I want to kick ass as a wizard with FATE Core.

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Lago PARANOIA
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I want to kick ass as a wizard with FATE Core.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Okay, so I'm playing a superhero game soon. And I want to make one of a technomage, a Naruto-style wizard, or a Dr. Strange-style wizard. I want to make sure so that my wizard crushes the opposition (within the boundaries of FATE) as much as possible by picking generically useful aspects and stunts.

I also don't mind picking up other supplements. Bonus points if the supplement will actually let me put additional tokens on the board. However, I would like the supplement to be fairly mainstream (so Spirit of the Century is fine) and I would like to limit the number of additional supplements.

I prefer builds that lean towards Glass Cannon, especially if the 'Cannon' part makes up for the 'Glass' part (like wizards using Emergency Force Sphere and Mirror Image).
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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erik
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Post by erik »

Isn't FATE a game where you want to pick generically useful traits that you can apply together as often as possible?

My dick goes limp at the prospect of min-maxing such a system. If you succeed you still lose.
Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Yes, but just going through the FATE Core book I can see that some stunts are more useful than others even outside the context of the actual game.

I know that this is going to involve some anecdotal experience in addition to some theorycraft; I just want to know about particularly interesting stunts, ways to use your best skill extra often and extra hard, how to quickly neuter opposition within the action economy, how good stunts that let you take actions out of turn like the Riposte stunt of Fight, etc.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Sat Dec 23, 2017 2:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

With Fate Core, you aren't really getting more splats than what's on the SRD or what stunts you can convince your MC to let you make.

In general, numberwang and creative bullshitting with Aspects are how you "win" Fate, so you want to be very good at the Create an Advantage action. Since you want to play a Wizard, this should not be difficult. Remember that if you succeed with style on a Create an Advantage action, you get to double-tap that Aspect with the free invokes you made. This is, if I recall correctly, the only way to invoke the same Aspect twice in one roll. Also remember you can Create an Advantage on an existing Aspect (such as your own) and get free Fate Point equivalents without low comedy compels. You can create $TEXAS difficulty opposition with pumped up Situatiom Aspects, which takes actions to clear and can flat shut down a lot of things.

With that, just find a skill that you can do most of the Four Actions with, get a Stunt that covers what action(s) you can't, and pump your Aspects with free invokes. Lore has a Stunt that allows it to sub for any other skill in any action, but it costs real Fate Points to do so.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
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Post by Dogbert »

Are you using FATE or FATE Core, the difference is important since Core is just the barebones system with no real FX Systems (the things where "magic" would fall under) to speak of, more of a box of legos for you to build your own FX systems.

If you want already existant FATE games with d&d-like magic, go for Legends of Anglerre.
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

This is for FATE Core, might use Venture City or Anglerre depending, though I'm interested in hearing about how you would set things up in other systems.

All right. So, going down the list of stunts, which ones were the most useful? Which ones seem like they could've been useful but there was some mechanic of the game that prevented them from coming up? For example, the Athletics Stunt that gives you a free aspect with invocation when you succeed with style seems like it could be good, but the problem is that: how often do you succeed with style on defense, especially with bigger opposition? Or that one Fight ability that lets you force bigger consequences: how often do enemies take the fight that long? Or going back to Challenges: how much of a deal is it that I can only use My One Big Skill once? Should I invest in a stunt that lets me use it twice?

That said, going back to the Athletics stunt, I notice that it does let you break the action economy. Any good stunts in the core or 'main' rulebook that I can plunder for examples?
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Sat Dec 23, 2017 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Username17 »

My experience is that FATE based games have a combat system that really drags compared to how everything else in the system is reasonably quick-n-dirty. As such, most FATE games seem to play about one or two combats by the book and then start implementing house rules that streamline the fuck out of everything.

So stunts that trigger good things on rolling dice in combat are very good by the book. Rules as written you're going to end up doing that like thirty fucking times a night, so a stunt the triggers on even one roll in 6 is still triggering about five times. But in actuality you're going to be doing some sort of unpredictable streamlining and then those stunts may or may not do anything at all with your MC's secret rules.

-Username17
Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

What stunts ended up surviving usefulness post-streamlining? Again, it seems like the stunts that give out free invocations (like Best Foot Forward) look like they'll always be useful regardless of what kind of 'style' the DM wants to run.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

Anything that stops a fight from happening or stops people from attacking, like Aura of Fear (can't attack you unless they Overcome or someone else tags you).

Anything that deals an extra consequence on a success/success with style; most enemies only have a few consequences.

Anything that generates more free invokes or grants aspects with free invokes. See my previous post.

Anything that allows you to switch a bad skill for your god skill, especially for Defend/Attack.

Anything that allows you to automatically succeed at either Defend, Overcome, or Create an Advantage actions X/scene.

The basic ass +2 to Action in Situation, where the Situation is broad and the Action is something you do all the time.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

So, using the advice in this thread, here's what I have so far for the Superhero game. We're not using any expansion material except for maybe the Fate Core Toolkit. We may switch to Venture City, but probably not. The stunts and the extra have page citations to show where I got the original idea from. Generally, it just has the original skill swapped out for 'Will'.
Extra: Shugenja Magic
Permissions: One aspect reflecting you've been trained and inducted into the Shugenja and another aspect showing your dedication to a specific element.
Costs: Skill Ranks, specifically those invested in the Will skill. Unlike the basic book with Zird, this extra will take an extra point of refresh.

Overcome: Use Will to prepare and perform magical spells successfully, or to gain insight into arcane phenomena.
Create an Advantage: Use Will to alter the environment with magic, typically corresponding to your element, or place mental and physical impediments on a target, such as Slowed Movement or A Foggy Head. Characters can defend against this with Will.
Attack: Use Will to directly harm someone with magic, whether through conjuring of elements or mental assault. Targets can defend against this with Athletics or Will depending on the nature of the attack, or Lore or Will if the target also has magical training.
Defend: Use Will to defend against hostile magics or other supernatural effects.

Stunts:
Contingent Spell - Spend a fate point to use Will in place of any other skill. (Fate Core - I've Read About That!, p.115)
Empower Spell - Once per conflict, you can force the opponent to use a mild consequence instead of a 2-point stress box on a successful Will attack. (Fate Core - My Blade Strikes True, p. 93)
Quicken Spell - Once per scene, stack an additional free invoke on an advantage you've created with Will to represent you casting two spells simultaneously. (Fate Core - Uncanny Accuracy, p. 125)
Heavenly Determination - +2 to create an advantage with Will against someone you've used this skill against this session. (Fate Core - Lies Upon Lies, p. 104)
Mask_De_H wrote:Anything that deals an extra consequence on a success/success with style; most enemies only have a few consequences.
Anything that allows you to automatically succeed at either Defend, Overcome, or Create an Advantage actions X/scene.
Do you have any in-book/on-website examples of stunts like this? I think my credibility would go up if I had something official to point to.

I really would like to have a stunt that lets me deal extra consequences on a success or at least a success with style, though. But I think my character is already straying outside of precedent a bit too much.[/b]
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Sun Dec 24, 2017 4:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Dogbert »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So, using the advice in this thread, here's what I have so far for the Superhero game.
Alas, FATE is not the system you want for superheroes unless you want to handle two completely different sets of scale benchmarks/difficulties: One for muggles and one for metahumans. Otherwise, the system was mostly made for low-to-mid powered games (unless your definition of "superhero" tops at The Defenders).

I read a "superhero" game for FATE once (I think it was Venture City) and was largely unimpressed at its "Legion of Losers" pitch.
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