Fantasy Craft Q&A Thread!

[MugMug]

With NPCs it states that Standard NPCs get their health modified by their Constitution.

But Special NPC do not have this, should Special NPC get Vitality modded by Con?

To be precise, standard NPCs add their Con mod to their Damage save bonus.

Special NPCs work from a straight calculation for VP. WP, however, are a multiple of Con. I suspect this was a streamlining decision.

Walter

[MugMug]

A question arose during magic item creation: Can an Essence or Charm be turned off? For example, an Armor that makes all of a characters attacks deal Divine Damage, the character wants to turn it off in case he encounters a being resistant to Divine, can he? What kind of action is it? Is there a page reference I'm just missing?

It appears to be left open to GM adjudication (as it should be). If your GM allows some essences/charms to be turned off and others not, it's clear that decision is made at the time the item is crafted.

In regards to the type of action, "items that require activation may be triggered with a Handle Item action defined by the object's creator (e.g. mental command, manipulating the object, uttering a word or phrase, etc.)." [pg 194]

Walter

[Agent 333]

Allright, I've caved and allowed deactivation of items. The character ended up switching out for something else anyway.

[Deral]

(This would be more something for errata if I were more sure about it)

Looking at Sage, I was wondering, the Cross-Training ability lists under priest "Acolyte and path of the devoted (1 Step)" as the first choice, the placement of the (1 step) seems to tie it to Path of the Devoted which would give the ritual weapon, the first step of an alignments path and then another step.

I guess my question is- is that right? Seems a bit powerful for one cross-training choice (about 2 1/2 feats, right?)

My thought is that Acolyte was changed to include the 1st step and Path of the Devoted was originally granted at 1st & 3rd, so this would have given you the equivalent of Acolyte as presently written, then letting you take Path to gain a second step (or the first in a new path).

[Sletchman]

I believe you can find this list in the downloadable preview for the book on RPGNow.com/drivethrurpg.com but since I'm such a nice guy:

Thanks, very much appreciated.  I had a look but couldn't see anything apart from the previewed Drake and Dwarf, but it could be a forest through the tree's type issue.  Even for a few page preview theres alot of good stuff.  Can't wait till wednesday when I get paid and can get it.  I think I am in love with the Courtier class.

I'm playing around with the OGL foe conversion rules, and seem to be confused.

When determining ability scores we "add each of the NPC’s OGL ability modifiers to 10 to obtain the corresponding Fantasy Craft attribute score. Unless the NPC is an Animal, reduce odd attribute scores by 1. Ability scores below 10 translate directly." [pg 297]

An example is given:
A remorhaz has the following OGL ability scores:
Str 26, Dex 13, Con 21, Int 5, Wis 12, Cha 10.
These translate to
Str 18, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 5, Wis 10, Cha 10 in Fantasy Craft.

First, I had parsed the "reduce odd attribute scores" rule to refer to the output of conversion (i.e. after conversion only animals could have odd scores). The results in the example, however, suggest the reduction occurs to the input scores.

Second, I must be misinterpreting the "add each of the NPC’s OGL ability modifiers to 10" rule. To me that suggests post-conversion Dex and Wis should both be 11 (+1 mod added to 10 = 11).

Walter

Just thinking here but shouldn't INT be 6?  His INT of 5 has a -3 mod, which added to 10 gives 7, reduce by 1 for odd, and you get a 6?  Or does it not apply the same rule for negative attributes?

[MugMug]

The last line of the quote addressed scores below 10 (basically, they don't change).

Walter

[Daedalus]

(This would be more something for errata if I were more sure about it)

Looking at Sage, I was wondering, the Cross-Training ability lists under priest "Acolyte and path of the devoted (1 Step)" as the first choice, the placement of the (1 step) seems to tie it to Path of the Devoted which would give the ritual weapon, the first step of an alignments path and then another step.

I guess my question is- is that right? Seems a bit powerful for one cross-training choice (about 2 1/2 feats, right?)

My thought is that Acolyte was changed to include the 1st step and Path of the Devoted was originally granted at 1st & 3rd, so this would have given you the equivalent of Acolyte as presently written, then letting you take Path to gain a second step (or the first in a new path).

Here's how I interpret it, though I may be kneecapping Sages in the process (which is doubtful): When a sage chooses Priest abilities the first time he can choose Acolyte.  Subsequently, he can choose to pick the Path of the Devoted ability to gain more steps along a path or the first  step in a new one.  This seems to explain the ambiguity, seeing as how taking the combined version of the ability a second time would lead to a redundant proficiency (or forte?) and the ability to gain 4 path steps over the course of three levels, which is obviously broken. 

[Sletchman]

The last line of the quote addressed scores below 10 (basically, they don't change).

Walter

And that right there was a reading check critical failure on my part.

[Deral]

(This would be more something for errata if I were more sure about it)

Looking at Sage, I was wondering, the Cross-Training ability lists under priest "Acolyte and path of the devoted (1 Step)" as the first choice, the placement of the (1 step) seems to tie it to Path of the Devoted which would give the ritual weapon, the first step of an alignments path and then another step.

I guess my question is- is that right? Seems a bit powerful for one cross-training choice (about 2 1/2 feats, right?)

My thought is that Acolyte was changed to include the 1st step and Path of the Devoted was originally granted at 1st & 3rd, so this would have given you the equivalent of Acolyte as presently written, then letting you take Path to gain a second step (or the first in a new path).

Here's how I interpret it, though I may be kneecapping Sages in the process (which is doubtful): When a sage chooses Priest abilities the first time he can choose Acolyte.  Subsequently, he can choose to pick the Path of the Devoted ability to gain more steps along a path or the first  step in a new one.  This seems to explain the ambiguity, seeing as how taking the combined version of the ability a second time would lead to a redundant proficiency (or forte?) and the ability to gain 4 path steps over the course of three levels, which is obviously broken.  

This is pretty much what I'm thinking- more than anything it's a heads up, but it'd be nice to see official or semi-official word.

One more thing we've come across- Fortes are only ever mentioned in reference to Weapon Proficiencies, but the character sheet has entries for them under both Ride and Crafting- I know how they work in Spycraft, but was this left out of the book or meant to be removed and accidentally left on the character sheet?

[Daedalus]

One more thing we've come across- Fortes are only ever mentioned in reference to Weapon Proficiencies, but the character sheet has entries for them under both Ride and Crafting- I know how they work in Spycraft, but was this left out of the book or meant to be removed and accidentally left on the character sheet?

I think that a ruling like the former is ambiguous and should probably be on the errata thread.  As far as crafting and riding fortes, it doesn't say anything that I can see, (Ctrl + f'ed the whole book with "forte") but how did they work in SpyCraft?  Is it something that FantasyCraft could easily incorporate? <- total Crafty Games newb here

[Krensky]

One more thing we've come across- Fortes are only ever mentioned in reference to Weapon Proficiencies, but the character sheet has entries for them under both Ride and Crafting- I know how they work in Spycraft, but was this left out of the book or meant to be removed and accidentally left on the character sheet?

I think that a ruling like the former is ambiguous and should probably be on the errata thread.  As far as crafting and riding fortes, it doesn't say anything that I can see, (Ctrl + f'ed the whole book with "forte") but how did they work in SpyCraft?  Is it something that FantasyCraft could easily incorporate? <- total Crafty Games newb here

Instead of taking a skill focus you could take a forte in an exiting skill focus for a +1.

[Deral]

Right- as far as the forte's go, I'm sure that if they're there, they work like in Spycraft, more or less. It's more that they don't show up in the book, don't have listed rules, it would confuse someone new.

Found a similar issue with Item damage saves (Another that may well be errata), I don't know if this one has been mentioned, but most items are listed as soft, hard, or brittle (and those are the hardnesses defined by the table), but some items are listed as solid. I really only noticed it at first with Black powder weapons, and there are no Hard items on that table, but then out of nowhere the Sickle Sword is listed as Solid 2 amidst a bunch of Hard swords, making me a little less sure that Solid and Hard are the same thing (for now, that's how I'm running it, but I certainly can't find it defined anywhere).

Again, like the last two mix-ups I've come across, these aren't really conflicts for any experienced crafty gamers, but certainly things new players might scratch their heads over, so I figure it's worth putting out here.

Edit: Looking over the item damage save stuff one more time, it's a more ambiguous that I originally thought- the table reference lists Const as telling the damage save bonus and number of saves required, but the tables list the hardness of their construction, rather than the bonus (the number of saves, I'm sure, is the number that follows). It's easy enough to improvise damage saves from the table that seems to define them (since it lists the construction hardness' damage save bonus) but the text on Item Damage Saves implies the table is for scenery and things that don't have a built in damage save, and that most things should already have their save laid out.

So there are a couple ways the damage could go if each item isn't supposed to have a unique damage save, either you just build saves as listed on the table using construction and size like you would for scenery, however this kind of conflicts, because the different sizes of objects here dictates the number of saves it can withstand (and these numbers contradict the amount listed with the items) or you just use the construction, in which case every object has a +0/+5/+10 damage save. Or I suppose you can build the save bonus with the full table, like in the former example and then use the number of saves listed on the table (which may be a little generous, but is likely the fix I'll use until I get this clarified).

[Deral]

Ok, ok, here's something more suiting to the thread - at least the Courtier and Assassin get benefits somehow relating to Bribes. The real issue is the assassin ability, which doubles bribery bonuses, the only listed bonus for bribery is bribing the court during trials granting you one extra try (which would increase to two)- is there anything else I'm missing relating to bribes, and whats a good rule of thumb for the expected payment? (Seems strange to have a class feature devoted solely to something only mentioned in a foot note, but I can't deny it'd be nice in a court-heavy game)

(I feel it should be mentioned I love FantasyCraft and am having absolutely no difficulty starting my own first game, just think things should be put up as I run across them)

[Deral]

I feel like I'm spamming, but I have another real question, some of these are past few are from me, some from my players but: How does a contact's Trust work in this? It says they act as though targeted by a Persuade check with a DC equal to that given by their Trust, but Persuade is opposed and there's no DC based results- do you just use the DC as your effective roll? If that's the case, why would a contact built with high resolve be less likely to give you a hand in any given situation?
This one actually is a little confusing to me, because trying to justify it just makes the Trust portion seem either ineffective or unnecessary, especially for its cost, but I'm convinced it has more weight than it seems or works in some way I'm not picking up.

[Crafty_Alex]

How does Preparation Cost interact with NPCs generally and the natural spell quality specifically? And as written, said quality costs nothing for 0-level spells, correct?

I would say Preparation cost is unaffected. Natural spell says the ability is identical to a spell, but that no check or spell points are required. In the case that an NPC's reputation actually matters (maybe as a Personal Lt.?) you could use the rule from page 243 under Using an NPC, which notes a PC's XP value is increased by 1/4 the amount of Rep spent.

Also, I miss the minion quality.

Minion is unnecessary - standard characters come in mobs by default, and have d6 action dice, making that quality pretty much built in.

When's the earliest and most common points at which characters will get to earn/keep prizes?

As early as the GM wants to introduce them! Prizes may be introduced at any point in an adventure through treasure, adventure rewards, or instant rewards.