Fated power level

[Aramoro]

I've not run TtB yet but in other games the only real limiting factor of PC power is social. They can murder-hobo their way through most things but they have to understand that doing that has consequences. 

 

If you use a lot of magic all the time in Malifaux then someone is going to come for you, people you're not going to like. You kill a lot of a folk and suddenly you're outlaws, unwelcome in any town you visit. Hounded by the guild until you can be brought to trial. If you can express on people that actions have consequences, consequences that aren't more dudes to kill, then they will kerb their own power. 

[Mister Shine]

Which it should be pointed out, isnt necessarily a bad thing. If the players all want to play "Outlaws: Badasses of the Victorian Horror Gothic West" thats fine! Just so long as everyone is on the same page about what they want the game to be, FM included

[Aramoro]

Which it should be pointed out, isnt necessarily a bad thing. If the players all want to play "Outlaws: Badasses of the Victorian Horror Gothic West" thats fine! Just so long as everyone is on the same page about what they want the game to be, FM included

 

Absolutely, Wild West Murder Hobo's is a perfectly valid way to go and that presents it's own set of challenges. Like where's the next meal coming from and why is the army chasing us with cannons?

[zeeblee]

AP numbers only go so far when your fated have a finite pool (at least until shuffling) of viable cards for success in the deck.

Shuffling happens in my group far more often than I initially expected due to the number of they get.  They also most often end up with at least one on damage, so that also helps them cycle the deck far faster.  I would say there is at least one reshuffle per combat.  Then combat characters get card draws from failing Ml/Sh attacks, and there are various other Twist Hand drawing mechanics.  This all continues to support Fated being quite powerful.  My Criminal player even found a way to draw cards in combat (Trick maneuver with the for card draw trigger).

 

Actually, the one spot I found my Fated struggling was consciousness checks.  That starts adding some heavy card drain on them due to taking the check both after they act and after they take damage.

 

Recently I had to deal with the problem of combat Fated being difficult to take down with Minions, so I had to rely on narrative to get them to run away rather than sending in waves and waves of boring combatants.  Luckily the Fated's only light source started running away, so the fighters had to follow.

[Omenbringer]

I've not run TtB yet but in other games the only real limiting factor of PC power is social. They can murder-hobo their way through most things but they have to understand that doing that has consequences. 

 

If you use a lot of magic all the time in Malifaux then someone is going to come for you, people you're not going to like. You kill a lot of a folk and suddenly you're outlaws, unwelcome in any town you visit. Hounded by the guild until you can be brought to trial. If you can express on people that actions have consequences, consequences that aren't more dudes to kill, then they will kerb their own power. 

And this is pretty much what I have been saying from the start, TtB is a good "story telling" game. As a combat game it has some major failings. Play it for what it is, instead of attempting to show horn it into something it will never be.

 

zeeblee, on 01 May 2015 - 12:46 PM, said:

    Shuffling happens in my group far more often than I initially expected due to the number of [] they get.  They also most often end up with at least one [] on damage, so that also helps them cycle the deck far faster.  I would say there is at least one reshuffle per combat.  Then combat characters get card draws from failing Ml/Sh attacks, and there are various other Twist Hand drawing mechanics.  This all continues to support Fated being quite powerful.  My Criminal player even found a way to draw cards in combat (Trick maneuver with the [] for card draw trigger).

It is still a finite and variable communal pool of resources versus an unchanging static result. With Enforcers and below the Fated have a huge advantage but once you get to Henchman and above the advantage shifts substantially in the other direction (even with their twist decks considered).

[Mister Shine]

I wouldnt even call them failings. That'd be like saying that Deathwatch has major failings in its combat system. It can certainly be a lot of fun for characters to really shine in combat, but I just wouldnt make it the focus of the campaign.

 

I've said it before, but this game reminds me of a combat-reversed Call of Cthulhu. It shines brightly in social/non-combat situations and then combat exists (but instead of getting murdered you do the murdering)

[Aramoro]

I'm just about to start running a game and I was considering limiting character potential but not allowing people to master skills with the free skill advances, you can become good at something just doing it but you can't master it until you spend some real time and effort focusing on it.  So the best you're going to be at something will be AV7 until you complete a destiny step or invest 4 XP into mastering the skill. 

 

That with not allowing the more random customisations or attempting to game the system (No you cannot dual wield saddle guns!) should I think encourage players to spread their skills rather than laser focus them

[Omenbringer]

A decent idea but AV 7 is still pretty high.

[Aramoro]

A decent idea but AV 7 is still pretty high.

 

AV7 is high but the nature of the mechanic the difference between 7 and 8 is significant. Say they want to Shoot a black blood shaman, he's DF 9. At AV8 you only fail if you flip the black joker, so about a 98% chance to hit, pretty much a sure thing. Now at AV 7 their chance to hit is down to 91% and on top of that they can still fail even if they black joker has been flipped already. Against a Ronin with DF 11 the guy with AV 8 is on about 83% chance to hit, still pretty sound AV 7 is only 76% sure of hitting the target. 

 

Even 1 point lower negative flips will start to affect the Fated much more quickly. You don't want to turn the game into some sort of police squad style farce or neither side being able to hit each other, but failing about a quarter of your shots against a Ronin feels about right for an expert in something. 

[zeeblee]

I think this discussion is just running in circles because this type of control has already been proposed and responded to before. 

 

We all know that the standard starting AV is 6, that it is costly (depending on exp granted by FMs) to get that higher, that low-rank enemies are mooks, and that Henchmen+ can get ridiculously hard.  Personally I still find restricting player AVs to be a very clunky solution.  I also think that if your players are growing in power faster than you like, you should review how much exp you hand out (as an example, I hand out 1 exp for every 6ish hours of play).  Or perhaps that just means it's time to shift from the static system and try out the skirmish crossover proposed in the Fatemaster Almanac.  It's actually pretty cool that the core rules offer two modes of play.