The Gaming Den

I was going to do this by email, then I figured, why deprive TGD of my (ersatz) insights?
Someone recently asked me about FantasyCraft. I've been playing in an FC campaign for ~4 years, so I do have some experience. I haven't actually done any sort of detailed testing of the system though (other than the playing) so this will be purely impressions. In no particular order, here are some gripes:

- Magic still wins. Hard. There's slightly less teabagging, because no-one has any out-of-combat utility worth mentioning, but magic still wins. It does more damage; it hits more consistently and more targets, and it has nicer side effects. Also, there's no practical limitation on spellcasting: resources refresh per-scene. (for bonus fun, if you can cast at all, you can cast Touch of Light, which heals 1 hp, but is free.)

- Crafting is like Exalted: it's either crazy good, or useless, and the difference is almost entirely one of downtime.

- Most skills are worthless. that's not really new, but there aren't even the required ones anymore (except notice, which continues to be "save vs surprise round". You can also bypass that entirely by being an elf though.)

- There's a whole lot of "if your DM allows it." It's actually less offensive than usual, because it's hiding behind pseudo-systems. For example, priest spellcasting works if your campaign world "has the Miracles quality." That's still basically whatever your DM says, but it also enforces a measure of consistency and verisimilitude, so the same options are available to PCs and NPCs.

- Speaking of NPCs, that quickly goes to crazytown. There is an actually well done Build-A-Monster template system embedded into FantasyCraft, which I like so much that I gave up on my own parallel attempt to make something similar upon seeing it. The NPC system overlaps with it and works similarly. However, there are a couple abilities which let players build their own NPCs, using this system. That isn't terrible for the leadership feats, which are approximately, "once per adventure, you can summon 6 dudes at the same time!" The thing where you can pay a tiny amount of points and have a horde of autistically-focused crafters living in your cellar is one of the system's more brittle points (that particular example comes back to the Exalted-style crafting, but these guys can be at least as good as you are). I think there's a spell that lets you build your own too, but I'm not certain.

- Speaking of NPC traits: some of them are straightforward, like "Aquatic X," which multiplies your swim speeds by (x+1). Some are a little more useful, like Critical Surge which gives you a bonus action for every critical hit (though, note that critical hits usually require an action point to activate). That's... very comboable. You can't stack critical ranges as high as you could in 3.0, but still: an extra action 20-40% of the time (chainable!) is pretty boss. Are NPC traits are one of the things you can get from magic items? Of course they are. In fact, that's the only way to get them reliably.

- But wait! Isn't there some limitation on magic items? Indeed there is! Each item can only have one Charm and one Essence (except artifacts, which you can make by taking feat-chains and sweet-talking your DM). Also, magic items are always prizes.

- "Wait, what? Prizes?" Yeah. Hoo-kay: so you have a separate sort of XP track. You also earn renown, which you spend on all kinds of stuff. One of the things you spend it on is Ranks, in three different categories (noble, hero, and military, IIRC). Your rank determines how many prizes you can hold on to. Prizes are basically anything that isn't vendor trash. The number you can hold on to is distressingly low. Renown is also quite divergent: your class includes a "Legend" modifier (which can be affected by other things too); you add your legend to any renown gains (which, again, you get along with XP and treasure). You can also spend renown on social favors; on castles that matter, on buying magic items, and probably on other things that I'm forgetting.

- Armor. Oh, armor. You know how people say, "Armor ought to be DR!" and we dismiss them, because that would need a complete re-balancing? FantasyCraft did that complete rebalancing. Here's hows it gos: you have a defense value, which your dex and class add to and which acts like AC. Armor reduces that value, but provides tiny DR. That's okay, damage isn't huge either (except for magic, obviously). It all also has minor bonuses to everything (e.g. to Appearance, which works like Appearanxce in Exalted: the higher Appearance gets a bonus in social situations equal to the difference, except when they don't. Again, obviously.)

- Defense is basically worthless. Eventually, everythnig will hit you, and "eventually" means "by level 6 or so." It's like finding a dollar in the street: you may as well take it, but that isn't a reliable steam of money/not dying.

- Remember the whole thing about HP being ablative luck or being actual injury? FC solved that: you have vitality, which goes up by level, and wounds, which equal HP. You also have subdual and stress, but ignore those. vitality goers away forst, and is easy-ish to heal. Wounds equal constitution (modded by feats and magic items), and kill you when they're gone. taking any wound damage stars you down a "losers lose" condition spiral too. Crits work exactly like regular hits, except the damage goes to wounds. NPCs and critters often cheat.

- Remember the 3.0 to 3.5 transition? FC had a similar thing, only sneakier. The thing that caught me was originally I made an elf with two racial feats that gave minor bonuses, made him so snooty that everyone hated him, and added WIS to all action die rolls (+5 on a d4 is not nothing). After the change, it was the same as before, except without the +WIS. That's... rough.

- Action Dice. They're their own thing. Okay, so: you can spend action dice to add to any die result (how much it adds is random and level dependent), to heal up in a minor way that is a bad plan, to get more magic in a way that is boss, or to turn a threat into a crit, or a natural 1 you can see into a fumble. There are also a bunch of mechanics for skipping boring scenes by pooling a bunch of action dice, or rewinding a boss fight to try again. We never really used that part, but still: I don't even.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there'll be more later.

All you need is Megadamage and Fantasy Craft looks like "RIFTS: in a manner that mostly works!"

I think you're wrong on the NPCs, but rather than retype it all I'll just point you at the old review thread where I go through it: linky. I'm pretty sure that they are way, way broken, but I'm also interested in knowing if I missed something relevant or mitigating on that topic though, so lemme know.

And while I'm at it, here are the other relevant FantasyCraft threads:
Original FC review: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50314.
Reputation Thread: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=232516.

Huzzah, I've been wanting to see some more talk on FantasyCraft, felt it wasn't explored/detailed that much when I last read the old threads (may need to check them out again to make sure).

For defense, no-one did the blatant Martial Arts + Berserking + Greatsword? feat chains, so when pumping strength, it goes to your Initiative, AC and reflex? I think. This bothered me years ago that the Crafty forums had this thread of a guy being civil, detailing how it was broken. For all the fans praising of it as a "complex system", they were using similar fiat drivel that you'd hear from other RPG forums. Hell! the designers themselves were even making excuses, unwilling to admit it was an actual issue, and have before, dismissed abilities that only have Fiat or "MTP" functions (Contacts have no rules as I recall). In the end, I think they did end up errata-ing it, but at that point, I pretty much have stopped visiting/posting there, due to such pretentious level of idiocy and blind fandom.

You mentioned evocation, and I know they weakened some spells (Divine Power), but I guess all the other one-shot "Save or Die" spells got errata'd into uselessness? Otherwise, would think Evocation to still be the substandard tactic to resort to, how's that changed in FantasyCraft?

One clarification: I do like FantasyCraft. It definitely has warts, but it tries hard and is around par with 3e for mechanics. That said though, it does have warts.

I don't remember save or dies being boss. That could be because evocation does damage on a schedule similar to early-edition dnd, so I haven't seen much evocation at all.

I'm pretty sure NPCs are at least semi-functional on the DM side of the table. In PC hands, they can be crazy-go-nuts good. It's basically exactly how undead work in 3e though.