Fortune's Fool Errata Discussion

[Sletchman]

@ Tamdrik - I look at those rules as more what you'd call "Guidelines" then actual rules when I GM.  They're an excellent base line for what is balanced, and what your players can handle for a given menace and level.  Which is a good thing for newer GMs (to the system, or to roleplaying in general).  Once you have some experience under your belt (with the system), you'll obviously intuitively know the balance points, and what your players can handle.  I break the rules in my games, but my players have a blast (and so do I), so don't sweat it too much - as long as everyone has fun.

WRT Fortunes Fool - I think the core of the problem isn't that it's a bad feat because it's an inferior Fortunate, it's that Fortunate is just too fucking good.  The new Fortune's Fool stacks up with the other chance feats, but the facts is - Fortunate towers over them all (in fact it's strictly better then most feats, period).  This is the single instance I can think of where I consider the Spycraft version of a feat to be the superior (for those who didn't play Spycraft - when you got an action die from fortunate, so did your GM).

EDIT: Excuse the language, it was used for emphasis - no offence intended.

[Krensky]

I think that might be caused by looking at Fantasy Craft as just another d20 game in some ways.

Crafty games are some of the few that take an honest view of the GM as being just another player. A first among equals to be sure, but still just a player. So there are some rules which act as checks on his power and even then they're more along the lines of guidelines then hard rules. Fantasy Craft is also, at it's heart, a narrative game so just as a number of rules describe how the players can effect the narrative there are a number of rules describing how the GM can do the same.

The begining of the errata document covers some of this, and so does the GMing section.

[Tamdrik]

I can buy that Fortunate may just be "too good".  It strikes me that it would still be worthwhile if it just said "You get 3 bonus d4 action dice", or "...a number of d4 bonus action dice equal to your starting action dice minus one" or somesuch, so that it doesn't encourage the chance-feat-apocalypse builds that get doubly more powerful with each new feat, since their action dice become more potent and plentiful at the same time.  Action dice haven't really been a game-breaking factor for us so far, but then I'm only a level 3 chance-monkey at this point, and our GM almost never bothers handing them out to anyone.  I can see how things can get silly down the road.

And I'm not really looking at FC as 'just another d20', because Spycraft 2.0 was my first exposure to d20-- I'm coming more from the perspective of someone who stopped roleplaying for over a decade and recently came back (to Spycraft 2.0), so I was most familiar with old-school World of Darkness.  Like I said, it wasn't a criticism-- I can see how it's probably part of a larger trend towards making GM'ing more systematic so it's not quite so wide-open and intimidating to a new GM.  I guess I'm still getting used to these new-fangled 21st-century RPGs. : )

[pawsplay]

I have always considered Fortunate on the weak side. You can build it up with more Chance feats, but by itself, I wouldn't feel excited by taking it.

[Antilles]

I guess it would be more correct to say Fortunate is very strong in specific, chance-heavy builds.

[Sletchman]

I guess it would be more correct to say Fortunate is very strong in specific, chance-heavy builds.

I'd argue even on it's own that its very strong.  Consider that an extra starting action die is over half of a talent / speciality - sure this isn't a Starting AD, so it's not quite as good and it doesn't scale (which depending on other feats / campaign qualities can actually be better then a scaling die).  That makes it something around 3 origin points worth - and that's if it only gave a single d4 ever.  Even with just a single d4 I'd seriously consider taking it (especially as a Priest / Explorer - with their bonus feats).  The big problem is that you effectively get a good feat again and again as you take more chance feats (all of which are good on their own merits - without this secondary "free feat").

I'm thinking in future I'm gonna add the line from Spycraft that when the player gets one, so does the GM - see if that curbs the proliferation of chance-whores (which I never saw anywhere near the same quantity of in Spycraft).

[Crafty_Pat]

I think that might be caused by looking at Fantasy Craft as just another d20 game in some ways.

Crafty games are some of the few that take an honest view of the GM as being just another player. A first among equals to be sure, but still just a player. So there are some rules which act as checks on his power and even then they're more along the lines of guidelines then hard rules. Fantasy Craft is also, at it's heart, a narrative game so just as a number of rules describe how the players can effect the narrative there are a number of rules describing how the GM can do the same.

The begining of the errata document covers some of this, and so does the GMing section.

Bingo! Thanks Kren.

Also, concerning the comparison of Chance feats, allow me to to mention one of the ways we define "well-balanced..."

It's when folks can't agree whether something is balanced in the first place.

[Morgenstern]

Ok, easy fix time.

Take the cap off of Fortune's Fool, preferably while returning it to its narrower printed trigger condition. That way it can leverage it soft advantage (discourage GM from targeting you with dice) at all times, and can no longer be directly compared to Fortunate.

Fortunes Fool would hit its peak efficiency instantly, while Fortunate would still build in efficiency as more chance feats are added. Apples, Oranges, while both remain action-dice granting fruit.

[Crafty_Alex]

Ok, easy fix time.

Take the cap off of Fortune's Fool, preferably while returning it to its narrower printed trigger condition. That way it can leverage it soft advantage (discourage GM from targeting you with dice) at all times, and can no longer be directly compared to Fortunate.

Fortunes Fool would hit its peak efficiency instantly, while Fortunate would still build in efficiency as more chance feats are added. Apples, Oranges, while both remain action-dice granting fruit.

I honestly don't think it's broken. Personally, I think going back to the printed condition (only works against activated errors) is far less useful than the errated one, even with the cap.

Regardless, I'm splitting these last two pages off as we're pretty off track from the Q&A thread now.

[Morgenstern]

I honestly don't think it's broken. Personally, I think going back to the printed condition (only works against activated errors) is far less useful than the errated one, even with the cap.

Sure. I have no objection to the new trigger condtion. My point is that if the real value of this effect is the soft prevention of GM meddling, then that functions works with or without at cap. It's not like a GM is going to willfully burn through two or three instances of it triggering just so he can really stick it to you the fourth time...  

The soft control works by its very existence for even one activation. That being the case, and most of the contention arising from a comparison of the maximum number of dice granted by what should ultimately be viewed as an entirely seperate feat, then removing the mostly superfluous cap eliminates the comparison, and harmony is restored to the universe .

Player A "This feat absolutely reliably gives me a number of d4 action dice equal to L (my lucky number)"

Player B "Sounds good."

Player A "It is. What have you got?"

Player B "I took a feat that gives me a d4 action die every single time the GM throws a sausage at me."

Player A "Whoa, that sounds good too."

Player B "It is. I hope you like sausages, 'cause odds are good you'll be eating all the ones I would have been stuffed with..."

Regardless, I'm splitting these last two pages off as we're pretty off track from the Q&A thread now.

Well played, sir.

[pawsplay]

I guess it would be more correct to say Fortunate is very strong in specific, chance-heavy builds.

I'd argue even on it's own that its very strong.  Consider that an extra starting action die is over half of a talent / speciality - sure this isn't a Starting AD, so it's not quite as good and it doesn't scale (which depending on other feats / campaign qualities can actually be better then a scaling die).  That makes it something around 3 origin points worth - and that's if it only gave a single d4 ever.  Even with just a single d4 I'd seriously consider taking it (especially as a Priest / Explorer - with their bonus feats).  The big problem is that you effectively get a good feat again and again as you take more chance feats (all of which are good on their own merits - without this secondary "free feat").

I'm thinking in future I'm gonna add the line from Spycraft that when the player gets one, so does the GM - see if that curbs the proliferation of chance-whores (which I never saw anywhere near the same quantity of in Spycraft).

I would consider taking Combat Focus as my first Basic Combat feat, but like Fortunate, I think it's a little weak until you take a second feat in the group. I would probably take Black Cat as my first Chance feat if I were making a Chance-heavy character.

[Tamdrik]

I'm in the Morgenstern boat here-- I'm not convinced that leaving Fortune's Fool uncapped breaks it or makes it particularly exploitable, since you basically need GM complicity.  At worst, this feat could cause the GM to stop using action dice on you, but that seems to have nothing to do with whether it's capped or not.  And while immunity from GM action dice would be a fairly big deal if you could reliably assure this would be the case, it's still not what I'd call "broken".

That said, if people object to an uncapped ability on principle, I think it would be better to cap it at something like Starting Action Dice, so that at least it has some appeal to a non-chance-specialist, whereas the chance specialist would still always take Fortunate instead (or at least first).  I'd also grant "normal"/untyped action dice rather than bonus d4 dice for Fortune's Fool, but maybe I'm just not seeing the obvious ways that destroys the integrity of the game.

[Big_Jim]

How about this for a cap change?

FORTUNE’S FOOL
Even when Lady Luck slams a door in your face, she sometimes forgets to close all the windows.
Benefit: When the GM spends an action die against you, you gain a bonus d4 action die. You may use this ability a number of times per session equal to either your starting action dice or the number of Chance feats you have, whichever is higher.

It's the best of both cap worlds. Chance monkeys will use the number of Chance feats max as soon as they can, while dabblers will use the (obviously) higher total of starting action dice. If you have to have a cap; this seems to be a flexible, but still limiting, solution.

[pawsplay]

What if you could activate any time you or a teammate had an action die used against them?

[Tamdrik]

What if you could activate any time you or a teammate had an action die used against them?

This doesn't seem to really solve anything.  If we leave the cap in place, it essentially becomes a clone of Fortunate, since I think we can assume the GM will use at least as many action dice in a session as you have chance feats, and it probably eliminates any supposed meta-game effect, if there was any to begin with.  If you remove the cap, it gets kind of ridiculous (10+ action dice?).

As far as the "whichever is higher" cap, I don't see it as particularly necessary, but it doesn't really hurt anything apart from the elegance of the mechanic.