I just bought FantasyCraft, and I really wanted to like it, but...

[Crafty_Pat]

Another point of order: this is not an opportunity for us to regale you with our thoughts, but the other way around. As we mentioned over in the Spycraft Third forum, we're not ready to talk about that design yet, and probably won't be for several months.

So, with regard to your question, how would you like to see it work?

[TheTSKoala]

I'm sorta torn on this subject.  Mister A has an idea I kind of like.  Like.. say...

Koalan Eucalyptus Fiber Armor:  100 DR \ -99 DR vs. Leafy Treats.

But then we run down the risk of bogging down an already robust engine with more stats.  Worst case scenario would be in the more modern scenarios.  Say, multi-plated Dragonscale armor.  Great against multiple strikes, blast damage is still a problem, so is fire.. etc etc.. so the stat block could quickly grow to a very long list.

Vs. the current environment which, to date, has worked fine for my group.  Armor is good at protection but it's not worthless nor making Treants into Panzer tanks.

...off topic.  ..months before talking about design?  Oooh man.. if you add that to print time.. and I just got sad Koala faced.   

[Sletchman]

I just got sad Koala faced.   

I feel ya man - after a shitty day I log on and see the last post in these two threads as "Crafty_Pat" and got kinda excited, now I'm just bummed.


As to how I want it to be - fast, robust and easy.  I don't want the simple act of one of my mooks attacking a player to take 20 minutes to resolve.  This might be partly because my games tend to attract a number of players (my average is about 8-9 players), but I still say it applies to a 4 man team.  Having too much info is as bad as too little - and players often end up going "Oh right, I get 4 extra DR against bla bla, so I should have like 16 more HP because I was attacked once a round for the last 4 rounds".

One thing I think I would change is to make AP reduced resistances.  For one - it makes Kevlar sooo much easier.  You just call a Kevlar Vest partial armour with DR1 and Edged and Firearms resistance 4.  If someone shoots you with a high caliber armour defeating round then it will tear through that kevlar - so the AP10 (ish) will reduce that to 0.  Simple.  Resistances become effectively "bonus DR vs X" - plain old regular DR, just specific.

[TheTSKoala]

One thing I think I would change is to make AP reduced resistances.  For one - it makes Kevlar sooo much easier.  You just call a Kevlar Vest partial armour with DR1 and Edged and Firearms resistance 4.  If someone shoots you with a high caliber armour defeating round then it will tear through that kevlar - so the AP10 (ish) will reduce that to 0.  Simple.  Resistances become effectively "bonus DR vs X" - plain old regular DR, just specific.

So.. Kevlar becomes DR5 vs. Edged and Firearms and DR1 vs. like.. a Punch?  (There's a debate to be had there that higher caliber firearms shouldn't be covered.. but again.. that's game vs. reality.)  ..and at that point.. do you start to angle "weaknesses" into armor?  Like.. DR -1 vs. Fire / Blast?

And.. *scrolls*  the 5.7mm?  No one ever even knows what that round is.. never mind actually mentions it!  (I love my FiveSeven.)

I just got sad Koala faced.   

I feel ya man - after a shitty day I log on and see the last post in these two threads as "Crafty_Pat" and got kinda excited, now I'm just bummed.

Word.  My day started with contractor idiocy.  Strangely enough.. it's about Krensky's favorite network too!  ...shoot me now...

[Krensky]

* Twitches

God damn you maruspial. I just got those memories properly repressed again.

[TheTSKoala]

* Twitches

God damn you maruspial. I just got those memories properly repressed again.

Jameson & Ginger ale?  It's how I repress mine every time I have to take a trip out for an investigation.  I was doing so well.. I managed to avoid one for like 60 days!

[tfwfh]

So go, talk. Let us know what you think of the rules as they are, what you'd change, and how. It can't hurt, and it may very well help.

NOTE: I originally posted this in the Third Edition mega-thread, but I think maybe this is a more appropriate place for it, so I moved it.

The gear in FC is very close to the way I want it to be, especially regarding DR and AP, and I'm hesitant to make any changes to it.  I think the one change I would want is for upgrades to be somewhat more limited than they are.  As it stands, almost the only use for silver in the game is to get better weapons and armor.  So, after a few adventures when all my player's coin purses were overflowing with money, they turned to the forge chapter and skipped on over to the upgrades table, and just went down the list and and took everything they were allowed to take.  I argued where I could, but I was outnumbered, and it was a losing battle.  The only way I could find to put anything like a limit on this was to make them wait for the items to be built.

So, perhaps a maximum item complexity for upgrades, possibly determined by era.  Or maybe not allowing upgrades to increase an item's complexity by more than 100%.  Also possibly some indication of incompatible upgrades.  Obviously having a piece of armor be both vented and warm makes no sense, but try telling that to my players.  Likewise, being fitted should probably not leave room for padding or reinforcement.  I could try to have this argument with my players, but it's much easier if it's just handed down by the word of god (or printed in the book).

I guess what I would like is for characters to have to decide case-by-case what the best tool for the job is, rather than just throwing money at their equipment until it's all a spiked, fitted, keen, armor piercing, hooked nightmare that's all just one mechanically homogeneous mess.  Especially the keen and armor piercing upgrades for weapons.  You should not be able to put both on the same weapon.

Regarding Weaknesses, I think that is absolutely the wrong way to go.  It would be too easy to get bogged down in minutia that way.  I think instead the current FC way of using resistances is much better.  Armor should give a baseline of protection against all damage (things like divine notwithstanding), and have resistances to anything it's particularly effective against.  So, a bomb disposal suit gives DR 2 plus fire and explosion resistance 10.  The other option is for the bomb disposal suit to have DR 10, with weakness to guns, edged, bludgeons, acid, subdual, and fat jokes.  It's just so much more to keep track of.

As we mentioned over in the Spycraft Third forum, we're not ready to talk about that design yet, and probably won't be for several months.

Don't get bummed about that guys.  Under this new system of not telling us anything about stuff until it's practically off to the printers, that means they expect to be nearly done within a few months.  Before GenCon if Pat's other post in the SC3 thread is to be believed and interpreted optimistically.

[TheTSKoala]

Don't get bummed about that guys.  Under this new system of not telling us anything about stuff until it's practically off to the printers, that means they expect to be nearly done within a few months.  Before GenCon if Pat's other post in the SC3 thread is to be believed and interpreted optimistically.

Oh I know.. don't mind us.  We're having crappy days. lol. 

Regarding Weaknesses, I think that is absolutely the wrong way to go.  It would be too easy to get bogged down in minutia that way.  I think instead the current FC way of using resistances is much better.  Armor should give a baseline of protection against all damage (things like divine notwithstanding), and have resistances to anything it's particularly effective against.  So, a bomb disposal suit gives DR 2 plus fire and explosion resistance 10.  The other option is for the bomb disposal suit to have DR 10, with weakness to guns, edged, bludgeons, acid, subdual, and fat jokes.  It's just so much more to keep track of.

That would be my initial fear.  Oh.. and don't forget.. Bomb Suits would also have +1D6 Stress per round after X rounds (things get dumb hot), you move like a penguin (-1/2 move speed) and you waddle.  (-4 Reflex Save.)  Lol.  Super realism would kill any game I could try to run.

[Krensky]

Especially since in real life trauma is both a death spiral and a I'm fine, I'm fine, I' dead system depending on countless factors.

[TheTSKoala]

Especially since in real life trauma is both a death spiral and a I'm fine, I'm fine, I' dead system depending on countless factors.

Yeah.. then we'd have to find rules for the "Killswitch" effect caused by blast waves!  ..which.. not a doctor here.. but I don't think there's a solid medical reason for as of yet?

[Crafty_Pat]

...off topic.  ..months before talking about design?  Oooh man.. if you add that to print time.. and I just got sad Koala faced.   

I just got sad Koala faced.   

I feel ya man - after a shitty day I log on and see the last post in these two threads as "Crafty_Pat" and got kinda excited, now I'm just bummed.

Don't get bummed about that guys.  Under this new system of not telling us anything about stuff until it's practically off to the printers, that means they expect to be nearly done within a few months.  Before GenCon if Pat's other post in the SC3 thread is to be believed and interpreted optimistically.

With new projects we haven't announced yet, that's absolutely the case - you simply won't hear about them until they're very close to release. As we've mentioned before, however, Spycraft Third and 10kB are exceptions in that our departure from Mongoose forced us to announce them much further out from release than we would have liked. Now we're doing our best to keep you in the loop and set up reasonable expectations for what to expect and when to expect it. Obviously we can't speak to specifics but in the interest of not getting anyone's hopes up only to be blamed for not dashing them sooner, it's a lock that neither Spycraft Third nor 10kB will be available by Gen Con this year. There's still way too much to do.

That said, Alex and I currently expect that we'll start discussing what we have planned for the line at this year's Declassified seminar. Even that is, at this time, very tentative, but based on where we are now and what we have in front of us yet we'd say it's a very strong possibility.

As to how I want it to be - fast, robust and easy.  I don't want the simple act of one of my mooks attacking a player to take 20 minutes to resolve.  This might be partly because my games tend to attract a number of players (my average is about 8-9 players), but I still say it applies to a 4 man team.  Having too much info is as bad as too little - and players often end up going "Oh right, I get 4 extra DR against bla bla, so I should have like 16 more HP because I was attacked once a round for the last 4 rounds".

Never fear. We're acutely sensitive to rules bloat and practical application, and are actively trying to downscale them system-wide.

One thing I think I would change is to make AP reduced resistances.  For one - it makes Kevlar sooo much easier.  You just call a Kevlar Vest partial armour with DR1 and Edged and Firearms resistance 4.  If someone shoots you with a high caliber armour defeating round then it will tear through that kevlar - so the AP10 (ish) will reduce that to 0.  Simple.  Resistances become effectively "bonus DR vs X" - plain old regular DR, just specific.

So you're in favor of AP being universal then? Am I understanding you correctly?

The gear in FC is very close to the way I want it to be, especially regarding DR and AP, and I'm hesitant to make any changes to it.  I think the one change I would want is for upgrades to be somewhat more limited than they are.  As it stands, almost the only use for silver in the game is to get better weapons and armor.  So, after a few adventures when all my player's coin purses were overflowing with money, they turned to the forge chapter and skipped on over to the upgrades table, and just went down the list and and took everything they were allowed to take.  I argued where I could, but I was outnumbered, and it was a losing battle.  The only way I could find to put anything like a limit on this was to make them wait for the items to be built.

So, perhaps a maximum item complexity for upgrades, possibly determined by era.  Or maybe not allowing upgrades to increase an item's complexity by more than 100%.  Also possibly some indication of incompatible upgrades.  Obviously having a piece of armor be both vented and warm makes no sense, but try telling that to my players.  Likewise, being fitted should probably not leave room for padding or reinforcement.  I could try to have this argument with my players, but it's much easier if it's just handed down by the word of god (or printed in the book).

I guess what I would like is for characters to have to decide case-by-case what the best tool for the job is, rather than just throwing money at their equipment until it's all a spiked, fitted, keen, armor piercing, hooked nightmare that's all just one mechanically homogeneous mess.  Especially the keen and armor piercing upgrades for weapons.  You should not be able to put both on the same weapon.

To be honest that runs along the very same lines as multi-dimensional armor (aka anything like "DR 4 / 5 vs. This, 3 vs. That"). We feel the GM should be empowered to limit or restrict options at his table. We tried it the other way with Spycraft 2.0 and it was just way too much for anyone to handle.

Regarding Weaknesses, I think that is absolutely the wrong way to go.  It would be too easy to get bogged down in minutia that way.  

Exactly my feeling, for the record.

[Big_Jim]

So you're in favor of AP being universal then? Am I understanding you correctly?

That's what he's saying. More specifically, Resistance is no longer immune to AP, it is simply categorized DR that only works against the named damage type and stacks with generic DR when calculating the total DR vs its named type.

[Crafty_Pat]

So you're in favor of AP being universal then? Am I understanding you correctly?

That's what he's saying. More specifically, Resistance is no longer immune to AP, it is simply categorized DR that only works against the named damage type and stacks with generic DR when calculating the total DR vs its named type.

Gotcha.

[tfwfh]

So you're in favor of AP being universal then? Am I understanding you correctly?

That's what he's saying. More specifically, Resistance is no longer immune to AP, it is simply categorized DR that only works against the named damage type and stacks with generic DR when calculating the total DR vs its named type.

I can't recall a time when it would have mattered, but for what it's worth, I didn't know resistances don't already work that way.

[tfwfh]

Especially since in real life trauma is both a death spiral and a I'm fine, I'm fine, I' dead system depending on countless factors.

Yeah.. then we'd have to find rules for the "Killswitch" effect caused by blast waves!  ..which.. not a doctor here.. but I don't think there's a solid medical reason for as of yet?

If you mean what I think you mean, then what you're looking for is probably Hydrostatic Shock