Fantasy Craft Review

[ludomastro]

Having been a fan of the Spycraft2.0 rules and realizing that the fantasy genre is home when I game, it only seemed natural that I would get Fantasy Craft when I heard that it was coming out. Now, I'd like to take a few moments and offer a review of that work. This review will not focus exclusively on the mechanical elements nor will it shy away from them. There will also be a certain amount of opinion as I am human.

For those that care, Fantasy Craft (hereafter referred to as FC) was written by the same crew (Crafty Games) that did Spycraft2.0. It is the first of the new MasterCraft line and was published by Mongoose.

The actual hardcover books weighs in a 400 pages with plain (i.e. not glossy) paper. (It reminds me of butcher block paper if you have ever been around meat processing.) The binding is a mix of stitching and glue. My copy has taken some mild abuse and seems to be holding up well.

The artwork is all black and white (with the exception of the cover) and most, if not all, was done in pen and ink. Frankly, the art is awesome - some of our gaming group want to play just because of the art. My proverbial hat is off to each and every one of the artists. The art director deserves major props here as well. Each artist has a unique style but the overall feel is very consistent. My favorite pictures are of a giant wading into a battle swinging an enormous spiked ball on the end of a long chain with bodies flying this way and that. The other is a pair of haughty humans about to duel with pistols. The almost missed detail about the duelists is that one is dropping a large amount of coin into his opponent's hand for reasons unknown. Truly, the art is remarkable.

Typos and errors? Yep. No first edition printing would be complete without them. The typos are the usual suspects: missing prepositions (of, and, etc.), mixing numbers/symbols, inserting numbers into words and using one word in place of another (is for in & an for and). The errors are mostly mathematical in nature and I believe I found 90% of them on my first reading.

The layout is very nice. It flows well, mixing text, tables and art in a constant whole with one glaring exception. The class progression table for the Mage is (and I kid you not) in the middle of the write up for the Priest. Other than this glaring screw-up the layout is one of the better I've seen in recent years.

A quick word of warning. This is NOT another OGL clone of DnD 3.X, nor is it DnD as seen through the lens of Spycraft. FC stands as it's own take on the fantasy genre with a unique set of rules that are just familiar enough to speed up the learning process. It should be noted that those who have played both OGL games AND Spycraft will have the advantage in learning the rules. However, you could come from either (or neither) camp and do fine.

Now on to the core of the review. Each chapter will get its own post in the following order:

Chapter 1: Hero
Chapter 2: Lore
Chapter 3: Grimoire
Chapter 4: Forge
Chapter 5: Combat
Chapter 6: Foes
Chapter 7: Worlds

[ludomastro]

Chapter 1: Hero

This chapter covers attributes, Origins, Classes (including a few Expert classes) and interests.

Attributes are standard OGL fare. Nothing to see here, move along. Well, not entirely true: attributes are purchased as a point-buy. I priced the DnD elite array (15,14,13,12,10,8 ) with the FC point-buy system and found that on average FC heroes are a little tougher. One way to spend the extra points in FC would be to have (16,14,13,12,10,10) as your attribute spread.

Origins are broken into two parts, Species (or Talents if you are human) and Specialties. Reading the species descriptions reads like Cliff's Notes(tm): Tolkien. Not surprisingly, we see:

Dwarf
Elf
Goblin - (Small size)
Human
Orc
Hobbit Pech - (Small size) It's pronounced "peck" according to the designers.
Ent Rootwalker - (Large size)

What might seem odd are the following:

Drake - (Large size) think small dragons and you're close
Giant - (Large size)
Ogre - (Large size)
Saurian - Basically lizard folk
Unborn - Constructs

All in all, the species are more or less balanced but the Drake and Giant need some more ink. The drake starts at level 1 with a breath weapon usable once per round and natural attacks. They are, in my opinion, the bomb. The only real drawback I see is ... well ... nothing.

Giants get NO stat modifiers. That's right, these giants don't get a strength or con boost. I haven't made up my mind on them yet as they DO count as Huge size for most effects such as trip, trample etc. Also they gain trample as a natural attack and take less damage from critical hits. The jury is still out until I can playtest them.

Since they cover it here, so will I. The damage system uses wound / vitality points and your wounds are equal to your constitution score if your characters are Medium. Small characters get 2/3 con (round up) while Large get 1.5 con (round down). Wounds are your ability to not die while vitality is the ability to avoid or reduce damage. While functionally no different that HP in normal circumstances, a critical hit is applied directly to your wounds which can drop you regardless of the amount of vitality left.

Each of the species (with the exception of human) has several splinter race feats to modify the species. For instance the base level Saurian is lizard folk but they can also be chameleon, frogman or draconian. The mechanical bonus for the splinter feat is not giant but does offer a tangible benefit in addition to a little flavor. The real benefit comes later with the next splinter race feat upgrading abilities.

Humans get Talents which resemble Talents from Spycraft in that each is an adjective such as Nimble, Strong or Wise.

Both Species and Talents grant attribute modifiers, other mechanical goodies and may grant a feat.

All races get a Specialty which can be thought of as what your character did before becoming an adventurer. Choices include things such as Acrobat, Archer, Lord and Warden. Interestingly enough, the OGL classes are specialties here (Barbarian, Cleric, Rogue, Sorcerer, etc.).

Specialties always grant a feat as well as other benefits.

Finally we get to Classes. The classes are:

Assassin - sneakier aspects of OGL Rogue focused on inflitration and killing
Burglar - OGL Rogue focused on the redistribution of wealth
Captain - Tactics expert who really needs a party to function well
Courtier - A city character representing those who move in circles of power - NOT recommended for a dungeon game
Explorer - Think Indiana Jones - enough said
Keeper - Nothing like 'em, nowhere. They are knowledge specialists.
Lancer - Cavalry - not going to do horses? Out goes this class. Gets full BAB.
Mage - Arcane magic user. Can use healing spells.
Priest - Divine warrior. These are not battle medics but rather defenders of the faith who travel the world. This is probably the biggest change from OGL types.
Sage - Roughly a Bard type but more of a generalist.
Scout - Combatant who has some unusual abilities.
Soldier - Fighter type but with much better abilities and class progression. Add to that the fact that magic is toned down in this setting and you have a truly frightening combatant. This is one of only two base class to get full BAB.

BAB is either 1/2, 3/4 or full.
Save can be Good, Medium or Poor

Expert Classes
Alchemist
Beastmaster
Edgemaster
Paladin *
Rune Knight
Swashbuckler

* Paladins can be of any alignment. The alignments available in the game only represent those who have a strong devotion to an ideal, a religion, a cause etc. You could literally be a Paladin of Neutrality if you so choose.

Interests rounds out the chapter. Interests are Alignments (in some settings, you can have more than one), languages or studies. Studies allow a bonus on certain rolls because your character understand things.

EDIT1 - Corrected BAB for Lancer and made some text changes to improve (I think) the readability.

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Well, that's a good start but I am exhausted after a long day. More tomorrow.

[Apalala]

Just popping in to say that Lancers get full BAB too.

[ludomastro]

Chapter 2: Lore covers Action Dice, Skills and Feats.

Action Dice:
These have been used in other systems so there is probably some familiarity with them. If not, action dice are nifty bonus / rules modifications that can represent your chacter's drive, luck or even the will of the gods. First level characters start with 3d4 and they increase in number and size (4d6, 5d8 , etc) as you advance. They are used for five activities:

Boosting a die roll
Boosting defense (defense replaced AC) by two for a limited number of rounds
Activating a threat (a critical hit in combat of course but also skills)
Activating an opponent's error (combat fumbles as well as skills)
Healing your character - more of a cinematic pause where someone asks, "You OK?" and the hero responds, "Yeah. Just let me catch my breath."

A quick word on threats and errors. In this game no single natural die roll is a success or failure. Rolling a nat 20 does NOT mean you succeed, it just means that you have a potential threat. You still have to succeed at the task. Same for failures. If you roll like crap but still don't fail due to raw modifiers and a low DC, then you don't suffer an error.

However, if the threat or error roll also succeeds or fails respectively, then you or your opponent (the GM) can spend one or more action dice to cause extra goodness or a host of problems. In combat the activated threat results in a critical hit on the NPC and either direct wound damage (special NPCs) or death (regular NPCs / mooks). Skills have a variety of effects such as cutting down the time required or a higher degree of success. In combat the activated error might be that you knock out your companion or that you lose your grip on your weapon. (The GM is highly encouraged not to use an error to kill you.) In skills, you might take double the normal time or reach a horribly wrong conclusion. "No. Not a single trap on that chest boss. Open it up."

Unless something (situational rule, class ability, feat, weapon quality) changes it, the default error/threat range is 1/20.

Skills:
There are far fewer skills in FC as compared to OGL games. Those who thought Spycraft's 30 skills were thin will probably blow a gasket at FC's 20. As with other Crafty games the skills are designed for multiple checks that can use different attributes depending on the specific check.

For example, Prestidigitation, is used to conceal actions (like pickpocketing), disable things (like locks) or stash (hide) an item. While DEX normally governs the use of this skill you could make the argument that INT is more important to disable large, complex objects like a clockwork automaton.

One unusual thing about the skill rules are that you can ONLY buy ranks in your class skills. Under the standard rules, there are no cross-class skills. Remember Origins? If you have an Origin Skill it is always treated as a class skill. Therefore, if a character does not have a skill as either a class skill or an origin skill, then you can't take ranks in it. However, that doesn't preclude them from making skill checks. The check is made as the d20 roll + ability modifier. The skill check is capped at 15 and can never be a threat. This means that any DC of 16 or greater is the same as "Not allowed."

It should be noted that the skills are intended to be used throughout the game and the skill system actually supports that goal. The danger lies in a GM deciding to treat the skill system like the rest of the OGL - that is, an afterthought. If he does, then the skill system gets all shot to hell and a useful part of the game is lost. This has the added complication of removing part of the balancing system in the game. Yes, the designers used the skill system to help balance the game. On a personal note, I like that; however, it will not play to everyone's tastes. Therefore, be warned, if you wish to put the skill system on the second tier then you will have to watch out for possible complications.

Certain skills need kits (tools) to work. If you don't have the kit, you are treated as being untrained and your roll maxes out at 15.

Spellcasting is the 21st skill but only comes into play for arcane magic users.

Feats:
Ahh, feats. The part of almost every OGL game that gets beaten up on a regular basis. Feats in FC follow many of the standard tropes; however, on the whole, the feats are balanced with each other and are of similar power level. The racial feats do tend to get a little skewed but since they are restricted to a relatively narrow subset of players, they appear to be of limited use in most play.

No feat chain is over three long and tend to be in the format of X Basics, X Mastery and X Supremacy. This lends itself to quickly developing a character niche which is a good thing.

Feats are broken into 12 categories. Here they are with a simple description:
Basic Combat - applicable to all parts of combat, e.g. Armor Basics
Melee Combat - close up killin'
Ranged Combat - far away killin'
Unarmed Combat - killin' with bare hands and feet, e.g. Wrestling Mastery
Chance - Smile on me, Lady Luck, mostly tweaks to rules and action dice
Covert - Ambush and Mobility
Gear - Mostly gear creation feats but also includes followers
Skill - Tweaks skill rules. i.e. "I Can Swim" You can spend skill points at any point during the level - even right before making a skill check.
Species - tweak your species (including human in some cases)
Spellcasting - tweaks to range, duration and other spellcasting effects.
Style - given that social is built into the game this tweaks your social skills and/or standing
Terrain - Use the land to your advantage. Also can grant an animal companion

Certain Feats can also grant you Stances and Tricks. Stances typically provide a benefit in combat while tricks can be used in combat or social situations. e.g. Silver Tongue distracts your opponent in a battle of wits.

Combat feats dominate this section of the chapter but almost all seem worth the space. The nice thing to see is that there is no Toughness feat, although the Combat Vigor feat is just about as effective. However, one oddball is acceptable.

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EDIT1: Completed post after getting home from work.
EDIT2: Added a few sentences on kits (tools) and Spellcasting.

[ludomastro]

Chapter 3: Grimoire is, theoretically, the magic chapter.

This is, by far, the worst written chapter in the entire book. It also garnered a spot on my personal worst written chapters in all of gaming. I read the rules - all 3.5 pages of them ... twice and was still confused. I checked out the forums over at Crafty multiple times and and it still took a very careful, deliberate third reading to capture the rules.

Their defense? [paraphrase]We wanted the rules to be loose so the GM could create his own world.[/paraphrase]

Excuse me? I will agree having options is good. However, horrible, rampant confusion where your forum lights up with virtually everyone asking, "How the hell does magic even work?" is most definitely not a good thing by any objective standard I have ever seen.

As a public service I will distill the rules down to what I have learned. Otherwise any review would be meaningless.

A quick note: Magic is supposed to be turned way down in the baseline FC game. I'm OK with that. They did leave options to ratchet magic back up to higher levels but ... damn, does toning down magic also mean making the rules impenetrable? Oh, well. On with the review.

The only base class that can use magic is the Maqe. (More on Priests in a minute.) The Alchemist and the Rune Knight are the only expert classes that can use magic. (Paladins are in the same boat as Priests.)

It works like this, the Mage has a number of spellpoints (SP) that can be used to cast spells. They increase linearly with level. If you are thinking psionics, or video game systems, you are only partially right. So you spend the spell level in SP + as many SP as you need to tweak the spell. Remember skill tricks? Changes to things such as damage, distance and duration cost SP.

It isn't enough that you spend the points to be able to cast the spell, you also have to make spellcasting DC of 13 + 3*spell level or lose the points with no effect. Should the target have spell resistance, you have to beat the higher of the spell DC or the spell resistance.

I can only speculate as to the reason for this decision. It does make spellcasting a resource balancing act. Topping out at 40 SP, the 20th level mage can try to cast up to 4 9th level spells. After that, he would have 4 SP left in the bag.

The roll is d20 + spellcasting + INT modifier. Good luck with the DC 40 for a 9th level spell.

How do you gain spells? That is a question for the ages. In FC, whenever, it says X = A + B + C, it means X is always that sum. If A later increases, then X increases. If B decreases, then X decreases. This leads to the awkward situation where the only rules for learning spells are those for initial spells known. Therefore, you have to assume when and how you gain new spells. As it turns out, you gain new spells when you increase your spellcasting skill and/or your Wisdom score.

Also, you can know a spell but not be able to cast it. You can learn a level 9 spell at first level but you can't cast it until 19th level. My advice? Pick spells up to level 4, maybe level 5 and then cherry pick an iconic spell from a higher list if you feel you have to have it.

As noted in skills, you have to have your kit (tools) to use certain skills trained. Spellcasting is no different. If you don't have your mage pouch (re-skin as you see fit to a staff, wand, crystal ball, pentacle, etc.) then you are treated as untrained. Remember the max 15 for untrained skills? Without your whatever, you are limited to casting only level 0 spells unless you have a high INT bonus, then you can get to Level 1 spells.

The up side? Your spell points renew at the end of each scene, with or without rest. Assume you are dungeon crawling and just fought off the undead hordes only to find that you are outside the dwelling of the unholy evil that took up residence. Should the GM declare that entering the Big Bad's lair is a new scene, you get all your SP back. Hey, it ain't great, but it's still better than the poke in the eye the rest of the rules give you.

The balance of the chapter is the grimoire. The spells are recognizable from the SRD but are tweaked for a lower magic world. Cloud Kill (5th level) is not a save-or-die spell for PCs anymore. While a standard NPC can make his save and survive for one round, he will have to save again next round. Failure at any time equals death. The PCs and special NPCs take 1d4 CON damage on a failed save. Fort save for 1/2 damage, round down. They too have to save again if still in the cloud on the next round.

While I would allow changes based on palyer request, base line FC makes the following attribute assignments.

WIS: adds to spells known.
INT: modifier for spellcasting skill checks
CHA: modifier for the saving through DC that the opponent gets. (10 + CHA mod + # of spellcasting feats)

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Priests and Paladins

These divine casters bear some mention. The Priest, as written, is a holy warrior - sort of paladin-lite with more focus on church/religion (Paladins exist to kick the unbeliever's ass). Depending on the Path selected, the Priest may or may not be able to cast spells. Even if they can, they are limited to only a handful but don't need to spend SP or make spellcasting rolls. Their deity just makes it happen.

Paths are not covered in this chapter but warrant a mention here. Each deity needs between 2 and 5 Paths. The example god - Degmos, Stone-Father - in Chapter 7 (yes, only one example) has Earth, Metal and Strength as Paths. While there are no more example deities, you do get 30 pre-made paths to choose from. Pick a few and add a deity name and you are good to go.

The Priest does not automatically get the turning ability. That is reserved to those that took either the adept or cleric specialty. Since turning is not exclusively undead, you can pick other categories of enemies. The Scout can get animal turning as early as 6th level.

If you want a more of a DnD Cleric, the chose cleric as your specialty and Mage as your class. Then, only select the Cleric-like spells. Not a perfect conversion but about as close as you get given the rules.

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Overall? This chapter gets a grade of FAIL. I can and will make it work for my group but it's broken out of the box and that makes me sad.

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EDIT1: Restructured a few paragraphs and corrected multiple spelling and grammatical errors.
EDIT2: added assigned attributes

[Psychic Robot]

Morg's right. Fantasy Craft for sanity's sake uses whatever your current score is to determine the spells you know - that way, it doesn't matter what level you became a mage at, and what your wisdom was at the time. The GM doesn't need to remember what your character looked like 8 months ago to know if it's correct by the rules, and there's no "gaming" the system to gain more spells by taking lots of ranks of Spellcasting at once, or penalties for becoming a mage later in your career. The first level of Mage is in many ways the most important as the player will probably build a road map for the character's overall theme and knowledge when he has so many spell choices to spend, but we would never try to hold you to that same decision all the way through to level 20 - gaining a new spell every time you level lets you adjust as the mission and character changes

Pat was referring to the fact that some people don't care how a mage learns his spells (ie assume they do it off-screen or through epiphanies or whatever) while others will want to "skin" the experience of learning spells (such as studying dusty tomes during Downtime, communing with fae, etc). Because Fantasy Craft does not assume each adventure is seperated by downtime, we suggest the GM decide how magic is learnt in relation to his campaign's structure and his world's needs.

There's a hook that we forgot in the main book about deciding how mages learn spells, which we've addressed in the massive Q&A thread here. However, no matter how you learn them, the upper limit of spells you may know is based on your current Spellcasting ranks + Wisdom Score (not including feats or other modifiers).

Spellbooks are explicitly not required. However, a mage's pouch is a kit for Spellcasting, and you could "skin" that as a spellbook, a set of ingredients, a wand, a crystal ball, etc...

Just adding the official quotes. (Emphasis mine.)

[Koumei]

Since turning is not exclusively undead, you can pick other categories of enemies. The Scout can get animal turning as early as 6th level.

Please tell me the ~DESTROYED!~ rules are still there from D&D Turning, so the Scout can make animals explode. I would play one just for the hilarity involved.

[Maxus]

Since turning is not exclusively undead, you can pick other categories of enemies. The Scout can get animal turning as early as 6th level.

Please tell me the ~DESTROYED!~ rules are still there from D&D Turning, so the Scout can make animals explode. I would play one just for the hilarity involved.

You could probably do it by presenting rice or Alkaseltzer as the material focus. At least with birds, anyway.

[Apalala]

Since turning is not exclusively undead, you can pick other categories of enemies. The Scout can get animal turning as early as 6th level.

Please tell me the ~DESTROYED!~ rules are still there from D&D Turning, so the Scout can make animals explode. I would play one just for the hilarity involved.

Priests that can turn get access to Rebuke.

Rebuke: You’re an instrument of divine spite. Characters you successfully Turn also suffer an amount of divine damage equal to your Resolve check result; those targeted who make their Will saves suffer half this damage (rounded down). You may only choose this ability if you may Turn.

[ludomastro]

Migraines are my kryptonite. I was out all last evening. I remember laying down after dinner then getting up this morning and being late to work.

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Koumei,

Sorry, no ~Destroyed~. But as Apalala pointed out you can inflict divine damage which could kill something.

For some reason I keep thinking of Warcraft and clicking on the critters twenty or thirty times.

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Psychic Robot,

Yes, they owned up to it. I'm glad about that and had considered putting it in the review of the magic chapter but decided to leave it until the wrap-up. However, I appreciate the citation.

[ludomastro]

Chapter 4: Forge is the gear chapter but is more than that at the same time.

The game uses the silver standard but acknowledges that other standards can be used limited only by imagination. Dwarven gems, goblin gold, elven leaves of precious metal with mithryl vein, etc. Why is this important? Flavor? I'm not sure. Either way, the coin an adventurer has is divided into two groups, coin in hand and stake. Coin in hand can be freely spent on whatever is needed at the time, food, lodging, weapons, messengers. Stake is used as your accumulated wealth and can only be accessed when you are home or in a large city (assuming banking exists in your world).

Lifestyle from Spycraft makes an appearance here but is modified from their previous efforts. Each time you earn a point of lifestyle you can put it toward either your Panache or Prudence. Panache represents your "living it up". Mechanically, it provides for an appearance bonus (useful in social situations) and income at the beginning of each adventure. Prudence represents your ability to save for the future. Mechanically, it is a cap on the amount coin you can move from in hand to your stake. This is important because your loose ALL coin in hand at the end of each Downtime (the period between adventures).

Carrying capacity makes an appearance - nothing else, will I say.

Gear can be damaged and some simple damage rules, including damage saves are presented. Although designed to be integral to the game, I would only use them if the Baron said, "And make sure you don't break my wife's music box when you destroy that den of thieves." But, hey, they're there and easy to use.

General Equipment is divided up into Goods (including kits), Locks & Traps (not dungeon size - think a bear trap or the net that captured the heroes in Return of the Jedi), Consumables (torches, lamp oil, etc), Elixirs (potions, oils & vials), Food & Drink, Poisons and Scrolls.

I'll take these on by exception.

Kits are tools such as thieves tools, doctor's bag, etc. If you don't have the right tools you are forced to make the skill check untrained regardless of the number of ranks. (Although there are some feats to negate this.)

Locks & Traps are good for securing your own stuff, improvising some mayhem and the like. Although they weren't designed for building fortification, I could so see someone creating a "stronghold" at the inn for the night.

Elixirs are the magical goodies of the setting. Vials are offensive in nature (think tanglefoot bags) while oils (rubbed on the skin) and potions (consumed) are for your benefit. One thing to note: only one potion and one oil per day. So, no bags full of healing agents as you wade through a four hour (game time) dungeon crawl. Also they spoil and the end of the current adventure. See your friendly Alchemist for some nifty effects to alter either timing or how many of these you can use at once.

I was surprised that the Food & Drink rules were even there and almost missed them. However, they are a nice subset of rules that add some life to an otherwise boring book keeping exercise. Booze and Spirits can reduce the shaken and frightened conditions respectively. Spice amps up the effects of other foods. Comfort Food gives a bonus to Will saves for 8 hours (16 with spice). Again, a nice subset of rules worth the book keeping, in my opinion.

Services are anything that you can imagine. Couriers, messengers, consorts, grooming, item repair, library access, etc.

Transportation is broken up into Mounts and Vehicles. Most vehicles requires animal power but magic or steam power could also be an option.

This is a good spot to stop and talk about steam power. Every item is tagged with an era. The eras (Primitive, Ancient, Feudal, Reason and Industrial) translate to a roughly real-world times when the item would be available. Most everything in the chapter is Primitive, Ancient or Feudal with only a handful of Reason. I may have missed one, but I didn't see any Industrial items. However, you could throw in trains or steam engines if you like. (For some reason I thought about Final Fantasy 6 at this point.) This allows you to set a quasi-historical (Dragons? Of course they were historical! Nothing to see here! Move along!) game at your choosing. Typical fantasy will need the Feudal level of gear.

Armor is well, armor. Although the rules for armor are presented in the Combat chapter, you are in the dark about some of the entries until you read about them in the Combat chapter so I will cover them here. First off, armor is Damage Reduction (DR). Armor acutally makes you easier to hit by applying a negative modifier to your Defense (which comes from class progression, feats, DEX, etc). Armor also can reduce your speed as well.

One thing that was different (and that I liked) was that armor comes in two varieties: Partial and Moderate coverage. which cover less than all of you. Light and Heavy fittings can be added to tweak the DR or other qualities. Heavy fittings move you up the coverage chart by one degree: Partial -> Moderate -> Full. Coverage makes it harder for assassins and the like to hit you with a critical which is nice. Mechanically, it is a bit more book keeping than normal OGL games but it feels right somehow (opinion, I know). Getting back to mechanics, it provides new options for only an incremental amount of book keeping.

Weapons
First let me say this: shields are weapons. And that is awesome. This game gets points for treating shields as the blunt weapons they were. They also add points to defense. Weapons are divided into the following categories: Blunt, Edged, Hurled(including rocks), Bows(including crossbows), Black Powder(Mostly Reason although the firelance is Feudal) & Siege.

Siege weapons are used for exactly what you would expect. They are designed for trashing walls and breaking down doors. However, being under the bolder thrown by a trebuchet hurts (6d6 lethal).

I love the quote on rocks (Hurled Weapons):

Sometimes enemies are just a stone's throw away. Remind them of it.

Weapon Proficiencies are handled with oddly, proficiencies. An Edged proficiency grants proficiency with all except exotic weapons in the category. A second proficiencies in an area grants a forte and allows the use of all weapons (including exotic) in that category.

All gear, including armor and weapons can have qualities and upgrades. Shields obviously get the guard quality (adds to defense) but so does the boar spear. My favorite was the return quality where a miss will allow the weapon to return to the same square from which it was launched. Let's hear it for boomerangs! Upgrades include things such as trip, poison and finesse.

<Wow. I realized that I was a little fanboy on this part of the chapter. Sorry 'bout that but it is an accurate reflection of my thoughts. There are more mechanics (resulting in more book keeping but, again, not a lot).>

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Reputation & Prizes is the section of this chapter that deals with a new mechanic (reputation) and magical items, artifacts, contacts & holdings (prizes).

Reputation is used to measure how well known (famous/infamous) a hero/villain is. It can be used to buy renown (social standing) in either the Hero, Military or Noble categories. Heroic renown is standing with the people (Robin Hood). Military Renown is standing with the armed forces (The Sheriff of Nottingham). Noble renown is standing as a leader by divine right (King Richard). In a Reason and particularly an Industrial game Noble renown can mean wealth and/or political power (prime minister, train baron and the like). Additionally, certain things can only be purchased with reputation such as favors and in certain games magical items (assuming you can buy them at all).

Prizes:

Contacts are people (NPCs) you can call on to offer assistance within their area of expertise. Need a place to stash some loot you don't want the Baron to know about after your retrieved his wife's music box? Your Inn-keeper contact might just have a smuggling compartment in his cellar.

Holdings are physical locations that you can own (hold) and that you can spend reputation to acquire and/or upgrade with assistants, guards, fortifications, additional rooms and tradesmen. Holdings range from a private room at the inn to your own palace. While holdings can work to your advantage (tradesmen make things you can use or sell in your absence) they can also be a detriment - remember siege weapons?

A holding's size is limited by the higher of your Panache or Prudence.

Magic Items & Artifacts are ... interesting. This is the one area where this game differs from that other one the most. Both are extremely low powered. The fluff indicates that some heroes eschew them completely so as to not to "taint" their legend "with speculation that [their accomplishments] couldn't have been earned with skill alone." (FC, pg 193).

Consequently, the mechanics reflect this. Magic Items get max, one each of Essences and Charms while artifacts get a max of five each. Their is no clear cut division between the two (that I can see) but some example essences are bonus vitality, bonus wounds or an extra proficiency. Charms include new spell points, damage bonuses or attributes bonuses.

Your max number of Prizes is limited to your total renown (purchased with reputation) + 1. Any prizes over that amount and you either have to let one go or it can be taken. The book recommends donating a minor magical item to the town guard or an underused holding to a minor noble. However, if you prefer the more traditional gobs of prizes, you can turn on the "Monty Haul" campaign quality. (More on campaign qualities later.)

Finally a note on earning reputation since it is the fuel for so many of these things. Each class has a Legend score which increases with level. After an adventure you earn the adventure's reputation reward plus your legend. (Typical is 5 reputation.)

Sorry for the delay - work was nuts yesterday.

[Username17]

So with a basically non-functional magic system and apparently no monster book or usable word, what exactly is the point?

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

So with a basically non-functional magic system and apparently no monster book or usable word, what exactly is the point?

-Username17

The point is to give a game for the people who have never heard of Balor Mining, Chain Binding, or even Cleric Archers that isn't made of suck and fail. It does it's job rather admirably as far as I can tell, even if it does kick Magic Users hard in the nads.

Also, there's a pretty expansive monster guide near the end Frank, ludo just hasn't gotten there yet. It's decently put together and has a solid list to choose from, but the monster creation rules are fucked in half. After that, there's also a good chunk of dead tree devoted to setting up worlds and fluff. This book is massive, and the world building stuff is near the back, as it tends to be. Let ludomastro finish the review first; he's not even halfway through the book if I can remember correctly.

[ludomastro]

Chapter 5: Combat
"Let's get ta fightin'!"

As most folks have played multiple OGL games, I'll review this chapter by exception and answer any specifics that people feel I have left off.

Iterative attacks are gone. So are attacks of opportunity. So are attack/move actions. So are insane, table based penalties to two weapon fighting.

All tactical options are divided into full, half and free. You can move twice, attack twice, or one each. Certain special abilities and feats let you trade a half action for two attacks or perhaps drop a full action to a half action. This seems to work well from a mechanical perspective as there is less waiting for the fighter to get done and encourages consistency between different combatants. Spellcasting is a full action if anyone cares.

If you miss with certain abilities, skills, attacks or tricks as well as the beginning of combat, you are flat-footed which removes your DEX bonus to defense until you take at least one half action. This effectively replaces where attacks of opportunity - at least in most cases.

Stances - granted by feats, class abilities and the like - give bonuses in combat for certain actions or in certain situations.

Tricks are special attack (or defense) options that tweak the rules slightly. Ricochet allows you to bounce an attack off one opponent to another and deal damage to both.

Grapple deserves mention for two reasons. One, the rules aren't horribly byzantine and are handled as a skill check. Perhaps the best visual in the rules comes after an opponent is pinned. Once pinned you can use Screaming Club where a creature one size category less than you is swung and deals damage like a club of that size (both to the new target and the "club").

Initiative is rolled as d20 + Initiative class progression and is static (unlike the somewhat unwieldy fluid initiative from Spycraft). Certain actions are labeled Initiative Actions and can be used instantly. One such is Shield Block. After you are hit but before damage is rolled, you make a Fort save against the attack check. If successful, you take no damage from the hit. These actions are generally limited to the number of a certain type of feat.

The mounted combat rules deserve a read as they mechanically combine the rider and mount into one creature (provided the mount was trained to fight or they agree to fight that way).

Then there are blast rules, poison rules, the 5/10 diagonal rule, etc.

The rest of the chapter has a few quirks but none stand out in any particular way. All in all, this is perhaps the least changed from OGL in an overall standpoint. There ARE new rules and attention should be paid but generally, this is where players will have the fewest questions. They might be a little confused at first because some of the rules are different but not horribly so.

Unconscious at 0 Wounds, Dead at -10, Body destroyed at -25.

EDIT1: Changed "damage dealt" to "attack check" @ Shield Block and added the Unconscious/Dead/Destroyed line.

[ludomastro]

So with a basically non-functional magic system and apparently no monster book or usable word, what exactly is the point?

-Username17

As noted previously, monsters are coming up in Chapter 6 and the World building, GM advice, optional rules, etc. is in Chapter 7.

I will have Chapter 6 up later today and might have Chapter 7 up as well if I get a few things done around the house.

[sake]

So with a basically non-functional magic system and apparently no monster book or usable word, what exactly is the point?

-Username17

I suspect the non functioning magic system was intentional. I don't think they really wanted one in the first place.

[Apalala]

I'm a little mixed on combat. I do like that everything is resolved by skill checks now. But! I really dislike the way it leaves room for abuse.

Grappling in particular is worrisome. You make an opposed athletics check and you snatch a person up until they can win a roll. If they're three or so size categories bigger than you, or if you don't have any ranks in athletics, you can fall right off the RNG and are effectively helpless. You can't attack, cast a spell, try and wriggle free, or do anything else when grappled unless you can beat your opponent's athletics check.

One thing I'm thinking of is not using straight up opposed checks. Like, if someone tries to grapple you, you can evade with acrobatics. If you're grappled, you can make a resolve check to cast a spell. Etc.

[ludomastro]

Grappling in particular is worrisome. You make an opposed athletics check and you snatch a person up until they can win a roll. If they're three or so size categories bigger than you, or if you don't have any ranks in athletics, you can fall right off the RNG and are effectively helpless. You can't attack, cast a spell, try and wriggle free, or do anything else when grappled unless you can beat your opponent's athletics check.

Huh. For me that's a feature. Of course, my father was a wrestling coach.

But your ideas on how to fix it seem very reasonable and in keeping with the spirit of the rules.

[ludomastro]

Chapter 6: Foes covers all the potential NPC opposition that you could face. Traps - dungeon size that is - are covered in Chapter 7.

This chapter starts off with the NPC build rules. Each NPC is created using steps to choose Size, mobility and movement method(s), attributes (if different from 10), traits (such as initiative, attack, defense resilience and competence), health (either a saving throw for mooks or wounds/vitality for special NPCs) and signature skills (those that make a opponent pop as opposed to competence which is general).

This is followed by adding qualities such as aquatic or damage reduction or feral or honorable ... you get the idea. Each adds a benefit or penalty (very few of these) and is listed in XP cost.

Follow this up with weapons for humanoids and natural attacks for the monsters and beasts. This included extraordinary attacks like X drain where X is an attribute.

Follow this with Gear and Treasure and then sum up all the XP costs. This is the XP reward for the NPC and is a very general indication of power level. As was mentioned in another thread, there are three basics in NPC construction for any game that are basically binary choices. 1) Speed 2) Ease of Use 3) Balance. Like the old adage says, you only get two.

While the system is very comprehensive - it allows you to construct virtually any type of NPC known (or unknown) to man - it defaults to Speed and Ease of Use. This thing is only remotely balanced (and by that, I mean it isn't) - mechanically speaking. However, I noted something unusual in the rules, an admission of this.

... this system isn't perfectly balanced. Devious GMs (and players) can game this system by min-maxing stats, abusing qualities and optimizing attacks.

Now, the emphasis in that quote was in the original but it bears a passing mention. It might better read, "system isn't balanced" and "GMs (and players) will" but that's OK. No, really, it is. Because they spend the next two pages explaining why you shouldn't do that.

While the warning to GMs and players is nice to see it really boils down to the GM has to give his OK to make it work. And we know how the Den feels about using the ole "the GM will fix it" line of thinking. However, as a likely GM and potential player the advice is worth the read and should keep the most egregious problems from developing. But it will still be table rule or a gentleman's agreement.

I hear a few wondering why players need this advice. Well, you see, the players get to build animal companions, contacts, followers, etc. using the same rules. Back to GM fiat on approval.

IN THEORY, the total XP cost should help you make sure that things are balanced. Up to 40 XP is Minor, 80 is Average, 120 is Significant, 160 is Serious and over that is Extreme. This means there is no practical limit to Extreme threats. Ancient, half-fiend, red dragon lich anyone?

Anyway, I have to give them props for a system that makes my life as a GM easier when creating the big bad AND acknowledging they couldn't balance it. It IS frustrating though that I will have to adjudicate all debates moving forward though.

Next up, is the Rogues Gallery. Not rogues as in thieves. Rogues as folk who could be opposition or shop keepers or bandits or whatever. Almost all of them fall into the Minor threat range. Changing species is as simple as picking the appropriate rogue, say a Treasure Hunter, and then applying the species template, say Orc. That's it if you just want some standard folk.

Stuck for names and interesting tidbits? You get a large two page chart of names and a half page of quirks followed by another half page of motivations. Some of the potential random name combinations are quite silly but at least you have something to work with. Most are very pulp-quality fantasy names with lots of x's, y's, and <'>'s.

Next up, the beastiary. You get 34 pages of ready made monsters, some of which are very familiar as long as you don't pay too much attention to the names. Watchers in the Dark made me smile when I realized which iconic critter was their inspiration. You get eight pages of templates with a few examples thrown in for good measure.

A template worth noting is Kaiju. It creates truly gigantic (i.e. city sized) monsters. Does the quote on the Kaiju T-Rex remind you of anything.

This king of all monsters stalks a warm jungle island in the south, waiting for the siren call summoning him to save all mankind ... or destroy it.

Finally, there are 8.5 pages dedicated to converting any OGL adversary you could think of to FC stats. It is a bit time consuming, much more so than the NPC creation rules, but not difficult. The example, a remorhaz, was easy to follow and flowed well. WORD of WARNING - the conversion is keyed to the CR which - as has been discussed numerous times - is not always a good indication of the power level.

-----

Overall, I give this chapter a passing grade. Good information, excellent utility and no more GM fiat than what I am already used to.

[Apalala]

I really like the NPC section, for the most part. It's pretty much exactly what I would want for 3.5 and Tome, with modified numbers, of course. Two concerns though.

First, attacks. NPCs have weapon, natural, and extraordinary attacks. They're all pretty much exactly what they sound like. My main problem is that a natural attack does the same damage from levels 1 through 20, but an extraordinary attack does damage based on the threat level. That means that if you want a bite attack to keep up after a while, you're going to need to pour xp into increasing stats, buying feats, adding qualities, etc, whereas you'll only ever have to buy an extraordinary attack once and can forget about it. This means that at low levels you're paying a discount on natural attacks but that as you go higher and higher, you're paying more xp for the same, relative, result.

Second, xp itself. XP really tells you very, very little about how powerful an npc is. I'm not saying it's easy to minmax, I'm saying that xp will only ever give you a very, very general idea of how powerful an npc is. For instance, the quality Feral--which makes the npc enraged, a condition with no mechanical benefit that causes the npc to tend to attack his allies--adds 1 xp to the cost. Meanwhile, adding on types only ever costs 5 xp, even though some types add more than 50 xp worth of benefits.

Still, it's flexible, and more importantly, even if it is easy to break, it is also easy to balance. Making it simple to create a balanced encounter with a huge variety of creatures is not an easy thing to do, and FC pulls it off with style.

[Username17]

So, with you saying "magic is a skill check" and now "combat is a skill check" I gotta say: Skill checks are the most broken thing in 3.X D&D. That subsystem is the least likely to generate level appropriate events of any subsystem in D&D. When you say that all this stuff is now handled as skill checks, are you telling me that someone decided that the only thing wrong with the Truenamer was that there were characters in the game that didn't work that way?

-Username17

[ludomastro]

Frank,

Was the question to me or Apalala? I'll take a stab at what I think you are asking.

Combat in general is still d20 + BAB + mods versus defense (in lieu of AC). There are combat actions (tricks mostly) that are skill based.

Is that the vein you were asking?

[Apalala]

Grapple and Bull Rush is an athletics check. Trip is acrobatics. Feint is prestidigitation vs notice. Taunt is sense motive. Threaten intimidate, and Tire, an oddball, is resolve.

Lots of skill checks, yeah. One thing of note is that NPCs have two types of skill bonuses. They can either use their general competence bonus, which can be used for any check, or they can take one or more signature skills. Both are graded at ranks 1 through 10 and scale nicely along all 20 levels. For PCs, choice of skills becomes important in that you're also basically choosing what will be your achilles heel.

Really, my only beef is with the grapple maneuver. Way too powerful, especially for the larger characters, and it makes something like a halfling rogue going up to flank an enemy suicide. Still, it requires a full round action, so you're non-melee people are going to have an easier time of slipping away. And, it does create a sort of paper-rock-scissors between the classes. A big heavy fighter has to spend a move to close the distance, but so will whoever he is fighting, unless they want to be permagrappled. For a mage, this isn't too much of a problem since you can only cast one spell per round and they are mostly half actions. A ranged attacker on the other hand is losing out on half his dpr and being pushed about the battlefield. But, he can freely make two ranged attacks against the mage, since he doesn't have to worry about grapplers.

All grossly simplified and liable to fall apart with the addition of just a few feats, tricks, spells, and class features. Which, really, is a good thing.

[Koumei]

Way too powerful, especially for the larger characters, and it makes something like a halfling rogue going up to flank an enemy suicide.

Excellent. I like the sound of this.

[ludomastro]

Chapter 7: Worlds is the GM/everything else chapter. Really they could have thrown in a picture of a kitchen sink and it would not have been amiss.

The chapter opens with a longer and more detailed description of the eras and recommending that you pick a primary era for the game world. This is followed by a section on beliefs including miracles (and oddly, information for the priests that doesn't exist elsewhere in the book). Specifically, the 30 pre-generated Paths are found here.

Paths give Priests (and Paladins) special abilities and in some cases spells. I'll give an example in the form of the following:

Path of Strength
Strength I: +5 with Athletics checks
Strength II: Cast Brawn I twice per scene
Strength III: Size increases one level
Strength IV: Gain resistance 4 to natural and unarmed attacks
Strength V: +4 STR

These types of questions and decisions continue for a while. What monsters exist? Can people cast spells? Why or why not? What are the side effects (if any) of magic? What nations exist? Why? What are their relationships? What is everyday living like? Currency types, gear, crimes, languages, calendar, history, climate, geography and the map.

While much of the information presented in this section has been done in other books, I have never seen it so well presented. I have a home brew setting that I figured would be a cakewalk for these kinds of questions but as I read this section, I realized I had fewer answers that I would like to have had. Very nice for the newbie and the grizzled veteran alike.

This section, more than any other, made me remember that FC is NOT a game complete with setting. It is, rather, a rule set that can be used for any type of fantasy you and your group would like to play.

The Campaign Qualities follow. These are switches that you turn on and off to better reflect the kind of game you would like to play. Sorcery (necessary for the Mage class and certain gear like scrolls) is one of these and Miracles (for Priests and Paladins) is another.

These are either Permanent or temporary. Permanent qualities are determined when you create the campaign. They are either always on or always off - Sorcery for example. Temporary qualities have an action die cost that the GM can pay to put a temporary condition on a scene. One such is Doomed Heroes where ALL threats are automatically critical hits. Or perhaps you would like to make a permanent rule change and have magic items be rare. Or perhaps you turn on the Monty Haul quality where prizes are doubled and character suffer no penalties for a heavy load.

If you like a temporary quality you can declare it permanent and then you no longer spend the action dice to use it. In short, you can think of them as playtested home rules that explain the effects on the base rules to the GM and players alike.

This is followed with advice on how to structure and create adventures, providing, NPC motivation, locations, plot ideas, techniques, etc. This is a good reminder that the designers intended FC to be a cinematic game (explains the use of scene all the time, don't it).

Under the miscellaneous category we find, disease rules, experience, earning reputation, treasure tables, random encounter tables, etc. There is some general GM guidance that while not a snooze-fest for an experienced GM, is redundant if you have GM'd before. For the novice, there is some good advice.

More rules and adjudications such as disposition and attitude, morale rules and subplots (think cinema again). Actually, subplots deserve mention here. If you leave a hood on the table, the GM can run with it and you benefit when you are able to accomplish a goal so throw it out there.

My absolute favorite mechanic is Cheating Death. I won't reveal the mechanics because it is worth a chunk of the book's price by itself. Let's just say that, "He couldn't have possibly survived that!" is not a good answer to either a PC or NPC death.

We close the book with a five page character sheet. No character will need all five pages but they are they for those that need the parts and pieces.