thefinaltuba

Hey speaking of derived aspects, I am also wondering something. When calculating Defense, it says "2 + the character’s Evade Skill or Speed Aspect, whichever is higher" However, for Initiative it says "Initiative is equal to the character's Speed Aspect plus her ranks in the Notice Skill" So, I've been playing both of these as ranks, but now I'm wondering if I'm meant to have been doing entire Evade skill bonus instead... For Example: Trevor has 2 ranks in Evade, and has a Speed aspect of +3, meaning his Evade AV is +5. Is his Defense 4 (Baseline 2 plus 2 ranks in Evade) or 7 (Baseline 2 plus Evade AV of +5)? I've been playing it as the former, but when re-reading through things last week, I noticed that some derived aspects specifically call out ranks in a skill, while others just say the skill... Is this just unclear language or are they actually different? Thanks.

Hmm ok that helps some. Hadn't considered the increase resistance immuto. Still figuring out the whole magic system. I just would feel bad saying to my Fated "Sorry, this guy is Rank+stat 11, so you can't affect him at all with your spells!" so it seems like increase resistance might be something I want to include often in grimoires.

Hey was trying to create a grimoire for one of my Fated and realized I'm not entirely sure how this works... for spells that create a simple duel TN ( for example, Wrench causes a TN 10 Toughness challenge), is this handled like other things for FM Characters? What I mean is, my minions that have a low rank value/stat... Are they ALWAYS going to fail? my Enforcers/Henchman with High ranks/skills, are they always going to succeed? Just doesn't feel quite right, but maybe it is? I get it if the tradeoff is "well, there's still a flip that has to happen, the flip to cast!" But also, if someone has a high enough rank, they can NEVER be affected by certain spells? Just doesn't seem quite right. Thanks

that's all super helpful, thanks. I think the main takeaway I like is that "you get it around them, but they ain't going easy" so you do the damage flip as normal, and then if it's still on them when they go negative, you can tie em. I like that. Also like the idea of a manifested power. That's why I come here, lots of creative solutions!

Those make sense and help, I'll have to give them a think. As for lassos, yeah no, there's nothing in the rules that says anything about tying up. My PCs (who are relatively new to RPGs) are basically like "well, it's a lasso. Why couldn't we tie him up?" And I'm having a hard time finding a reason to say no that isn't "Um, because it's not in the rules, duh!"

Heya, so one of my Fated has decided with his new knowledge of the game, he wants to reroll his character. Make a new guy that more aligns with his interests in the game, you know? I mentioned things like pneumatic limbs and stuff and he got really excited about that, so he wanted to make a drudge. We were looking at the book together, and noticed it talking about operation costs, etc. That a pneumatic limb typically takes some soulstone dust to run. Then we started looking at enchanting spells, which is another wrinkle he wants to add to his character. I notice that "Animate Limb" is a spell that he could get access to, provided he had the right grimoire. So, all that to say... What's to stop a character from just saying "screw paying for soulstone dust, I'm just going to keep trying to cast animate limb until it succeeds. Flip, fail, flip, fail, flip fail.... flip, aha, a 10 of rams!" At that point is it just the sort of thing where I should just say "as long as you have that grimoire, your limb works."? Seems like the logical answer to me, but what have you guys done? This is our first experience with Pneumatic Limbs. Also, as long as I'm here... My group has a couple of lassos and they keep wanting to like, subdue bad guys, hog-tie them, if you will. I threw some crooked men at them the other day and rather than just kill them as I would assume, a couple of them were like "we should lasso it, and basically capture it until the morning to see if anything happens to it in the daylight!" I don't want to be the guy that says no to my players, especially when they seem interested in something, but I get the sense that's not really the intention behind the lasso weapon. Any thoughts for how to handle a situation like this? Appreciate it as always.

ok, that all makes sense. Yeah I'll definitely check in with them. Hell, they might LOVE having a new talent every week haha. And if not, I like the ideas of bending the rules a little bit. Ok, this week we hit 2 destiny steps at one. Ok, this week, we complete a destiny step, but you don't advance in your pursuit, and so on. Thanks for the tips.

All great points, thanks. I mean, who even knows, like any role-playing campaign, it's possible that things will fizzle out before we get to the higher levels. Some of the responses have me wondering though, if I'm doing this right. 5 PCs, each with 5 Destiny Steps means that the game should take 25 sessions before we end it, right? And at the end of each session, we resolve that destiny step (congratulations, you walked backwards through the knife!) and everybody levels up in their pursuit. You guys have mentioned "slowing down" but the pace seems somewhat set in stone. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting things. Thanks again folks.

Hey guys, today I want to ask about something I'm a little nervous about. I'm about 4 sessions in with my game group (of about 25 sessions theoretically, 5 Fated). One of the things that's on my radar about possible over stimulation with my Fated is the sheer number of talents they receive. Every single level they get at least one talent (2 if i's a new pursuit(level 0 talent)). So by now, many of my Fated already have at least 6 talents to keep track of. Often I find myself saying "Hey, remember you can discard a card to make a skill toolkit if you'd like!" and they say "oh yeah?... Oh, yeah!" On some level, I understand it just comes down to my Fated reading their abilities and knowing what options are available to them. But I worry about us getting 10 sessions or so in and them having a LAUNDRY list of things they can do that they'll be constantly forgetting them. Never even mind by the time we get to session 20 or more. Since this is my first campaign, I'm wondering if this is something that becomes an issue for other groups, or if I'm worried about nothing. By the time the Fated reach total "level" 10 or more, are there just too many talents for them to keep track of? Should I be encouraging them to specialize more, rather than dabbling in a multitude of pursuits? That might help... Anyway, let me know your thoughts.

Does anybody know if there are any good TTB-centric podcasts or YouTube channels out there? I've got a ton of Malifaux podcasts I listen to, and there's a ton of RPG content out there, but I'm wondering if there's some solid TTB specific content out there for me to consume. Thanks

Hey, quick question about combat encounters. Is there any sort of like, "formula" people have come up with for building combat encounters? Is there some sort of magic number of total rank value to shoot for? I feel like I often see like, "one (5) minion per Fated, but upgrade one to a (7) Enforcer!" in Penny Dreadfuls. So for 4 Fated that would come up to a rank value total of 22. So if I wanted to do a mix of a Henchman and some peons, are we shooting for 22 as well? like 3 Peon (4) and 1 Henchman (10)? And I imagine the formula is a bit different as the Fated level up? Or is there a totally different way people recommend doing it? Have a few combats coming up, and want to try to make sure they're challenging enough to be fun. Not too easy, not too hard. Thanks for thoughts!

Haha ok, that all sounds good. Definitely gives me some ideas about how to handle some of these potential cheese areas. Thanks for all your help.

Had a couple more questions come up from my game last night. - Basically, how do actions and abilities with an AP cost work in narrative time? Specifically, these situations came up and I wasn't quite sure how to handle them in the moment. The "Assist" action costs 1 AP, adds ranks to a buddy's check. In dramatic time, there's obviously a tradeoff here: I sacrifice one of my actions to make your action more likely. Cool, makes sense. But in narrative time, is Assist allowed? My hunch would be yes, but it seems strange to me that in effect that essentially would turn into "my notice checks are basically always at +2 because Ted is always Assisting me" or whatever. Similarly, how do spells, and specifically immuto work in Narrative time? For example, if a Fated wanted to cast "Interrogate," ok, easy enough. But when they then add an immuto that increases the AP to lower the target number.... well there's not really much of a cost there. I assume that's not the intention, but what keeps a Fated from just saying "OK, in narrative time, I will always be using the 'increase AP' immuto" Thanks in advance!

Good stuff. A lot of that makes sense, and what I was thinking. "Stick to the listed skills unless a compelling reason can be explained." Seems like a fine line to walk with Ongoing Challenges. If participation becomes optional, I'd hate for it to become "Hey, Jimmy has +6 to Athletics, let's just have him do the whole thing!"... Not fun. But yeah, between narrating reasons that everybody has to participate (Plus I think making sure time is a factor...) it sounds like there are definitely ways to keep the stakes high, the story fun, and keeping it from becoming just a flip-fest.

Here's another question for the more experienced Fatemasters out there, regarding Ongoing Challenges: I really like this concept in the game, so I want to make sure it's something that my Fated find interesting and fun as well. When we did the Ongoing Challenge in "Bad Things Happen", by the time I had read the allowed skills to the Fated, I realized a couple things. First of all, at least two of my Fated had no training in the skills listed. Which brings me to a general question about skills in this game. Are you allowed to make "untrained checks"? I suppose even if a Fated has no ranks in Athletics, it would still make sense that they would be able to attempt shoveling coal with their unathletic body But does this apply to all skills? Can an untrained Musician still try a Music check if they want? Additionally, my fated were asking things like "Um, can I use Wilderness to apply my knowledge of fire-making to this boiler?" To which I found a way to say no, because I think that's kind of the spirit of Ongoing Challenges (Here's the skills, how do you contribute?), but I want to make sure I'm handling that right. Also, how do you make sure things like Ongoing Challenges stay interesting? What I mean is, our Bad Things Happen Ongoing Challenge kind of turned into, "ok, my turn again? I guess I make another Athletics Challenge to shovel more coal. Ok, I succeed." Obviously, a series of "make check, succeed or fail, next" is pretty boring, so yeah, I guess I'm just curious how you keep Ongoing Challenges from becoming that series of flips. Granted, we had spent so long on the combat that people were tired and wanting to wrap up, so it could be that we were just tired, but with so many Ongoing Challenges coming up in my next Penny Dreadful, I do want to make sure each one is fun. Thanks!!!