Fatemaster Friday - Conversions and You!

[Kimberly]

Fantabulous Friday Breachers!

Apologies for the lack of an article last week, the pollen this spring has really done a number on me. Armed with better allergy medication and far too many energy drinks, I have a heckin’ large chonk of an article for y’all this week. With the Wyrd Easter Sale making the TTB Kickstarter-exclusive Hannah included for orders of 300$USD or more, I thought now is an apt time to look at converting Malifaux Cards to TTB Fatermaster Characters! Strap in, because this is going to be a long post folks.

So maybe you or your players have a specific Malifaux character that they’d love to see in your campaign, but there aren’t stats for them in any of the materials. So you decide to convert them, but don’t know where to start! Well I’m going to go through the process of converting a Malifaux character for TTB, and by the end perhaps you’ll try it yourself!

The first thing I did was take a look at the Stats Card for Hannah, the Freikorps’ Head Librarian. 

I also looked at the Freikorps Librarian and Von Schill cards and their TTB Stats in the Through the Breach 2e Corebook.

          

From there, I compared the Malifaux Stats with TTB stats to get an idea of adjustments. I based values like AV on the values from the card, along with talents and actions based on the card’s list of abilities and actions. Some things translated well, like Armor, but others were a little more custom. Finally I considered what skills the Head Librarian of the Freikorps would have to become Von Schill’s right hand, so I emphasized her intelligence with skills focused on that. With that completed, here’s what I came up with for my first pass.

 

Adding a Freikorps Suit was a no-brainer, but I wanted to give some of the flavor of her card, so I made Siphon Power, and gave her Sense Magic, yanked from the TTB Corebook. Now, at this point suggest having a friend look things over. I cheated, and asked @MattM to take a look at these Stats. While you may not have the Narrative Designer to subject to  the torture of your homebrew, another set of eyes can help spot things you missed in your initial conversion. In my case, I may have forgotten that in Malifaux, characters are always prepared for a fight, so my original Hannah Stats made her a little too aggro. Matthew helped me take her down a notch, and to be more approachable in non-dramatic time situations. Here’s what Matthew gave for feedback.

Matthew's changes reflect some things I overlooked, such as the fact that she won’t be in her suit all the time (which was obvious in hindsight!) and evening out her Stats a bit as a result. He also changed Siphon Energy, turned it into a (0) Action, added a Talent called “Head Librarian,” and another Action called Dispel Magic.

Now taking the feedback, I’m going to make some very slight changes to the Second Draft. I’m adding some magical skills to give her a small aptitude for the Magia changing the A New Chapter trigger to give the choice of a Immuto or Trigger.

Now that I’ve got Hannah where I want her, I’m ready to use her! For an extra fancy touch, I’ve converted the Stats to look like one of the Bestiary entries found in TTB books. My wonderful fiancé, Taylor (on the forums at @stump_chunkman) helped with it to make the entry look it’s best. Here it is!

Now, that was easy, right? What Malifaux (or other IP’s) characters have you converted for TTB?
 

Hannah Conversion - Sheet1.pdf Hannah Conversion - Sheet1.pdf Hanna TTB Card

[stump_chunkman]

all I can think is "shit I left it in arial instead of converting the font to Times"

[Kimberly]

2 minutes ago, stump_chunkman said:

all I can think is "shit I left it in arial instead of converting the font to Times"

Shhhhhh, it's fine.

[Gnomezilla]

*looks at tiny teddy, who waves back*
 

Do you think it’s worth writing up a unique power for a companion like tiny teddy, or since it isn’t the player character it’s best to stick with material already printed?

5 minutes ago, stump_chunkman said:

all I can think is "shit I left it in arial instead of converting the font to Times"

Ok I did notice, but not gonna complain about a free template!

[stump_chunkman]

Nah, go crazy with custom mechanics. The easiest way to crib this for flavor though might be to take a unique characters ability and 'Teddify" it though. I liked the effect "Cut By Hinamatsu" so I made it a ranged attack on a guy who would throw needles for tiny amounts of damage and then rip them all out with a magnet. Same mechanics as Hinamatsu's though. 

[WDeseron]

That's awesome. Helps me justify my new Hannah a little. XD

[Kimberly]

15 hours ago, WDeseron said:

That's awesome. Helps me justify my new Hannah a little. XD

What can I say, I'm an enabler!

[Douglas Scoundrels]

Oh I love doing this! It's also a blast to use TTB to really flesh-out personalities or add little surprises. The first conversion I could think of would be Willie and his Master's degree in Engineering that surprised a few of my Fated.

I will say it's a tad easier to use the only cards/app as some of the rules have changes when we converted to M3E.

[WDeseron]

On 4/12/2020 at 11:34 AM, Kimberly said:

What can I say, I'm an enabler!

New title: Chief-enabler