Reading the Bestiary

[DarkSpade]

My group's games are just far enough apart for me to forget different rules and mechanics between games. On thing that gets me every time is how to read the bestiary.  So far it hasn't been too much of an issue as my players have primarily fought NPCs of my own creation.  Tonight(if the stars align) they'll be fighting against some staples of malifaux and I'll need to know exactly what all this stuff means.

First off, I'm assuming that whenever I see "AV: X (Y)"  that X is the appropriate combination of skill plus aspect and Y is that combo plus the NPC's rank.   So an Enforcer with might 2 and pugilism 3 would show his attacks as "AV: 5 (13).   That right?

Then there's some of these abilities.  I'll use the Witchling Handler(page 333) for example.

"DF() On My Orders: After succeeding against an enemy character,....."

After succeeding what against an enemy?  A defensive flip?  Is the () there to remind me the handler gets the ram on defense, or is it a requirement to use the ability(which she'll have anyway)?

"Df/Wp () Reflect Magic: After this character succeeds against a spell or manifested power,..."

This is pretty much the same as above, only against magic so I'm guessing it's defense or willpower flip, but again, what does the and for?  Can't be a reminder that she gets them on the flip because I don't see anything giving her the .

[solkan]

1 hour ago, DarkSpade said:

My group's games are just far enough apart for me to forget different rules and mechanics between games. On thing that gets me every time is how to read the bestiary.  So far it hasn't been too much of an issue as my players have primarily fought NPCs of my own creation.  Tonight(if the stars align) they'll be fighting against some staples of malifaux and I'll need to know exactly what all this stuff means.

First off, I'm assuming that whenever I see "AV: X (Y)"  that X is the appropriate combination of skill plus aspect and Y is that combo plus the NPC's rank.   So an Enforcer with might 2 and pugilism 3 would show his attacks as "AV: 5 (13).   That right?

Then there's some of these abilities.  I'll use the Witchling Handler(page 333) for example.

"DF() On My Orders: After succeeding against an enemy character,....."

After succeeding what against an enemy?  A defensive flip?  Is the () there to remind me the handler gets the ram on defense, or is it a requirement to use the ability(which she'll have anyway)?

That's an attribute trigger, and the suit shown is the required suit, not a reminder that the character's Df is supposed to have a .  So it's "after succeeding" on a flip that uses the Witchling Handler's Df.  The Ram is there as the required suit for the trigger. 

1 hour ago, DarkSpade said:

"Df/Wp () Reflect Magic: After this character succeeds against a spell or manifested power,..."

This is pretty much the same as above, only against magic so I'm guessing it's defense or willpower flip, but again, what does the and for?  Can't be a reminder that she gets them on the flip because I don't see anything giving her the .

The handler's Df has a built in, so to get that trigger off the Handler needs a on the duel flip.  Or a convenient soul stone or other effect to generate the extra suit.

You'll want to have a look at "Step 6: Declare Triggers" on page 286 of the 2nd edition core rules, and "Fatemaster Characters and Triggers" on the same page. 

[DarkSpade]

So it's basically, if you're using this DF and this is in the final duel total(), you get to do this:  After succeeding against an enemy character,.....   ?

Thank you, that makes sense now.  It's as easy as I figured it had to be.  The rules for this game are so simple, but for whatever reason when I see all those abbreviations and parentheses in the bestiary it all just turns into Latin for me.

[solkan]

36 minutes ago, DarkSpade said:

So it's basically, if you're using this DF and this is in the final duel total(), you get to do this:  After succeeding against an enemy character,.....   ?

Additional important timing and requirements for an "After succeeding" trigger:

• Because it's "After succeeding", the character with the trigger has to win the duel.  (There are things like "After resolving" triggers where it doesn't matter who wins.)
• The effects of the trigger don't happen until after the effects and damage of the action have been resolved.  (This is the normal trigger timing clause, it's more important for "After failing", "After resolving" or "After damaging" triggers, since most actions don't do anything if they fail.)

Those two triggers may feel a bit backwards in practice:  If the Fated (player) character attacks this non-Fated (non-player) character, and the Fated character fails while leaving the required suit in the duel total, the non-Fated character with the defensive trigger gets to do something.

That's a side effect of the fact that the player characters are flipping the card for the duel against the non-player character. 

36 minutes ago, DarkSpade said:

Thank you, that makes sense now.  It's as easy as I figured it had to be.  The rules for this game are so simple, but for whatever reason when I see all those abbreviations and parentheses in the bestiary it all just turns into Latin for me.

No worries.  The attribute triggers (their abbreviations, anyway) are one of the things inherited from the wargame, where everything got abbreviated where possible to save room for rules text. 

[Lithaine]

23 hours ago, DarkSpade said:

My group's games are just far enough apart for me to forget different rules and mechanics between games.

This.