ezramantis

Challenge rating isn't as important to non combat encounters. With a social challenge the rewards and consequences are more abstract, easier to fudge, and less likely to end a characters life (at least directly). And it's pretty simple to look at the AV of a NPC's relevant skill and decide whether it will be a suitable challenge for the party's talker. Besides, when most people ask this question, the discussion is about combat encounter balance. Good point about NPC average. Especially since you could skew that number even further by adding a large number of peons, which could actually result in the fated being at an AP disadvantage as well. Ok, so rather than avg the NPC's, their rating can start based on their individual att/def AV. I still think the Fated can be averaged to get a general strength for the party, since a thug SHOULD have an easier time in combat than, say, a lawyer. If the party is heavy on thugs then the lawyer knows to rely on them and stay out of the way. If it's heavy on non combat types then the party avg will go down and the thug(s) will end their opponents and move on to help their pals. A party average also creates 1 number to deal with (after it's calculated) when planning encounters, at least on the Fated side of things.

You know, this isn't the first time this has come up on this forum and it isn't the first time the answer has amounted to "figure it out. Good luck". So since Wyrd can't give us any better guidance maybe if we put our heads together we can work out a rough CR system. What do ya think of this for starters? Average the defenses of the fated. Lets say it's 3. Add 6 or 7 (the average of card values in the fate deck) If that number is equal to the average (AV) of the attacks on the foes being faced, theoretically the foes will land attacks 50% of the time. The same could be done in reverse with the attack skills of the fated and the defense of the NPCs. Increasing the average values of the NPCs makes a harder encounter and decreasing it makes an easier encounter. I recognize that this doesn't take plenty of other factors into account (like damage tracks or comparitive numbers of activations/AP), but it's a starting concept. I'd love it if we could brainstorm this together.

I like this advice. One of the things I LOVE about malifaux is that winning isn't about killing your opponents force (necessarily), it's about the objectives. I'm gonna try and keep this in mind when I'm doing my planning. Often times when I'm feeling out the combat effectiveness of a group, I plan my encounters with the possibility of reinforcements. Start with what you think might be an even challenge for the group. If the NPCs start going down too easy, surprise! there was another squad in the next room, a wandering patrol heard the skirmish, one of the peons calls for his "big brother", or the noise awakens a beastie that was sleeping nearby, etc. This works well for "dungeon crawls". In fact the next session I have planned is basically the Fated clearing a house of zombies. If the first room they clear proves not enough of a challenge, I'll pepper in a few bigger baddies in the next room. The whole session is for me to get a feel for the strength of the group. If the NPCs are wrecking the players, you can have reinforcements show up for the Fated. Or maybe a roar echoes through the sewers, the baddies stop, look at eachother, and flee. What is the sound? Maybe the players would be wise in their battered state to leave the mystery for another day. (I'm suddenly imagining Obiwan Kenobi scaring off the tusken raiders in A New Hope.) I've had villians laugh at the vanquished players and spit on them claiming they were too pathetic to bother killing. I've had sections of floor collapse taking a brutal threat out of reach of the party, saving them at the last minute. All that said, I'm kinda dissappointed that this game doesn't have a "challenge rating" system like 3rd ed d&d or Pathfinder. I kinda expected a company that is used to balancing wargame units with a point system to have SOMETHING in place for their RPG, at least as a starting point for encounter planning.

As someone with little disposable income, I can relate to this. I've lucked out in that my meager collection will actually benefit from the rules changes. I've purchased based on a theme (swampfiends) reguardless of the utility of the models in competitive play and even my models that jumped faction stayed in theme. For me, the specific character lore is secondary to the game. The idea that a fiction author could just kill off one or several of my key models (masters) or have them switch allegiances and that ends up invalidating my purchases is annoying. The type of changes and growth that make good fiction aren't neccessarily the same changes and growth that help a game like this. I played for years with paper proxies but felt that I should buy some models partly because it was a way to support a game I'd like to see gain prominence. I imagine it'd feel like a slap in the face if the company then scattered my models across different factions and keywords based mainly on story. Or at least make me feel like giving them my money is a bad personal investment when I have little money to invest. Sorry for your luck Bago. Sincerely. Maybe Wyrd will hear your plea and be able to accomadate customers like you. Or maybe there are unrevealed elements of 3E that will address concerns (like a simple ugrade for your master that allows the hiring of specific models previously in the faction in M2E. A "legacy" ungrade if you will). Hopefully the new edition will at least bring new players who you can sell to/swap with. I'm hoping for some scene growth in my area.

My thought was that a soulstone headed arrow would be ideally saved for the kill shot, probably on a minion or peon, which would have a cheat card waiting in hand. Wouldn't want to waste the opportunity or lose the stone. That, of course, is the advantage a Fated bowyer has over a chump like me stomping around in the woods, cheating fate. Even so, what a fun moment when a gremlin with that precious arrow in it's tush manages to survive and goes screaming off into the swamp in the middle of a battle and the bower abandons the group to run it down haha.

If a soulstone works more like a computer than a "stone", what's the deal with soulstone dust? I get that it can't be recharged but it must retain some charge if it can power limbs and constructs. It seems like, from what's being said, if you break a bowling ball sized soulstone in half it effectively becomes extremely course grain soulstone dust rather than two huge soulstones. So at that point you'd get more use out of it if you ground it into dust and used it to power constructs, right? Because a soulstone powers a construct for a number of weeks equal to it's lade but soulstone dust will power a construct for a month. And you'd get a good amount of dust out of a bowling ball sized "stone". Unless soulstone dust also comes in grades of some sort that effectively equal it's lade. So you'd need more opaque dust to achieve the same fuel value as a small amount of transparent dust. Basically whatever amounts to 4 lade worth of dust. When buying dust your 5 scrip could get you anything from a small dufflebag to a pinch depending on the quality of the dust.

- I'll have to check that story out. - I have been bow hunting (in the woods). I'm nowhere near as good as a ten thunders archer though . (I'd be eating well if I was.)

I'm really surprised that the rules state that "no matter the lade, a soulstone can only hold a single charge". So since the lade of a soulstone has no effect on its relative power, neither how many charges it can hold nor it's overall effect, what's to stop a group from breaking up the soulstones they have to increase their number of equally powered soulstones? Granted a higher lade soulstone can power constructs for longer, but that's the only way that higher lade stones "hold more powerful magical charges". If your intent is to use it for suits and then smash away right? Sure you gotta be closer to charge em, but just have the party's melee character tote the empties. (Or you make soulstone arrow heads and save a high card to cheat in for the kill shot hee hee. Oh! Or 0 lade soulstone settings in a pair of brass knuckles! "They WERE holding the soulstone when they died. They were holding my fist in their face!" If a charged soulstone is broken do the pieces lose their charge? No biggie if your group is unsavoury enough they can just kill some orphans. Or a more noble party of Fated could spend a day offering comfort at a hospital on a regular basis and "ease the passing" of the terminally ill. Ok, I'm a bit off track. Point is I don't understand why a soulstone's lade doesn't have a bigger effect on it's power.

Getting rid of friendly models generating blast markers? I don't like this change. Part of the charm of the game for me has always been being able to target friendly models with detrimental effects, accepting some amount of sacrifice, to gain some amount of advantage. Sure, it can be annoying while playing vs a raspy crew to have her fire willy nilly into melee knowing that she's sure to hit my models with at least a blast, but that's Malifaux. Masters willing to sacrifice their minions for victory. And effects like that reward out of the box thinking (another thing that makes this game better than other table top skirmish games). The number of times I've squeezed out a few victory points vs a superior crew with better abilities because I've done something like attack my own model to get a push trigger and gain just a few extra inches at the cost of hit points... I mean, to get a good blast you normally need to do moderate or severe damage right? Why are they getting rid of this? If your willing to trade more damage to your models for less damage to opponents models, what's the problem? When I see it as a strategy my opponent is using I adapt and make it either a liability to use that strategy or just minimize their opportunities to abuse it like any other aspect of the game. For me this rule always balanced out the fact that blast attacks didn't have a scatter die style mechanic in a way. (And that they generate the wierd blast marker instead of using a pulse from the target.) If an attack has a blast (grenade like effect) and misses hitting directly shouldn't there be the possibilty of still catching a piece of the target? We don't have that in this game but we do have the ability to turn our models into a homing device at which to lauch our missiles.

Missing the faction change notation behind silurids, gupps, and spawn mother. I scanned neverborn 5 times and thought they were missing entirely.

Doh! You're right. I use that ability so infrequently that I forgot the "living" stipulation.

Noticed the effigy has a Wp of 4. Does this mean I'll finally be able to field Zoraida with a crew of Enthralled effigies? (Please say yes)

This may not fit what you're imagining but I often play Tom Waits when I play malifaux. It really captures the mood for me.

That would be great. So far the only response to this I've seen amounts to "adjust the numbers and figure it out". You'd think a $60 core book written by a skirmish game company with years of experience creating game balance would give you a bit more material and guidance.

When I teach people I use two identical crews. That way anything one players dudes can do, the other player's dudes can do as well. It cuts down on the number of "new things" to learn and remember, since the uniqueness of actions in mfaux can be overwhelming to new players. I actually made a set of paper models on 30mm bases for these learning games. This let me pick whatever models i thought work best. I try to avoid models that add conditions (slow and fast are ok), models with (0) actions, and models who's actions have more complicated timing issues. 4 - 5 models was plenty. 1 master, 1 enforcer, and 2-3 of the same minion. I chose 1 shared kill scheme and 1 shared marker scheme but no strategy. 2 objectives is plenty and illustrates that you can win muliple ways.

Hope there is a rework of the elevation rules for this edition. While I've been able to wrap my head around them I can't seem to explain them sufficiently to most of the people I manage to get playing. So our boards are usually pretty 2 dimesional just to avoid the issues of LoS.

One argument in favor of only being able to cheat when you have a skill, purely from a mechanical standpoint, is that it makes getting those 1,1,1,1,1 flips during character creation more appealing and balances out starting characters a bit better.

I have thought about creating a general talent that allows players to know TNs if they are hidden. Possibly tied to specific skill categories. Not sure what I would call it.

In most of the rpgs I've played there are certain rolls where the TN is not known to the players. Most notably things like perception checks, surprise checks, detect traps, or sense motive work better if the players aren't sure if they could have gotten more or better information or don't know the TN since the info they're trying to aquire is hidden. But with TTB players aren't stuck with the results of their "roll". They have the opportunity to cheat fate after seeing the result of their flip. I'm just sort of taking a poll here and trying to get a feel for what people who've had more experience with this system have learned. Do you prefer making all of your TNs public? Only certain ones? Do players get annoyed if they spend a card to cheat fate on a hidden TN and still get an unsatisfactory result? Are there some situations where a hidden TN is detrimental (like for ongoing challenges)? Even with a hidden TN players can still recognize a bad flip and determine when they really want to hedge their bets. For those of you who use hidden TNs: do you allow a card to be cheated in after success or failure is revealed? How 'bout attack and defense flips? I've always liked having to learn your opponents strengths and weaknesses in battle. A roll of x doesn`t hit?! This must be a tougher bunch of mooks than the last ones we faced!

Thanks guys for your ideas and input. I like the suggestion of using a (0) action to trigger the spell immediately. Ima use that. We are long time Malifaux players so we instictively apply our understanding and terminology to TtB. And since I really like the creativity that the magic system allows for I hate to restrict that creativity without some clear guideline or official ruling. It makes sense that the trigger for Delayed should be more "real world" and less "game rules". Of course it's gonna turn into a game of trick the genie with the FM ruling on semantics rather than intent to curb the power. For example, knowing this player well, he will eventually make the trigger "when an individual who is not (fated A, B, or C) begins to perform an act that has the potentional to directly and intentionally cause physical harm to (fated A, B, or C)". Of course I COULD increase the TN for each potential target involved (on one or both sides). Or I could allow for a FMC to have a wp, speed, or grace save vs the casting result to maintain their AP. But consistency becomes a problem when making rulings. They'll wonder why the adjusted rules apply to certain charcters, spells, or situations but not to others and then people feel cheated or singled out. I love the idea of using delay as a defensive option too, so I'm loathe to hobble it. His "tradition" is based on his Station flip which made him a servant. The delay immutto comes from him training to anticipate his masters needs and be johnny on the spot. I think that's purdy durn neat. And I can always add some mooks to an encounter specifically to sacrificially trigger his spells. That gets a little meta-gamey but it might get necessary.

My player has a starting grimiore that is bringing up timing issues and questions. Just want to get some clarification to make sure I'm not hobbling myself and giving the players too much license. 1. If the Natural and Wind immuto are added to a spell, which "after damaging" effect triggers first, Rooted or the push? (If rooted triggers first the effected character will automatically take 3 extra damage.) 2. Delay immuto with the defined option. Can the defined situation be "when this spell is successfully cast" effectively erasing the immuto? My player ingeniously chose this as his Tradition immuto so it must be added to every spell for free. 3. Delay immuto. If the defined situation is "when target declares an attack" does the spell then interupt the attack and go off before any flip is made? He used this defined situation with the Wind immuto so when the character he was engaged with declared a melee attack it pushed out of range. Since the attack was declared, but the target was no longer valid, the attack failed.