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Kadeton

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Disclaimer: This will be 100% a gripe thread to get out some of my feelings of disappointment about the mechanics of magic in TTB. I will be trying to put down some constructive ideas as well, but since the book is already printed that's unlikely to change anything - my hope is that we can collectively improve things by throwing around ideas for house rules instead.

 

Let's dive in.

 

Spellcasting Pursuits

 

There are three pursuits that allow you to start the game with the ability to cast spells: Dabbler, Graverobber and Tinker.

 

My main annoyance here is that, unless your character begins as one of these pursuits, you can pretty much forget the idea of ever being a competent spellcaster, unless you are extremely patient. In a system with pursuits that are designed to be switched in and out according to the situation for the duration of a session, this just doesn't work.

 

The reason for this is the restrictions placed on spellcasting - your character needs a grimoire, a personal magical theory, and some magical skills in order to cast spells. The three caster pursuits hand you the first two, and allow you to build the third. There's no other way to gain a theory or a grimoire except by FM fiat.

 

(Note: I'm not saying that FM fiat is necessarily a bad way of running the game, but there's two problems with it. First, the game gives you an automatic way of totally bypassing that process at character creation; second, the story is for all the characters, and it can be very frustrating to have your character's progression stall just because the extended process of finding a grimoire and a teacher doesn't fit into the current arc, or frustrating for the other players to hang around while your character goes through that process.)

 

It also negates the reason for having flexible pursuits in the first place - if your character doesn't have a theory and a grimoire, there is never any reason for you to switch into any of the three caster pursuits because they do literally nothing for you.

 

As an example, here's a neat character story: A disgraced University professor flees to Malifaux carrying a stolen necromantic tome, and gradually unlocks its secrets through rigorous study and experimentation. It slowly drives her mad as her power grows, before she unleashes the undead horrors she's created on her enemies.

 

I'm pretty sure I've read a variation of that story - but it can't happen in TTB without a lot of fudging and approximation. Your Academic can't start with a grimoire, so she'll have to find one. Then, the character may choose a magical theory at the FM's discretion (there are no rules for this, by the way - does it take the place of a general talent?) which is a roleplaying exercise - in this case, the character probably hears the Whisper, which instantly drives her as insane as she's ever going to get. By this stage, she's probably a few progression steps along the Academic path, so she'll be playing catch-up with the other characters once she switches into Graverobber.

 

Alternatively, you could start the character as a Graverobber, in which case she is already a full-fledged necromancer and has done 90% of her character's development before the game even starts. That's not particularly satisfying, and it's pretty weird as well.

 

My overall problem with this mechanic: I would like my characters to be able to develop magical skill at a developmental pace, not by jumping through a couple of hoops over which they have no control (or bypassing the hoops entirely) and instantly becoming master sorcerers.

 

Magical Theories

 

Aside from the problem of getting a magical theory (see above), there are numerous problems with the mechanics of the theories themselves. From the top:

 

The Oxford Method

 

Cast spells slowly, and don't try to bring that AP cost back down with immuto, because then you lose the only bonus this talent gives. This is basically a 100% kick-you-in-the-nuts talent compared to others you could take. Making every spell cost +1 AP locks you out of all the spells that are 2 AP already, unless you also take the Reduce AP immuto at +5 TN. That's a dealbreaker - there's no reason to ever take this theory unless you're somehow forced to.

 

(Quick fix: change the description to read "The caster gains [+] to the Casting Duel of any Spell with an AP cost of 2 or more. The caster may always apply the Increase AP immuto to any spell she casts, even if it is not in her current Grimoire.")

 

The Whisper

 

This is probably the automatic choice for most Graverobbers, and nobody else would ever pick it. A positive twist to Necromancy duels (positive twists are a recurring theme here - every sensible spellcaster will always have a [+] to whatever they're trying to do, which makes you wonder why your favourite Master took a crap theory instead) and a negative twist to Intellect duels. What's an Intellect duel? I can't find a definition - if we assume that it applies to any skill based on Intellect, that's actually kind of neat, since it makes dedicated Ressurectionists absolutely terrible at pretending to be legitimate. It also makes them awful at alchemy and doctoring, which is unfortunate, and probably stops them from picking up most types of Sorcery... in which case, you really should have taken Tradition Magic instead.

 

(Quick fix: make Tradition Magic less of an auto-take. It would also be better to apply the [-] to Social Skill duels other than Intimidate, rather than to all Intellect duels.)

 

The Darlin Theories

 

This one's a trap. It looks like it's intended for Ramos-style inventors, but then you run into the restrictions and broken rules. You can only cast a spell if you have a pneumatic device of some kind. Now, if you've got an expensive mechanical limb, that's great... but how are you going to get one of those? How much are pneumatic limbs actually worth, anyway - the cost listed in the equipment section (which you can't afford) "includes the cost of surgery," so does the surgery cost count for Darlin's theories? The breakout box about "Building Inanimate Constructs and Limbs" specifies that a skilled Artefactor can create a limb for one quarter the cost listed in the Equipment section - so is a hand-crafted partial limb worth 4 scrip, or 15? The Darlin Theories description states that the value of the device is equal to the cost of the scrap used to create it, so that means it's 4 scrip... have fun blowing your leg off every single time you cast a spell!

 

(Quick fix: change the description to "The caster must apply the Focus Object immuto to every spell she casts, and may do so even if it is not in her current Grimoire. The Focus Object must be a pneumatic device crafted by the caster using the Artefacting skill." You could also add "If the Black Joker is flipped as part of the Casting Duel, the device is destroyed.")

 

The Court Procedure

 

This one's actually pretty good - a nice carrot and a bit of stick to point you in the right direction. It's the only one that I'm basically fine with. However, given the type of spells that a Court mage would thematically cast, an alternate option would be something like "The caster may add one Mask to the Casting Duel Total of any spell she casts that is resisted by Willpower."

 

Thalarian Doctrine

 

Eeurgh. This one's a mess. You can't raise your casting skills above 3 (other than Enchanting) without "special dispensation from the Guild" or "becoming a heretic". It's an attempt to use roleplaying restrictions as mechanics, and it doesn't work. I mean, everyone who doesn't follow Thalarian Doctrine but is practicing magic is already a "heretic" anyway, right? So you could just ignore the restrictions... but the bonus it gives only applies when targeting other mages, so why would you choose it over Tradition Magic?

 

I'm not even sure where to start fixing this one, but like the Whisper, it's probably in fixing Tradition Magic.

 

The Balanced Five

 

Two Elemental immuto, yay! If you want to start an electrical fire or make someone blind and terrified or trap them in poisoned branches, this is the theory for you. My only issue here is that all of those things sound pretty cool, and it's annoying that the only way to do them is to take this otherwise pointless (and heavily Three Kingdoms-themed) theory. If everyone could apply multiple elemental immuto, the flexibility of spell creation would be greatly increased (and most people still wouldn't do it anyway, since the selection of immuto is so limited).

 

Hedge Magic

 

This is the blasty elemental sorcerer theory. Unfortunately, it's both incredibly powerful and incredibly restrictive. First, it gives you the equivalent of Mastered Immuto in one element. Then, it doesn't charge you for using that immuto - it's not clear how this affects immuto that can be applied more than once, although the result is obviously and hideously broken if you allow it to be applied multiple times for free. ("My spell does infinite burning damage!") The downside is that you can only casts spells that can apply the elemental immuto, of which there are a grand total of four in the whole game (Elemental Engulf, Elemental Projectile, Elemental Strike and Elemental Weapon). I'll put that here again for emphasis: You can only cast four spells, ever (and if you start as a Dabbler, you can't get Elemental Weapon) and three of them are variations on the same effect. Your character is now an artillery platform - albeit a really powerful one - with no utility at all.

 

There's also the option to choose a Genus immuto under the same rules. This one's way less restrictive if you choose wisely, but then you get essentially no benefit from it. The Genus rules aren't particularly clear on whether they can be applied to useless effect - if you chose Beasts, and cast Shapeshift on yourself (which would affect you even if you had the Beast characteristic), can you apply the "unleashed" Genus without actually increasing the possible target list, or would you have to apply the "chained" version which would prevent you from affecting yourself, since you're not a Beast?

 

(Quick fix: Just don't take this theory, it's too messed up.)

 

Tradition Magic

 

Finally, we come to the one and only magical theory that's worth selecting, regardless of who your character is. It gives you a [+] on all duels with your chosen magical skill. The only downside is that there's another magical skill that you can't raise above 1 (Necromancy for Sorcerers, Sorcery for Necromancers, Prestidigitation for Enchanters). But who cares? It's not like you've got any of those spells anyway. It's pure min-maxing.

 

There's no quick fix for this one, since it basically needs a ground-up rebuild. I'd like to see it have some benefit when using all the trappings that the description talks about - staves, wands, runestones, etc.

 

Where's the rest?

 

I'm assuming that at some point, we'll see a supplement with some other magical theories that expand this list. Just for starters, it's annoying that there's no "Stage Magic" theory - something that would focus on Prestidigitation casters, since that seems to be the forgotten school of magic. An illusionist would be quite fun to play.

 

I'm going to break here - the next post will pick it back up, starting with Soulstones.

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Soulstones

 

The description of soulstone lade suggests that "the number of people who have actually seen Soulstones with a Lade rating above 7 can be counted on one hand." My contention is that nobody has any reason to ever see a soulstone at all, because the damn things are practically useless.

 

First, the value. What the hell is going on in this section? Sure, the value is "merely representative of what an Earthside government might be willing to pay for one," but come on - a dingy soulstone that's so small it has to be handled with tweezers costs a thousand scrip. This stone holds two charges and recharges one per year at its natural rate... but for the same price as your crappy, insanely overpriced grain of soulsand, you could get a hundred charges of soulstone dust. Why would anyone ever buy anything other than dust for any reason?

 

At most, the value of a soulstone should be a slight premium over the amount of dust it would take to cast an equivalent number of spells. Taking a year as the baseline for comparison, and doing a bit of fudging to get rounder numbers, we get something like the following as a more reasonable value for stones:

 

Lade  Value

  1. 30 S
  2. 50 S
  3. 175 S
  4. 300 S
  5. 750 S
  6. 1250 S
  7. 4000 S
  8. 10 000 S
  9. 100 000 S
  10. 200 000 S

My overall problem with this mechanic: Soulstones are something that most characters will never be able to afford to even look at, let alone keep for themselves. Given how intrinsic the availability of soulstones is to the Malifaux setting in the stories, this seems silly. (Seriously, people pay each other in bags full of the things.)

 

Using Soulstones

 

The second part of the soulstone problem is that they're generally not that good for much.

 

It's worth noting that the high-lade stones are literally useless for most people. You can only use a stone if your Harness Soulstone + Charm is at least equal to its lade. All I can say is that the upper levels of Earthside governments must have some seriously charming people (which hasn't been my experience, honestly). Again, since dust is Lade 0, it's not only vastly cheaper but also way more accessible.

 

If you somehow get your hands on one of these priceless stones and decide to use it rather than selling it and retiring to live the life of a billionaire playboy forever, it won't even do you much good. You have the standard [+] on a single Duel (that's worth your character's entire starting wealth, right?), the ability to augment a duel with a suit for the purpose of triggers, or the option to power an ongoing spell for a while.

 

That second one (adding a suit) is worth another look. Soulstones are meant to be good for mages, right? Well, it might come as a shock that the spell-building rules have absolutely no option to build a trigger into your spell. You have to get that from Talents, and they're not spell-specific. So... how does soulstone benefit mages, again? Honestly, it has more use among the Critical-Strike-toting gunslinger community.

 

Powering an ongoing spell sounds cool (in theory), though! Say you want to animate a limb (perhaps the limb that you blew up because you learned the Darlin Theories by mistake). Let's assume you have the Extend Duration immuto, which you can apply twice to make the limb active for a year. Now, all you need to do to keep that limb working forever is scrape together a thousand scrip. Or... just cast the damn spell once per year, at no cost whatsoever. If you didn't take Extend Duration, you'll need to fork out twenty thousand scrip to keep that limb working in perpetuity - or, again, take 2 AP out of your busy schedule once a month to cast the spell again, and spend the mountain of cash you've assembled on building an army of robots instead. Even if you can't cast the spell yourself, just pour 10 scrip of dust into the gears to keep it going (this is even what it suggests you do in the pneumatic limb section).

 

My overall problem with this mechanic: Not only are stones way overcosted, they're also almost totally useless. You might use some dust to keep a spell going, but you will probably never use a stone for any actual purpose.

 

Next time: Grimoires.

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I'm enjoying your write up, but I have to disagree with your concern about 'how will a player find a grimoire without FM fiat?'  The book more or less says that should a player want to pick up magic you should give them a grimoire at the earliest opportunity.  Grimoires want to be found and can exist anywhere.  Look, I found one under my bed at the inn.  The guy who got shot in the alley by the saloon had on in his bag.  One is dropped off via courrier without a word.  You trip on it as you're walking through the bayou.  It doesn't need to make a lot of sense--this is Malifaux. 

 

I find a bigger issue being the Darlin Theory being completely unplayable out of the box.  You start with 10 scrip and a grimoire.  Do you spend your entire starting payload on an item that does nothing?  If not, you don't get to cast spells.  A generous FM might allow a player to purchase one at 1/4 cost, but at that point you're asking for handouts.  I also think it's strange that there's two differing mechanics for the same effect.  Maybe force Darlinists to apply the item restriction immuto to all spells without benefit?

 

On the issue of Hedge Magic...  I was trying to find a reason I couldn't just add the ice immuto to animate limb.  The mechanical effects occur when someone takes damage.  The spell doesn't do damage?  There's no extra effect.  You just built an arm out of ice instead of metal.  I want to go into further discussion, but class is about to start.  I'll drop back in later

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Cheers Fog. :)

 

I guess if your FM is happy to hand you a grimoire and a theory at any time, that's cool... but then what's the point of starting as a spellcaster? The starting equipment is meant to be roughly 25 scrip's worth of stuff, but if you can trivially stumble across a Dabbler or Graverobber's gear for free... either grimoires are rare or grimoires are common, and either way it's a problem. (Not that the game's economy is particularly robust in any case.)

 

The Darlin stuff is so broken. Until I started this write-up, I hadn't really looked into it too closely, but then I began putting the pieces together and realised it's completely unusable until the point where you can afford to buy yourself a massive pile of scrap (20 scrip's worth should do) and craft a pneumatic magic wand out of it - then you never have to care about it ever again.

 

Now that I think about it, though... what's the smallest amount of scrap that could be used to make a pneumatic device? We know there are decimal scrip amounts from the equipment section - if I used 0.1 scrip to buy a tiny amount of scrap and made that into a tiny pneumatic device, could that be used to power a Darlin spell? There are no rules for this.

 

On building an ice arm - that's certainly a cute way to get around the restrictions. Being able to add an effect that works on damage to a spell that doesn't deal damage feels intuitively wrong to me, but if your FM is happy to house-rule it that way, go for your life. ;)

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Technically, I think the house rule is restricting the elemental effect from being added to any spell.  There's absolutely no restrictions in the book about what immuto can be applied to what magia, and while saying effects that modify damage can only be added to spells that deal damage is perfectly reasonable the official rule as written is "Whatever the FM says."  I don't disagree with your house rule at all, but I'm not certain that the exclusion was intended.  Animate Construct with the Ice immuto is probably how Rasputina made those gamin.  It's kind of hard to argue intent, but we might get someone involved in the design process to shed some light on this.

 

I never considered a pile of scrap doohickeys that you cycle through, then repair during downtime, slowly snowballing until your scrap pile is big enough to be amazing.  I'm sure that's not the intended course of action (though, again, discussing intent is hard) but it's the only way to make it usable outside of being handed something via fiat...  although the character art for tinker explicitly shows a metal arm.  Is there a particular reason they *don't* get one?

 

On grimoires:  I don't think grimoires are common, but I think the story point is that they want to be found.  It's kind of implied that dark forces steer these things into the hands of people who will use them.  One of the things I really like about this game is the emphasis on Fate, the Fated, and Destiny.  In a game like D&D you're literally rooting through a pile of stuff taken from the bodies of things you've killed, a random collection of brickabrack.  In TTB, the whole Fate concept seems to help reduce the 'bad taste' left when you give the player something they're interested in pursuing.  You don't even have to pretend that random chance has left something in their path.  Chance isn't a thing for these people.  I do understand how it might feel like it unbalances the starting gear but honestly, if someone decides to follow Pursuit X day one and then shift straight to a caster class it will typically be one of two situations.  Either the player earnestly has a specific concept for the character with specific goals or the player is trying to game the system.  Player A will easily win me over and get his grimoire.  Player B will wait until I feel like giving it to him and I won't feel bad about the delay.

One big message I get from the book is play for the story and the fun.  From the very beginning it assumes a level of cooperation and honesty between players and FMs that many established gamers don't necessarily have.  It's far too common for a game master and players to have an adversarial relationship, each trying to win out over the other in some way.  This game assumes you're all working together for the sake of everyone's enjoyment.  The rules aren't written with the precise legalese that other games provide.  If players and the FM can get on the same page, I don't think you need it.

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This game sounds horribly unfinished. Is it?

 

In the context of being a first edition RPG created by a very small team under extreme time pressure? It's amazingly comprehensive. Compared to well-established RPGs with multiple editions under their belts... yeah, there are some serious rough edges. I honestly don't know whether I would prefer to have a rushed book in the near future that I will write endless house-rules for, or a well-polished book that might have taken another entire year to produce (and let's be honest, I would probably still write endless house-rules for it).

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Technically, I think the house rule is restricting the elemental effect from being added to any spell.  There's absolutely no restrictions in the book about what immuto can be applied to what magia, and while saying effects that modify damage can only be added to spells that deal damage is perfectly reasonable the official rule as written is "Whatever the FM says."  I don't disagree with your house rule at all, but I'm not certain that the exclusion was intended.  Animate Construct with the Ice immuto is probably how Rasputina made those gamin.  It's kind of hard to argue intent, but we might get someone involved in the design process to shed some light on this.

 

I never considered a pile of scrap doohickeys that you cycle through, then repair during downtime, slowly snowballing until your scrap pile is big enough to be amazing.  I'm sure that's not the intended course of action (though, again, discussing intent is hard) but it's the only way to make it usable outside of being handed something via fiat...  although the character art for tinker explicitly shows a metal arm.  Is there a particular reason they *don't* get one?

 

On grimoires:  I don't think grimoires are common, but I think the story point is that they want to be found.  It's kind of implied that dark forces steer these things into the hands of people who will use them.  One of the things I really like about this game is the emphasis on Fate, the Fated, and Destiny.  In a game like D&D you're literally rooting through a pile of stuff taken from the bodies of things you've killed, a random collection of brickabrack.  In TTB, the whole Fate concept seems to help reduce the 'bad taste' left when you give the player something they're interested in pursuing.  You don't even have to pretend that random chance has left something in their path.  Chance isn't a thing for these people.  I do understand how it might feel like it unbalances the starting gear but honestly, if someone decides to follow Pursuit X day one and then shift straight to a caster class it will typically be one of two situations.  Either the player earnestly has a specific concept for the character with specific goals or the player is trying to game the system.  Player A will easily win me over and get his grimoire.  Player B will wait until I feel like giving it to him and I won't feel bad about the delay.

One big message I get from the book is play for the story and the fun.  From the very beginning it assumes a level of cooperation and honesty between players and FMs that many established gamers don't necessarily have.  It's far too common for a game master and players to have an adversarial relationship, each trying to win out over the other in some way.  This game assumes you're all working together for the sake of everyone's enjoyment.  The rules aren't written with the precise legalese that other games provide.  If players and the FM can get on the same page, I don't think you need it.

 

Technically, if there's no rule for it, anything you decide to do is a house rule. ;)

 

I'm sure the scrap-pile recycling method isn't intended - it's a horrible waste of time, since each tiny gadget takes an hour to craft. Of course, you could just start as a Drudge with a pneumatic arm, and ask your FM for a grimoire and a theory...

 

It's definitely a game focused on fun, and it mostly does that very well. The bits where that falls down (and I find it happens mostly in Magic, hence the thread) are where it actually has quite explicit, fully-defined rules that unfortunately don't actually work. The purpose of the discussion is to find ways to make them work, so we can have more fun without trying to come up with fixes on the fly.

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Grimoires

 

There's actually very little to say about grimoires, because the game has very little to say about them - a single page, half of which is given over to examples of the various forms they could potentially take (which is neat, but probably belongs in the Fatemaster's book instead).

 

The only real "rules" here are that an individual can only "access" (read: equip) a single grimoire at a time, and that makes those Magia and Immuto available to her for spellcasting. Everything else is incredibly vague - switching grimoires requires a "reasonable" amount of time ("purely a narrative declaration"), and the character doesn't have to have the grimoire with her, just "needs to declare that this is the magical field of study that [she] is currently focused on." They "turn up in the oddest of places."

 

The only grimoires that are explicitly defined are those that come with starting character packages. Briefly:

 

A Dabbler grimoire has 1 Sorcery Magia, 1 Prestidigitation Magia, and 3 Immuto;

A Graverobber grimoire has 1 Necromancy Magia, 1 Enchanting Magia, and 3 Immuto;

A Tinkerer grimoire has 1 Enchanting Magia, 1 Sorcery Magia, and 3 Immuto.

 

This sets up an informal guideline of two Magia and three Immuto per grimoire, but this isn't even hinted at in the grimoire section. Unfortunately, the spell creation system seems to be built to some extent with this level of Magia/Immuto restriction in mind, so allowing players to have access to a lot more options can quickly break the system. This also comes into play with the Mastery talents (particularly Mastered Immuto) in later Steps on a Pursuit.

 

The upshot of all this is that the power of magic, and the influence it will have on the campaign as a whole, is left entirely up to the Fatemaster with no guidelines on how to avoid pitfalls or problems it might cause. On the whole, this is a pretty minor concern - the game structure assumes a collaborative approach to resolving game-breaking situations - but it would have been nice to see a section in the FM's guide with some rough guidelines on building grimoires without unbalancing the game.

 

I will say that I find the starting grimoires incredibly restrictive - two spells spread across two magical skills with three immuto to share between them (in general, an immuto that you might apply to a Sorcery spell will not be particularly appropriate for a Prestidigitation spell, and so on) leaves the starting spellcaster feeling highly restricted.

 

It also annoys me that there's no way to add to your existing grimoire, in the way that you might expect a developing mage to research new spell components and write them down. Apparently the only way that people learn magic in Malifaux is by finding it lying around - there's no other method of expanding your repertoire.

 

I would have liked to see a mechanic where increasing one of your Magic skills let you add a new Magia (of that skill area) or a new Immuto to your current grimoire. This has the nice knock-on effect of subtly encouraging players to develop their Magic skills from lower starting values, without explicitly requiring it if you decide to be a straightforward inflexible blaster.

 

Spellcasting

 

The process of creating spell actions on the fly has a number of problems, in my opinion.

 

From a gameplay perspective, it's a hard break in the dramatic flow of the game to have a player go "Hang on, I need to take a minute to do some maths and work out what the final TN of my spell is going to be." This can be an extended decision-making process during which the other players and the FM have nothing to do except watch the spellcasting player juggle numbers.

 

From a balance perspective, it's problematic to allow a player to exactly tailor a spell so that it's guaranteed to be cast with maximum possible effect. If you have a Ca 6 and a 10 in hand, there's no reason not to make sure that your spell's TN is exactly 16, or as near as possible. Of course, this only works if you have high-ish cards in hand... however, each of the spellcasting classes comes with automatic card-cycling mechanics. If you don't currently have the card necessary to cast a spell, just try for a high-TN (I usually go for one that would require a 9 or 10 to cast) and if you fail, draw a card. This enables you very quickly to mill your deck for the best cards and then use them to maximum effect.

 

(In this context, it is thankful - though somewhat bizarre, given that the ranged and melee versions are available - that there is no way for characters to gain Furious Casting or Casting Expert, which would inevitably become Furious Card Drawing and Card Drawing Expert.)

 

What I would propose instead is that characters need to have a short list of pre-defined spells (perhaps one per point in the relevant Magic skill) that have a finalised TN and list of effects. The player would be able to modify any aspect of any spell on the list at any point except during Dramatic Time - once you're in a combat situation, there simply isn't time to read your book and figure out a new combination of components on the fly.

 

This would encourage players to define their "combat" spells in advance, which would speed up spellcaster gameplay and keep the game moving smoothly, while still allowing total flexibility for "non-combat" spells where the caster has the opportunity to tailor their spell to the situation.

 

Manifesting Powers

 

Powers are actually pretty solid, and I honestly expected them to be one of the cornerstones of the game... but they're kind of not. They allow for far greater flexibility in power creation (use any combination of Magia and Immuto you want, cast using any Skill + Attribute you want, replace the necessary suits as appropriate - all subject to FM approval, of course) while obviously having far less flexibility than spells in their application (cannot be altered to suit the situation).

 

The problem is not with the process of power creation so much as it is with their acquisition. The only way to manifest a power is to fulfill a step on your Destiny. Frustratingly, this means you cannot, under any circumstances, start with a Manifested Power. I have plenty of character concepts whose core mechanic relies on a Manifested Power - in effect, playing any of these characters would be simply taking a holding pattern until a Destiny Step came up, after which you could actually start using them properly.

 

Additionally, you have to weigh the benefit of taking a Manifested Power against the benefit of increasing one of your core attributes by 1. An attribute increase is a hugely significant boost to a character's power. This makes the decision unpleasant, rather than difficult but rewarding - do I make my character much better at the things she does already, or do I give her the cool ability that's at the heart of her concept? Either way I feel like I'm missing out on something, rather than being rewarded, and that sucks.

 

My preferred fix for both these issues would be to add a General Talent that allows the character to take a Manifested Power. This makes powers available for characters as they need them - if your concept requires one at character creation, make it your starting Talent. If you want one later on, you get a new General Talent every two Steps. The General Talents are often very powerful, and the Power you manifest is still subject to FM discretion, so this really shouldn't cause balance problems. Additionally, it would free up the Destiny advances to purely buff the character's core stats, without some characters having to sacrifice their power just to fit their concept.

 

Next: An in-depth examination of the actual spell components.

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Soulstones

 

The description of soulstone lade suggests that "the number of people who have actually seen Soulstones with a Lade rating above 7 can be counted on one hand." My contention is that nobody has any reason to ever see a soulstone at all, because the damn things are practically useless.

 

First, the value. What the hell is going on in this section? Sure, the value is "merely representative of what an Earthside government might be willing to pay for one," but come on - a dingy soulstone that's so small it has to be handled with tweezers costs a thousand scrip. This stone holds two charges and recharges one per year at its natural rate... but for the same price as your crappy, insanely overpriced grain of soulsand, you could get a hundred charges of soulstone dust. Why would anyone ever buy anything other than dust for any reason?

I think the initial problem here is that a lot of the soulstones that people see are going to fit into the "soulstone dust" category, and that "soulstone dust" isn't necessarily something with the consistency of ground walnuts or miniature flock. A soulstone "the size of a small coin" would be a several dozen caret gem.

And as for "Where's the realism in this situation?" Two words: Diamond cartels. The Malifaux setting is basically about a magic diamond mine, with magic diamond mining cartels.

Those Guild maintained mechanical constructs don't automatically renew themselves, the Guild has minions who are responsible for renewing the spells which motivate them and ensuring that the required soulstone (dust) is provided.

 

At most, the value of a soulstone should be a slight premium over the amount of dust it would take to cast an equivalent number of spells. Taking a year as the baseline for comparison, and doing a bit of fudging to get rounder numbers, we get something like the following as a more reasonable value for stones:

 

Lade  Value

  • 30 S
  • 50 S
  • 175 S
  • 300 S
  • 750 S
  • 1250 S
  • 4000 S
  • 10 000 S
  • 100 000 S
  • 200 000 S
My overall problem with this mechanic: Soulstones are something that most characters will never be able to afford to even look at, let alone keep for themselves. Given how intrinsic the availability of soulstones is to the Malifaux setting in the stories, this seems silly. (Seriously, people pay each other in bags full of the things.)

I think part of the problem is that the prices presented aren't meaningful to anyone involved, much like the price for magic weapons in D&D. So part of the reason they are there is as a sign to beginning characters to say "No, you can't have these."

People living in the magic diamond mine give each other with bags of (lower quality than you might expect) magic diamonds as payment and trade. Because they live in the magic diamond mine and they don't expect to get out of there with those magic diamonds.

On the other hand, two more points about soulstone dust:

1. Unless I'm delusional, I'm pretty sure soulstone dust was invented as the way to make "Here's a bag of soulstones" plausible and practical as a compromise between how valuable soulstones are and how much they get traded about in the fiction.

2. Because soulstone dust isn't rechargeable, that price chart probably isn't meant to apply to non-zero laud rating dust-quality soulstones.

And, for what it's worth, Warmachine couldn't get the price of coal (something really important for steam powered robots) right, either. :)

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I personally think part of the other problem is you are trying to think of value in terms of how it benefits the characters adventures and expecting value to be based on that. Consider something, if SS existed for real but instead of magic they were just energy, consider how much governments would be willing to pay or do to acquire it. Consider that even the tiny ss you mention can still power some kind of machinery,... Effectively forever. Consider really how much that would be worth. Want to send equipment to the bottom of the deepest trench in the ocean? Power it with a ss. Want to power a satilight, but want to dispense with all the weight and engineering solar panels require? SS it is!

The fact of the expense of ss is because it is essentially limitless long term magical energy, something, that in the backstory of MALIFAUX, earth was running very low on. Yes from a practical battle standpoint its hard to figure the value, but it isn't hard, at least for me, to see why, given there potential, their cost is what it is.

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I don't feel comfortable quoting a lot from the Kickstarter forum, but here's a link to one of the relevant posts: http://ferro.bad-things-happen.com/showthread.php?101-TTB-Economy&p=1908&viewfull=1#post1908

But, two lines of that: 

In this case, the Guild has achieved every robber baron's perfect dream. No government oversite, total control over their product supply, a demand unequaled by any other product.


Edit: And an better reply by Mr. Mack directly on the topic of the soulstone economy: http://ferro.bad-things-happen.com/showthread.php?101-TTB-Economy&p=1888&viewfull=1#post1888

 

The prices aren't set by statistics and gameplay. They are set by a greedy robber barons who have a stranglehold on the most powerful resource the world has ever seen. It's a lot like the diamond industry, except that in this case the diamonds have beeen used to change the course of history.

 

Edit:  Really, if you have access to the Kickstarter forum, the "TTB Economy" thread is a definite must read.  Because soulstones are deliberately prohibitively expensive because that's what the Guild wants.

 

Because outside of the magic diamond mine known as Malifaux, you need soulstones to effectively cast magic.

Soulstone dust is a self eliminating problem, and with a "The first hit's free" bonus for those in charge of the supply. Give someone a bag of dust, they'll be back for more. But if the Guild catches someone with some soulstones that the Guild feels that they shouldn't have, all sorts of bad things can happen to that person.  And "How did someone like you get ahold of something this valuable?" is a wonderful question for the Guild Enforcer to be able to say.

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To respond to a few points about Soulstones (not sure why this has become the hot-button issue, but that's fine):

 

I'm not particularly concerned about the fluff justifications for why soulstones are pointless in the game. The mere fact that they are pointless is enough for it to be a problem.

 

The current table might as well say "Soulstone dust: 10S. Any other grade or size of soulstones: NOPE." Soulstones could be useful as Macguffins or other plot devices, but there's no reason for all the economic rules.

 

Inventing "soulstone dust" as a way of justifying bags of soulstones is the literal definition of solving a problem that didn't exist. There was no reason why the cheap and plentiful option couldn't have been actual stones.

 

Powering unmanned deep-sea or deep-space exploration is certainly a plausible use for stones, but it's about the only use I can think of. Any situation where the relevant machinery is human-accessible at regular intervals would be far better served using dust at a tiny fraction of the cost. Ultimately, that's my contention, regardless of other concerns - even the most ridiculously short-sighted government would be able to tell that spending 120S to power a spell for a year is more economical than spending 20 000S.

 

Clearly, the main problem is that I think of soulstones as a consumable resource like magic coal, not as a commodity with ridiculous markups like magic diamonds. I can get behind the idea that they have an immense extrinsic value that massively overshadows their intrinsic worth... but there's no reason to bring that into the game, because it's so far beyond the scope as to be irrelevant.

 

Game-relevant questions would be along these lines: If my character finds a Lade 2 soulstone, what can they actually do with it (other than waste it on spells)? Who might it be sold to, and for how much? Are there legal restrictions on possessing it? Could I turn it in to the Guild for a finder's fee, and how much would that be worth?

 

The game doesn't even try to answer the questions about soulstones that would be relevant to the characters, and instead goes on about all the wealth-of-nations nonsense. It smacks of "Hey, this is a cool thought experiment," rather than "I am designing a game."

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To respond to a few points about Soulstones (not sure why this has become the hot-button issue, but that's fine):

 

I'm not particularly concerned about the fluff justifications for why soulstones are pointless in the game. The mere fact that they are pointless is enough for it to be a problem.

 

The current table might as well say "Soulstone dust: 10S. Any other grade or size of soulstones: NOPE." Soulstones could be useful as Macguffins or other plot devices, but there's no reason for all the economic rules.

 

Inventing "soulstone dust" as a way of justifying bags of soulstones is the literal definition of solving a problem that didn't exist. There was no reason why the cheap and plentiful option couldn't have been actual stones.

The reason why cheap and plentiful soulstones don't exist is: That's the premise of the background. The Fated Almanac, pages 14 through 27, particularly section explaining the rise of the Guild.

The prices in the book are the prices for soulstones in Guild Scrip. Those prices are outrageous and extortionary the same way that diamond prices are outrageous and extortionary.

 

Powering unmanned deep-sea or deep-space exploration is certainly a plausible use for stones, but it's about the only use I can think of. Any situation where the relevant machinery is human-accessible at regular intervals would be far better served using dust at a tiny fraction of the cost. Ultimately, that's my contention, regardless of other concerns - even the most ridiculously short-sighted government would be able to tell that spending 120S to power a spell for a year is more economical than spending 20 000S.

 

Clearly, the main problem is that I think of soulstones as a consumable resource like magic coal, not as a commodity with ridiculous markups like magic diamonds. I can get behind the idea that they have an immense extrinsic value that massively overshadows their intrinsic worth... but there's no reason to bring that into the game, because it's so far beyond the scope as to be irrelevant.

See The Age of Strife and the Black Powder Wars. And note that the difference is that beyond dust level, soulstones can be recharged at the price of human suffering and death.

 

Game-relevant questions would be along these lines: If my character finds a Lade 2 soulstone, what can they actually do with it (other than waste it on spells)? Who might it be sold to, and for how much? Are there legal restrictions on possessing it? Could I turn it in to the Guild for a finder's fee, and how much would that be worth?

It's a soulstone, they exist to power and enable the casting of spells and are required for a spell to have a duration. The phrase "waste it on spells" means that you don't accept that premise.

It's a bit like complaining about the negative consequences of magic in a Call of Cthulhu game. Magic is fundamentally bad for you, bad things are associated with it, and yet, because you can accomplish things with magic that you can't otherwise, people still chase after it to their doom.

On the other hand, I think you've mistaken the seep value of the soulstone for how often the soulstone can be used. The seep just indicates how often the soulstone regenerates power on its own. When you want to use it more often than that, that's what the recharging rules involving human suffering are for. And imagine telling a factory owner during the industrial revolution that they could have a factory that ran on the power of human suffering.

 

On the third hand, consider the consequences of a tightly regulated, extoriately over priced commodity in a situation like that. The Guild isn't going to give someone a finder's fee for turning in lost soulstone, they're going to confiscate the material and let the person go unharmed if they're lucky. So if you have a soulstone and you don't want it, you need to find someone to fence it for you, or find one of the other factions to take it off your hands. Or you could try to make it back through the breach on your own to sell it where people will pay even more for it.

The game doesn't even try to answer the questions about soulstones that would be relevant to the characters, and instead goes on about all the wealth-of-nations nonsense. It smacks of "Hey, this is a cool thought experiment," rather than "I am designing a game."

Appraising the work as a first edition, and appraising that the details are a bit rough may be a fair appraisal. But complaining about the premise of a fantasy game isn't going to change the premise.

Through The Breach is not a magic positive setting like Space:1889 or similar settings. "Bad Things Happen" is a deliberate tag line.

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The reason why cheap and plentiful soulstones don't exist is: That's the premise of the background. The Fated Almanac, pages 14 through 27, particularly section explaining the rise of the Guild.

 

Call me crazy if you like, but I'd prefer that the game had been developed to be both a good setting and a good game. If soulstones are going to be featured in the game (as they should be, being one of the core features of the Malifaux setting), then they need to be both useful and accessible to characters on some level. I'd also prefer that the fluff that was written for the RPG matched what we know of the existing Malifaux setting, to whit: people often use soulstones as an alternate form of currency to pay for things that aren't on the order of  thousands of Scrip (like hiring a mercenary).

 

It's a soulstone, they exist to power and enable the casting of spells and are required for a spell to have a duration. The phrase "waste it on spells" means that you don't accept that premise.

Their value is clearly not tied to their spellcasting potential, because dust is the only economical way of casting spells, and the higher-lade stones are almost impossible to use for spellcasting. Their value must therefore be based on something else - presumably an artificial inflation by the Guild. Using an actual stone to cast spells is like buying a ten-thousand-dollar diamond and then using it for a drill bit.

 

It's a bit like complaining about the negative consequences of magic in a Call of Cthulhu game. Magic is fundamentally bad for you, bad things are associated with it, and yet, because you can accomplish things with magic that you can't otherwise, people still chase after it to their doom.

Magic is great - there are no negative consequences for it (except perhaps socially) in Malifaux. It's also cheap, and doesn't require soulstones in almost all cases (and even if it does, dust is cheap). The way the Through the Breach fluff and mechanics have been written has made soulstones obsolete in Malifaux - their only value is Earthside, and the characters will most likely not take part in that economy.

 

On the other hand, I think you've mistaken the seep value of the soulstone for how often the soulstone can be used. The seep just indicates how often the soulstone regenerates power on its own. When you want to use it more often than that, that's what the recharging rules involving human suffering are for. And imagine telling a factory owner during the industrial revolution that they could have a factory that ran on the power of human suffering.

Recharging has nothing to do with suffering, it only occurs on death. Are you actually suggesting that most factory owners would rather regularly murder a human being to keep their soulstones charged than pay a tiny amount of money for the dust it would take to run them? Murder is still a serious crime in the Malifaux setting, and I'd venture that most overseers would take the pragmatic (rather than the melodramatic) option.

 

On the third hand, consider the consequences of a tightly regulated, extoriately over priced commodity in a situation like that. The Guild isn't going to give someone a finder's fee for turning in lost soulstone, they're going to confiscate the material and let the person go unharmed if they're lucky. So if you have a soulstone and you don't want it, you need to find someone to fence it for you, or find one of the other factions to take it off your hands. Or you could try to make it back through the breach on your own to sell it where people will pay even more for it.

If the Guild won't pay a finder's fee for soulstone, why would anyone prospect for it? The whole setting hinges on a gold-rush economy, and paying people for what they turn in is a big part of that. Also, even if your scenario was the way it was intended, that should be mentioned in the rules.

 

Appraising the work as a first edition, and appraising that the details are a bit rough may be a fair appraisal. But complaining about the premise of a fantasy game isn't going to change the premise.

Through The Breach is not a magic positive setting like Space:1889 or similar settings. "Bad Things Happen" is a deliberate tag line.

My contention is that the premise, at least as far as it relates to soulstones, was changed between Malifaux and Through the Breach. Soulstones were common, and now they're not.

Through the Breach is actually an intensely magic-positive game, at least in its mechanics - magic is easy, cheap, and powerful, with no downside. However it's now, for whatever reason, an intensely soulstone-negative game, and I think that was a mistake.

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Recharging has nothing to do with suffering, it only occurs on death. Are you actually suggesting that most factory owners would rather regularly murder a human being to keep their soulstones charged than pay a tiny amount of money for the dust it would take to run them? Murder is still a serious crime in the Malifaux setting, and I'd venture that most overseers would take the pragmatic (rather than the melodramatic) option.

 

Just to address this specific point, a soulstone charges so long as there's death around it; it doesn't need to be sacrifice. In Victorian and Industrial Revolution factories, people died, whether through illness or injury; it was a fact of life. As such, the simple act of doing business could provide enough residual death to keep the machines running. It would also discourage investment in safety protocols by a degree, slowing the changes in factory safety we observed in our own universe. Soulstones would, in fact, encourage the workhouse environment into the 20th century, rather than discourage it. As such, I'd expect workhouses, and the English Poor Laws that encouraged them, might still flourish in Malifaux's Earthside.

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The death has to be right there next to the stone though, not just in the area. At the absolute max (bowling-ball-sized stone), it can be up to 5 yards away, but no factory could afford something that size - you're looking at 1-2 yards at most.

 

People dying of illness generally won't do it in the factory, so unless your overseer takes the stone out on house calls to dying workers (a ludicrously risky proposition, taking a gem that's worth more than your entire factory for a walk) that won't help.

 

Injuries certainly could happen, but your overseer would need to rush off to get the stone between the time when the injury happened and the time when the victim died, and the other workers might start to question his priorities while he's holding the stone over the unfortunate, waiting for them to bleed out instead of helping them.

 

Or you could buy a little bit of dust every so often. Anyway, what are the soulstones being used for in factories if not to replace human labour with magical automation?

 

Oh, one interesting idea that does come out of all this, though: Doctoring would become an incredibly sinister profession. It wouldn't take much time for people to realise that visiting the terminally sick and recharging soulstones go hand-in-hand, and doctors would end up being paid commission to carry soulstones for other people (especially since when a person dies, every soulstone near them can recharge). The only limitation would be that doctors would have to avoid getting too creepy - when the doctor shows up at your house with a bulging sack of soulstones and an entourage of bodyguards bristling with weaponry to protect them, you'd think twice about inviting them in.

 

Okay, I think I'm done with soulstone talk at this stage - anything else I say is likely to be rehashing the same points. My next post will be aiming to start looking into the Magia.

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My group has been playing since October pretty consistently, and I have to say that while I share a measure of concern over the Magic system, very little of it has anything to do with the core mechanics.

 

First and foremost, this game is ABOUT being flexible so that the mechanics fit the story. There are a large number of things that are not explicitly denied because the game wants the Fatemaster to "Get to Yes" (The section in the FM guide that I think belongs in every FM/GM/DM guide ever. Read it now, your players will love you for it). The magic system is in large part a very good representation of that.

 

Example: Hedge Magic and Elemental Immutos - The Immuto section says "stick an Immuto on a Magia, adjust TN by the amount and adjust the effect by the amount" The only restrictions are inherent to the Magia. Immuto that do +1 damage are useless on Teleportation, because it doesn't deal damage. The Lightning Immuto is useless on the "Heal" spell because it doesn't matter if you are wearing armor. This DOES NOT prevent you from putting them on the Magia. That isn't even FM Fiat, that's just the rules not explicitly preventing things that don't exactly make sense for a player to DO on purpose. A little strange, yes, inherently bad? Not even a little.

 

Your concern on soulstones is legitimate, and actually one I share, but for different reasons. First, I think it is ridiculous that a soulstone the size of your fist inherently be a higher quality. Most ores are the opposite, you have a higher chance of getting a better grade the more trash you are willing to skim off. As a result, I modified the soulstone system to separate size (storage) and clarity (seep). What this does is allow you to give your players tiny stones that hold 1 charge but regen it in a month, which allows them to build clever pneumatics without robbing the sovereign state of Russia. For Lade, I take the average rounded down of the size + seep ratings for the stone and viola! A lade rating. It works near identical to the existing system with only a tiny modification, and allowed me much greater flexibility to introduce soulstones to my game without twisting the power level too much.

 

My personal issues with the magic system are that there aren't much by way of examples for enchanted goods, and that there are some Magia/Immuto that I find to be significant lacking from the book (Such as resist elements, armor, and mute spellcasting). Similarly, with enchanted goods, and with Darlists, those should technically fall under Guild "ok" policy because they are magic for everyone, but a tiny token which shoots lightning but only works for the darlist that made it is really just a focus, and is magic.

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  • 4 months later...

THREADOMANCY GOOOOOOOO!

 

OK, basically preferred to just resurrect this thread since it's frankly full of good content. Basically just wanted to see if now that more people have the books, if they have similar impressions to Kadeton or not. Right now I'm afraid of including magic when I start directing and adding a few of the suggestions on this thread could soften that worry (static TN for spells in middle of dramatic scene and making the Theories be workable).

 

As for the soulstone cost thing, I'll probably keep the absurd prices on earthside but they'll be cheap (though illegal counterfeit) in Malifaux simply because I've always had the impression that they are choking on the damn things, it's just monopoly economics. As for applications of stones, I have to agree with Kadeton that dust seems to be more cost efficient and quite a bit less reliant on murder, so anybody bumped up the power of stones in some way? Is letting a magic user get the suit for it's cost good enough or should another bump be added somewhere?

 

Lets see if some discussion gets going again.

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What's wrong with magic? Is it grossly overpowered to freely teleport 30yards all the time at no cost to your self, when all you need is a 3-4 (av 6-7) in non dramatic time. It's my favorite past time. Bamf I just robbed your store, bamf more Robberys. Fire ball raise damage by +6 tn, plus the increase range by 4-6 puts the tn at 16-18 which sure if it hits does what 5/6/8? Most minions and enforcers can take that on the chin right? I only need 3 of 13 cards Heck I might even flip it. Being a dabbler is fun. Or my fan favorite teleporting a lit stick of dynamite next to my enemies. Since I am not trying to teleport it into their pockets no resist. But I think it's completely unfair some times. For instance, I light this bundle of dynamite that can blow a hole in MT Rushmore. Next ap I teleport the bundle of dynamite just above the targets head. FM what happens to him.

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What's wrong with magic? Is it grossly overpowering to freely teleport 30yards all the time at no cost to your self when all you need is a 3-4 (av 6-7) in non dramatic time it's my favorite past time. Bamf I just robbed your store bamf more Robbins. Fire ball raise damage by +6 tn plus the increase range by 4-6 puts hats tn at 16-18 which sure if it hits does what 5/6/8? Most minions and enforcers can take that on the chin right? I only need 3 of 13 cards Heck I might even flip it. Being a dabbler is fun. Or my fan favorite teleporting a lit stick of dynamite next to my enemies. Since I am not trying to teleport it into their pockets no resist. But coding think it's fair some times. For one so I light this bundle of dynamite thst can blow a hole in my Rushmore. Next ap I teleport just above targets head. FM what happens to him.

Did you post this while driving?

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I think Kadeton hit the nail on the head with his statement that Through the Breach fluff doesn't match Malifaux fluff. It is a RPG based off a miniatures game that acts like there never was a miniatures game. As a RPG by itself, it is pretty good. As a RPG based off the already set and established story and setting, it is a pretty bad. On the topic of magic, TTB makes it seem like it is the most terrible and unlawful thing you can do, yet over 75% of the models in Malifaux, the game these rules are based on, have some sort of CA action. Soulstones, one of Malifaux trademark features, seems like they have been removed from the game. The stories in the Malifaux rulebook make Malifaux look exciting and dangerous, but the RPG just makes it seem like the Guild hunt down everyone with magic and soulstones and do little else. In Malifaux, bad things happen. In Through the Breach, bad things are the only thing that happen. But I am sure that is just me.

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