Mason

On 11/17/2018 at 4:40 PM, Mr Kim said:

So everything on the map can be reached within a few weeks travel. 

This is true. 

The Badlands are slotted for more development in the upcoming Neverborn sourcebook, which is why they have had a light touch elsewhere.

15 hours ago, Joe Sansone said:

Has the subject of Crafting Time been discussed somewhere?  Trying to come up with a fair amount of time that also allows time to actually build and play something in game.

If there is an exact rule, let me know.  Otherwise, I was thinking of (Height+Skill Required) x Cost to Build = Days.  It might mean somethings could be built rather quickly and might require a FM call on it, but trying to give a basic idea to the players.

If you're adding in Height, I assume you mean crafting a Construct?

If so, the rules are pretty clear about how long it takes.

Core Rules, Building a Construct, pg. 311:

"Building a Construct takes one day of construction time."

7 minutes ago, Nikshe said:

My point was about there is no usual phrase about Magical Theory for starting the pursuit. That can be read that fresh-new Magewright is allowed to cast without Magical Theory.

This is covered by the Core Rules.

Character Creation, pg. 79:

"Your character may also receive some starting
equipment based on her chosen Pursuit, as described
by its Starting bonus. If your character's Starting
bonus includes a Grimoire, you must select a Magical
Theory (pg. 251) as well as the Magia and Immuto
included in the Grimoire (see pg. 260)."

The expansion books (which lack this explicit step in character creation) are covered by the generic "Gaining a Magical Theory" rule. Core Rules, Magic, pg. 251:

"If a character that does not possess a Magical
Theory gains a Grimoire (and attempts to use it),
she should choose a Magical Theory before she
casts any spells from that Grimoire.

Similarly, if a character that does not possess a
Magical Theory gains a Spell-Like Manifested Power,
either from a Pursuit or as a result of completing one
of her Destiny Steps (pg. 317), she should choose
a Magical Theory before she casts the Spell-Like
Manifested Power."

2 hours ago, Nikshe said:

There is no Magical Theory for the Magewright's pursuit in the "Above the Law" book. That doesn't feel right because he is a caster. Is it a mistake or it is supposed to be this way?

Magewrights don't have a Magical Theory unique to them (nor does any other Pursuit in TTB).

As with every magical character, they can use any of the Magical Theories in the Core Rules or one of the expansion books (including the one in Above the Law). Since the majority of Magewrights are involved with the Guild, the most thematically appropriate Magical Theory is the Thalarian Doctrine, which is found in the Core Rules.

13 hours ago, Joe Sansone said:

How should this be interpreted? 

It's essentially a "passive" check for NPCs. If a Stitched characters walks into town and a TN 12 Scrutiny check is needed to notice they're undead, most people (Minion 6 or lower) are probably not going to hit that TN, so the character is generally fine. If they come into contact with Enforcers, Henchmen, or Masters, it becomes increasingly more likely that someone important will realize that they're an undead character (which is generally not good for said undead character).

13 hours ago, Joe Sansone said:

2. In a Fatemaster vs Fatemaster duel, how do you determine the damage done?  I ruled that it was minor damage since it was not a margin of success and had the attack beat the defense by 5 it would have been moderate, etc.  Is there official ruling here? 

Core Rules, pg 288:

"Fatemaster Characters vs Fatemaster Characters
When a duel involves two Fatemaster characters, just
compare the sum totals of their Acting Values plus
their Rank Values. The character with the higher
final duel total wins the duel.

In the event of a tie, the Fatemaster character who is
the aggressor is considered to be the winner."

After that, the damage flip is based upon the difference of their duel totals, just like normal.

Some Penny Dreadful adventures have adjusted rules to make large battles involving lots of NPCs go quicker.

22 hours ago, LightningJuice said:

Are you still accepting new applicants?

Not at the moment, no.

Really great breakdown of the history!  Well done!

12 hours ago, EnternalVoid said:

Personally I would say no as it is not a weapon, it is a Skill Kit that grants access to certain attacks, but it is up to your Fatemaster to decide.

That would be my call as well.

On 11/5/2018 at 7:22 AM, solkan said:

At this point isn’t Ryle sort of an Amalgamation Charter violation, especially since the blame for what happened can be placed on Ramos?  That’s not the sort of matter you want to keep parading around, especially with how close the matter is to Mr. Hoffman.

It’s the sort of thing that calls for a small, discreet funeral; a few days of personal leave; and a solemn but vague answers for anyone casually asking about “What ever happened to Ryle?” around the office.  

Yup, more or less.

And Hoffman's not the sort of person who just keep using Ryle after he learned what he learned.

5 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

Man, between Kaeris, Ironsides, & Hoffman, the M&SU keyword will be plentiful AF!

They all have their own Keyword. M&SU is Ironsides only. 

10 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

Won't it be a bit counterproductive with a theme driven M3E?

No. Versatile models provide a valuable role in that they're standard, baseline models that represent the faction as a whole.

For instance, Samurai are versatile for the Ten Thunders. This makes them solid fighting models for any of the Crew. They're not specialized but are just generally good for Ten Thunders as a whole.

In Hearthstone terms, they'd be your neutral cards.

10 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

Won't it limit future design space?

The opposite, really.

The existence of Versatile models allows us to make a "Ten Thunders" model instead of a Foundry or Last Blossom model.

For instance, if down the road, the Arcanists look like they need more card draw, we can make a Versatile Arcanist model that provides card draw without having to tie it into a theme.

Of course, if Arcanists look like they need more card draw and Ironsides especially needs it, then we can instead make that model M&SU, which gives Ironsides access to it at a bit of a discount.

1 minute ago, Jesy Blue said:

As for Versatile, I'm pretty sure they are gonna only be for the Effigy/Emmisary models, sounds like their thing.

Nope, each faction has a couple of different Versatile models that they can draw upon.

42 minutes ago, Mommi said:

I mean the real guy, not the miniature! 

He is a creature of nightmare and imagination, as well as a Tyrant, so the answer is "as big as he wants to be."

4 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

Speaking of Streamlining why not defining some common abilities such as Terrifying in the rulebook?

This makes the card unnecessarily text heavy imho.

I understand this may help game play, especially for new players, but a reference card may be enough, as there are already ones for actions and conditions.

M1E did this, and with the transition to M2E, people were generally in favor of moving the information onto the cards so that they didn't have to play with a rulebook open beside them.

38 minutes ago, DonCheadle said:

Now to be fair, I am not accusing you of being ignorant. I only heard a rumour, and its verity is unknown to me. What I have noticed is a trend in haphazard naming of characters, with Asian sounding names being willfully chucked together without much thought, which makes me wonder if Wyrd staff were able to name which culture they stem from if asked to do so. This trend continues with the Obsidian Gate and the new master, whose name is Japanese, yet she is the headmistress of an establishment with a Chinese name.

So here's the thing!

The Three Kingdoms are a loose affiliation of Japan, China, and Vietnam that all more or less worth together as a unified front.

The Little Kingdom - the neighborhood in Malifaux City that is primarily home to natives of the Three Kingdoms - is similarly unified, with Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese buildings and people living right next to each other.

The Ten Thunders, meanwhile, are a criminal syndicate run entirely by the Katanaka family, which is, itself, a Japanese family. They more or less run the Little Kingdom, so they have holdings that belong to people hailing from all three nations of the Three Kingdoms (as well as holdings that are distinctly Western, such as the Honeypot casino, which is run by a southern American). The Qi and Gong has a Chinese name, sure, but it's one of the oldest and most important holdings of the Ten Thunders, right next to the Katanaka Trading House. When the proprietor of the Qi and Gong was no longer able to perform their duties, the Ten Thunders put someone they trust in control of it. That person ended up being someone the Japanese Katanaka family trusted, a Japanese woman (not too much of a stretch, that).

So what this comes down to is basically, the Ten Thunders don't believe that someone has to be Chinese in order to run a brothel with a Chinese name.

As for the Obsidian Gate, the Japanese names used in that adventure were actual Japanese names, and a lot of research was done to ensure that Japan was portrayed in a manner befitting the time period, so I'm not sure what your complaint is about that adventure in particular.

18 hours ago, DonCheadle said:

Unrelated, but Mason, I heard you're a weaboo (which isn't an inherently bad thing, but poses it's own set of risks). Please use actual historical reference and not anime fantasy for Ten Thunder inspiration. 

Not really. I played the L5R CCG for a long while and was a rules team member / alpha playtester for the L5R RPG for a number of years, so I learned a fair amount about Asian culture over those years. I'm not obsessed with it, though, just relatively informed. 

18 hours ago, Ludvig said:

@Mason Thanks again for engaging so much lately, it really feels great! Just to clarify I wasn't saying that you have an interest in making models crap but I can see how my post seemed a bit too cynical in retrospect.

I didn't take it that way! It seemed like a good spot to jump in and clarify some things.

18 hours ago, Ludvig said:

What I was getting it at is that I think certain miniature gamers want to find the OP/UP models and since there are so many factors where you can compare models I think pretty much no matter how flatly you manage to balance something those kinds of statements will float around. The balancing process is also a really tight rope to walk so it's sometimes hard to tell what is player perception and what is an actually overpowered model. It only takes a few vocal players declaring something OP for that perception to spread.

I don't disagree!

There's a tendency in playtest towards something I call "Arcanist Ratchet," which happens in every faction and every miniatures game. It just tends to happen to Arcanists first, since they usually have the most (or at least, most active) players.

Basically, someone says that all the Arcanist masters are fine, except for Rasputina, who could use a little boost. Rasputina gets a boost, and then someone says that she's great, but now Colette seems a bit underpowered and probably needs a boost. She gets a little boost, and everyone cheers... but also points out that now Kaeris needs a little love. And that cycle just keeps repeating itself as the goal post gets ratcheted ever-upwards.

18 hours ago, Ludvig said:

In the guild part of the forums we have had a group of players who purposefully picked the underappreciated models and tried to stay away from the autopicks. I found that I really didn't need Francisco for example despite having the feeling that he was probably objectively above the power curve for his cost (before the last winter errata which gave him a lot more competition). Dropping the hunt for the "objectively best" models renewed my love of the game and is partly the reason why I opted out of applying to the m3e beta.

I think that the Keyword system will go a long ways towards softening "objective best" picks. For instance, to use a random model as an example, the Blessed of December might be amazing for Rasputina at 7ss, but for other Masters who have to pay 8ss, she's less impressive and doesn't quite click with everything their Crew is doing, so there's less of an incentive to just auto-add her to lists. Now, if you want whatever the Blessed of December is doing because it's something you otherwise don't get in your Crew, then that could still be a good hire, but I think we'll have less faction-wide auto-hire models like Francisco in M3E.

Just the discard pile to form a new deck.

2 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I think people getting into games design are motivated by an honest ambition to make good games. I think the economic reality is also that their livelyhood depends on selling minis while the rules design costs a significant amount in work hours that ends up being a net loss. That means the rules are (to some extent at least) there to sell minis. Another aim of an edition change would be to shake it up so people don't get bored, if the same models end up autopicks I think the new edition would be considered a failure and I think gamers are prone to declaring autopicks so if I was designing games myself I would err on the side of too good rather than too bad with models who was to a large extent declared useless last edition. 

The goal is to make every model good because every model should be good. Dead options don't bring anything to a game, and it sucks to pick up a really cool model only to learn that they're just not worth putting on the table (or worse, an active hindrance to winning).

If a model is an "autopick," it doesn't get attention to "shake things up," it gets attention because it's probably too good at what it does, which is why it gets added to lists without any sort of thought or evaluation. I think there's a certain amount of room for that sort of thing - taking Sebastian with McMourning, for example - but when that spills over to the entire faction - when every Resurrectionist list includes Sebastian because he's just the best model, regardless of Crew or Strategy or Scheme - that's because Sebastian is just too good at what he does for his price.

I would be perfectly happy if someone who ran a Lady Justice Crew ended up bringing the same models to their M3E games as their M2E games. My goal isn't to shake things up and force them to change, it's to ensure that those models are more streamlined, easier to understand, and still providing plenty of options and tactical depth.

13 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

This is a very good idea ! This will probably add a lot of diversity to the lists.

However, if the masters are worth 14 SS as the spoiled ones with a free totem and the Carver is 10 SS with a free effigy, isn’t there still an imbalance in SS between both types of crews?

Or are effigied a lot more expensive than totems in M3E?

Effigies are 4ss, but... well, there's some other factors in play that we'll talk about in the future-time. 

14 minutes ago, katadder said:

Also it can if you have incorporeal so there are exceptions, which with flight being a place may be a question that arises.

Incorporeal does not allow a model to use the Walk Action to leave an enemy model's engagement range.

The Walk Action cannot be used to leave an enemy model's engagement range.

7 minutes ago, Rathnard said:

HOWEVER, what got me questioning this accepted narrative are the stories in the third M1E book, Twisting Fates, and more specifically Samael's showdown with Seamus in "The Writing on the Wall". Specifically the Grave Spirit is referred to as a Tyrant twice on page 144

Samael isn't exactly an expert on Tyrants, and given the power levels involved, it's no wonder that he grouped it together with the other godlike entity that possesses people with which he is familiar.

8 minutes ago, Rathnard said:

Based on all of this, you have to surmise that the Grave Spirit is indeed a Tyrant of some kind, and that it had chosen Seamus to be its vessel in Malifaux. 

TTB Core Rules, Grave Servant, pg. 162.

That's what's going on there.

7 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

Do Flight and other place effects thus prevent a model to be targeted by disengaging strikes?

Leaving combat is done via the Disengage Action. Flight doesn't give you a place on Disengage Actions, only Walk and Charge Actions.

8 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

However, if I understood the spoilers correctly, with 0" melee range being a thing, don't we run the risk of seeing ranged models behind walls become a bit overprotected?

Remember, Charge is only a 1 AP action now, so models can maneuver a bit with 1 AP and then Charge with their second AP, giving them movement and a free melee attack. They balance each other out.

13 hours ago, Rathnard said:

The Grave Spirit and how it might be a Tyrant after all...albiet nothing like the 13 Malifaux Tyrants!

The Grave Spirit is not a Tyrant.

It's more akin to "eldritch death god" and is a good magnitude stronger than the Tyrants.