength either way. Granted that's Level 20, but still…

>>309683

… Ok, so why it lost the post the first time I load the page, hard refresh to test it out, and only AFTER posting it puts everything?

>>309685

Pech Soldier - Full Plate

Human Soldier - Full Plate

I'll grant you I have inverted Talent and Speciality, there, my bad. But one can gain an alignment without being a priest dependaing on campaign, so I wen twith this for pure theorycrafting. There's free melee feats from Lancer in there too as you level up.

As for storytime? I have one, written from my char's persepctive in a journal. Game ended so it's pretty final, but you can have a read there: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S6FcHaqHsr5dCXWAiLrY3uWbmcjS3-8yvZqiFmjuTQU/edit

What is written in Red is not from me, and the notes at the end were for my own rambling / things to put in words later. Style varies as it is more direct in time we were not having much downtime, which is pretty much the entire second half. And yes, Sigil was our base of operation. There were four players at first, one left after the first adventure, then one joined -twice- mid-second adventure.

Game ended when we basically told the almighty entity that ruined our lives by purposely altering Story to antagonize us that no, we're not going to free him from his prison he ended up for aeons to bring the End to the multiverse

I am in another game that just started, and having a bronze dragon as a boss has its… perks, to stay polite, so I could post stuffs as they go

Yeah, the book is also not well thought out, with info spreads in multple chapters. And it seems we got something wrong by allowing to spend more Interests in advancing in Paths, so yeah… my theorycrafting falls apart at the seams.

Nevertheless, a good game is about the story before the rolling, and I wouldn't make such a one trick pony for the sake of numbers only!

>>310314

Well, even a moderately competent character build will run roughshod over a by-the-books level-scaled baddy, so FC truly shines when you get into roleplay and advancement and being a Renowned hero who is calling in favors from Kings and Lords.

>>310484

>>Involved in any FC games? If so, got any stories to tell?

I'm GMing a game for my friends and we're fucking around doing a podcast. I'm about to start writing some "Intro to Fantasy Craft" videos to record this week while one player is out of town. As for stories, nothing springs to mind as greentext-able from our current campaign. The ones we did before starting the podcast had some moments though. Here's a bit from a one-off we did with the "Iconic" characters.

>party tracks down some ogre bandits to an abandoned mine where they're camped out

>after a little trouble the party gets to the inside of the mine to fight the baddies

>being standard characters, everyone but the bandit leader goes down pretty fast

>because I'm a genius I forgot about squeezing and realized too late that the mine is too small for ogres, they're having a hard time doing anything

>and someone did something (I forget what) that blinded all the ogres

>leader has Fearless II so he won't surrender

>Hoping to get the party to do something other than whittle him down, I suggest using some of the other combat actions

>they conclude that the Threaten action is most effective

>we spend 10 minutes having the player characters shout the bandit leader into fainting

>and then one player piles a large door and the dead bandits on top of the leader so that when he comes to he can ask him if he feels "the burden of command".

>>What's your current build? What's your favorite build?

I've yet to be a player, but of the PCs I built when learning the system my favorite is probably

>unborn

>wheeled feat (Adventure Companion) so I have wheels, drop 2 charisma (-6 total)

>many-legged feat (Core) so I can run over enemies, drop 2 wisdom (-2 total)

>custom construction (hulking frame) feat (Adventure Companion) so I can run over medium sized enemies and I can plausibly carry my buddies on my body, drop 2 wisdom (-4 total)

>special construction (clockwork) feat (Core) so I can go faster and lose lumbering

>beep beep motherfucker I'm a car

The rest I leave open-ended for variation on the theme, but probably Martial Artist using constitution for attack/defense and being the combat workhorse.

>>What homebrew has your group done with the system?

My group did a worldbuilding session using Dawn of Worlds and then made up some new Species based on that per the license to improvise material. I like to mess around and make new feats, species, specialties, classes, gear, etc. One of my players is currently using a bard expert class I put together based on the class skeletons on the wiki and the existing class abilities. It's weird/experimental in that a requirement is membership in an organization (see the Book of Holding) and it grants very slow progression re: spell level you can cast but it makes the character more reliable with their spellcasting checks and concentrate checks to encourage them to be in the middle of battle. Also there's this:

It Goes Up to Eleven: At level 4 you may convert damage from your spells to Sonic damage (blast 1) at no penalty. If the spell has an area, its damage tapers off starting at the area’s edge.

>>310484

>Involved in any FC games? If so, got any stories to tell?

In between campaigns. My group is currently running some DND5e and nWoD stuff. I've got stories from my previous campaigns though.

>What's your current build? What's your favorite build?

Favorite build will always be the 3-way combination of Spear, Staff, and Polearm feats. Playing a martial artist who is combat competent is also deeply satisfying after years and years of being the guy who liked Monks.

>What homebrew has your group done with the system?

I designed a number of monsters, a few magic items, an entire pantheon, and a few unique races, but they didn't really get used.

Is their any advantage to using two (offensive) weapons in combat over using a single weapon?

>>311336

Depends on the Qualities of the weapons. A heavily armored opponent might be worth attacking with a high AP Stiletto, while an enemy with resistance against bladed attacks might be worth attacking with a blunt weapon.

>>311336

Other than this >>311339 you have 2 weapons to disarm instead of 1 and if you're using anything with the load quality you can reduce the need to reload. That second one doesn't come into play as much unless you're using something like this http://sletchweb.wikidot.com/modern-fc#toc16 where you have weapons that carry more than one shot

>>311672

pic has one error; orc can't get all those feats, so it's actually just 40

>>310484

>What's your current build? What's your favorite build?

Gifted Acrobat Burglar 4/Scout 16

spd 45ft (55 in combat)

Bab +15, F+12, R+20, W+10, Def +26, Init +26, Life +5, Leg +6

Dexterous, Very very Sneaky, Evasion I, Uncanny Dodge I, Stalker, Rough Living +4, Sneak Attack +4d6/6d6, Huntsman (Keen Senses, Sprint, Trail Signs, Expertise [Notice or Sneak]), Master Tracker 1/Scene, Overrun

Str 14, Dex 22, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 8

Elf-blood, Owl Nation, BSM (Investigator), BSM (Robber), Prodigal Skill (Search) (3), Ghost Basics (3), Two-Weapon Fighting (6), Bow Basics (7), Two-Weapon Style (9), Bow Mastery (9), Angry Hornet (11), Knife Basics (12), Pathfinder Basics (Forest) (13), Iron Will (15), Pathfinder Mastery (15), Pathfinder Supremacy (17), Ghost Mastery (18), Horde Basics (19)

(Ranks + Feats) Acrobatics 25, Athletics 23, Craft (Inscription/Carpentry) 7, Haggle 5, Investigate 25, Notice 23, Prestidigitation 23, Resolve 19, Search 28, Sneak 29, Tactics 23, Survival 23

Origin: Investigate, Search, Prestidigitation, Survival

Edged Forte, Hurled Forte, Bow Forte, Parry, Arrow Cutting, Called Shot, Cheap Shot

Common, Free Lands, Chaotic Good, Elven, Verdant Reach (Geography), Verdant Reach (Culture), Verdant Reach (History), Witches, Arborea

superior finesse goblin hatchets x2

superior goblin hurl stilettos x6

superior goblin longbow (arrows?)

Superior Fitted Elven Moderate Hardened Leather w/Light Fittings

5, Fire 5, -0, -0, -0ft, 19lbs

So I noticed this while trying to build a character. The Draconic Legacy feat says, "You may also breathe fire and select feats as if you're a Drake."

This is a 2nd-tier feat, and all the feats with Drake as prerequisite are level-1 only feats. Neither Draconic feats have the "you can drop 2 points on an attribute for another feat" line, so I don't see how it would be possible to ever use this. You could get both Draconic feats at level 1 if you have a Specialty that grants a species feat, but you'd still need to take a third feat at level one. Am I missing something?

>>311672

>>311673

The thing about this sort of build is that you lose out on balancing the character. The variety of combat actions and non-combat mechanics makes this kind of character not just limited but probably gimped.

>>311793

>Am I missing something?

Greater Breath (Fantasy Craft pg. 102) and forward planning for any content yet to be released or homebrew.

Can you use weapons alongside the berserk stance.(pg 94)

>>312525

Yeah, of course. Skill checks are forbidden. Attacks aren't skill checks. You couldn't use a weapon to do a skill check though, like a feint. They even have a sample magic item called "Blade of the Berserker". It's an axe that grants Rage Basics.

>>312565

cool, just checking because it is under unarmed combat feats.

>>312823

Star Citizen is on indefinite hiatus.

>>312824

I'm well aware. Is Spellbound not?

>>312825

It's mostly been slowed down due to Crafty's lack of employees. Star Citizen had tens of millions and plenty of employees and can't even make a working game.

>>312698

The Rage chain is under unarmed combat feats because otherwise that feat tree in the core rulebook would have been

>Kicking

>Attribute substitutions making monks martial artists be viable

>Hitting faster with fists

>WOOO

Fortunately the Adventure Companion added

>Blocking attacks like Jackie Chan

>Being able to change your stance in a way that doesn't disrupt the flow of combat

>Hitting faster with fists and weapons

>kame… hame… HA

>MORTAL KOMBAAAAAAAAT

And the Book of Holding adds a bunch of utility feats plus a feat chain that's obviously Hamon from JoJo.

>>306352

Did she break her leg?

>>310781

>Favorite build will always be the 3-way combination of Spear, Staff, and Polearm feats. Playing a martial artist who is combat competent is also deeply satisfying after years and years of being the guy who liked Monks.

Do you have the stats for this? I'm looking to build something similar, but not entirely sure where to start.

>>313364

No build, I just prioritize those feats because they all have synergy.

>>313364

Start with your concept. Figure out species/talent first and then look at Specialty. The class(es) to pick should be obvious based on what you want to do. Most of the rest is feat selection. Look at those 3 feat chains first so you know which you want for sure. Then the rest is up to you. Fantasy Craft purposefully doesn't really have the Ivory Tower design issues of 3.X where you can make a shitty build if you don't know what you're doing. You can minmax but it's normally not worth it because weak spots are easy to exploit.

>>313455

Definitely this: Make a character with a focus or some sort of idea in mind and you'll probably end up with a pretty strong character, most of the time. All thes 30-40+ attribute builds being posted are just theorycrafting – Proving that it can be done, not necessarily that you have to build your character that way to be effective.

how would *you* stat conan the barbarian? Not the movie version, the book version

>>313841

I'd love to stat him out, but I've never read the books. I can try to do if you'll give me some examples of things he's done.

>>313841

Being unfamiliar with the lore, here's as far as I'm confident going.

Human, obviously.

Talent should probably be homebrewed to represent the different ethnicities in the setting (as done in Adventure Companion with the Cloak and Dagger setting). Conan is Cimmerian, for instance.

Specialty is probably Barbarian although I'm not sure if he has rage abilities. I know Conan has pretty specific lore so this might warrant homebrewing as well.

As for class, I'm pretty sure he was focused almost completely on combat, so a full Soldier build may be appropriate. You don't need class-specific abilities to earn Holdings or any of the nice shit he has at the end of the movie.

Picking feats or proficiencies and statting his attributes would definitely require familiarity with his character, but obviously he favors strength and constitution.

>>313841

Savage Barbarian Soldier 9/Burglar 4/Captain 3/Scout 4

Str 21/26, Dex 12, Con 15/20, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12

Origins: Athletics, Sneak

Acrobatics, Athletics, Bluff, Intimidate, Notice, Resolve, Ride, Search, Sneak, Survival, Tactics

Great Fortitude, Rage Basics/Mastery/Supremacy, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, All-out Attack, Cleave Basics/Mastery, Darting Weapon, Sword Basics/Mastery/Supremacy, Ambush Basics, Glint of Madness, Night Fighting

Dunno what level he'd actually be, and frankly that feels like too many non-soldier levels, but I think it covers all his bases. In D&D, I'd give him an array like 20/18/18/14/18/18 to cover how impossibly good he is at everything.

>>313897

> In D&D, I'd give him an array like 20/18/18/14/18/18 to cover how impossibly good he is at everything.

He might be more appropriately statted as an NPC considering this.

So my group is looking for a new game. We're bored of 5e and want something else like D&D and with more meat to it, but without the headache of playing something like 3.5e/Pathfinder. Will this game fill that niche? From what I've read on it, it seems to be right up our alley.

>>314156

It's very much D&D 3.5, but all the classes fill roles that aren't exactly like Fights, Wizards, and Rogues. In fact, a lot of the classes may seem like they don't have too much going on, and that's because Feats are an entirely different and much, much more potent and important to your character build.

In my experience, it's D&D-ish enough to feel familiar and easy to learn for D&D players, but different enough to break players from a lot of their usual murderhobo habits. Read through the PDF and form your own opinion though.

>>314156

Gonna second this >>314159 but FC is very crunchy. Almost all the crunch is optional though.

>>314160

>Almost all the crunch is optional though.

And I'm going to second this. FC is a toolbox. If you don't like the renown and reputation rules or the lifestyle system for managing money, you can just put them aside and keep playing the game without much issue at all.

>>314190

> If you don't like the renown and reputation rules or the lifestyle system for managing money, you can just put them aside and keep playing the game without much issue at all.

Those are good systems that make managing the party's resources no longer a pain in the ass to be fair though. Some other stuff you can leave out without any problems are Morale, Cheating Death, most Advanced Damage, encumbrance, and Narrative Control.

The thing about FC's crunch though is that all of it makes sense in the context of the story and usually is fairly simple and even open-ended.

>>314555

Depends on the alignment centric class, whether or not it was an act god which overturns alignment association, and if you're prepared for the the long-ass haul that is a redemption arc. Think there's a Greentext story on that one Paladin that killed a Bandit that gave up.

Also, verify make sure it isn't against a deities portfolio to justify the fall.

If they're not in the mood for redemption, convert their levels to the martial class they were essentially anyhow, kind of like a Paladin giving up on his vows Oaths, etc… and becoming a grizzled mercenary independent of divine involvement because reasons.

>>314555

Loses their Alignment in what way? Cast out by their God? Sinned against their faith? Excommunicated?

At any rate, there isn't a hard mechanical ruling for losing and regaining Path Powers, so the only answer is to roleplay having the character regain his faith and attunement to a new power.

>>314555

Well, Yugi:

Losing and Regaining Alignment and Steps: Should a divine caster lose or change his Alignment or Steps along a Path — temporarily or permanently — he loses all associated abilities and spells. Regaining the Alignment or Steps restores these abilities and spells (see Crisis of Faith, page 381). Fantasy Craft pg. 111

CRISIS OF FAITH

The faith of one or more characters is shaken, perhaps because they question their religion’s values or maybe because they experience something that contradicts them. Now they search for a fresh direction and watch for meaning in everything they see and everyone they meet.

Potential objectives can include learning about newly encountered faiths and making tough ethical and moral choices with lasting impact on the world. Adversaries exclusive to this Subplot are rare though members of the characters’ former faith might take it upon themselves to antagonize or undermine the party. Conversely, followers of opposing religions might court the characters with false promises of spiritual bounty, more interested in corrupting their souls than saving them.

In any campaign, a character caught in a Crisis of Faith is considered a traitor to his beliefs and the Dispositions of characters with his former Alignment decrease by 10 when they realize his state of mind. In a campaign with the miracles quality, several special rules apply (see page 309). Fantasy Craft pg. 381

>>314665

Any situation in which the character loses his Alignment, voluntarily or not, prompts a Crisis of Faith Subplot (see page 381). In a game with the miracles quality, this Subplot gains several special rules.

• The character loses his Alignment but does not lose the Interest “slot” (see page 61). Instead, it becomes frozen until the Subplot ends, at which point he may fill the slot with his new Alignment.

• For the duration of the Subplot, the character loses access to his Alignment Paths, skills, avatar, class abilities, feat abilities, and other character options requiring or supporting an Alignment. He gains access to his new Alignment’s options and may re-allocate his Steps when the Subplot ends.

• The character retains his ritual weapon but loses access to any special abilities or options related to or supported by it for the duration of the Subplot. Thereafter, he receives his new Alignment’s ritual weapon.

If Subplots are not part of your game, the character instead permanently loses access to the Interest slot, as well as his current Paths, skills, avatar, class abilities, feat abilities, and other character options requiring or supporting an Alignment. He must devote a new Interest slot to an Alignment to gain access to its options. He may re-allocate Steps at that time as well, along Paths associated with his new Alignment.

>>314555

It's a general design principle in Fantasy Craft that this kind of permanent loss doesn't happen. You're supposed to get your steps back in this case, and in the case where you're granted a feat you get to pick a different one if you already had it. Same goes for the leveled class bonuses and multiclassing - doesn't matter the order, you get the same bonus for any given combination.

>>315381

You could even plausibly have the other NPCs and the other players hold off on lethal attacks, doing Threaten actions at each other while the conflict is handled in an duel. It's too bad that grades of shaken and fatigued have no effect on Resolve for the morale roll when the big guy dies.

>>315381

What would you say is the biggest weakness of that build?

can saurians +2 bonus to any attribute be combined with their +2 bonus to dex to make a +4 bonus to dex?

>>315681

As written, you can, but that's a good question when it comes to what is intended. I suppose it is not too broken, still

>>315681

>>315682

Going by License to improvise, this is equivalent in value.

+2 A, +2 B, -2 C costs 3.0 design points.

You can change a specific attribute to Any for an additional 0.5. So the Saurian bonuses cost 4.0 for +2 A, +2 any, -2 any.

The cost for +4 A, -2 B is 3.5 points. Add 0.5 to change -2 B to -2 any, and you have a cost of 4.0. So that should be fine.

Contrast with the Unborn, which have +2 any, -4 A for 0.5 points. If you apply the bonus to the same attribute with the penalty (CHA) to reduce the penalty to -2, you end up with bonuses of -2 A which has a value of -1.0 points. So that's a disadvantageous tradeoff. Because point buy for attributes gets more expensive the higher it gets, sacrificing a bonus to reduce a penalty isn't worth it (e.g. +2 from 14 to 16 costs 6 points, but +2 from 10 to 12 costs 2 points).

Is their any way to make an melee weapon attack check using dex instead of strength? (feats, class abilities, etc)

>>315803

For the attack check, outside of Deft strike (a trick in Adventure companion) there's nothing that come to mind. Note that it still requires 13 Strength so you can't simply go all Dump stat on it

>>315803

Deft strike, but also the Martial Arts feat, if you're willing to go unarmed.

>>315803

There is also the finesse weapon quality. You can upgrade a weapon to gain this quality for +5 complexity and doubling the cost. Here's a list of melee weapons that have finesse without an upgrade.

Blunt Weapons have the sap under Clubs and that's it.

Edged Weapons has several.

All Fencing Blades have finesse.

A third of the knives do as well:

>Long knife / kukri

>Punch dagger

>Razor

>Revan needle (from Adventure Companion)

>Stiletto

Greatswords have the Polesword/nagamaki

Polearms have the Pole dagger.

If you're going Dex combat build I'd recommend fencing blades and the related feats since they grant abilities based on Dex and the Supremacy feat gives +1 to Dex. The Sword Circle feat chain also uses fencing blades but focuses more on defense.

>>315827

Isn't finesse purely for the weapons damage and not for the attack?

>>315828

you're right

>>315828

You are correct, I was assuming it worked the same as D&D.

it is strange though how finesse affects the weapons damage but not its attack. you would normally assume its the opposite.

>>315832

Yeah, actually thinking back on it I remember the reason I've been doing it wrong is that I houseruled it to make more sense.

Using Strength for the attack roll is weird to begin with conceptually, since in D&D armor and defense are rolled into AC so the extra strength meant you penetrate more. With them separated in FC, that means being stronger makes you better at landing hits. They had to keep it that way for balance though because then STR would only be used for damage rolls, Athletics, and carrying capacity. But then dex adding to the damage roll is just kind of weird. You could argue that dex lets you hit more vulnerable spots but then it should also help the attack roll. This is one of the few rules in FC where the mechanics and the story/concept don't mesh very well.

>>315803

what about ways to boost an attack check? Besides the obvious action die roll.

>>315932

Some tricks gives bonus in certain situations, and then there's anything getting your opponent Fatigued / Flat-Footed to lower his Defense instead. If you use alternate means to attack such as Threaten, Mix Up can help on that front with its +3, while pure offense can probably make do with the boost given by Rage B/M/S. Straight up Attack boost are not easy to stack, but then again, Attack tends to rise slightly faster than Defense and ultimately, there are more ways to make more attacks than to make these more accurate.

>>315932

Well the Aim action can be used for any Standard Attack check.

>>315934

I second the multiple attack options over a straight boost to the attack check. A +2 bonus to the attack roll gives you 10 more % chance of a hit, which translates to an expected value for the damage increase of 0.1 * average damage. Compare that to an extra attack which is equal to [chance of success to hit] * average damage. If the tradeoff is bonus vs. more attacks, you'd need a high bonus to make it worth it. That's why bonus attacks give big penalties and come with a risk for missing attacks.

how effective is gunpowder in Fantasy craft?

>>316755

Just for completeness's sake, a black powder weapon with Load 7, the Quickdraw feat, and a bandolier gets you:

Load reduced to 5.

2 free actions off that each round, meaning you could otherwise act normally so long as you keep the weapon in your hand and have the gun realoaded halway through the third round, ready to fire again. If you actually take half-actions to reload you can reduce it to one full round (4 load actions) and be able to fire the next round. That's uneconomical though. Optimally you'd spend 2 free actions loading in the first round, spending the others readying up (maybe one half-action to load), then spend the 2 free loads in round 2 and either finish the load, or if you did that already take a half-action to move or aim and then fire at the end of round 2. This puts you in a cycle that allows you to get off a shot every other round while still having 2 half actions for other things.

>>316728

Well, guns are great at shorter ranges if you start combat with them, but as the others have said, it takes forever to reload them. Their real strength, therefor, lies in using them to begin with, then drawing a faster weapon for the rest of the fight. Maybe fire one, quick draw and fire another, then on the next round quick draw your other weapon.

>>316728

To add to what has been said, you could do like in real life and have multiple loaded guns on you. Cost will be skyrocketing, for good guns, but hey! You'll look badass! Also! A good GM will probably play up the loud noise and shock factor going with it, with Stress damage and possibly Bang too. Should be quite efficient on animal companions and the like, unable to understand this thunder coming from nowhere.

>>316728

If you go into the Industrial era or beyond, guns become OP (as they should, being realistic). I think Crafty was wise to not stat out Industrial Era gear because it would outmode most other gear. This site has some good stuff though.

http://sletchweb.wikidot.com/equipment

>>317003

It's pretty nice how there's a class that focuses entirely on being a skillmonkey.

>>317468

Pre-cased bullets could be done as an alternative to powder & shot, which is used as a generic ammo for all black powder weapons. Pre-cased bullets could be balanced by making them specific to the size of the weapon and more expensive/complex. Multiple barrels would work as a weapon upgrade for black powder weapons. Just add a "multi-barrel" (MB) quality followed by a number (same way DR, AP, and keen work) to specify how many barrels it has.

I've already done a bit of homebrew on this. Adding the Ammo quality for weapons that hold more than one round immediately makes a loaded gun overpowered as fuck. The way I balance this is by having the load quality specify how many Handle Item actions it takes to load each individual round. So if you have a revolver with Ammo 6 and Load 3, that's 18 Handle Item Actions. Of course, a bandolier will reduce that. Given the bandolier stats, I take the Load quality to mean "number of actions it takes to load a weapon if you have the ammo somewhere amongst your shit but unorganized."

Your suggestion also mirrors another of my ideas. The more out-there builds you're talking about that aren't associated with a particular time have their place. They usually show up in steampunk-type settings where technology has stagnated in some major way and other advances have been made that wouldn't have been made otherwise. I don't have any examples of gear that fits this, but I think a "universal list" of gear should include stuff that would only appear in "Reason-punk," "Feudal-punk," "Ancient-punk," etc. eras. The -punk suffix is usually how this stuff is referenced but I'm not a fan and there's probably a better name for it.

I just noticed that arrows and bolts have AP 2; does that stack with the AP granted by the weapons themselves?

>>318699

Yup. Hence why ammo is mostly universal, but all the weapons have different stats and qualities.

something that bugs me is a 6 str weakling teenage girl can take a greatsword and whack at a guy in full plate (DR 7) and have a good chance of actually causing damage (assuming she hits)

That doesn't seem like it should be possible, outside of a very lucky called shot.

>>319226

Not really. Some greatswords have the Massive quality, which requires 15 strength to wield. Most others don't and only one of the has any AP. -4 Str means -4 to hit and -4 to damage, also.

At best, you're look at one or two damage on a good hit with a lucky roll.

>>319235

-4 to str means -2 to hit and damage, anon. She can do 10 on a regular hit, or 3 total to the guy.

>>319226

3 damage when lucky knowing how Vitality increase is faster than HP increase in 3.x, compared to the classic D20 allowing to bisect a Level 1 character in one go in the same conditions? I think that's not too bad, myself.

>>319226

Only greatswords she could wield are double sword, nodachi/shamshir, and polesword/nagamaki. Let's assume she uses a nodachi/shamshir because it has the highest damage (1d12) and AP 4. This makes the dude's DR effectively 3. On a hit, she does 1d12-2 damage with a range of 0-10, mean of 4.5833… and median of 4.5. Let's assume +0 BAB for her, for a total of -2 to the attack roll. And let's assume we have a level 1 soldier with a 10 in Dex wearing full articulated plate (-2 DP) for a total of 9 Defense. She lands a hit on a natural roll of 11 or higher (50%). Which means if she attacks with both half actions in a round, her average damage output per round will be the figure above, a little over 4.5. Let's assume our soldier has 10 Con. At level 1, he'll have 12 vitality. It'll take her on average 3 rounds to knock that down to wound points, and a total of 5 rounds to take out all his vitality and wounds (22/4.5). So on average we're talking an average of 30 seconds and 10 hits of a teenage girl whaling on an average level 1 soldier in full plate for him to go down. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

>>319311

Whoops, forgot to factor in the 3 DR.

On a hit, she does 1d12-5 damage with a range of 0-7, mean of 2.33… and median of 1.5. Let's assume +0 BAB for her, for a total of -2 to the attack roll. And let's assume we have a level 1 soldier with a 10 in Dex wearing full articulated plate (-2 DP, 7 DR) for a total of 9 Defense. She lands a hit on a natural roll of 11 or higher (50%). Which means if she attacks with both half actions in a round, her average damage output per round will be the figure above, 2 and 1/3. Let's assume our soldier has 10 Con. At level 1, he'll have 12 vitality. It'll take her on average 5.5 rounds (11 attacks) to knock that down to wound points, and a total of 9.5 rounds (19 attacks) to take out all his vitality and wounds (2*22/2.33). So on average we're talking about a minute of a teenage girl nonstop whaling on an average level 1 soldier in full plate for him to go down.

I was writing an adventure with a part where an NPC draws a quick map and realized it was an action ruled by mechanics. So check this out, there's a way to include this in a way that incorporates the gear rules and crafting rules. It's a good example of how FC has good crunch.

IMPROVISATION BASICS

For whatever reason, you have a knack for knocking together complicated items with what’s on hand.

Benefit: The maximum complexity of items that you can improvise is now 7D + the number of gear feats you have.

Example: With two gear feats, you can improvise items with a complexity up to 9D.

IMPROVISATION MASTERY

Your improvised creations work almost as well as the real deal.

Prerequisites: Improvisation Basics

Benefit: Items you improvise do not automatically break when they are damaged. Instead, they break after a single failed damage save. Also, the error range of items you improvise is increased by 1 instead of the normal 2.

IMPROVISATION SUPREMACY

Things you create on the fly are often mistaken for quality craftsmanship.

Prerequisites: Improvisation Mastery

Benefit: Once per adventure, a D complexity code item you improvise lasts until the end of the adventure and is treated as a normal item for the purposes of damage saves. Also, when making an Improvise check you may take a -10 penalty to your Crafting roll to attempt to improvise an item with a W complexity code. The maximum complexity of this item is 7W + the number of gear feats you have.

With all 3 you can Improvise items with complexity up to 10D normally, and 10W with a -10 penalty. A crafting-focused character shouldn't have too much trouble, since you can just take 10 or 20 and do it in 12 seconds or 2 minutes. This means you can take 2 minutes to craft a detailed map with perfect reliability. Obviously you have to be familiar with the area (per GM approval), but you shouldn't need any more materials than something to write/draw with.

Just wanted to point this out for anyone doing an explorer type character, since the bonuses from maps are pretty good.

>>319877

Yes it is easy to homebrew race, classes or feats since there's a structure for designing these. While I'm at it, I'll share some stuffs myself

Lamia

Type: Fey

Base Speed: 30 ft.

Size: Large(1x3), Reach 1

Attributes: +1 to lower of Dexterity or Constitution, +1 to lower of Charisma or Wisdom

Tauric Strength: Your bestial half is significantly stronger than your humanoid half, giving you a +2 Strength bonus when making checks utilizing it.

Restricted Actions: Kick attacks, as well as Jump and Tumble checks you make are considered untrained (see FC, page 63).

Heterothermy: Your combination of mammalian and reptilian traits allows you to adapt to different climates. Under normal circumstances, you require only 2 common meals per day but suffer 1 additional damage per die from cold and are sickened for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 any cold damage taken (rounded down). If you suffer continuous cold damage - such as from the environment - you are sickened until you escape the source of the damage. However, if this condition persists for 8 or more hours, you no longer take additional penalties until 8 more hours pass without taking cold damage. While adapted to cold you require 4 common meals per day.

Tauric Form: You are considered to be one Size category smaller for the purposes of weapon wielding, natural attacks using your humanoid half, and partial armor size.

Natural weapons:

Tail slap: 1d10 damage, Reach + 1

Squeeze: 1d12 damage. Used during grapple when inflicting unarmed damage.

Coils: You can grapple up to three medium or smaller sized creatures without penalty.

Species feats

Fish tail: (Mermaid)

Lamia, level 1 only

You gain Aquatic II and a swim speed of 40, but your land speed decreases by 20 and lose Heterothermia and Coils. The lower of your Constitution or Charisma increases by 1, as is your Appearance.

Fish scales: (Eelmaid)

Fish tail

Your swim speed increases by 10 ft and gain Bite II. You also gain Blindsight

Lava tail: (Salamander)

Lamia, level 1 only

You gain Fire resistance 10, You may convert all Unarmed and Melee attack you make to Fire damage without suffering the -4 penalty. You also lose Heterothermia and gain Grueling combattant and Stench (due to the sulphur)

Lava scales: (Lesser Marilith)

You gain a Proficiency. You also gain Frenzy II and can take the feat Many armed immediately by lowering any of your attribute by 2

How do you determine mount complexity for player created NPCs?

>>320384

Mounts don't use Complexity. They use a similar number called the training value. These are given for species listed on the gear table, but there's no word in the books on the matter otherwise. I would say it's really up to the GM to decide, but since a player-created NPC is more character than gear (which is what training value is for), I would argue you should let the mount make an opposed roll (probably Resolve) against the trainer's Survival.

>>319886

Two notes on this.

1. The core book lists "Lamia" in the bestiary but it's described as a sphinx-like creature. (Just a weird quirk IMO)

2. The splinter race feats follow a convention where the higher-tier feat comes after the lower-tier feat alphabetically to avoid confusion in the books. To follow that convention you would switch the names for each of those pairs (e.g. Mermaid = Fish Scales, Eelmaid = Fish tail). This would also follow another convention which is to name the first-tier feat after something smaller and the second-tier feat after something bigger. The splinter race feats for kobolds in the book of holding use almost the same name scheme btw (-scaled and -tailed).

Hey, i was wondering if anybody has created a sprite charcter to be used for PC. I think it would be interesting to play as something really really tiny, trying to be really really strong.

Like a muscle faeire

>>321330

Book of Holding has Winglings, which are Diminutive (and don't have a strength penalty, so they fit with your concept). If you want something that's explicitly a fairy you could play a Pech with the Faerie Heritage/Legacy feats, though they're still only Small.

>>321074

Shameful display on my part name convention wise for inverting these. As for the Book of Holding, I learned of its existence after making these, and never went to change it

On another note, I am saddened that combat has tricks, but Skills doesn't, once gain limiting variety, but globally, it is one of the weaker point of the system for me. Having something more akin to Pathfinder where you can always spend on skills but have a bonus on class/origin ones feels less limiting in term of concept and would help partially. At least however, everyone has Notice…

>>321628

>"I am saddened that combat has tricks, but Skills doesn't" [sic]

What. What?

Painful Secrets (Threaten Trick) - Fantasy Craft pg. 108

Mix Up: Threaten - Fantasy Craft pg. 221

Face of Death (Threaten Trick) - Adventure Companion pg. 125

And that's just the stuff one can use out of combat.

Now, in combat, one generally has two large sections of options. One can make an attack with one's weapon or one can use a selection from the many Skill based attack actions. The latter are available to everyone and their usefulness is tied to how well one is invested into the tied skill, of which there are many. For the former, making an attack with one's weapon, the choice is limited to the weapon that one is using and whether one is making a melee or ranged attack (STR or DEX bonus). One generally limits oneself in this regard. Thus, for the martially focused, combat would be a rather stale affair of 'full attack every round'.

Here is where Tricks come in. Whether they are gained from Feats or from spending proficiency points, Tricks add quite a bit of flavor to martial combat. They allow for one to deploy deeper strategies and to spring one's strengths at key moments. As such, martial classes give a plethora of feat and proficiency points and skimp on Skill points. This gives them an equal, yet diverse pool of strengths to allow one to make a more unique or specialized character.

Now, Skills have diverse applications standard. While attacking with a weapon might do one type of damage or another and one may be able to use an action, using Investigate to canvass, decipher, identify or research has far reaching effects. Assigning the skill points allotted by one's class, instead of having more points designated to Base Attack and Class Bonus to Defense, allows one to have a much larger variety of options. To say it succinctly, instead of having class options (feats/proficiency points) to vary up the class focus (combat) that invariably gets better, one has class options (more skill points) to make better the class focus (Skills) that is inherently varied.

Also, Dragon Lord doesn't have Notice. Yes, one can choose to have it as a class skill, but one could also have Notice as an origin skill. Still, by default, the class doesn't have it.

==TL;DR:== Skills have tricks, they're just built in. i.e. Decipher (Investigate) is designedly similar to Cheap Shot (Attack Trick).

>>306160

How should I optimize either?

>>321630

Threaten is used in combat, albeit social one of sort. What I mean is, new uses or improvement of skill uses. Quick example of stuffs I would like to see:

Deep diving (Swim trick): If you are not in combat and not straining yourself, you may hold your breath for constitution score minutes instead of rounds.

Local fragrances (Blend trick): After staying one day in an environment, checks based on Smell takes a -4 penalty against you. The effect is lost upon taking a bath

Bulk purchase (Bargain trick): When buying more than 10 items of the same type, you have a +2 on your Bargain roll. It increases to +4 if you buy 50 or more.

Veterinary (Medicine trick): You suffer no penalty on using medicine on Animals.

And so on, some ideas I put somewhere and never used to make skill specialization more interesting for classes like Keeper or Sage who are focused on those.

>>321634

>Deep diving (Swim trick)

Martial Artist's level 2/11/19 option

All the options that either remove the need to breathe or give the Aquatic NPC quality

>Local fragrances (Blend trick)

Pathfinder Mastery feat

GM discretionary check bonus/penalty

>Bulk purchase (Bargain trick)

Basic Skill Mastery: Trader

GM discretionary check bonus

All options that give a bonus to Charisma

>Veterinary (Medicine trick)

Basic Skill Mastery: Healer

Keeper's level 1 ability

And, of course, Action Dice can be used to do most all of these things.

Now, you haven't said what the cost of acquiring any of these skill tricks is. I'm assuming that it's a proficiency point, correct?

>>321636

The idea would be to have Skill proficiencies gained at a different rhythm depending on your campaign option, but the basic gain suggestion is 2 at character creation and 1 every 3 levels, and limit these uses to 1+Skill feats / scene so to not be spammed continuously. A dedicated Skill feat could allow to gain 3 more

>Deep diving

<Martial artist

Limited to one class, vastly superior but for the price of an action dice

<Gaining Aquatic trait

Racially limited for the most part

>Local flagrance

<Pathfinder mastery

General constant bonus in an set of area, different from the design idea of twarting Scent

>Bulk purchase

<Skill mastery

Agreed on that front for the bonus

<Boosting Charisma

I would add the technicality of Appearance too, actually, so I agree overall this one is meh

>Veterinary

<Skill mastery

Half the bonus but on more things, not the same design idea

<Keeper

Class locked, the idea is that Scout, Lancer or any mount / animal companion based class could potentially choose to care better for them than the group's doctor

Action dices are a completely different resource that serve for everything, not only skills. The idea was to have something akin to Skill tricks from 3.5 so one can further specialize in a given skill, similarily that you can get weapon or maneuvers specific combat tricks for instance here in Fantasy Craft.

>>321640

>The idea would be to have Skill proficiencies gained at a different rhythm depending on your campaign option, but the basic gain suggestion is 2 at character creation and 1 every 3 levels, and limit these uses to 1+Skill feats / scene so to not be spammed continuously. A dedicated Skill feat could allow to gain 3 more

Ah, my biggest dislike for all this was based on the assumption that it would supplant or compete with current character options, not become its own sub-system.

Now, as to balance, the ideas you've put forth are wildly differentiating in power. If I do some very fuzzy math, the Skill tricks you've proposed are between 10%-40% of a feat. Now, this isn't too much of a gap for how few would be given out, but the fact that they're not locked behind something else (or require more investment) makes them wildly out of sync. Deep diving is incredibly useful and powerful for every character in a setting centered on the aquatic, but Local Fragrances is extremely niche and only comes into its full strength against bloodhound-type tracking.

All-in-all, I'm trying to say that the system you're proposing would be very difficult to make right. The benefits have to be something players want to have or else it becomes more dull minutia to wade through. At the same time, this system has to be very granular and then very tightly balanced or it loses the characteristics that set it apart from feats.

Instead, would you be amenable to the idea to bundle these skill proficiencies into feats that cover medium to large categories? There could be a

Skill Proficiency: Medicine (I, II, etc.)

Benefit: Choose 2(3?) proficiencies.

-Veterinary: You no longer suffer a penalty to using Medicine on animals.

-Zen: Gain a +1 to the stress damage healed by successful Calm checks. +3 on a critical success.

-Resourceful: You are considered trained even when without a Doctor's Bag. However, while performing without a Doctor's Bag, you are considered to only have 1 rank of Medicine.

-Place Holder 1

-Place Holder 2

-Place Holder 3

-Place Holder 4

Also, the penalty to using Medicine on animals and beasts is -2 and I am pedantic enough to point that out.

>>321666

I thought of the feat idea, but then you need one feat per skill, and have roundabout the same amount of content for all of these to choose from. And yes, I do see the added complications it adds, but then again, I I always prefered a set of thematic abilities than a race toward a big global number, so it gives a good reason for multiple characters having certain skills, such as Survival or Haggle, instead of always relying on the same person constantly

Looking back, for filling out the Medicine one, a couple ideas with fresh eyes:

- Calm as a Complex action, but removing 1d6 / 2d6 Stress only, so to use it in combat situation

- Doping, 1 minute DC 15 check to ignore one level of Fatigue for a scene, but it doesn't get removed at the end of said scene and causes further 1d6 subdual regardless of success

- Being able to treat up to three people at the same time

- Long term psychology, a new Treatment effect allowing to remove the effect of Shaken on a DC 20

Meanwhile, your Resourceful idea compete with the Bandage feat, which already allow to make trained check without a doctor's bag. Maybe removing this feat to put it's two effects inside a Medicine Master (name in accordance with the combat feats Blunt master and the like, not my favorite choice due to closeness with Mastery feats), but then it goes from Gear to Skill feat, so…

As for the penalty on beasts… totally my fault, should not rely on memory for things I did last year, while currently playing three different D20 games in parallel, I keep mixing systems.

>>321640

>>321666

>>321692

Hey I have an idea. What if all skills were focus skills?

With 4 ranks you can use up to 2 of its uses trained at 1st level. E.g. 4 ranks in Sense Motive and you Focus on Detect Lie and Anticipate. And if you run out of skill uses or just don't care, you can put a Focus into tricks.

>>321813

The problem with that comes from the fact most characters maxes a selection of skills so in the end, you either need a lot of Focuses for every skills or en up with non-choices as everyone ends up with the same selection. That, and people will usually unlock as many focus they have in skill point per level, every 4 levels, leading to larger jump in power and number of options (especially Keepers, who can easily max out their skill points and gain more than there's skills in game!)

>>321813

This makes skills weaker and more fiddly to use. Plus a lot of skills don't fit well with foci. It's a natural fit for something like Athletics, but Notice? Bluff? Not so much.

That said, using the focus system for this might not be a bad idea, you'd just have to do some tweaking for the skills that weren't designed with foci in mind. I'd go with a smaller penalty than untrained (maybe just increasing error range or decreasing threat range by 1). Alternatively, if you're okay with coming up with a lot of different tricks, just gain tricks for non-focus skills in the same way you would gain foci for focus skills, don't bother adding foci at all (this might seem like it makes those skills more powerful, but in practice at least some skill tricks are going to be creative uses of skills that you'd let players do anyway in a game that didn't use this system).

Went with the feat structure. The wording definitively needs an upgrade all around, but I'm more at the idea phase. I do want to avoid the whole point about tricks allowing something creative, unless it is to give it a potential decent rule effects, it's something I loathe from 3.X, but I guess it is difficult to do this while avoiding straight up bonus to rolls.

Here's the first three skills done, Acrobatics, Athletics and Blend

Acrobatics talents:

>1+ rank in Acrobatics

Upon selecting this feat, choose two benefits. You can take this feat multiple time, choosing different benefits each time.

- Slow fall (Break fall trick): You gain Fall resistance 5

- Kip-up (Initiative trick): You can once per round roll a DC 25 Acrobatics check as a free action when you’re Sprawled, to instead be Prone

- Champion jumper (Jump trick): Your maximum long jump distance multiplier increases by 2 and your maximum high jump distance multiplier increases by 1, and your speed is increased by 5 ft for the purpose of calculating jump distance

- Dive for cover (Initiative trick): You can make a Jump check when hit by an area of effect attack of spell with a Reflex roll attached to it. If at the end of the jump you are outside of the area, you entirely avoid the effect, but regardless of the result you end up Sprawled. You can use this ability a number of time equal to your starting Action dice per adventure and only once per round.

- Power jump (Jump trick): You can use Strength modifier instead of Dexterity to calculate your jump result. You also count as having a running start regardless of previous movement

- Acrobatic dance (Tumble trick): You gain a +2 Dodge bonus to Defense and Reflex until the beginning of your next turn

Athletics talents:

>1+ rank in Athletics

Upon selecting this feat, choose two benefits. You can take this feat multiple time, choosing different benefits each time.

- Adrenalin rush (Push limit trick): You can choose as a benefit of your Push limit roll to ignore the effects of Fatigue for 1 minute per 5 you succeed to the roll. You can use this trick a number of time per adventure equal to your starting Action dice. On a critical success, you can choose another Push limit benefit and receive its effect as if you rolled 20 on the roll.

- Apnea (Push limit trick): You can choose as a benefit of your Push limit roll to increase the number of round you can hold your breath by your margin of success, as long as it happen within the end of your next round. You can use this benefit only when you’re able to breath, and you only receive the subdual damage if you needed those extra rounds before breathing again. On a critical failure, you receive those damage immediately

- Quick climbing (Climb trick): You can use this trick only by starting climbing from a sufficiently stable position. Your speed is not lowered for this movement, and if it is enough to climb the obstacle, you can continue your movement after this.

- Diver (Swim trick): You can use this trick only by jumping into water or a similar liquid. Your movement speed is not diminished for this movement, and if you jumped from a high enough place you can use this roll instead of a Break fall action to limit damage

- Bulk up (Push limit trick): You can choose as a benefit of your Push limit roll to count as one size larger for actions affected by size (such as determining who you can grapple or resisting Bull rush) for 1 minute. On a critical success you can apply your increased size on a case by case basis (such as not applying it to your roll for initiating a grapple)

- Lazy effort (Climb or Swim trick): You only take half the subdual damage for prolongated effort

Blend talents:

>1+ rank in Blend

Upon selecting this feat, choose two benefits. You can take this feat multiple time, choosing different benefits each time.

- Local fragrances (Blend trick): With a DC 20 check, you cannot be tracked by Scent alone. Using this trick requires to have lived at least 24 hours in the area you are blending in, and wears off upon being wet or taking a bath

- Hidden in plain sight (Stealth trick): In a crowd, modifiers from movement or sound caused are halved

- Pauper and prince (Stealth trick): You can add your Appearance bonus to the roll

- Incognito (Blend trick): You can make an opposed Blend check against people wanting to remember your title

- Hasty retreat (Blend trick): Upon losing your hidden status in an obvious way, you you can make a free Move action. You can use this trick a number of time per adventure equal to your starting action dice

- Hidden path (Stealth trick): If you beat your opponent’s Tracking roll, he loses 1 MPH to his overland speed due to misdirections on your part

>>321846

>Plus a lot of skills don't fit well with foci. It's a natural fit for something like Athletics, but Notice? Bluff? Not so much.

For Notice, you have a focus for each action that opposes Notice. For Bluff consider:

>Distract (combat action)

>Lie - tell someone a falsehood

>A new action - Bluff/Acting, pretending to be someone else (as described under Disguise on page 73)

>A new action - Bluff/Poker Face, hiding your intent or feelings, matched with

<Sense Motive/Read (Full Action) to sense a character's intent

>Lie (Free Action) for feigning conditions or lackthereof, as well as damage and injury.

>>322045

Sure, those skills have multiple different uses. However, I don't think they're anywhere near different enough to justify the steep penalty for not having the focus. Pharmacy is very different from Metalworking is very different from Tailoring, so it makes sense to require players to spend foci to be able to do all of them effectively. Noticing a stashed weapon on a person and Noticing a disguised person aren't anywhere near that level of different.

If you keep the default penalty for using a skill without the relevant focus this would be crippling. You're limiting a player to only being able to use each of his skills effectively in two ways until level 5 at the earliest. And while fewer skill uses are subject to the penalty at higher levels, the gap between trained and untrained skill checks gets a lot bigger. Of course you could decrease the penalty, but when you do that you also make taking a focus less valuable compared to taking a trick, and you start to wonder why you're even trying to fit foci in at all.

>>322064

One could argue too, focuses doesn't limit what one can do with skills, but with which tools, and other skills don't have focuses because of not needing different tools to master

>>322103

Specialities have a mistake, the (4,X) column reads (3,X) past the first one

So I've been reading through the game, and it seems like the more you read into it, the more complicated and difficult to keep track of this game is. Any thoughts?

>>324483

It's a toolkit kind of system. You focus on the rules that are relevant to the game you want to play and ignore the ones that aren't relevant. All those rules are there so you can tailor the game how you want it.

Is /tg/ hosting any beginer sessions for fantasy craft, i always wanted to try it out.

>>324696

I have done a session like that in the past and have most of the things left over. I can do it again, if you're interested.

>>324698

I'm fine with anything, i just don't know the flow of combat that well.

I can make a random character if you want.

>>324752

You can do that if you want. I have two characters prepared that are at two extreme ends of the character spectrum that you can can play in succession, if you choose that. But, before we get into what would happen if I did a session for you, let's get a when that session can happen.

I'm US Central and I'm available most Sun-Wed late.

>>322149

>Goblin Wizard Scout

I think i would make him into an underground researcher, studying rock formations or trying to improve life for his people underground.I'm not really sure what feats to chose for him really, any ideas?

>>324859

TL;DR

Nevermind, this is way too much to summarize. Check the headings for what interests you.

How to Use Magic Without Being a Mage

Uh well first of all this looks kind of shitty since Wizard assumes you're a caster. BUT! Magic items can have the Class Ability essence (20 Reputation), which functions like a Sage's cross-training. If you can get your hands on a magic item with the Class Ability (Subtle and Quick to Anger) essence, then bravo you can be an arcane caster without any character levels. Whether you're allowed to spend Reputation points on this at character creation is up to the GM, but for something that would be central to your build it seems like the obvious choice. You start with Reputation equal to your Career Level x 10 so you'd want to create this character at 2nd level at the minimum. Failing that you can make one yourself with feats (see Gear Feats below).

A charitable GM may interpret it so that Spell Library adds to the spells you can cast with The Gift if you take that feat, but this is less ideal than gaining Subtle and Quick to Anger.

General Build Advice

Since goblins are low on charisma but high on strength, defense, and vitality, (and Scout compliments this) I'd recommend using regular violence for combat and rely on spells for utility. There are a lot of useful level 0 spells (which is what you'll be restricted to unless you multiclass). Depending on how heavily you focus on magic, and if you take the Favored Gear feat (see the bit on Gear Feats below), you may want to multiclass into Rune Knight.

With that out of the way

Feats

Covert Feats

All goblins have Ambush Basics, and snagging a 2nd-tier feat (Ambush Supremacy) at 1st level puts you ahead. You can then take Ambush Supremacy at 3rd level if you want to specialize in dunking on fools who harass your tribe. If you want to avoid combat, the Ghost feat chain is a good option.

Gear Feats

Couple things here. If your GM won't let you buy a Magic Item that grants you Subtle and Quick to Anger at character creation, you can always just take Essence Binding Basics so you're able to make such an item yourself. While you're here, if your goblin wants to improve the lives of his people, why not take Crafting Basics and dedicate downtime to making more of these magic items and distributing them? And however you end up with a magic item that grants you casting, the Favored Gear feat chain is fucking excellent. The boost to action die rolls synergizes well with Wizard's Practiced Spellcasting, giving you no reason not to spend action dice on the really important spells. If you're considering becoming a Rune Knight, make a weapon with the essence and select that weapon as your Favored Gear when you level.

Spellcasting Feats

Since Goblins have -2 CHA your spell save DC takes a hit (it's 10 + your CHA modifier + your number of Spellcasting Feats). None in particular stand out to me unless you want to take Mage Hunter if you have magical enemies. Note that this locks you out of Rune Knight but allows you to take more Spellcasting feats and cast with Subtle and Quick to Anger granted by a Magic Item.

Terrain 'Feats'

Your core ability as a scout lets you grant your teammates a different terrain feat each scene, so terrain feats are always a good choice. Note that you'd probably only be able to share 1st-tier feats though, so breadth is probably better than depth here. Coordinated Attack synergizes very well with feat-sharing. So does The Extra Mile. Whether Horde Basics stacks from multiple people having the feat is not specified and therefore up to the GM but that would be extremely overpowered (in many cases you'd have full cover and be immune to attack). Night Fighting is a good feat to share too, if you're taking characters without darkvision into dark places. If your whole team has Pathfinder Basics they're basically immune to ambush, so there's also that option.

>>324916

Wow, thanks for the advice man. I'll diffently try to do the magic without being a mage. I was thinking of using wizard more for studies on improving the landscape but with this, it might be quite handy.I think i'll deffinatly focuse more on gear feats and just make items to give to my fellow goblins and try to bisto knowledge from the outside world to the caves.

Thank you

>>324783

Sounds good, If can give you a Monday if a session lasts like 4 hours. If Longer, i don't think i can make it. I can't do it this monday, but we could do it on wednesday of this week

I made a simple peck fighter

You guys can give your imput on it, the randomizer is lots of fun to fuck around with.

>>325247

Shit, i'll post it in the discord or something

>>325247

Alright, Wednesday evening. Which Discord are we meeting on?

>>325261

any you want baby, you choose the house, i'll bring the drinks.

>>325293

The unofficial 8/tg/ server will do. That's where I did my last one. If you're not already in it: https://discord.gg/GbavgT

>>325247

>pech species

>fighter specialty

Make sure you take feats and tricks that benefit from your size. Pick on the Big Guy and Giant Slayer Basics from Adventure Companion are good.

>>325448

It depends on how he advances through the story. If he fights a lot of giant dudes, he will lean towards those perks. I'm going to try to develop him from the expericense he will get

>>325463

Well, Pick on the Big Guy applies to Medium characters and if you take Cute 'n Cuddly your defense boost applies to everyone.

>>325465

I'll probably take them, but i don't want to be seen as min maxing to much so i want to try to develop him away from that while still trying to be better.

how would you go about making a gish in fantasy craft?

>>325448

>Pech

Wrong universe.

>>325806

Depends on what flavor you want the fighter part of the build to be. Very briefly: at least one level of Mage in your first four levels, divide the other three among Mage and either Soldier, Lancer, or Martial Artist however you want, then go into Rune Knight at 5. Strength and Wisdom would probably be your highest attributes.

I was wondering for the trick Back at you in the adventure companion book, would i be able to fluff it that a drake with dragon tail could cach the thrown weapn with its tail, and throw it back. It calls for arms, but that would mean any drake wouldn't be able to use the trick as they are quadrople beasts and with dragons tail u lose your legs. I think it would be cool that you could catch shit with your tail, but i'm not really sure.

Any input?

>>325880

Drakes can't use standard weapons at all. You could talk to your GM about easing that restriction for the purposes of this specific trick, but I definitely wouldn't let you eliminate that restriction entirely and it would be a little weird to say you could only use weapons in the context of throwing them back at enemies.

>>325886

If thats true then, i'll just get rid of the trick then.

>>325888

Remember that the trick also requires that you have the hurled forte, so you probably weren't in a position to take it anyway (unless you're doing something weird with the Warg weapon upgrade from Book of Holding)

>>325806

Got this from a homebrew I found somewhere.

Gish (Specialty)

Bonus Feat: Battlemage Basics (1)

Attribute Training: The lower of your Intelligence or Strength scores increases by 1. (1)

Practiced Resolve: If you spend an Action Die on a skill check with the named skill and it fails, then you receive the Action Die back. (2)

Paired Skills: Every time you gain skill ranks in Spellcasting you also gain ranks in Athletics, up to its maximum rank. (2)

Basic Combat Expert: You’re considered to have 2 additional Basic Combat feats for any ability based on this number. (1)

BATTLEMAGE BASICS

Prerequisites: Spellcasting 1+ ranks, Unarmed, Blunt, or Edged proficiency

Benefit: You deal additional damage with melee and unarmed attacks equal to your Charisma modifier against targets who've failed a save against one of your spells within one round. Also, you gain a stance.

Combat Casting (Stance): While one or more enemies are within 10 feet, you do not require a Mage's Pouch to cast spells.

BATTLEMAGE MASTERY

Prerequisites: Battlemage Basics

Benefit: When you inflict damage on an enemy with a spell, you gain 1 edge. Also, you gain a trick.

Strike at the Soul (Attack Trick): Spend one Edge when you make this attack. If you are in the Combat Casting stance you may spend up to three. If it inflicts at least one point of damage after DR/Resistances, one of the target's saves (your choice) decreases by an amount equal to the Edge spent for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.

BATTLEMAGE SUPREMACY

Prerequisites: Battlemage Mastery

Benefit: Your Charisma score increases by one. Also, you gain a trick.

Bladed Spell (Attack Trick): Spend 2 spell points. If the attack hits, you may immediately cast a level three or lower spell on the target as a free action. The spell's range is changed to Touch and it loses any Area it may possess. You may use this trick once per round.

>>325889

I had about 5 proficiencies that i could burn, so i thought, why not.

Anyone have personal homerules for crossbows?

>>328655

There are the campaign qualities from the Book of Holding.

Bow vs. Crossbow (Campaign)

Crossbows have their load quality reduced by your STR modifier to a minimum of 1. Long and Reflex bows are Exotic weapons and gain keen equal to your STR modifier (as do the Daikyu and Foot bow).

Deadly Crossbows (Campaign)

All crossbows (except repeating crossbows) grant the treacherous NPC quality to their ranged attacks.

Would slaves count as a Prize or as gear? Is a really good slave worth having as a Contact?

>>331144

Depends on the setting and mechanics of slavery. The Adventure Companion has one answer to this in its Epoch setting (primitive). Under "Trade and Gear" on page 60 it lists a young man/woman as worth "up to 100 silver in trade." On page 67 there's a stat block for an "Enslaved Tribesman" (20 XP). You'd think the Cloak & Dagger setting would have something to say about slaves for trade, but it doesn't. I'd say treat slaves like buying mounts, but depending on the society it would make sense to involve the Coercion or Persuasion mechanics rather than just having the PC control them outright.

>Is a really good slave worth having as a Contact?

Interesting concept. I guess there's a reason for this, but I don't see what the point would be if your character owned the slave. Maybe for stat improvement but for slavery it would make more sense to adapt the Survival/Train Animal rules.

Here's the Enslaved Tribesman stat block

Enslaved Tribesman (Medium Folk Walker — 20 XP): Str 10, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 10; SZ M (1×1, Reach 1); Spd 30 ft. ground; Init I; Atk I; Def II; Resilience V; Health III; Comp I; Skills: Blend II, Crafting III, Search II; Qualities: banned action (Browbeat, Coerce), feat (Anonymity Basics), meek.

Attacks/Weapons: Unarmed (dmg 1d3 subdual; threat 20)

Gear: Stonecutter’s kit

>>331144

It depends. In many cases they're probably best treated as part of a Holding, either Assistants or Tradesmen. For uses where that doesn't make sense, I'd say unskilled laborers could be bought like animals. The only case where I'd consider using the Contact system is for a really exceptional individual, like Epictetus. The Personal Lieutenant and Followers feats are options, too.

Is there any way to get a hammer or maul in one hand using a medium-sized dwarf using only the core book?

>>331347

"A character of Medium or larger Size may use a 2-handed weapon with one hand, but suffers a –4 penalty with his attack check." pg. 215

"Spear Basics […] Monkey’s Grip (Stance): You may wield a single 2-handed melee weapon with one hand." pg. 90

>>331375

so you can't just get one that's a bit smaller?

>>331380

You can make a smaller weapon.

"When a weapon’s Scale decreases, its error range increases by 1, its weight decreases by 50%, and its Size and damage dice each drop by 1 step (e.g. from Medium to Small and from d6 to d4), to a minimum of d4." pg. 184

But, as you can see, this doesn't change how many hands it takes. RAW says using the same number of hands, but most people will just handwave that.

>>331195

Tradesmen are literally people who work in order to make you money, which is the function of slaves or employees. The thing is employees usually make you less money because the portion they get has to pay for their own stuff. Slaves live with you and you basically would just be covering the cost to feed and collectively house them all. Maybe double the bonus or something.

>>331380

>>331385

No weapon in the vanilla rules smaller than S requires two hands. The rules are pretty overtly written with Medium characters in mind, so I would rule that if a weapon is more than one Size smaller than your character, you only need one hand. Consider for instance that if you played as a giant and wielded a Club (Small), RAW would have you wield that two-handed even though realistically you'd probably only be able to fit one hand on the grip. I also rule that improved stability means you're treated as larger for weapon use in addition to the other contexts (which is never brought up because no vanilla weapons other than Pike are larger than Medium, and Pikes are lightweight so Medium characters can wield them). So I'd use that justification to have a Dwarf (effectively Large) wield a Warhammer (Small) or a Small-Scale Maul (Small) with one hand. To me all of this seems like edge cases they didn't feel the need to define.

>>331971

You first, autist.

I've had an idea of running a game in fantasy craft involving ship to ship combat. I'll use the Const levels for strength of the ship, and have a simple i dea for combat that the PC's can handle. I'm wondering fi anybody has done this before and is willing to give anyt tips.

Also anybody ask me questions as i want to iron out questions i haven't thought or have escaped my head.

>>332675

I've run games with the PCs in combat on a ship, but no ship-to-ship combat. How it works would depend on the era. If you don't have cannons then you'd be reduced to ramming each other and maybe flinging greek fire at each other. Any ship is going to have Hard Construction (+10), which means depending on Size, they'll range from +22 (Gargantuan) to +30 (Enormous). Since damage doesn't accumulate and failing a save is binary, you need to be able to deal at least X damage in order for damaging the object to even be possible. To find X, find the lowest save you can roll (save bonus +1), subtract 10 for the base damage DC (save bonus -9), double that ( 2 * (save bonus -9) ), and add 1 ( 2 * (save bonus -9) +1). That's the minimum damage you need to deal in order to be able to damage an object at all. For a Gargantuan ship like a Longship (save bonus +22) X is 27. For a Colossal ship like a Galley (save bonus +25) X is 33. For an Enormous ship like a Frigate (save bonus +30) X is 43. That means X damage will have a 5% chance of chipping off a damage save. For every 5% you want to increase add 2 damage. Let's compare these numbers to the damage output of siege weapons.

When we think of ship-to-ship battle we usually think of cannons and galleys, so that's what I'll use for brevity. Now it's important to point out that only one weapon in the vanilla game can deal 33 damage on its own. The highest-damage weapon is the heavy cannon (6d6), which has a 0.18% chance of rolling at least 33 (max 36). In a world where cannon-based combat on galleys occurred, the users of the cannons would absolutely need to have some better-than-default ability to use the cannons, otherwise it would take for god damn ever to even put a dent in the things. So there are three approaches to this.

First, there's the Siege Basics, Mastery, and Supremacy feat tree. These can be found under Ranged Combat Feats in the Adventure Companion. Siege Mastery doubles the damage output when targeting objects, like ships. This means in order to stand a chance of killing a save, the roll only needs to be 17+ on 6d6, which has an 85.54% chance of happening. That's a ~475% increase by the way. The average/expected (nat 10.5) roll for a Galley is going to be 35.5, which beats up to 50 damage, or 25 damage before being doubled. The chances of rolling 26+ on 6d6 is 14.46%, which is what you need for a 50/50 chance of a failed damage save. With this example it's especially obvious, but I want to emphasize that anybody who's expected to fire cannons at ships should have Siege Mastery.

Second, there's the swarm NPC quality. This can more than double the damage output of any single attack, but only if 6 or more NPCs can attack at once. The boost from Siege Master stacks though, so if you can set up at least 4 cannon crews, you'll see a damage multiplier. Whether or not its worth it mathematically depends on the specific scenario and chance of a given attack killing a damage save. It's almost certainly worth it for the sake of efficiency, since it reduces any number of attacks to a single attack with a bonus to the attack roll and a multiplier to the damage roll. However you try to play it, swarm is a nice option to have, and it's only worth 2 XP.

Third, consider alternative damage. Explosive damage has a neat rule where if the target fails its damage save, it fails 1 additional save per 10 points by which it fails the save. With the damage boosts, the Mortar (4d6) becomes extremely damaging even if it averages only 28 damage for someone with Siege Mastery. In addition to this, upgrades can boost damage by boosting Size. Even AP and Keen boosts can be significant depending on the margins since AP and Keen qualities get added to object damage. And of course there are Magic Item qualities. If you equip a cannon crew with a cannon that deals explosive damage, or one that grants the bonus feat for the Siege tree…

>>332688

Finally, consider the number of damage saves that ships have, and how much firepower is heading their direction. Do at least some rough math to figure out how many rounds you can expect a ship to last under fire from a given number of weapons and plan the encounter accordingly. Think of what happens once a ship fails a given number of damage saves. Does it start sinking? How fast does it sink and how does that affect the game, e.g decks becoming filled with water? Does the ship have vulnerable components that attackers could target to hinder it without causing the ship's hull/frame to take damage?

Oh and for a bonus, here's the siege crew NPC stat block I used. Note that Quick Draw + Siege Basics dramatically reduces load times when a mob of 3+ mans each weapon.

Siege Crew (Medium Folk Walker — 52 XP): Str 12, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 10; SZ M (1×1, Reach 1); Spd 30 ft. ground; Init IV; Atk IV; Def III; Resilience IV; Health III; Comp III; Skills: Search V, Resolve VI; Qualities: class ability (Soldier: portable cover II), feat (Quick Draw, Siege Basics, Siege Mastery), swarm.

Treasure: 1C

>>332688

>>332689

Well shit nigger. You basicly answered all my questions that could be involved with combat with ships. Thanks man.

>>332724

Happy to help. The one thing I glossed over was Ancient-era ship combat involving rams, but that's basically a game of maneuvering into a smash position. The RAW don't quite support this unfortunately because the overrun quality allows a ship to use Trample (which targets something 2 or more Sizes smaller than you) so it's basically useless unless you're looking to run down some boats. Also the damage puts it in the same territory as the unmodified heavy cannon, and AFAIK there's no way to boost it. If you have any of the ships with the overrun quality ramming each other, you are basically playing fucking bumper cars.

The list of ships (and vehicles in general) is also very short so you miss out on all kinds of stuff. You'd have to do some fair homebrewing to make the variety of ships in a given setting verisimilitudinous much less realistic. So if you're already working on that, you might as well homebrew rules for RAMMING SPEED as well. I'd start with NPCs' Natural Attacks, e.g. Slam V for just running into someone or Gore V for attempting to puncture (replace bleed with "makes the fucker spring a leak")

>>332727

I might homebrew later on, but i'm not planning htat far ahead yet. I have a question about the item damage saves table figure 4.5.

From the paragraph below Damage, it says to use the table to find the damage save. Do i use the number of saves too, even if the item has a number of saves.

With the deal with ramming, i would say that if two ships are ramming each other, head on, that the damage of a ram is double as there both heading towards each other if at relativly same speeds and each boat would take heavy damage. Another case would if a boat is trying to ram another boat but its running away from the charge, the impact would be less, so ramming damage would be lower then average.

I need to think more about this, but it seems like Fantasy craft has the bare bones of naval combat. If i make head way, i'll post more shit

>>332755

>From the paragraph below Damage, it says to use the table to find the damage save. Do i use the number of saves too, even if the item has a number of saves.

Specific overrides general, so use the number listed on the item's stats. AFAIK save bonus is always the default Construction + Size on that table. You can get a different number of saves with Upgrades, e.g. Dwarven Craftsmanship.

>I need to think more about this, but it seems like Fantasy craft has the bare bones of naval combat.

I think that's being generous frankly. It's more like the possibility is an afterthought since the game was meant to be more about tactical battles and ships are included as a backdrop. The biggest rule set that's missing IMO is mobility for vehicles - how quickly they can turn and so on. Without something like that, ships would just dart around same as people do on a battle grid.

>>332821

Hmmm, thats good to know. For movement, i was going to make the PC rolle there ride skill, which they would use for radical ship movements regualr people couldn't handle, (such as sharp turns, turning the ship rather quickly, and stopping very quickly.)

Some of you guys in one of these threads expressed interest in watching people play Fantasy Craft. Well here you go: a one-off Halloween adventure with the players controlling NPCs right out of the rogues gallery. (3:46:55)

Anyone got a collection of premade level 1 mage spell lists I can steal off of them? I need a mixture of Level 0, 1, and 2 spells.

>>341301

I can whip some up. What specifically are you looking for?

>>341347

By which I mean what sort of categories are you looking for?

<Party role (DPS, utility, defense, etc.)?

<Elements (earth, fire, air, ice, etc)?

<A spectrum (high specialization, extremely generic, themed but broad enough to fill multiple roles, etc)?

If we assume 14 spells as the minimum (WIS 10 + 4 Spellcasting ranks) we're looking at an order of 10^133 combinations with the 96 level 0-2 spells in the core book.

>>341349

>>341347

That's a lot. I did not realize how tall an order I was making.

The idea here is that this mage will be part of the 8 pregenerated characters I'll have handy to run Fantasy Craft games for people who have never played FC before, but have played D&D and want to try something different.

To help you out, some specificity:

1. Party Role: Utility (a grab bag of direct damage spells, combat support non-damage spells, and out of combat utility spells)

Assume max ranks at Level 1 for Spellcasting. Assume Wisdom of 12, so 16 spells.

In case you want to know who's getting this list, it's a Clockwork Unborn Mage with the Clockwork Construction racial feat.

Appreciate any help you can offer.

Concurrently, I'll be building a second list that will likely be different from yours.

>>341363

>That's a lot. I did not realize how tall an order I was making.

Sounds like you need to brush up on the system a bit more.

1/2

>>341363

First thing to note is level 0 spells are all a 1st-level character can cast. You get level 1 spells at mage 3 and level 2 spells at mage 5. If these are meant to be leveled up by players as they learn the system, go ahead. If they're meant to be one and done, you'll want to use only level-0 spells and almost certainly will want to supplement those with stuff from the Spellbound leak, because there are exactly 16 level 0 spells in the core book. That said…

I made you a list and then also sorted the 0-2 level spells from the core rules according to your categories to make mixing and matching easier for you (or the players since spell selection is so important to mages). This list starts with mostly utility level 0 spells, adds mostly combat level 1 spells, and finishes with a good mix of the 3. There's also notes on synergies that work given the character build that should definitely be taken advantage of IMO.

Spell List

Level 0 Spells

Detect Secret Doors

Expeditious Retreat

Feather Fall

Glow I

Polar Ray I (only level-0 damage spell)

Touch of Light

Level 1 Spells

Cause Wounds I (should have this barring school restrictions)

Magic Missile

Shield

Sleep

Any of the Summon Spells (see below) if appropriate.

Tinker I (must-have for self-healing)

Level 2 Spells

Arcane Lock and/or Knock

Blindness/Deafness

Shield Other (probably should have)

Tinker II (should have)

Summon Spells

These can fill any of the three roles depending on the NPC summoned but are strongly tied to flavor.

Animate Dead I

Call From Beyond I

Conjure Elemental I

Control Weather I (not for summoning but close enough for our purposes due to flavor and variety)

Nature’s Ally I

Also look at Animate Object and Construct Assembly from the Spellbound leak at the bottom of the OP >>305697

Synergies and Special Effects

Shield Other + Tinker I/II = You set yourself up as the tank and then heal yourself

As a construct, the character is invulnerable to the following, which synergizes with Shield Other, so you can be more reckless if you use these around a Shield Other'd ally.

<Polar Ray

<Primary attacks of Air and Water Elementals

<Any damage available through Control Weather I except fire damage

<Deadly Draft I

If using the Animate Object/Construct Assembly spell from Spellbound, you gain the benefit of casting Tinker I/II to heal those charcters as well. You and they are also invulnerable to the Sleep spell since constructs can't fall unconscious.

2/4 max 50 lines per post, 96 spells

>>341390

>>341363

Direct Damage Spells

Level 0 Spells

Polar Ray I

Level 1 Spells

Cause Wounds I

Magic Missile

Shatter (certain objects and constructs)

Tinker I (constructs)

Level 2 Spells

Cause Wounds II

Deadly Draft I

Scorching Ray

Tinker II (constructs)

3/4

>>341391

>>341363

Combat Support Spells

Level 0 Spells

Expeditious Retreat

Feather Fall

Flare

Magic Vestment I

Touch of Light

Level 1 Spells

Bless

Color Spray

Command I

Cure Wounds I

Deathwatch

Divine Favor

Entangle

Entropic Shield

Magic Stone

Magic Weapon I

Protection from Alignment

Ray of Enfeeblement

Scare I

Shield

Tinker I (constructs)

True Strike I

Winter’s Domain

Level 2 Spells

Align Weapon

Blindness/Deafness

Blur

Brawn I

Calm Emotions

Death Knell

Dominate Undead I

Gust of Wind

Hold Animal

Hold Person

Insanity I

Mage Armor

Mirror Images

Resist Energy

Restoration I

Scare II

Tinker II (constructs)

Wild Side I

4/4

>>341392

>>341363

Utility Spells

Level 0 Spells

Create Water

Dancing Lights

Detect Alignment

Detect Secret Doors

Endure Elements

Glow I

Orient Self

Read Magic

Water Walk

Whispers

Level 1 Spells

Alarm

Charm Person I

Concealing Countryside I

Disguise Self

Detect Magic

Identify I

Illusionary Image I

Insight

Jump

Mage Scribe I

Magic Aura

Pass Without Trace

Scrye I

Unseen Servant

Level 2 Spells

Arcane Lock

Darkness I

Detect Emotion

Goodberry

Illusionary Image II

Knock

Levitate

Living Library I

Locate Object

Obscure Object

Righteous Aura

Status

Silence

Water Walk, Mass

Wit I

>>341393

>And thank you for including the Summon Spells - I was actually going to slot those in there somehow but this works just as well.

Personally, what I'd do is tell a player the premise of a conjuring spell and then give them their flavor options to pick from. The given stat blocks are fine for introducing people. For an unborn caster I'd definitely go with the Animate Object/Construct Assembly. Downside there is no pre-made monsters but with the online NPC tool and examples from other spells it probably wouldn't be hard. The bestiary also has Animated Objects which are perfect or you could apply the Clockwork template to anything with 20 XP or less (lel).

The core book has

>Servant (19)

>Town Drunk (19)

>Goat/Sheep (15)

Adventure Companion has

>Enslaved Tribesman

You could always use the Immature template as well and then you have any option up to 40 base XP. Having a clockwork baby animal helping you sounds kind of neat actually.

http://www.meadicus.plus.com/craftygames/npc-builder/NPCBuilder.html

>>341401

Oh, btw here's a fun magic item idea

>Item: weapon of choice (should have the hook quality, use the upgrade if necessary)

>Charm: Spell Effect (Animate Object I)

>casting a spell from a magic item is a Handle Item action per RAW, so you can disarm and then animate in one turn

>magic items can't be animated so it's immune to copycat effects

And if you take Charm Binding Basics, you can start farting these out in Downtime so all your buddies have one. They cost no more that 6 Reputation apiece.

>>341402

So noted on the animate object/construct assembly. There's a lot to be overwhelmed by here when it comes to mages so I am glad to have some guidance by a more experienced anon.

On the subject of the actual grimoire, I remember someone making noise about organizing the spell lists by

>Discipline

Then by

>Level, lowest to highest

Then within each level, by

>Alphabet.

That would make a lot more sense than the absolute mess we have which is by pure Alphabetical organization.

If no one did that I guess I could do it myself.

What's your opinion on the Conjuror class from the Spellbound preview? It looks like a space/time mage. Which I like.

>>341401

I have no idea why that is useful. Explain?

>>341819

>I have no idea why that is useful. Explain?

>I still have no idea why this is useful.

Animate Object doesn't affect objects that are held. Disarming someone makes them unarmed (more vulnerable) and renders their weapon not held (able to be animated). Then you can animate the weapon per the Animated Objects entry in the bestiary (core book, page 253-254), to turn it into Animated Melee Weapon (30XP) and have it chase the now unarmed enemy. With the spell use being a half action (no check) on nearby objects (Disarm knocks weapons into adjacent squares), if you succeed with Disarm and then you Animate you can turn the tables in one round. The higher the level of the magic item (or the more your party has) the more weapons they can hijack from their enemies.

>Zot!

Yeah that's fun. If you can work out a pattern it can be really effective considering the way that spell save DC scales (+1 per level) versus save bonuses (+1 per 3 levels at the low end to +1 per 2 levels at the high end). It's basically double (or more) the disarm action at a higher success rate. It requires two successes, but a spellcasting check for a 0-level spell gets easy real quick, and the save DC scales faster than the save bonus. Compare with Disarm, which is attack vs. attack (scales slowly for mages). Also note that spellcasting requires a mage's pouch to be held so Zot! is very effective against casters. Needing to take a handle item action to pick up the mage's pouch means with the remaining half action they get to move or cast a spell (since handle item prevents the use of 5-foot steps by being a movement action), and the user can't cast anything that takes more than a half action as long as you keep hitting them with Zot!

If you have a weapon with the drake craftsmanship upgrade (making it count as a mage's pouch) you can alternate between hitting them and casting Zot! indefinitely, or if you have the Many-Armed feat (available to Unborn, core book), you can hold a mage's pouch and weapons at the same time. Or if you have a half action left you can pick up what they dropped.

One of my players had Zot! but gave up using it after he got "better" spells. In the party combo we had it would have been pretty useful actually. He was a bard (custom class I built) and the other player was an assassin, so it would have synergized well with one to disarm, one to pick up and stab. He just favored direct damage though so didn't bother with it much.

>I'm not sure I like the idea of my party having access to what is functionally unlimited healing like that.

> It smacks of easy mode, you know? I might replace that with Soothing Touch, pictured here.

It's basically a choice between "party completely heals vitality between encounters, making each one more isolated" and "healing is a scarce resource like everything else." It's a similar sort of tradeoff to linear vs. non-linear games. The more you can restrict the variations, the better you can balance things. If you know the party will have full vitality for each encounter you don't have to worry so much about them getting worn down and can throw more stuff at them. Touch of Light is overpowered in general I agree, but for a noob party it's forgiving and reduces the amount of information everyone needs to keep track of (and FC can have a lot). Touch of Light's drawback is that it can only heal vitality, not wounds, subdual damage, or stress damage. So it's not so good if they face enemies that deal subdual/stress damage or have a high threat range.

>>342068

There will be a list by discipline. Here are the sorted sections. Each one will have an alphabetical list and a list that goes by level and then alphabetical (once I've populated the alphabetical lists). Figured I might as well keep the alphabetical ones so I'll just create a copy and sort it.

<Discipline

<Keywords

<Casting Time

<Duration

<Range

<Area

<Defense (against the spell effect)

<Preparation cost

<Effect (subjective but also the thing people would use most)

So everything.

>Anything is better than what they gave us in the book as it is.

Well it was a leak of a project they had to shelf for budgetary reasons. Crafty is busy with stuff that's currently making money.

> I want to screech broken at that idea but it's too hilarious to say no to.

It's actually pretty tame given the RAW. With the option of modifying stat blocks for summoned NPCs, I would rule that instead of the natural attack the Animated Melee Weapon has, an animated weapon should be considered "armed with" itself and able to attack with the stats of that weapon (XP + weapon complexity / 10). This would limit it to weapons of complexity 15 or less though, so no animated trebuchet. Most other siege weapons are fair game though (nothing about Animate Object mentions size or restrictions on the object). And of course combat feats could boost its effects provided it's within the XP limit.

>There is a severe temptation to have this Unborn Mage select Spellcasting as his Enlightened Skill (meaning he can have 6 ranks in that skill at Level 1, giving us a total of 18 spells to choose from, plus 4 free Level 0 spells for being a mage)…

Whether you could use Enlightened Skill on Spellcasting would be up to GM's discretion so I guess that depends on what first impression of GM's discretion you want to leave.

>But are there better skills I could select as the Unborn's Enlightened Skill?

>Craft, perhaps, for self repair and building things? I am open to suggestions.

Casters want a high Resolve for making Concentrate checks if anything interrupts them. How often this comes up depends a lot on GM discretion, but it's most important for spells that take more than a full action to cast (meaning other characters could attack you). That's Con-based. Other than that, mage is a wild card. Depends on what role you'd want. Crafting is good for making/enchanting magic items or alchemy but also requires feats. Investigate is good for someone who's deep in magical lore or trying to find rare items or spells. Characters tend to benefit from breadth rather than depth in FC, so this would be an appropriate option for out-of-combat use.

>>342068

And here's the whoops I fucked up post.

>I think I'll slip Zot! into the spell list for the Unborn Mage Automatii

Good use of it IMO. You'd be better off giving them spellcasting as a signature skill than the natural spell quality, since 0-level spells are unlimited use. And since your automatii don't have the steep Cha penalty they have a higher spell save DC (10 + Cha bonus + # of spellcasting feats). And I goofed on the bit about scaling saves, because spell save DCs are based on feats not skill ranks (which NPCs don't have anyway). So save DCs scale at the rate of the slowest save progression (+1 per 3 levels) under normal rules. NPCs using the Resilience trait are going to scale faster than that unless that have grade I out of X. So something like Zot! would be much more effective on a summoned character with higher Cha and feats. Unless they'd have a Cha-based skill I'd recommend feats. An extra point of save DC costs 2 XP either way - as 2 points of Cha or a feat.

As for specific feats, I'd recommend the Spell Theft chain, basics and master cost 4 XP and boost the spell save DC by 6 total (1 for each feat and mastery adds 4 to your spell save DC to characters in your Reach, i.e. those you can target with Touch spells like Zot!). You also give you automatii the ability to drain spell points from targets with this, so they'd benefit from above-level-0 spells (that cost spell points) like, say, Tinker. With Spell Theft Supremacy your summons can drop a target's known spells a number of times equal to their spellcasting feats. They do need a mage pouch to cast though so that's 2 XP (complexity / 10 round up).

>he gets 4 free Level 0 spells from the Mage Class

Huh. I forgot about that. The Wizard specialty grants bonus spells via Spell Library (feat) as well, but that's based on Lifestyle which is Charisma based so not great for Unborn.

>>342302

>I don't want to drown my players - and by extension myself - in the delicious crunchiness of this system. I don't have the OCD levels required for something like that. I'm just trying to remember enough of it to show what if offers compared to D&D and Pathfinder.

I think the best application of the crunch would be to build adventures around mechanical systems - gimmick dungeons and dinner party episodes.

>But now I'm imagining someone multi-classing into Rune Knight and taking Siege Weapon feats… Oh man. Well, I guess the restraining element there is that those feats only work on siege engines the Mage is personally using.

Also you get one Favored Gear item at a time, which combined with its extra threat makes your siege engine draw all possible aggro. And siege engines don't usually move much (and are vulnerable to attack from a small team or infantry). The best use would probably be a vehicle-mounted siege weapon.

>Could you imbue the feat INTO a ballista though?

The animated ballista? It would be treated as an NPC with the construct type. It would ideally have stats more or less in line with the weapon entry (Size, similar Health stat, etc), and NPCs can have feats (+2 to their base XP for feats). And if a character was going to animate the same sort of object frequently, it's not too hard to whip up a stat block for it.

http://www.meadicus.plus.com/craftygames/npc-builder/NPCBuilder.html

>>Enlightened skill, crafting, vs other skills

>Noted on your suggestions. I might leave it to a coinflip between Resolve or Investigate. As you say, breadth over depth, yeah?

Yeah. Note also that Resolve is the skill you roll to oppose

<checks to influence you (through Impress OR Intimidate)

<distract you in general (Concentration checks don't just apply to casters)

<Threaten actions

<Tire actions

<Morale checks (optional)

>>Zot! into Unborn Mage and not having a steep Cha penalty

>it's hard to build a Mage around the Unborn - at least, one with high Save DC on his attack spells.

Lends itself better to spells that don't have saves, like utility spells or summon spells. That's why I was suggesting you offload those powers to the objects your mage would animate.

>Spell Theft chain? You mean from the Mist Dancer class? I'll think about it, but I don't have 2 feats to work with.

Yes, and I meant for your summoned characters, not you. NPCs can have whatever feats you want as long as they have the prerequisites and it's within the XP limit.

>>342486

And quick note on Resolve vs Investigate, you use Investigate to identify items, including magic items.

>>342653

>I would have to argue that the kind of feats and spells you imbue into your summoned minions would be directly dependent on the known knowledge of the Mage who summoned it. This restricts the kind of ridiculous builds that might potentially be possible by a player who sits and reads the Beastiary all day and forces them to have their PC go out and study things.

Yeah, how summoning works is pretty clearly supposed to be up to the GM and the logic of the setting.

>Just because you can slap a bunch of combat or melee weapon feats onto a minion for +2 XP per feat does not mean that the Mage has the experience, understanding, or training implied by the feat itself (or skills in the case of creating a servitor).

Sure but that's why you summon things. A mage could summon the spirit of an ancient hero, who has all sorts of martial prowess the mage doesn't have. Again, the basis is supposed to be how magic works in the setting.

>But if he (she?) met an actual Spellthief, befriended that individual, they could work together in 'designing' said minion. I'd allow it then.

Yeah, that's pretty reasonable. I like the idea that the player can't just use meta knowledge to build OP characters, and it encourages both adventuring and roleplaying. I play where my arcane casters have to actually acquire spells in order to learn them, usually from getting scrolls and making downtime Spellcasting checks.

>Also, are you >>341390 (You) ?

Yeah.

>If so, I need to point out that Constructs are not invulnerable to

They are. Look at the section on damage types (209-211), specifically for heat and cold.

><Polar Ray

Cold damage becomes subdual damage, to which constructs are immune.

><Primary attacks of Air and Water Elementals

Those deal subdual damage, to which constructs are immune.

><Any damage available through Control Weather I except fire damage

Cold/heat wave I deals cold or heat which works as subdual damage. Flood/landslide deals subdual damage. Lightning deals stress damage. Constructs are immune to all of these.

><Deadly Draft I

Deals cold damage, which is treated as subdual damage to which constructs are immune.

>I am not sure where you read that but constructs have very specific immunities and those are not one of them. See pic related.

The immunities to subdual and stress damage cover all of the above. A lot of these straight up say they deal subdual damage, but as for heat and cold, those basically function as "named" damage for the purposes of resistance or weakness. Mechanically they function just like other subdual damage.

>>342754

>Cold damage is immediately converted to subdual damage.

>Heat damage is immediately converted to subdual damage.

I-… Huh. I guess. Yeah. They are immune to those spells and effects then.

Well then. That's going to mean some interesting things.

>>342806

Heat and Cold damage are used for environmental conditions, which is why Fire Damage is its own thing. It's intense, discomforting, fatigue-inducing temperatures.

>>342806

Yeah unborn being indirectly immune to hot/cold and not having to breathe means they are the "fuck you I can go anywhere" race, including the bottom of the sea and the moon. And since they don't age or need sustenance, they could pretty much just walk across the bottom of the ocean to get from one continent to another. Or they could just sit down and wait indefinitely and let tectonic drift to move the continents together.

>>343868

They said it would be released NEVER EVER

Crafty Games pretty much only makes Mistborn stuff now. They just released a board game and another supplement for the Mistborn RPG.

what is the fluff difference between charms and essences, and what do their respective feat chains entail (in the world)?

I have a group looking for a fantasy game with overt showy magic that's clearly written (non-native speakers in group) and can't be broken by pure accident. Is Fantasy Craft good for this?

>Abilities that affect “allies” can target any standard or special character on your side, while abilities that affect “teammates” may only target special characters on your side.

Are you your own ally?

>>353815

Well..

>and can't be broken by pure accident.

Probably not. FC makes it easy for martial characters to be broken by accident.

>>353825

How easy? "Blinding enemies with Glitterdust looks cool, I'll take that as one of my spells" easy?

>>355041

There's a link in the OP to the species creation guidelines that someone reverse engineered and got more or less endorsed by the creators. It's a pretty straight forward point buy affair where you just make sure everything adds up to 7 points.

>>355044

>SZ: Large 2/h

Is it your intention to make these only usable by Large or bigger characters? I'm not familiar with the source, so I don't know if that's how it works there. If anything I think this would be underpowered. The maul has the same damage dice with arguably a better damage type, a better threat range, doesn't have unreliable, and has massive, all while being usable by Medium characters. Excruciating with is nice with the damage dice you've given it, but I think unreliable and the size compensate for it.

>>355404

>I do not know how that translates to Fantasy Craft. Is that why all the two handed great swords are Medium/2handed in FC?

Yes. Medium/2h is what you want, size and handedness are completely independent in FC. With that change I think the stats you have are in a good spot.

Exotic weapons in FC are less of a pain than in 3.X–as long as you have a forte in the weapon category you're proficient with its exotic weapons.

>>355408

>>355404

One thing I would suggest is either creating a new proficiency category for these weapons or putting them in the Siege category, rather than counting something like the Chattersword as a greatsword–it would be a little strange to have a fencing specialist automatically get proficiency with chainswords, while you probably want a character specialized in these weapons to easily get proficiency with both the Chattersword and the Steam Cannon.

>>355408

Ah, thank you. I'll append that to my file for Dragonmech stuff that is being converted to Fantasy Craft.

>>355419

In Dragonmech, the Crafting focus called Mechcraft governs the knowledge, repair, design, construction and operation of mech sized weapons as well as steam engines and personal sized equipment powered by complex machinery (in my GM's mind, it extends to other drive systems like combustion and that one weird time a steam-mage built a battery powered mech with copper rods charged with electrical magic).

So, maybe creating a proficiency called Mechcraft (for mechanical rather than outright mechs) associated with these weapons would be a good approach for now.

Spellbound when?

>>360216

Years ago, after having a FC campaign fizzle out on us, my group decided that we'd put off starting another FC campaign because we were sure Spellbound would be coming out soon, and if it did, it would fuck up our entire game by having everyone wanting to roll new characters and divert into new classes and redo their spell lists and everything… So we said we just wait until after so we could avoid that.

I'm feeling the need to tempt the curse and start up a game just to meme ourselves into having the book released, because it's been 'coming soon' since 2011

>>360242

That's fucked. The preview classes are fine and the spells are cool but come on. Just finish it.

>>360302

Mistborn stuff is taking their full attention. Last book they released wasn't even a splat. Just several pre-written adventures. Also, there was that board game they kickstarted which was alright, but I've been kinda playing amateur PR for Crafty for a few years in these threads and it really comes down to the fact that Kapera doesn't fucking care and Flagg is too busy up his own ass to focus on his company. They need to bring in a few amateurs and freelance guys as part of the team and have them work on something, probably just for free. Tell them they get to be officially part of Crafty from now on, their names get to go on the cover like the big boys, and they get a cut of the profits once its published. Fucking sucks that they'll have to work unpaid, but getting paid before you fucking have a product to sell is for kickstarters and patreons, so unless they want to do one of those, unpaid freelancing it is.

>>360304

This makes me sad.

>>360304

>They need to bring in a few amateurs and freelance guys

This, a million times. If you see the amateur made book the community made you would be astounded.

>>360316

One of the most important things they could do to build their brand and bolster their following is to RELEASE SOME GODDAMNED BOOKS.

>oh, but dear customer, selling RPG books doesn't pay the bills!

>I have a second job and a family to take care of!

You know what would make you some more money? Here's a hint: IT'S RELEASING MORE BOOKS.

Maybe you should have planned your life accordingly instead of believing you could support a family and several other employees with a business that can't release one fucking splat book in nearly a decade. One might even be inclined to wager that you could actually gather more customer who would buy more of your books and games, which would encourage them to play them and draw in more customers, but only if you kept releasing products.

Every year at GenCon, Paizo has some new shit to show off and sell out of within minutes. They have a massive booth that always has a line going around it. Crafty shares a booth with a dozen other small studios and gets a bookshelf and a couple of folding tables. The most Crafty has to offer is a preorder on another Mistborn book they might release later and, for some fucking reason, the occasional random board game made by some nobody. Paizo is a shitty company run by retards and faggots, but they beat the shit out of Crafty in sales because they have things to sell. Crafty used to be one of the Kings of the third party when they were selling Spycraft, but they've apparently given up on that too. Did you know there was a new edition in the works? Because they quietly shitcanned that too.

>>360778

>because they have things to sell

Eh, although i agree with your general statements, this one is not true.

Paizo's trick is pushing a "3.75" version that came out after the marketing failure that 4th was. Plus, they adhere to weeaboos, they adhere to Liberalfaggs, they adhere to normies in RPGs, etc. etc.

Crafty's games aim at a much smaller audience, one that is willing to go through the difficulty of understanding an arguably difficult system with new unique mechanics, a system where you actually have to consider picking the right abilities for your character and a general community which is not so oriented at being a "cute and Liberal safe space you always wanted it to be" with all the "inclusiveness Feminist warrior princesses".

Sure they could bring in more people with some fancy books and images, but nowadays "gamers" would be instantly put off by the 400 pages of pure rules of the main book.

FC is my favorite fantasy medieval RPG of all time, but the "old school" games that require thought are dieing.

>>360780

Paizo is long past riding the disastrous wave of failure that 4e created. When they sell out entire pallets of their latest book, it's because they have a strong following of loyal customers, not because people are still eating up the "D&D 3.75" meme. And even though they would like to attribute their success to licking feminist boot and being on the right side of history, etc etc, those people don't buy games. Even those PF isn't all that complex, D&D is still eldritch nerd shit that no feminist touches unless they've got a simpering beta male friend to walk them through the entire process and be their DM.

When it comes to complexity, I wouldn't say FC is severely more complicated than PF or any version of D&D, but it has options and lots of them. It's core book combines the kind of content that Paizo or WotC would split across 4 or 5 books. It's a lot to take it, which is what scares people, but it's no less difficult or hard to run than any other RPG system. For a time, Crafty was doing fine supporting the game. They had a few adventure books, a splat full of campaign settings and even more character options. A dozen or so extra character classes, each with a few new feats and spells… and then spellbound was announced and 7 years later, they still haven't released anything but a single preview PDF.

>>360782

If you take the systems in totality, FC is probably simpler than PF, it's just that all of its crunch is pretty close to the front and visible to the players. The complex shit in PF is all in optional rules when FC takes stuff like PF's Downtime and makes it a core part of the rules and character progression.

>D&D is still eldritch nerd shit that no feminist touches unless they've got a simpering beta male friend to walk them through the entire process and be their DM.

That is an over-generalization. I have played D&D with people like this. I've had a DM from this crowd who put everything together and was into it more than a lot of the players. As long as parties involved have the self control to not talk about politics it's fine.

>>360883

>That is an over-generalization.

No, but it is a generalization, because generally speaking, the angry feminist, tranny, faggot, etc demographic that Paizo so desperately sucks up to, does not buy games or books at anywhere the same rate as their actual audience of large straight, adult men. Not saying that some won't or that it's impossible for other groups to learn the game. Not even saying it's wrong if they tag in a friend who knows the game to teach them. Everyone has to learn somewhere… Just that they are not the considerable sleeping giant of sales that you could mistakenly believe they are, given the way Paizo and WotC have been acting over the past few years.

>>360305

>>360304

>>360316

One of my friends is in the industry and knows Mr. Flagg personally. He spoke to Flagg about letting us finish Spellbound but apparently the combination of Mistborn being their prime money maker right now and some kind of strange cold war between Flagg and the other guy on the team have placed a stranglehold on Spellbound's development…

So it was an uncomfortable no to let a pair of strangers finish Spellbound for free, and that is in spite of it being 85% complete right now.

When is this thread due for deletion and resurrection? I have a near completed Fantasy Craft project I've been cooking for you guys that I want to share.

>>364211

Threads hit auto-bump at 500, newfag.

>>364263

I suppose I am a newfag until told otherwise. In my defense, I did read the FAQ and that information isn't there.

>>364266

On image boards, people are newfags until the site dies. Whenever you fuck up, even if you've been part of the community for over a decade, people will point out your newfaggotry, and they'll be right.

And you'll move on and try to fuck up less in the future.

>>364211

What kind of project?

>>360304

>>364118

Man it sounds like the remaining Crafty writers are just being petty faggots at this point.

>>360903

Just like, post it. This thread isn't dying any time soon.

>>364398

Flagg had to hire himself on as the mystery freelancer to work on Spellbound, for some reason, and he still never got the thing done.

>>364292

Yeah, no, that's an actual newfag and you're coddling him.

>>364401

I refer back to the unfortunate though still unconfirmed cold war between Flagg and the others at Crafty Games.

As I understand it, the book is 85-90% complete; all that remains are some minor tweaks, formatting and compiling it into a PDF for digital distribution, and executing a physical print run for those who want to own an actual copy. The reason this has not been done is that priority is going to Mistborn plus the responsibilities involved in managing a small company. Lump the fact that a number of their employees must appear at conventions regularly with their obligations to their other products and you can start to see what kind of time constraints that places on them to provide support for a product which, despite our rabid love for the thing, is largely unknown within the greater market with juggernaughts like 5e and now the new Pathfinder coming around.

Finally, Flagg has apparently OCD levels of statistical mastery regarding balance in Fantasy Craft and if things aren't -just right- he probably won't let it out the door until it's done. That said, you can tell he cracked somewhere since he leaked the Spellbound Grimoire for us. I don't know how much trouble that got him into - or even if the others on Crafty Games know.

I am not making excuses here, I am just trying to lay out what the facts might be based off of what I have been able to scrape together from the contacts I have in the industry.

I just want to comment that the art in the books adds a lot. I especially like the banners on the top and bottom of the pages.

What's even better is the button in the PDFs that lets you toggle that stuff off so you can save ink if you want to print something. Bigger companies don't bother to make stuff printer-friendly, even stuff that's meant to be printed like character sheets.

sherlock holmes

wily warden assassin 9/keeper 6/soldier 1

wily: agile defense +1, engaging diversion, enlightened tactics, mix-up

warden: decisive, practiced investigate, unbreakable

assassin: Hand of Death, Heartseeker, Cold Read, Quick on your Feet 2/session, Unspoken Name +2, Blade Practice 2, Masks (Disguise Expertise, Fake it)

keeper: Man of Reason, Trade Secrets (Sense Motive), Bright Idea 1/session, The Right Tools (Notice Expertise), Brilliant +1

Str 13, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 22, Wis 12, Cha 10

pathfinder mastery (urban), master's art (int), mark, basic skill mastery (spy), legendary skill mastery (investigator)

*man of reason should be switched to something appropriate for him (search/investigate?)

Is Spellbound almost done?

>>365256

You serious? It's coming out tommorrow, where have you been?

mage 7/soldier 6/edgemaster 1/swashbuckler 6

flashing weapon

fencing basics

contempt

combat instincts

cleave mastery

haste

decisive attack

swordplay

surge of speed + tally ho!

that's 11 attacks in one round, not counting extra ones from cleave. Is it possible to get more?

>>365774

With that many attacks, what could possibly survive?

>>365778

vitality bloat is real

>>365783

On player characters, yes. Not so much on monsters.

>>365785

I wouldn't really know, I guess. I haven't read much on the DM side of the game.

However, it doesn't matter, I'd never play such an intentionally optimized character, I just have fun figuring stuff out.

>>365774

Haste can be cast on you by a PL, so you don't need Mage levels. If you replace those with straight Soldier (not sure if there's a better option for this build) you can get the Flail B/M/S chain, which gives you two more free attacks (assuming you're dual-wielding a flail and a fencing blade, so you'd swap out darting/flashing weapon for TWF/TWS). If you're already taking a PL, you may as well give him the Coordinated Attack feat and get one more attack out of it. Get a magic item with the Rend NPC quality on it and you get more attacks if you hit: 4 from TWS attacks, two from using TWF on your haste half action (RAW I don't see anything saying you can't use TWF and TWS in the same round, as long as you have access to a full and a half action, though stacking the penalties might hurt), one from a Cleave attack that doesn't kill its target, one from a Coordinated Attack directed by your PL. Throw in Critical Surge on another magic item for a high chance of getting another half action.

So, let's count them up.

4 TWS + 4 Rend = 8

2 Haste/TWF + 2 Rend = 4

1 Cleave + 1 Rend (since cleaves aren't free attacks) = 2

1 Coordinated Attack + 1 Rend = 2

1 Fencing Basics

1 Flail Basics

1 Flail Supremacy

1 Contempt

1 Combat Instincts

1 Decisive Attack

1 Swordplay

1 Surge of Speed + Tally Ho!

and uncertain but likely, 1 Critical Surge + 1 Rend = 2

That's a maximum of 26 attacks, without using any of the 1/combat free attack abilities that are available. If none of your attacks that can trigger Rend hit and you don't get any crits, you still get 16.

>>365863

Minor correction: the maximum number of attacks with this build should be 25, because Cleave cannot be triggered by a free attack and it's effectively incompatible with Rend (if you kill or knock out the target, no point in taking your Rend attack).

>>365863

>>365865

Another minor revision–critical surge does not by RAW have a 1/round limit. If you get multiple crits, you get multiple additional actions. You have enough Soldier levels to get Most Deadly in addition to Decisive Attack, so you don't even have to worry about running out of AD. You can get many, many more than 26 attacks.

Does anyone else remember if there was supposed to be a fourth setting that was supposed to come with the Adventure Companion? It was supposed to be focused around warfare (and rules that come with it) and powerful heroes, please tell me I'm not making shit up in my mind.

>>365863

that's awesome

what about damage reduction?

I can get to 16 (19 in dramatic scenes) as a granite unborn soldier 19 with armor supremacy and dwarven platemail

>>365882

ive never heard of that

>>365882

Not heard of it but it would be the setting to cut for Crafty, given the rules.

>>365954

Make it a Sorcerer and you can take Elemental Heritage (Earth or Wood) for another +2 DR. 4 levels in the Force of Nature expert class then lets you get Elemental Legacy which you normally couldn't get as an Unborn, though you give up Fortunes of War III, which results in a net change of 0 for dramatic scenes and +1 for standard scenes. Add the DR essence to the platemail for +2 more.

>>365954

I just ran the numbers. Not entirely sure you're calculating them correctly.

Dwarven Platemail (assuming you have Heavy Fittings) has DR 8

Armor Supremacy increases the Platemail DR by 2 (so DR 10)

Then you gain a separate track from Fortunes of War I-III: DR 3 (6 during Dramatic Scenes).

Additionally, your Granite skin (granted by the Species Feat: Special Construction) is a separate source of Damage Reduction, and does not increase nor stack with the previous two sources of DR. So that is by itself DR2.

At best, if the Platemail is integrated with your skin, per the footnote on the Armor Table, page 174, then yeah, I suppose maybe that bumps you up to DR 12 - but Fortunes of War is still a separate track and does not stack.

Unless you can point out where it says in the rules that DRs from multiple sources stack? (In which case it would be DR 15, not 16, unless again there's some extra point coming from somewhere). In any case, that never a level I would run an FC game at so I suppose I'm making something out of nothing for no reason.

Seriously though. Do DR's stack? Pretty sure they don't.

>>366046

Unnamed bonuses to a value always stack unless explicitly stated otherwise. There's a specific type of DR granted by character options, thick hide, that doesn't stack with armor and stacks with itself in only a limited way. If it's not thick hide (or another named bonus to DR, which I'm pretty sure isn't used anywhere in the books but theoretically could be at some point), it stacks.

>>366047

special construction (granite) specifically says DR 2, not Thick Hide 2, which is why I thought it stacked

>>366046

>In which case it would be DR 15, not 16, unless again there's some extra point coming from somewhere

One Step Ahead, 6th level soldier ability

>>366048

Yes, that's right. It's the character's whole body that's granite, not just the skin, which is why it also grants improved stability.

>>366048

>>366047

>>366049

>>366050

The creature with the highest DR I am aware of is the Fire Dragon with DR 7. The highest AP I am aware of (before feats & unnatural use of NPC qualities) is 8.

I feel that a PC getting DR 16 (19 in Drama mode) is a little overboard. Going to pencil into my personal house rules a hard limit of DR 10… Though I doubt that will ever come up since I never get to GM or play in this blasted game anyway unless it is at a Convention.

>>366052

a no-dachi/shamshir is 1d12 AP 4, a large character using a greatclub or a maul does 2d8, the fire dragon you listed does quite a bit of damage with it's attacks, being sprawled halves your DR, and I think there are some misc ways of getting extra AP

No doubt that 16/19 is extreme, but then a guy made of stone wearing tournament plate and being probably the most skilled fighter in existence will do that. You're the DM, and as long as you tell your players beforehand, there's no harm in your houserule (10 is probably fine), but I'd at least playtest it.

>>366052

>>366054

Crusading human

Str 20

Sword Basics (Martial Stance)

Shamshir +8 (1d12+9 AP 4)

1st level

I know NPC's work differently from PC's, but still

>>366052

The Tarasque has DR 10, nothing in the bestiary exceeds that. That might sound like a good argument for houseruling that as the limit, but I'd be wary of that because you'll make some character options less valuable.

There are also a few places in the rules where AP 10 in one big lump appears (the Monster Slayer level 10 ability, the Kaiju template, searing ray), and you can reach that fairly easily with a longbow using Bow Basics and an AP 2 upgrade on both the bow and arrows (confirmed to work this way by the devs: http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=4497.0 ) DR 10+ isn't something that makes an encounter insurmountable at all, there are cheap and easy ways to get around or through it as >>366054 says (the Called Shot trick is another one).

>>366052

>>366057

If someone puts that much investment into DR, they can have it. They'll be untouchable by a portion of enemies but the following things bypass DR:

>divine damage (lethal)

>sonic damage (lethal)

>electric damage (lethal)

>heat/cold damage (subdual)

>fall damage (lethal)

>the tire action (subdual)

>the intimidate action (stress)

and then you have tripping and grappling, which don't even bother with damage and are penalized by ACP. So a GM has plenty of options (some of which are pretty common among fighters) to throw at the super tank. You also have acid damage which can eat the armor and called shots that can ignore it.

>>366054

In the unlikely event I run a campaign, yes, all my house rules will be up front prior to Character Creation (I only have two or three house rules). It would not be fair otherwise.

>>366057

When I was initially putting together an NPC mob for the con game I ran, I was concerned that my 32 XP Longbowmen (the one from P. 244 specifically) was going to be a problem because they have AP6 and roll 1d6+2 dmg. That ignores every PC's armor - including the Drake Bard at the table who has DR 3 from Draconic Heritage (and thus the highest DR owner at the table - the Captain only had the moderate leather with DR 2).

As I was looking deeper into the system I was struggling with trying to find a balance for these level 1 characters, so I created a whole new archer for 32XP that did not have Bow Basics & Mastery and used Barbed arrows instead of the Standard.

The intent was for the person running the Drake to feel pretty awesome despite having a Defense of 9, had Thick Hide 3 and possessed a 50% chance to outright ignore the volley of arrows sailing his/her way (the new archers had the Angry Hornet feat and Cagey I instead of the two Bow feats). It worked - I think in each combat the Drake Bard soaked up 15-25 ranged attacks and only hit 0 Vitality once.

I upgraded the original 32 XP Bowman from the Core Rulebook to a Special NPC who spent his time hiding amid the other archers. Every once in a while an arrow would hit the Drake and pierce his scales. It led to an obsession on the part of the Drake's player to find 'that fuck who DARES.'

>>366055

Shamshir's are 120 silver. You start with 100s at First Level. I run with a house rule that says you start with 1 month's income (determined by panache) in addition to your 100s starting cash for equipment purchases at Level 1. So, yeah, it is entirely possible to start with that much silver at my table so I assume you're doing something similar.

What about the rest of your equipment? What about your armor? Supplies?

+5 for Str 20, I get that. You get +1 for the Crunch! Ability. Where's the other +2 coming from? Your math isn't working out here.

>>366059

You are absolutely correct. I am still very new to GMing Fantasy Craft - despite having owned my books for at least a decade now - so I completely forgot that part of their entire design philosophy is that there are a lot of different ways to skin a cat than just (I hit it with my sword).

What are some of the common options you were talking about? Stress damage from fear, fatigue from the usual sources come to mind. The actions you mentioned of course. Anything else? I don't fully grasp just how large my toolkit as a GM is for this game right now and I've just had a taste.

>>366126

>+5 for Str 20, I get that. You get +1 for the Crunch! Ability. Where's the other +2 coming from? Your math isn't working out here.

you mean +3? martial stance from sword basics

anyway, he could have grabbed the shamshir from an enemy or a treasure roll before hitting level 2

>>366126

thats actually my big beef with drakes; they're way too vulnerable

I had considered giving them draconic heritage for free (I mean, they do have it yknow), but DR 3 still isnt much and it doesnt really stack with anything

on top of that they have low defense from being large and only get some wounds to make up for it

>>366131

Flight is a pretty big deal, and natural attacks count as unarmed attacks so drake martial artists can be pretty scary.

>>366134

>>366131

Despite how new I was to running this system, one thing I never forgot to apply were penalties for attacking targets beyond your first range increment. Conversely, the player running the drake was (generally) not stupid enough to engage opponents on the ground when he could be flying around, breathing fire on people, or dropping large rocks on folk.

Once you keep in mind penalties to attack bonuses for hitting faraway targets, and you run a game with a player who understands the tactical advantage of never having to be on the ground, things get interesting.

As for DR3 not being much, it is at least a decent fallback if you lose your armor. Getting armor for a Drake is very expensive, mind, but it isn't impossible. And low defense really isn't a problem for Drakes if they take the right Class & Speciality. If you want to be a social drake but still have a good defense in combat - take the Keeper who starts with a +2 bonus to Def at Level 1. As the anon above said, the Martial Artists is also an option.

A Drake Burglar? Curious combination, and you suffer large size penalties for sneaking & blending but you do get that +2 Def bonus.

Drake Priest? (+2 to Def at Lvl 1)… Drake Paladin later? There are ways to handle that low Def concern is all I am saying.

>>366129

Forgot the feat did that. Makes sense.

>>366126

>What are some of the common options you were talking about? Stress damage from fear, fatigue from the usual sources come to mind. The actions you mentioned of course. Anything else? I don't fully grasp just how large my toolkit as a GM is for this game right now and I've just had a taste.

The most flexible thing is monsters with natural/extraordinary attacks. It costs 2 XP to change the damage dealt from lethal to anything else, which can be used for a DR-ignoring type. Non-damage extraordinary attacks all ignore DR and range from minor impairment to instant death. If damage is your aim, you can use Draining, life which arguably ignores DR. Wounding attacks cause bleeding, which ignores DR. For fun, you might have a monster that uses an Enraging attack on the tank from afar, causing the tank to attack allies nearby. You also have attribute drains and life drain (vitality drain) for similar-to-damage effects. Winged creatues get the Wing Buffet restricted action, which can sprawl and push targets (including off ledges for fall damage).

If you're interested in humanoid enemies, then the walking tank could plausibly prompt rivals to actively seek out ways to circumvent the DR. This could include:

>AP11 crossbows (heavy crossbow AP5 + Standard bolts AP2 +2x2 from AP upgrade to each)

>Assuming the sprawled = 1/2 DR (news to me) combine Trip weapons (to sprawl and halve DR) with AP weapons - could do this in teams or use the Battle Axe, Sickle/Kama, or Scythe which have both.

>Send NPCs with Resolve as a signature skill and good defense to Tire while avoiding hits and to defend against actions like Tire or Threaten. There are PC options that make Tiring more effective (Gladiator's Harsh Beating).

>Send NPCs with Intimidate as a signature skill and the Glint of Madness feat (1d10 stress instead of 1d6) The terrifying look quality comes from a few Specialties. So thematically what's appropriate is a sorcerer or similar caster who's a tankbuster by virtue of being scary and casting spells that ignore DR.

>Have some NPCs hire an enchanter who builds weapons with the alternate damage essence (something that ignores DR) and send regular enemies with those weapons. Bonus because it rewards the party with good loot as well.