The Gaming Den

I'm aware that they by and large suck. Uniformly, the biggest problem they have is with the resolution math, though it's far from the only problem. Sadly, I think that the best Final Fantasy TTRPG was Frank's woefully incomplete d20 hack from over a decade back. At least it didn't implode in on itself when you tried playing without a calculator.

That said, any Final Fantasy TTRPGs that are worth checking out? Okay, how about any Final Fantasy TTRPGs that don't make people instantly vomit? Any of those?

Other than the one you mentioned there, all I remember is one creation that was hosted on a webpage, probably a Geocities or Angelfire page. The main bits I remember are:
*Moogle is a playable race
*It's Class-based, and nothing stops you from having a Moogle Deathknight, which is awesome
*Weapons include Books and things, and basically it's just "All Knife weapons do Xd4" and "All Gun weapons do Xd6" and so on, with the X depending on the grade of weapon (Buster Sword 1d8 -> Razor Sword 2d8 -> Sharpened Girder 3d8 -> Ultima Weapon 4d8)

From what I remember playing it, there are some things worth salvaging from it but you should not actually sit down and play an unaltered game of it.

The d6 Final Fantasy RPG somehow didn't make me instantly vomit - the only obviously bullshit thing I remember was how it treated your 2d6 success roll as random variance in triple-digit damage for high level spells. That's retarded for two reasons - as I discovered trying to GM Unknown Armies, it blows people's minds when you try to derive a damage roll from a success roll, and more to the point it's bullshit small. However, it's easily ignored, so while it was stupid to put it there in the first place there may or may not be a salvageable system once it's stripped.

Well, what do you expect from a Final Fantasy tRPG? Like depth of combat, kind of skill system and so on.

Koumei wrote:*Moogle is a playable race

That's awesome! Moogles are my favorite race, and day-one playability they need to be for something like this (MMO as well) or it's a dealbreaker for me already.

The only one I know is the D20 one that was on Wizards, but Lago no doubt knows that one well, and I think reviewed it here once or such.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Uniformly, the biggest problem they have is with the resolution math, though it's far from the only problem.

Oh, for sure. Even if you crib from FFT instead of the mainline series you're still routinely stuck dealing with triple digits.

One problem is that I don't know what makes things "Final Fantasy" anymore. There are now so many Final Fantasies that have such radically different takes on the world and character abilities that I genuinely have no idea what a table top RPG would even be trying to emulate. Dress spheres? That one that was so railroady it literally took place on a train?

-Username17

Man, right now I don't even care how closely a TTRPG sticks to the aesthetics of any particular Final Fantasy game. I'd settle for a TTRPG called Final Fantasy just didn't fucking implode if you played it -- assuming no lame-ass tricks like calling core 3E D&D a Final Fantasy game while just changing a few a few names and adding in some races and feats and shit.

FrankTrollman wrote:One problem is that I don't know what makes things "Final Fantasy" anymore. There are now so many Final Fantasies that have such radically different takes on the world and character abilities that I genuinely have no idea what a table top RPG would even be trying to emulate. Dress spheres? That one that was so railroady it literally took place on a train?

-Username17

Are there actually people living outside of Japan who have liked anything Final Fantasy that was released within the last decade?

Depends what you mean. If you mean the decade of 2010-2020, then no, probably not, because that contains only FFXIV and all of the FFXIII spin-offs, none of which anyone this side of the Pacific enjoyed. If you mean 2004-2014, then FFXII was released in 2006 and while it's not anybody's favorite and a lot of people will scream incoherent rage about it for not being the best the series has ever made, on balance it's as good as FFX or FFVIII or any of the other non-landmark titles.

Seerow wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:One problem is that I don't know what makes things "Final Fantasy" anymore. There are now so many Final Fantasies that have such radically different takes on the world and character abilities that I genuinely have no idea what a table top RPG would even be trying to emulate. Dress spheres? That one that was so railroady it literally took place on a train?

-Username17

Are there actually people living outside of Japan who have liked anything Final Fantasy that was released within the last decade?

FF3 remake is VERY good.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Man, right now I don't even care how closely a TTRPG sticks to the aesthetics of any particular Final Fantasy game. I'd settle for a TTRPG called Final Fantasy just didn't fucking implode if you played it -- assuming no lame-ass tricks like calling core 3E D&D a Final Fantasy game while just changing a few a few names and adding in some races and feats and shit.

Would you settle for a Tome-based system?

Honestly, it seems like you could really do worse than taking Koumei's insane Tome-inspired Disgaea material and running with it. I think I made a couple elemental mages for that, you could call one of them "Black Mage" and you're most of the way through your port.

-Username17

Seerow wrote:Are there actually people living outside of Japan who have liked anything Final Fantasy that was released within the last decade?

People like the spinoff properties quite a bit: Crisis Core, Bravely Default, Dissidia, the FFTAs, Final Fantasy Type-0 (caveat, this one is Japan-only), and Crystal Chronicles. FFXIV, even though I dislike MMORPGs on principle, was legitimately received pretty well after A Realm Reborn came out. And there's FF12, which people put in the top half or even top third of mainline Final Fantasy games.

Final Fantasy RPG Outline:

Races:

• Human
• Special Snowflake Human (e.g.: Cetra, Lunarian)
• Moogle
• Kemonomimi (e.g.: Viera, Mithra)
• Beastman (e.g.: Yeti, Galka, Bangaa)
• Animal (e.g.: Red XIII, ???)

"Classic" Classes

• Warrior: Wears armor and hits people
• Monk: Lightly armored warrior who hits people and has
• Thief: Sneaky, steals stuff, picks locks
• Black Mage: Casts harmful spells
• White Mage: Casts friendly or "good" spells
• Red Mage: Tries to do everything

"Fancy" Classes:

• Dark Knight: Sacrifice for power
• Dragoon: Jumps up and stabs people
• Ninja: Sneaky and throws stuff
• Geomancer: Attack with the environment
• Blue Mage (Evoker): Use monster magic
• Summoner (Trainer): Sends a scary monster to fight for them
• Scholar (Gun Mage): Knows things, Scan enemies, exploit weaknesses
• Performer (Bard/Dancer/Singer): Do morale stuff. Might also eat the Mime.

Radiantphoniex if you put some mechanics behind that you can have my money.

explosive runes

FrankTrollman wrote:One problem is that I don't know what makes things "Final Fantasy" anymore. There are now so many Final Fantasies that have such radically different takes on the world and character abilities that I genuinely have no idea what a table top RPG would even be trying to emulate. Dress spheres? That one that was so railroady it literally took place on a train?

-Username17

Yeah, it's a problem. I think the best you could do is run with Ivalice since that setting--or at least that name--is one of the few that has recurred both in grid based combat side games as well as a main series title (namely, FFXII). Those games also feature a good amount of playable race diversity and feature adventuring organizations known as clans running around. It obviously doesn't match up with every game in the series, but it's a setting where it's widely acknowledged that an enterprising young moogle or viera (you know, those weird bunny girls) can make a living off of doing fetch quests on chocobo back, which hits me as a pretty good start.

Wiseman started making an Ivalice d20 roughly a year ago. Has a bunch of monsters and races, but no classes though.

It seems better to do things abstract than to get into fiddly details, and heroes will always have access to both magical and phys means of combat. How about something based off of SAME 4stat system?

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=39645

A setting based off of FF7 would be the most recognizable while being more different from the generic medieval fantasy of most tRPG, though all of the games Akihiko Yoshida did artwork for (Tactics,Vagrant Story, XII, XIV) are fantastic for such a medieval setting.

Any Final Fantasy game centered around one specific game could fairly easily be adapted to another game with a splatbook. If someone plans on making one rather than just finding one, I'd advise them to build it around whatever their favorite Final Fantasy setting happens to be, then when they've finished it split it into a core section that has the party-based mechanics and such and then the Ivalice/Gaea/Spira/whatever section has the setting-specific stuff. This gives you a complete game for the setting you actually want to use and is also mod-friendly for other settings.

For classes, you should definitely have the FF1 Fighter, Thief, Monk, and three flavors of Mage as the core set, and then whatever setting specific ones you need to still fill in for your setting. Taking Spira as an example, Kimahri's probably going to need his own class for his Blue Mage shenanigans and I'm not sure what you'd do with Tidus, but if memory serves Wakka is basically a monk who gets to use a ball for a weapon, Auron is just a Fighter, Yuna is a White Mage with a special summoning option, Lulu is very straightforwardly a Black Mage, and Rikku is a Thief with some mechanic tricks. So that's a couple of characters with base classes usable as-is, a couple who need mild tweaks, and one who might need an actual new class. Plus Tidus. I don't know what to do with Tidus.

Most of Final Fantasy's bestiary is consistent from one setting to another, too. They've all got bombs, various flavors of slime, chocobos, etc. etc. For player races your only consistent ones are humes and moogles, but as people have mentioned further up a lot of the races fall into basic categories which could be repeated. Is a bangaa that much different from a ronso, mechanically speaking?

I kind of want to start sketching it out, but I know I'd never finish it, seeing as how I wouldn't want to actually play or run a game of it, it's just an interesting design challenge and I'm sure to abandon it as soon as it's more hard than interesting.

So, classes. Here are some more notes.
On what classes need to do:

• First, the plot in Final Fantasy is almost always advanced by plot coupons and quests, so I don't need to bother with giving people things to do.
• All the players in Final Fantasy walk around until they get chocobos, and then they ride, and then they get airships, so your movement options don't need to be that great either. Sometimes you have Teleport.

Some class merging:

• Ninja and Thief: I think just about anything a Ninja could do is something that people wouldn't freak out too hard about a Thief doing, and vice-versa, so those are going to be merged. Possibly with Ninja as a prestige class for Thief
• Dark Knight, and Dragoon: These are ways in which a Warrior becomes cooler.
• Monk: I can't remember any non-variable Monks except for Tifa, so we can just have give people an armor option for "Bangles", and a weapon option for "gauntlets", and have you be some other class.

So, we have our "physical" guys:

• Warrior (Dark Knight, Dragoon): Stab, snipe, and guard. The Tome Knight will do just fine, I think.
• Thief (Ninja): Sneak, stab, steal, unlock, and throw. The Rogue does this, and I think there's even a combat looting feat in Tome.
• Performer: You dance! Buff spells, distractions, and fascination abound.
• Scholar: Tome Assassin, maybe. Also might be a feat. Maybe both, with the feat being the "Scan" ability.

And We have our spellcasters:

• Black Mage: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Bio, Flare, and Comet attacks, with a focus on DAMAGE. We'll work something out for the other things you need.
• White Mage: Cure, Esuna, Raise, Holy, with a focus on defense. Maybe protect/reflect. In FF3, they get Sight, Float, Teleport, and so on.
• Red Mage: Stab, blast, and heal, but not as good as the specialists. We're going to have them take two half-strength actions each turn, which must come from different categories.
• Summoner: You haz pets. You can only have one out at a time, and you can only metaphorically carry so many metaphorical pokeballs around. They scale with your level, obviously.
• Blue Mage: Frank already made the Totemist. It's already blue. Go go go. Maybe I'll make my own version.
• Geomancer: Maybe Earth, Water, and Wind attacks? It kinda wants to care about where you are.

So, that's ten classes, and four of them are probably already written, maybe more.

EDIT: Oh, and a couple feats and prestige classes.

I'm thinking I'll gut those "class chassis" tables of BAB, saves, etc. and use this system to generate the stats for the player characters:

The Math:

You have the following level-dependent modifiers: ([L] = level, [A] = relevant attribute, [C] = class modifier)

• Ability Scores: +3/4*[L]+[C]+base+race
• Attack Bonus: +[L]+[A]+[C] (STR or DEX)
• AC: 10+[L]+[A]+Armor (DEX)
• Saves: +3/4*[L]+[A]+[C] (CON, DEX, WIS)
• Save DCs: 9+3/4*[L]+[A]+[C] (any)
• HP: (10+[A]+[C])+[L]*(5+[A]+[C]) (CON)

Ability scores:

• Start with non-elite array (-2 to +2)
• Apply race (+0 to +2)

Thus, your base ability scores can diverge by up to 7 points, from 8 to 15, with modifiers from -1 to +2.

Your class may also modify your level-dependent numbers as follows:

• Ability Scores: +0 to +4
• Attack Bonus: +0 to +4
• AC: Allow Heavy, Light, or Non-armor, as well as shields. (+0 to +4)
• Saves: +0 to +2
• Save DCs: +0 to +2 by ability
• HP: -1 to +1 to [A] for HP

Thus, at [L] = 1:

• Ability scores: 8 to 19 (-1 to +4).
• Attack Bonus: +0 to +9
• AC: 10 to 19
• Saves: -1 to +6
• Save DCs: 8 to 15
• HP: 11 to 25

And At [L] = 20:

• Ability scores: 23 to 34 (+6 to +12).
• Attack Bonus: +26 to +36
• AC: 36 to 46
• Saves: +21 to +29
• Save DCs: 30 to 38
• HP: 215 to 383

Note that there are no basic magic item bonuses in this, and that, as noted, wearing armor and carrying a shield provides between a +0 and a +4 bonus.

Please point out any math errors I made, as well as telling me how on- or off-base these numbers are, and if I've forgotten any numbers. (Besides Skills, I'm just ignoring those for now)

EDIT: Fixed an off-by-one error in Attack bonus.

radthemad4 wrote:Wiseman started making an Ivalice d20 roughly a year ago. Has a bunch of monsters and races, but no classes though.

Huh, blast from the past. I started on this, then kind of drifted to other things. The intention was to simply use D&D and Tome classes with it. I intended to write a few prestige classes (like moogle knight) but never got around to it.

EDIT: Probably add some spells as well to fit with the games elemental system.

The Math part two:

Attack actions: There's no full attack. Instead, when you attack someone, for every 5 points by which you beat their AC, you hit an extra time, up to a limit of [L]/4 rounded up.

Weapons: Weapons deal [W]+[L]+[A]+Bonus

Energy blasts:

• A "Normal" energy blast deals ([L] + 1)*2d6 damage on a failed save, and cannot score multiple hits
• A "Strong" energy blast deals ([L] + 1)*3d6 damage on a failed save, and cannot score multiple hits.
• A "Mega" energy blast deals ([L] + 1)*4d6 damage on a failed save, and cannot score multiple hits.
• A "Weak" energy blast deals ([L] + 1)*1d6 damage on a failed save and still cannot score multiple hits
• A "Fast" energy blast works like a weapon, and has a [W] value and a corresponding attribute for [A]. It can score multiple hits.

Elemental weaknesses and such:

1. There are seven levels of resistance to an element:
2. "Normal": take normal damage, no save/AC modifiers
3. "Weak": take double damage, and a -5 penalty to save or AC against it.
4. "Resist": take half damage, and a +5 bonus to save or AC against it.
5. "Immune": take no damage, and a +infinity bonus to save or AC against it.
6. "Absorb": Heal damage from the element, and a +infinity bonus to save or AC against it. You may voluntarily fail if you choose.
7. "LETHAL": if it does damage, you die. If it offers a save, you fail. If it attacks AC, it hits.
8. "Reflect": Change the target of the attack to the caster.

Let's say a 20th level Knight with a Greatsword (somehow wielded in one hand) challenges a squishy Black Mage, who chooses to ignore the challenge, and has no special defensive abilities.

He rolls to hit, 1d20+36, and typically scores a 46, against the Black Mage's AC of 36. He scores 3 hits, dealing 2d6+20+12+10d6 damage per hit, an average of 7+20+12+35=74 damage per hit, for 222 damage average, against the Black Mage's 215 HP. The Black Mage is, on average, at -7HP.

Now let's try level 1. 1d20+9 = 19 or 20 vs 10 is two hits, for 2d6+1+4+1d6 per hit, an average of 15.5 damage, leaving the Black Mage at -5 HP.

At level 10, things are nastier, with 1d20+22 = 32 vs 22 AC is three hits, for 2d6+10+6+10d6 per hit is 58 HP per hit, is 174 damage vs the Black Mage's 11+60 = 71 HP, turning him into paste.

Now let's run things in the other direction. The Black Mage casts a "Normal" fire spell, with a save DC of 15/24/38 vs -1/+9/+21. The save is passed on a 15/15/17, meaning the attack does an average of (0.5 + 0.5 * 0.7/0.7/0.8) = 85%/85%/90% damage, which is 4d6/22d6/42d6 damage, for an average of 14/77/154 damage.

I'm not sure if these are desirable numbers.

For what it's worth, Crystal Chronicles is basically a setting designed to have adventuring parties of like 2-6 people running around and invading dungeons full of monsters that are just manifestations of evil energy and thus not sentient so it's okay to murder them as much as you want.