Proofreading/House Rules/Errata

[KJr]

I would like this to be a place where we, the community of players, can add our input for improving the TTB game which has some confusing and contradictory information in it.

As some of these issues have already been covered, here are some links to the original source:

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/100052-magic/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/103002-animate-construct-and-multi-tasker/

 

 

Counter-Spelling:

 

Pg 126. Counter-Spelling + 2 in place of Defense or Willpower.

Pg 245. Counter-Spelling in place of Defense or Willpower.

As both Defense and Willpower are Skill + 2, I believe that the entry on pg. 126 is the correct wording.

 

 

The Easterly Slums:

Pg 37. According to map provided in TTB, every occurrence of “East” should be replaced with “West”.

 

 

Custom Grips:

Pg 150. For 10 Script, “This weapon gains [+] to its attack Flip” is far too powerful, to the point that every person in Malifaux will spend their first 10 Script on this customization.  A more reasonable solution may be “The Fated applies a -1 TN modifier to any attack Flip using this weapon”.

 

 

Folded Steel:

Pg 175. At half the price of the Pneumatic customization, it should not be better in every way to Pneumatic.  I suggest house-ruling this from “increasing its damage by 0/0/1 and gains [+] on damage flips” to “increasing its damage by 0/0/1”.

 

 

Constructs:

Pg 233. Animate Construct “A caster may control one construct at a time”.

Pg 143. Multi-Tasker “This character can command multiple constructs with a word or gesture”.

Given the thematic difference between Tinkerers and Graverobbers seems to be quality vs. quantity, I would change the wording of Animate Construct to read “A caster may control a number of constructs equal to their Enchanting Skill”.

 

 

Order Action:

Pg 203.  “The character gives a command to a single subordinate character under his control”.

As mentioned above, this works well for a Tinkerer who would have a small number of complex constructs to issue orders to, but not for the Graverobber with a hoard of mindless zombies. 

Something along the lines of “The character gives a command to a single construct or group of similar minions under his control”.  The idea being that a Fated could issue one order to a Peackeeper or to a pack of Cainine Remains with a single command, but a separate Order Action would be needed to direct the shambling hoard of Mindless Zombies.

 

 

Building a construct:

Pg 233 break out box. Using the rules as written, the maximum a Fated could create would be a 10 Construction point construct (with a height of 2 as that is the standard throughout the books).  By contrast, your common Guardian (stats on pg 147 of FMA) would require 33 Construction points.

 

Long story short, I think I’ll be using the following rules with my group:

Construction points = Height * Artefacting + (Artefacting * 10)

Cost of parts = (Construction points * 2.5) + 1 Script

 

 

Magic Theories: (Thanks to Kadeton for having make excellent suggestion in this field.)

 

The Oxford Method - fix: Change the description to read "The caster gains [+] to the Casting Duel of any Spell with an AP cost of 2 or more. The caster may always apply the Increase AP immuto to any spell she casts, even if it is not in her current Grimoire."

 

The Whisper - fix: “Gain [+] to all Necromancy duels, or to any Spell Duel with an Undead target. However, the character suffers [-] to Social Skill duels other than Intimidate.”

 

The Darlin Theories - fix: change the description to "The caster must apply the Focus Object immuto to every spell she casts, and may do so even if it is not in her current Grimoire. The Focus Object must be a pneumatic device crafted by the caster using the Artefacting skill." You could also add "If the Black Joker is flipped as part of the Casting Duel, the device is destroyed."

 

The Court Procedure – fix:  "The caster may add one Mask to the Casting Duel Total of any spell she casts that is resisted by Willpower." Additionally, you could also add in “…and the character applies a + 1 TN modifier to any spell that is resisted by Defense.” (That would be in line with the theme that there is a drawback to everyone of these Theories).

               

Thalarian Doctrine – fix: “This character cannot have his Sorcery, Necromancy, or Prestidigitation skills higher than 3 without losing the benefit of Thalarian Doctrine.  In addition, the character gains a bonus to all Counter-Spelling effects equal to his Enchantment skill.”

 

The Balanced Five – No change

 

Hedge Magic – fix: “The character chooses either Elemental or Genus Immuto.  The character does not suffer TN penalties for the first application of an Immuto from their chosen group.”

 

Tradition Magic – Like Kadeton mention in his original post, this one is messed up.  TBD.

 

 

NPC Initiatives (and other stats) overly inflated:

For example, in FMA pg 193 when comparing the initiative of these creatures compared to the rules for NPC initiative in TFA pg 200, the math doesn’t add up.

Another example if the TM inaccuracies in the following ability of a Punk Zombie.  Are my players supposed to Flip vs. an attack of 11 or 13?

(1) Slice & Dice

AV: 5 (11) Rg: y3 Resist: Df

All characters within 3 yards must succeed on a

TN 13 Defense duel or suffer 3 damage

[Nicodem]

With slice and dice the 11 is against a targeted player i beleave ret with defence, then if they fluff it the 13 comes into use if you see what i mean? I am not an expert but i think thats what happens.

Nicodem

[darkbeast]

As far as i know, the only way to get more spells is by finding a new grimnoir (you may correct me on this). This means that the FM chooses the spells, which is no fun for either part. In my game, the grimnoirs are usualy hard to decode and full of secrets, and have a lot of unlocked potential.

 

House rule:

If a player wants to add a spell to her grimnoir (through study and decoding), she may do so at the cost of [current number of spells] EXP. The same goes for Immuto. As always, FM has final word.

[dancater]

This is a useful piece of contribution.

 

My question is mainly directed to Wyrd, is there plans and a schedule for a formal Errata and rules clarification?

 

Can we expect a Wyrd download or should we simply expect to rely on houserules and folks like KJR?

[Adran]

One of the posts at the top of this forum is Aaron collectring questions for a FAQ document. He does say he doesn't klnow when the document will be sorted.

[Omenbringer]

As far as i know, the only way to get more spells is by finding a new grimnoir (you may correct me on this). This means that the FM chooses the spells, which is no fun for either part. In my game, the grimnoirs are usualy hard to decode and full of secrets, and have a lot of unlocked potential.

This is what I have been doing as well. My player's Grimoires are essentially "onions". With deeper study or consultation more secrets are revealed. It makes sense with a lot of the suggested grimoires as well.

 

Just a few "borrowed" ideas for how this worked within my groups;

• A Resser Grimoire like Phillip Tombers Head which provided secrets when it needed to leverage them for some "special" treatment. Reminds me of "Morte" from the old Planescape: Torment computer game.
• An intricate "Puzzle Box" that reveals new combinations of formula when manipulated. A very Hellraiser approach I would say.
• A deck of intricately illustrated playing cards that provided new Magical Insights when playing specific games. This one is borrowed from a Description of Hoyles Book of Games from the Savage Worlds Deadlands: Reloaded RPG.
• A collection of books on Engineering or Medicine that provides more advanced applications when cross referenced with other volumes in the series.

[Ad1]

Our group is playing things pretty much as they're written.

 

Discussed with some of the guys I play with Folded Steel vs Pneumatic and the way our FM plays it Folded is only available from limited crafters. Three Kingdoms or someone who can do Damascus steel type weapons. And it can't be 'added' to a weapon it needs to be built custom from the start. Pneumatic however is easier to get and have crafted for you. personally if I was looking at changing pneumatic it wouldn't be removing a + flip from folded steel it would be to add pneumatic might to a pneumatic melee weapon. So it gives a 1 shot per dramtic time Might 5.

 

We're also not sure where you're getting the hordes of mindless zombies from when it comes to graveroobers. Raise Dead doesn't give a horde and it's possible for a graverobber to stitch together bodies with some pretty good stats if the time is taken to collect the right bodies to take them from (see Building a Better Body p. 236). If there's something that I'm missing on the graverobber minion rules would appreciate having it pointed out please.

 

Our group also discussed constructs when the first post came out talking about it was impossible to build some guild constructs from the FMG and it was our Tinkerer/Overseer/Dabbler who said that since he didn't have access to the resources of the Guild, nor their decades of expertise, that he should be able to build constructs similar to what they have. He also has a construct that he's built early on as per the rules and it is effective. As was stated the constructs in the FMG are designed to go up against Fated and are built as such. Why should he get to drop what is close enough to another experienced Fated statwise into our group? For our group and story style it would cause a significant imbalance.

 

We are also keeping our grimoires as per the rules because the concept we take away from the book is that spells and immuto are basically 'loaded up'. It's not a case of being able to access multiple spells/immuto easily. Spells are considered, yes we have multiple grimoires amongst the casters in the group but the spell using characters in our group really consider mastery of magia or immuto based on the grimoires they have and use mastered immuto that are broadly applicable across multiple grimoires. Each choice has real significance.

 

I just wanted to point out that our group at least are playing with most of the rules listed above as written and getting good mileage out of them. We do have issues with some rules we have done houserules for. Hello unconsciouness checks on NPC's, hello multiple custom enhancements, hello hobbled condition End of the day our group is telling a group story with our FM rather than trying to 'beat' him. So 'logic' application and RAW be damned. We'll just tell a good story and play with rules that are reasonable for us.

 

happy gaming guys,

 

Regards,

 

Ad

 

EDIT: Removed "Not sure Omen" from text. Was irrelevant but was thinking of Omen when I started initial response. Apologies

[Omenbringer]

Not sure how much of that post is for me?