Hey Mythmaker!
First of all, welcome to the boards and thanks for posting! Now let's see about those questions...
I'm a long time D&D DM from 1st Edition to today. I'm not continuing with 4E (I will not speak of it
) and want to get away from so many of the trappings of 3.5 so I'm not going Pathfinder.
Then we you've come to the right place!
Fantasy Craft is adapted from
Spycraft 2.0, which was a variant on 3E. Many of the concepts survive from the mother ship (we have ability scores and modifiers, skills and ranks, feats, 20 levels, etc.), but the game also diverges in many profound ways...
- GMs and players can gain and use action dice for a host of powerful effects (boosting rolls, activating critical successes/hits and opponent critical failures/errors, healing, narrative control, and more).
- Every level matters (you get new and interesting things to do and use at every single level, regardless of class).
- Every skill rank matters (we've carefully designed our robust skill list so every skill is equally useful).
- Combat is both streamlined and amplified. There are more options than your typical 3E game and less hassle in every step of the process.
- Players are empowered (we offer unprecedented customization, the heart of what made 3E so great).
- Characters are empowered (people often compare our Level 1 characters to Level 4 characters in 3E). We also go out of our way to make sure characters have lots of balanced options at all times - in and out of combat, (mostly) regardless of the character options you choose.
This is, of course, just a general sampling. The changes are myriad and often subtle, so a complete catalog of them is largely impossible without reading the book.
As you can see, though, we have a healthy community here and we designers are readily available as well, so please feel free to hit us with specific questions as they come to you.
I like what I see about Fantasy Craft. If I switch in July I'll be bringing along four to six players, most of whom will buy the book and/or PDF. And we know other people we can try to suck in if we like the book!
Great to hear!
I'm posting because many of the previews and hints about the game seem to be directed at Spycraft fans. While I like Spycraft, I'm not an expert on it.
Fantasy Craft started as a
Spycraft 2.0 supplement - mainly because that's what Crafty Games was originally formed to do - but since then we've decided to produce independent books, each with all the rules you need.
Fantasy Craft uses our new Mastercraft house system, which is a dramatically streamlined version of the
Spycraft 2.0 rules. This was a major step not only because you only need the one book to get started, but also because character creation and play are faster and easier on every level. You get all the power of the BIG BOOK with a fraction of the complexity.
To get back to your comment, the
Fantasy Craft product page has, of course, also mutated along the way, and since the book was originally targeted primarily at Spycraft fans we've thus far let it speak to them. As we close on release, we're planning to give it a major face lift to represent the product's independent nature, though we're not quite there yet.
My suggestion would be to get a PDF up of the actual table of contents and perhaps part of the mage (like the Spell PDF freebie) write up including some spell examples. I have a feeling a lot of DMs out there want something like D&D but not D&D. And Fantasy Craft appears to be it to me. I just can't completely tell from the hints so far.
One of the most important lessons we've learned over the last couple years is not to promote a book too much until we know exactly when it will release; otherwise we risk burning you guys out before it arrives!
We're already set up many significant previews on
the product page, and we have several more planned, including a complete TOC. We're probably not going to spin those up until we have a street date, though - which, as folks have said, is on hold until the book's finished.
Check here for regular updates as we close on that auspicious day!
I'm hoping Fantasy Craft has the following:
1. 20 levels of play. I believe Spycraft has 20 and I assume FC does too.
Got you covered. We have 20 levels and again, each and every one offers something
new.
2. Several monsters. I can stat stuff up, but I'm busy. If monster count is low, then maybe a book of monsters and NPCs to follow.
Let's see... The basic Bestiary has 126 stat blocks spread across 78 individual monster entries. That doesn't include templates, which include another 28 blocks over 14 entries (those 28 being samples of the 3,500 or so possible via the templates).
There's also the Rogues Gallery of non-monstrous NPCs and adversaries (39 basic blocks and 11 templates for 400 or so).
Plus building an NPC or monster is lightning fast in this game - with a bit of familiarity, it takes less than 10 minutes for a monster and maybe 1/4 of that for a simple guard).
So I think you're covered here as well.
3. Treasure, if they remain important like in D&D (I don't care either way, but again I'd prefer not to stat everything up).
Absolutely. Treasure is integral to the system of building adversaries, challenging the players, and paying them off for their hard work in this game. I'm not even gonna
try to calculate the options it can spit out but I can confidently say it's in the tens of thousands of unique finds, ranging from coin to gear to magic items to trophies to story items and more.
4. Not missing the July release. Please. I need my fantasy fix.
On this, sadly, we can't make any guarantees. The print book
definitely won't be out by then. The PDF... Dunno. Our deal with Mongoose is that we get to release the PDF a month before the print book comes out so you'll definitely see it first.
If I like it enough, I'll write a review up on it on rpg.net. I'll bring in new players. I'll let people know I'm a convert.
Please do! We can use all the promotion folks can muster.
So here, I have $40 I want to give Crafty Games (and more if you have more books you want to sell me in the future). Just get me some good fantasy!
We'll do our best! Thanks again.
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