spooky_squirrel

On 8/26/2017 at 10:26 PM, solkan said:

I think there's a misunderstanding.  On page 171, Enchanting is listed as "Charm or Cunning", but the 'Animate Construct' use of Enchanting is listed as Charm on page 264.

On the other hand, the rules for building the construct are on page 311, and the requirements are:

• At least one rank of Artifacting, acting value of the Artifacting skill irrelevant.
• Some Engineering ranks if you want to grant skills.

Looking at the magic theories, the Oxford Method or the Darlin Theories seem like they'd be able to allow a low Charm character an easier chance of making the 10 target number for Animate Construct, since that gives the character the suit value or a reduced TN.

If there is a way to substitute Cunning for Charm in Animate Construct, I'm not seeing it.

It's the bit on 171 that I was looking at when I got excited about that idea. It left me with a thought along the lines of:

On 8/26/2017 at 11:33 PM, Steamtastic Vagabond said:

Short answer, either flirt the robot to life, or shove a logic engine inside and hope it starts moving.

Later on I found that the specific Animate Construct spell still references Charm. I am still digesting the information and will need to go back through the books a few more times to flush out old information. Darlin Theory is the usual suspect, but one of the things I also only just picked up is how much Tinkerers changed as well--they're no longer a spellcasting class. 1e they had a grimoire with 2 magia and 3 immuto, 2e their 0-level pursuit lets them Animate Constructs. All they do now on creation is animate constructs (and consequently start with a construct instead of a grimoire), and are always considered to have that spell regardless of grimoire.

Unfortunately it means that the 1e character concept I had no longer can exist the way that they had. Which is fine, new edition means new campaign, right?

Emissary also allows us to draw cards from the Destined condition. This is typically late game, but late game is when it will really come in handy.

On 9/2/2017 at 7:22 AM, Rathnard said:

I'm a Barbie Girl,
In a Barbie World,
Life in plastic,
It's fantastic!
You can brush my hair,
Undress me anywhere,
Imagination, 
Life is your creation,,,

---

The Outcast story, ugh. I'm very sorry to the author but I didn't like this one at all. To me, the whole thing felt really contrived. It doesn't make sense to me that these VERY different groups would just decide to set up their own town in the Badlands. Sure, I can see Von Schill and the Mercs doing it. Possibly Parker and Tara although that's really stretching it. But Levi's got a legitimate business that he's been running for years, and Hamelin surely cares more for the ruins of Malifaux City and its high population density for His plagues. But the lowpoint for me was the reason for Jack Daw coming to this new town - Parker's going to steal the Hanging tree? Really? Like I said before, it felt really contrived. 

Not only that, but the major plot point, all the Outcasts joining together, feels like an erosion of the Faction's identity. To me, the Outcasts are defined not by their unity (like other Factions) but their independence. They might occasionally work together out of necessity (or money), but each group is otherwise an island - beholden to nobody, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entails. Clearly the folks at Wyrd have a plan with this, either in terms of plot development or in what they want to do with the Faction in future editions (or both). But it nonetheless doesn't sit right with me. 

The one shining moment, though, was Karina. I swear, that girl just makes everything better.

Lorem Ipsum...
No, not going to do that.
I have to do it enough for work.
I wonder if there's a Malifaux equivalent for placeholder instructions in constructs.
Lorem Ipsum Doctrine?

It makes sense for Von Schill to propose it, but the others don't necessarily have to follow through on it. Levi's shop will be affected by any scorched earth approach Marlow might take to the Quarantine Zone, so he'll want to make sure he has his tunnels dug--but they won't necessarily go to Von Schill's town. Related note: I don't think Jack Daw is going to respond well to someone trying to move his tree. He's there to punish all the wicked and being where he can survey all who enter officially, he has no shortage of targets. There's a lot of potential for infighting among the Outcasts just getting to where Von Schill suggested, and more to be had on site too--for the same reason you pointed out: these are drastically different groups, different methods and standards, different goals, and different allegiances. How long do you think people would get along once the Sisters (and Taelor) become aware of the Tyrant thralls that they're sharing space with? For that matter, will Plague and Oblivion feel about their proxies being in close quarters with each other? Just because they joined forces against Titania doesn't mean they're friends, after all.

On 9/3/2017 at 0:04 AM, -Loki- said:

For some reason this felt a lot like Felonius Gru from Despicable me.

Yeah, pretty much. "I'm known for stealing everything not nailed down, well, I'll show them and steal some stuff that's not only nailed down and tied up, I'll steal the very thing that that stuff is affixed to!"

One essential thing to bear in mind with Sandeep is that your cards in hand are incredibly important. Anything that lets you get some additional card control is going to be a good thing for you. This is one of the reasons people bring Myranda with Imbued Energies in a Sandeep crew. What she turns into isn't as important as the fact you're getting 4 new cards in hand.

Everything that Sandeep wants to do relies on suit/TN. Everything his Beacon-using crew wants to do relies on suit/TN. If you're using Wind Gamin as your scheme runners, their leap demands a specific card. Any model you have that would want to copy an ability that cannot stone* is going to be very reliant on having the requisite card in hand.

So that is something to bear in mind. You're likely to have models that require pitching a card to get a special effect in the first place and you're likely to need cards to do things (relying on top-decking a TN and suit is a great way to get a sense of the vulnerabilities of a crew). I'm of the frame of mind that my Control Hand is there to support my actions, but I need to make sure that it's not overworked because I'm aggressive in using it in the first place. I'm very likely to make use of discard for effect abilities if I have them and they're appropriate for what I'm trying to do. This means that to avoid overworking my hand, I'm going to want to limit my reliance on cheating if I'm using those abilities (and vice versa: limit the amount of discard for effect if I know that I'm needing to hit specific TNs/suits for effects).

* On models that can stone: Soulstone Miners are minions that can use soulstones. This reduces their reliance on a specific card suit for TN, so you could potentially get some extra work out of them. As minions they can maximize use of Beacon if they're close enough to Sandeep. I'd consider them for a number of reasons.

3 hours ago, WWHSD said:

Doesn't the Mage that can have 4 melee attacks in a round make short work of the Raptor?

At Df 6, not many things make short work of the Raptor, it always costs AP and potentially other resources depending on how badly it needs to be removed.. For the Oxfordian Mages, this ends up being a bad situation overall:
Looking at just the Oxfordian Trio and the Raptor, the Blood Ward Mage would have to activate first. If you pitch a card to furious cast against a 3 stone peon harassment model, that's a resource you don't have available to use elsewhere. That's two ways in which I have messed up your plans: forcing your activation order to respond to the bird and getting you to pitch a card just to start the attack.
Similar to @KingCrow, if I'm in the position where I have a Malifaux Raptor in the middle of your Oxfordian Mages, I will happily cheat fate to force you to spend more resources to deal with that bird. It's a 3 stone model that's taking 18 (15) stones' worth of models out of action. All I have to do if I'm losing is cheat high enough to force you to cheat as well and you're getting less for the resources you're burning than I am.

I like to bring the Raptor for a number of things, including peaking at my own deck. In a summoner crew that is a very powerful ability to have--just make sure that when you're using it, it plays into your overall goal. The other use I've been getting out of Raptors is turning my own stuff into Beasts to make use of Blade and Claw, but that's a tool you might not need/want under Sandeep.

This afternoon I ran Ironsides, Amina, and a Performer into some GG2018 testing. As I expected, the Performer spent the game blowing up scheme markers and forcing Wp checks. Fortunately for my opponent's plans, his crew was spread out enough where I didn't get to catch a lot of them in the blast.

Since it was into test schemes cannot really plan a whole lot on how things played out, but I will say: schemes that involve Toni just camping in the middle of the opposing crew are definitely amusing, but playing her into those schemes requires tempering your desire to unload with her Adrenaline-fueled beatdown party. My opponent was able to limit the number of models engaged with Toni to 2-3 (line of sight and abilities like Leap are very useful in this regard), but she still had no problem getting to double digit adrenaline. I had more problems spending it than I did collecting it.

I will say that I may not worry so much about Warding Runes and her, since her two new upgrades pair well with her Stand Up, Stand Tall upgrade ability, allowing her to build up a lot of adrenaline, then flush it to go from near dead to fully functional.

All that being said: watch out for Titania and anyone else that can turn off healing.

All that being said, if you see a specific interaction as a potential issue (like Crazy and Shrug Off, in another thread or Oxfordian Method and stacking AP in here), call it out specifically. I mention Crazy/Shrug Off because the thread on that interaction includes remarks from Mason on how playtesting saw that potential problem and decided it was acceptable for several reasons.

If playtesting saw some of the same things your group has, Mason's the person who'll have the playtesting insight on why they let it in anyway. It's helpful to be specific on what interactions are problematic within your group.

What @solkan said. Your NPCs can be as prepared as your PCs. They can use the same abilities that your players have. The difference is, your NPCs are the ones who control the time table and they don't flip to see if their ability works. You could get some ideas on how to defeat their stuff just by using it against them. If [spell effect] seems that terribly overpowered for the Fated to have, make an Encounter that involves trying to deal with an NPC that is using [spell effect]. Take notes on what they do to deal with it and add that to your FM notes on ways you can deal with Fated characters using [spell effect].
If you're worried about your Fated crew being too good when they have time to prepare and are all close enough together to get a ton of mutual benefits going... don't give them time to prepare and set up scenarios so that when there's a fight to be had they need to spread out more to actually deal with it or Bad Things Happen to people that they're trying to save/help/get money from. Give them competing goals to thin out their available resources for each goal. Thinning out their limited resources while taking advantage of your (as Fatemaster: unlimited) Malifaux resources, you can adjust the difficulty on the fly.

There are attacks and abilities that prevent reduction of damage through armor and arcane shielding--no amount of preparing your shields and getting yourself to Armor +3 prevents that, and getting to Armor +3 puts you at Def -3, making you a lot easier to hit with those attacks. Natural hazards can be used to soften up the Fated if you're concerned that with access to all the tools they'll be too powerful for a planned combat within the Encounter. How overwhelmingly powerful will illusions feel against something that is unaffected by them? Invisibility/Occultation cannot protect you from environmentally-induced poison, drowning, burning, freezing, etc. There's no agency to the attack to be misled by illusions.
Tailor your more significant NPCs to deal with exactly what the Fated crew is doing. This is very easy to justify in character: the bad guys have heard about the Fated, have heard how they do things and that they use certain abilities and tactics. So they bring in some assets that cancel magic, attack the mind instead of the body, mislead the Fated, and/or otherwise pull some dirty tricks that keep your Fated crew from fighting on their own terms. The same fame/notoriety that would get them picked up for contracts will also allow their enemies to prepare.

As the Fatemaster you should have notes on who has what abilities/equipment in your Fated crew and how they do things. This gives you time to specifically tailor your encounters to present a challenge to what they have and know as well as how they do things. If you're preparing an encounter (whether custom or Penny Dreadful) and you're at a loss on how to make it more challenging and memorable without banning abilities outright (*M Fiat allows for this, yes, but it's not the preferred method), ask for advice or clarification or look around for similar situations and how they've been resolved.

As an example, imagine that your Fated crew has been recruited to assist a bustling Contract Town that's unusually close to one of the seals keeping the Grave Spirit* out of Malifaux:

Quote

The horde of mindless zombies that the Fated have been holding at bay for hours because nothing has been hurting the Fated? It's now attacking at multiple checkpoints! If they move to another checkpoint to reinforce, the one they left becomes vulnerable. The agency behind the attack has spies of various persuasions that tell them where the weakest checkpoints are at, so they direct the hordes' reinforcements to those points. As guardsmen fall at each checkpoint, armed zombies rise. Refugees who fled towards the checkpoints were either shot by guardsmen or taken down by undead, but in either case they're adding to the horde.

• Do the Fated split up to try and get the siege under control before a checkpoint is breached?  ...you've split the party in a way that plays to the Encounter.
• When the next day hits and the zombies are still coming, what do they do to refresh their spells?  ...if they do, more people die, more zombies rise, defenses potentially fail. If they don't, they have to figure out how to beat back the hordes without being prepared in their usual manner. It's tricky to set up in the first place, but several PD's use a rating system to determine the Encounter outcome. You might want to borrow or create one to manage the siege conditions in an abstract enough manner to run smoothly.
• Do they decide to take the fight to the enemy and maybe kill one or more of the Ressers controlling the horde in order to relieve the besieged town?  ...this probably looks like the best (and most likely) course of action for the Fated crew. It also happens to allow you, as the Fatemaster, to set environmental conditions that don't necessarily make sense at the various checkpoints that the Fated had been manning: including subterranean vaults that are lined with warding runes that banish the Fated characters' magical buffs when they enter, hazardous/collapsing terrain, etc.. You also get to introduce unique enforcers that have been tailor-made for the Fated in a way that gives those enforcers home court advantage.

Nothing says you've got to take it easy on your players. The goal is usually to have a fun and memorable session, and that's accomplished through Fated and Fatemaster communicating expectations beforehand and honoring them throughout, with a mind to the idea that good stories aren't rooted in easy victories.

* note: Contract Town location is flexible. Put in Badlands for unlimited horde of Neverborn, in Bayou for Gremlins and Silurids, etc.. A few more details would need adjusting (i.e. the fallen staying down) on top of that, but it's a generic enough siege scenario to apply to many campaigns.

8 hours ago, Adran said:

Ultimately, what are you hoping to achieve by your opponent having no hand? If it is just so they can't cheat, then you need to work on removing 4+ cards a turn. You can speed that up by having a crew that forced a large number of Simple duels (such as Horror) whihc they can't easily afford to fail. Or that could eb the end goal. 

I wouldn't object to facign this sort of crew. Some creews don't rely in their hand, and often you can work to minimse how many cards you need to function. 

This is along the lines of what I was thinking. For substantially less effort you can force duels on your opponent that they simply must pass in order to do what they're hoping to do (i.e. Performers detonating scheme markers force Wp duels to avoid being on double negatives on Wp and Df). We have a number of masters who would love for that to happen.

It also lets you work around the fact that some people learn to play without their control hand (I learned through my own aggressive hand use, your local meta might learn from card control masters/crews not unlike the ones suggested in here).

6 hours ago, retnab said:

 Probably not good against every crew (Lynch just laughs and dumps the same Aces every time, for example), but I could see it making the rest of your crew's jobs easier.

Lynch only gets to reclaim Aces discarded during his crewmembers' activation. Aces lost to things on the opponent's activation are just gone.

Just now, Aaron said:

I'd love to take credit, but alas, our warehouse is outshining me.

okay, I shall have to ask you to pass along my appreciation

In echoing @necroon, GenCon order arrived with great turn around time! It got here a lot faster than I expected.

Thank you, @Aaron and team!

I don't know if you want to give us Lucius; our minions aren't 10T quality, but they're still really high quality.

Also: we have Raspy, and she got a leg up (to include a source of summoning).

Ten Thunders and some sideways playing crews from other factions also aren't reliant on cards in hand because they're using baked-in abilities and auras that give them positives and/or you negatives.

Acolytes will always get targeted early on by anyone who's ever seen what they do. Just handing out slow is significant enough to make people hate it. I'm pretty sure that now that Amina's official model has hit (I've got mine on my counter, waiting to be assembled, and I built a proxy last year) there will be more games with her and more hate for her (due to her massive utility) that will also make her a priority target.

If your local meta relies heavily on their hands' content, it's definitely a tactic they'll have to learn to deal with.

Ironsides and Amina have lure effects of their own, so the Siren's Call is a bluff/misdirection. The piece I'm looking at is the ability to put my opponent in a bad spot with a Don't Mind Me model that can place a scheme marker and blow it up in the middle of a cluster of enemy models. Anything that they want to do if they were within 3" of that marker hinges on their passing that duel.

Also: it doesn't have to target friendly scheme markers, so you can blow up scheme markers that were placed for things like Dig Their Graves and get added benefits.

Full disclosure: my first crew in Malifaux was Closing Time, on recommendation from my local Henchman based off of how I play other games that he and I have played. I've been a dirty player since before I entered the game.

4 minutes ago, skoatz said:

For Siren's Call with paralyze trigger?  Are there other reasons beyond that?  Performers are solid 5 ss minions, but am I missing something specific?

Detonating scheme markers with Seduction to potentially put people on while having Challenge Aura and other effects to deal with. Your opponent will have reason to guarantee passing that TN 13 Wp duel just to avoid all of the stuff that Ironsides and Amina do.

27 minutes ago, BFOmega said:

Something I noticed while reading this, did you take into account that Nico would have had to take the WP dual from challenge in order to give things fast? Because that's totally a thing.

Related:

Control-oriented Ironsides crews might want to consider having 5 stones available for a Performer if they weren't doing this already (I know I was).

With all things that can skew, yes, you can build a crew that forces discards. It might even be frustrating for your opponent if they don't have ways to counter it.

But as with all things that skew: does this crew actually complete the scenario? You might keep your opponent from having a hand (either by forced discarding or by tactical cheating), but are you scoring VP? Are you preventing them from scoring VP?

I bring this up because with several of the masters I play, I don't honestly care what is in my hand because I'm discarding most of my hand away to get benefits (i.e. focus-like effects) and I often end up with no hand halfway through the turn. This means that I'm already in a position where I'm relying on top-decking everything I do, of my own accord. It doesn't hurt my plans because my plans didn't hinge on having cards to cheat with, so AP spent stripping cards from my hand don't actually stop me. There are exceptions; for example: if there's one or more Execution models coming at me, I might want to hold onto 2 or 4 cards on the assumption that I will be discarding them anyway.

If your answers to those questions are yes, yes, and maybe--it has potential. At which point you might add in the additional question: what kind of game are you and your opponent expecting to play?

In a tournament, there's some expectation of optimized crews and hard-competitive games (which has pros and cons). Bringing an optimized crew to a casual game without talking about it first* is a good way to end up being known as that player.

* If it's something you've never tried before, like this kind of crew concept even just a "I'm trying out a new idea, I have no idea how it will go" helps counter the frustration effect. If it's something you're trying to practice, a warning remark helps. For instance, when I'm playing Mei Feng (Arcanists) into a cast heavy crew during a casual/club game, I invite my opponent to read Vent Steam and to ask any questions before we even flip for table sides.

3 minutes ago, Thottbot said:

he said in the report he started turn 3 with 11 adrenaline q_q which is an insane amount 

New upgrade gives +1 at start of activation. Punch has trigger for +1. Toni gets +1 for every enemy within a certain range of her when she activates (no cap). She also gets +1 on Df trigger.

Add in the ability to choose whether or not to tick Adrenaline, 11 Adrenaline on Turn 3 isn't that bad if you're playing aggressively with her. Especially against a crew that usually tries to overwhelm with numbers.

14 hours ago, spikes said:

This. I forgot about it as I keep thinking of activating my mages last. But this is a good play for Turn 1 at least, if you need to move her quickly up the board to establish control. 

Activating last is more useful when there's things out there that will be trying to plink things to death, otherwise I would recommend focusing on getting them to where they need to be to get stuff done. Activation control against an elite crew is already powerful without you holding off on activating 4 of your models as long as possible (Magi and Toni) and surrendering board presence.

@Franchute it would be great if there's something concrete in stating that. At least on the (directly) towards and away we've got black-and-white text stating intent and execution.

@BFOmega your opponent might be coming from another game system where that is the case. That's one of the hurdles I had to overcome as I had been learning WM/H when Malifaux caught me, and a number of things including push mechanics were different.

51 minutes ago, BFOmega said:

Something that came up in the last tournament I played and I'm not sure which way the ruling actually goes: Is the ox mage push any direction or directly away?

 

Any direction. It says "push target up to 2" for each [tome] in the final duel total."

Wyrd has been very good about stating directly towards/away when the push calls for that, so unless the push says towards or away, it's any direction. Interesting bit that is related: if an ability says "push into base contact" without saying directly, as long as you can complete a legal push that ends in base contact with the target, you can pick where you end up.

It's worth noting that if you're bringing any (or all) Oxfordian Mages with Ironsides, they can still shove her halfway up the board before she even activates, especially if you're supporting them with other M&SU Academics to help their Resonance ability without putting them in an awkward location, like Shastar Vidiya Guards and Amina Naidu. Just make sure that you're still thinking about how to complete the scenario.

Her new upgrades make it so that she can exploit being shoved up to the front with significantly lower risk. If she took 6 damage from pushes getting up the field and is activating relatively late in the first turn, she can take advantage of the new healing effect on her attacks. There's actually a few combinations I'm curious to try, largely because the combination of negating Red Joker damage flips and healing back when doing damage (while having a Ml 7 attack!!) seems like a great way to have a controller make a nice brick in the middle of the opposing crew while your own crew works on scenario.

46 minutes ago, skoatz said:

One of the guys in my area just picked her up at GenCon and I can already tell Amina will be the number one target when I play against him.  She provides an incredible amount of utility.  And if she's still around, it's going to make anything I want to do more difficult.  I have a feeling he's not going to make that easy for me though 

That's one of the major things going for her: she's a toolbox Henchman. She might dial the flexibility up a little too much within Sandeep, and that could cost you against a crew that's more focused on completing the schemes/strategy.
Which segues neatly back to the OP: Sandeep is very flexible and good enough across the board to have no obvious weaknesses. Attacking his resources slows him down, but it's possible that one of the problems is rooted in his starting with a cache of 4 (maybe it should be lower due to his extreme flexibility?). If you can strip his cards and soulstones, you can keep him from getting stuff done on his own terms.

Look at his hires and the game scenario (strat/schemes/deployment) and try to work out how Sandeep might try to complete the scenario. This is the part that makes facing him tricky, but playing him is also tricky. He has so many options and tools that it is easy to end up in analysis paralysis, and in competitive games (with time limits) this can lead to mistakes being made by the Sandeep player. As an example: when I was first learning him, I would summon when I needed to do something else or copy via Beacon an ability just because I could, rather than because I should. That Fire Gamin with the Commands Earth upgrade is an interesting turret, but it's not going to move me towards completing the scenario and scoring VP.
Attacking resources: if I'm burning soul stones trying to keep my Henchman or Sandeep alive, I'm not using them to get suits. If I'm using soul stones to get suits or overcome negatives, I don't have them for damage prevention. If I don't have cards in hand for my casts, I have to rely on top-decking it. As others have pointed out, all of his tools require cards (sometimes specific cards) to go off. Extra actions or effects require discarding. Getting one of the (0) actions to go off requires cheating a specific card for both TN and suit, and whether it's Sandeep or a member of his crew using Beacon, you only get one chance to get that (0) off.
If I have no hand, I'm dead in the water. Some Sandeep players might counter this with having Myranda+Imbued Energies; they're counting on card cycling through the first turn and getting a huge leg up early on with activation and positioning advantage. This works well in GG17, but he's not the only one who can bully position on the board.

29 minutes ago, KingCrow said:

As a side note, in regards to burning through stones and cards, I recently brought Amina along with Sandeep and they make a beautiful pairing.  I had Sandeep taking damage to draw cards while Amina was doing her thing to put people at negatives to hit and also getting soulstones back.  Even though Sandeep was so low on health, he wasn't getting hit.  I can imagine seeing these two a lot at future tournaments.

I've been proxying her since Wave 4 hit because of her various interactions. Now that she's available with official card/model for those of us who jumped on the GenCon sales, she'll show up more often in general. Once her official release date hits there will likely be more discussion of what she does well and how to deal with facing her (as well as what tricks to look out for).

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Kang's a solid dude. I love his appearance and the manner in which it was executed. It really helps drive home why the people who work with him aren't affected by terror and why they'll work harder for him than anyone else.

To echo @Sernus: there's something being missed between you and your Fatemaster when it comes to tradeoffs.

One of the immediate things I can recommend is time pressure. Sure, given enough time to prepare you can effectively auto-pass casting a spell and gaining an effect. That's a feature I would use heavily for enchanting purposes. However, if you're running an adventure that puts the Fated on the clock, you force a trade off.
For instance, if the scenario involves stealing something, or rescuing someone and the Fated take too long, they fail. It's up to the Fatemaster to figure out the details and the group as a whole to recognize that the purpose of the game session is to tell a story and that sometimes Bad Things Happen, even to Fated. Some ideas:

• Retrieve item
  • Other teams have been hired for the same purpose. You've arrived at the lair, but the dragon's dead and the treasure cleaned out. Sorry buddy, E for effort?
  • Item is mobile in some way and en route to some place the Fated need to avoid. Can't rob a stagecoach if you're late to the ambush point.
• Rescue
  • Other teams have been hired for the same purpose. You've arrived at the lair, but the dragon's dead and the damsel is on her way home. Sorry buddy, E for effort?
  • One or more antagonist elements have been hired to kill the rescue target. You're in a race, and these guys aren't getting paid to spend time taunting/fighting you.
  • Rescue target self-extracts.
  • Rescue target is moved to some place the Fated need to avoid.
  • Hard time limit due to extenuating circumstances.
    • Rescue target is ill, infected with some kind of ailment or curse and will die if you don't get there in time.
    • Rescue target is being held by Cult of December or Nephilim who decide to eat or succeed in converting them.
    • Kidnappers accidentally kill the rescue target while arguing over ransom sharing.

What these do is introduce a failure scenario. It can be frustrating, but it can also be rewarding to the players (not the Fated) because it gives them more story depth. For the Fated it means that they're less likely to be hired for other contracts and that they're less likely to get a fair deal from people that they deal with. They'll always be the ones remembered for being in the hotel room getting dressed when the train slammed through the gates of Ridley and killed half the townfolk and refugees before the gunfight even started.

Another element that can help control abuse of magic powers are built into the game: the Guild and Arcanists both have ways of nullifying magic. It doesn't matter if you use Enchanting to bump your mental and physical traits to 5 if all of your spells are unravelled by Warding Runes, Counterspelling Witchlings, and anti-magic traps. Speaking of Guild and Arcanists, they have ways of detecting magic use as well. So do some Neverborn.

Beyond those initial thoughts from me, @EnternalVoid has several solid recommendations that your Fatemaster can use instead of a solid ban, such as incurring a cost for attempting to stack higher. Some ways to do that include having a TN that is based off of what you would be raising the stat to, or how high over your natural stat it is. It's especially important to remember the built-in tradeoffs, like Armor reducing Defense. I don't care if you think you can take a hit while being a walking tank if I'm attacking with electrical attacks and hitting you with almost every attack.