The FRPS will use a dice pool of d6s for resolution. Attributes will determine how many d6s you get, the relevant Skill adds points to the roll. Use the difficulties below for most uncontested rolls:



A critical is a success or failure by twice your skill. So at skill 1, success by 2 is a critical success, at skill 2, success by 4 is critical, and so on up to skill 5 where success by 10 is critical. Use the opposite numbers for failures.

Heroes in Fable are so special they don't go off balance without an adversary having taken them off balance. It just doesn't happen. Same goes for being knocked down. Enemies in Fable do tend to take cheap shots however, and have obnoxious footwork, so cheap shots and side step results are just the sort of thing to add flavor to any fable game, but they aren't the result of any thing the Hero does. With that in mind, the critical failure table below:

Critical Failure Table (1d6)
1) Sidestep: The opponent easily evades your blow, and you take a swipe out of air.
2) Trip: The opponent sticks a foot out as they evade your blow, and you stumble. I considered having that affect defense until the next turn, but that depends on response to my previous defense options.
3) Bury the Hatchet: Your weapon digs into the ground where your opponent was, and you miss a turn.
4) En Passant: Your opponent does a neat little spin with his sidestep, and now you've got a nice wound across your back to show for it. No defense for that particular hit, but you don't take further penalty.
5) Knocked Down: Your turn is over, and you spend your next one getting back up.
6) The GM's Pick

The results are reversed for critical succcesses. That means players pick their own results on a roll of 6

Attributes
Strength, Skill Dexterity, and Will each have subattribute scores ranging from 1-5 with each point granting one dice toward appropriate rolls.
Strength

• Physique
• Toughness
• Health

Dexterity

• Accuracy
• Speed
• Guile

Will

• Magic Rank
• Tome (You can have 2 spells per point this Subattribute)
• Spell Runes (You can add effects to Charged spells. This Subattribute represents the maximum level boost you can have on a spell)

Strength, Dexterity and Will equal the average of their respective subattributes

Starting and Raising Attributes
Characters are assumed to have subattributes of 1 and 40 points to spend on raising them. It takes 4 points to raise from 1 to 2, but after that, it takes Current Score cubed to advance to the next score (8 from 2 to 3, another 27 from 3 to 4, and finally 64 from 4 to 5). You can't skip. Every normal kill is one point. Quest Kills/Bosses are Highest Attribute² exp shared among those that took part in the battle and were conscious at the end. Those that were unconscious at the end gain half EXP. Attribute Manuals grant points as a Quest Kill for 1 reader before becoming inert.


Learning Spells
Whenever you gain a rank of Tome, you may learn two spells, or you may learn a spell, and a Rune with an effect of equal or lower level than the maximum allowed for your Runes score. You can also learn spells from Spellbooks in your travels provided that

1) You currently have less spells than your Tome score would otherwise indicate and
2) If the spellbook is for a specific spell, you may learn it if you haven't already.

In any case, reading Spellbooks is still beneficial, because it gives you points as if you had defeated a Boss with Magic Rank equal to the Spellbook Level (but not shared because only one person can read the book) before becoming inert.

Skills
In addition to Subattributes, players also learn skills. Skills cost the following:


The following Skills are available in the FRPS: Blacksmithing, Lute, Gambling, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat, and Thief Skills.

Thief Skills
In order to learn these skills, you need a minimum Guile score as dictated by the skill.
2 Guile: Filch-Grabbing unattended stuff off a table
3 Guile: Pick Pocket-Swiping something from a foe's pocket
4 Guile: Pick Lock/Disable Trap-Opening a lock without breaking anything/Preventing a trap from going off harmfully.
5 Guile: Backstab-Dealing extra damage upon a hidden or flanking strike

Retraining
A character may reduce a score by one to gain half of the points back (so for example, dropping a 5 to a 4 would give back 32 points, while unlearning a Rank 3 spell would give back 4)

Morphology-Weight, Attractiveness, and You
Normally games like to allow their players to decide what they look like, and they can to the extent of hair and eye color, and preeixisting scars and tatoos, but Attractiveness and Weight have statistical measures, such as how NPCs react to you.

Attractiveness

• For men, Strength is an important factor for determining whether they are adequate providers and protectors. Men add 1 dice to to attractiveness rolls per point of Strength.
• For women, Physique and Health are more important than being muscular and men sometimes find muscular women unsightly anyway. Use the higher of the two scores, adding 1 dice per point to attractiveness rolls.
• Weight modifies rolls by +/-|Weight/10| points depending on whether the target likes or dislikes positive or negative weight values.

Weight

• Weight starts at 0 and goes from -50 to +50
• For women, weight is centered on 130 lbs. Women whose guile exceeds (positive) Weight/10 may be 'voluptuous'.
• For men, weight is centered on 160 lbs.
• Every point below 0 weight is -1 lb, while every point above is +2.
• Diet alters Weight in numerous ways and amounts
• Running across a zone or a whole town reduces weight by -2
• A battle reduces weight by the amount of rounds it takes.

Height

• Height is centered on 5' for men, and 4'8" for women. Add inches equal to the total of Physique, Toughness, and Healthx2

Scars
Whenever you are knocked unconscious make an Appearance check (Hard, difficulty 9). A failure equals a scar in a location of your choice (Arm, Leg, Chest, Back, Face, Neck). A critical failure, or being knocked out as a result of a called shot or critical hit means the scar is in a location of the GM's choice. A the GM's option, certain scars may give you a frightful appearance, or act as trophies.

Alignment
Alignment represents your standing on the scale of morality. Ethical dealings are possible too, although those are up to GM discretion. Morality ranges on a scale from -1000 to 1000, although GMs are free to vary this. Since the Fabletop Roleplaying System is designed to be played by a group, Only individual decisions affect morality. If your group is deciding what to do with a surrendered bandit leader, and one of its members decides to kill the leader, that person suffers morality loss. If the group collectively voted to execute him, they all suffer the loss. merely voting for his execution but abiding by group decision doesn't penalize morality.

Positive Actions


Negative Actions

Combat Statistics
Hit Points
These suckers keep you alive. They equal (HealthxToughness)². Since Health and Toughness both max at 5, max HP is 25 squared or 625. It would have been neat if I could do 999, but that's kind of a Final Fantasy Trope.

Mana
We don't need no stinkin' Mana. We'll use the Gauntlet system. The advantage? No Will Potions. The drawback? Spells take Prep Time. You can feasibly fire off one in a single round, but it wouldn't be very powerful.

Weapons
Each weapon has a 'Tier' from 1-5.

*Optionally, you can include non-canonical materials here like Adamant, Mithril, or Orichalcum, either instead of, or in addition to Master Weapons.
†Legendary weapons may go as high as 10th tier. An example 10th tier weapon would be the Sword of Aeons

Heroic Weapons
Some weapons evolve with their hero, becoming more powerful as their hero gains skill. Such a heroic weapon mutates as it gains power. in games that use heroic weapons, they are considered one tier higher than the hero's skill. Thus a fully evolved (skill level 5) weapon is Tier 6.

Weapon Augmentations
Weapon augmentations have tiers as well, but only up to 5. When determining the total tier of a weapon that has been augmented, use the tier of the highest augmentation +1 per additional augmentation. Individual augmentations are priced at (Tier+2) cubed. A weapon may have no more than 3 augmentations and a total of 10 tiers after augmentations.

Combat
Whenever you attack, roll Attribute Dice+Skill Points. When using a melee weapon, Skill is Melee Combat and Attribute is Strength. With Ranged, it is Ranged Combat and Accuracy respectively.

Players and Bosses roll their Speed and add their Guile in order to defend.

A mook only has Strength, Dexterity, and Will. Don't bother with subattributes or skills. They are simply assumed to roll 3s for their relevant attribute (thus they always have attack and defense scores of 3xAttribute).

Whenever you cast a spell you roll Will d6s and add Magic Rank.

Combat Damage
Mundane Damage=Attribute x (Melee or Ranged) x Weapon Tier
Spell Damage = Will x Magic Rank x Gauntlet Runes (Since you could have a rune on each gauntlet, if Runes individually max at level five, this means total maximum would be x10)

Affects Both
Charge Time (Up to 5 turns)
Combat Multiplier (Theoretically unlimited)
This message was last edited by the player at 10:45, Sun 07 Dec 2014.

Spells
Below is a list of spells. by default spells have a bolt function, which fires a shot (or in the case of Time Control, the caster) at the target and only hits that target (except when using the appropriate Rune). Blast effects are centered on the caster and damage or affect targets surrounding them.

Spell Damage=(Charge Turns)xRune Level (if using +Damage)xMagic Rank,

Fireball
(includes an Enflame type area effect. Perhaps less damage in exchange for damage being dealt over time?)

Shock
(also includes an area effect, maybe a stun too, if I can get the particulars worked out. It'd obviously have to do less damage (perhaps half) in exchange for a stun check at Tougness Difficulty equal to Magic Rank?)

Ice Storm
(also includes an area effect, maybe a tangle too (like a stun that can be broken off if struck), also less damage in exchange for the tangle check at Tougness Difficulty equal to Magic Rank?)

Heal Life
Straight forward "Damage"=Heals

Raise Dead
Basically the only heroes that actually die in a group game set up like fable would do so on a TPK, or those murdered by other heroes. Possibly Final Boss types. Raising Dead would have multiple beneficial effects though. For starters, more party members to continue the fight. But also, if you don't want to have ugly scars (as depicted above), magical resuscitation could theoretically prevent that. Finally, Raise Dead may prevent you from being unconscious at the end of a boss/quest battle, and gaining half EXP.

Alternately, raise dead may be used to create hollowmen out of slain enemies. They are no better than an otherwise summoned creature.

Drain Life
Probably less damage than the equation above indicates, in exchange for partial healing. I'm thinking half max at a 1:1 ratio.

Summon
Summons a creature with a Toughness appropriate to the character's Magical Rank. This affects its HP and hit rate too.

Time Control
Includes the effects of Battle Charge, and effects that would permit multiple attacks. You could have one additional attack per level of MR maximum, but only one additional attack per turn of charging. additional attacks are mutually exclusive with the Battle Charge effect.

Turncoat
Opposed by monster Guile. If you beat the monster's successes, it fights for you until it dies or the battle is over.

Vortex
Wind damage. I'm thinking that I want to fold Blades into a Vortex at MR 5.

Runes
Each spell gauntlet can accept 1 rune, and you can equip a gauntlet in each hand.

+Area
Bolt effects normally hit one target instead of exploding. A rune with +Area hits a radius from the target of 1 yard per level of the rune. For a Blast Effect, simply increase the radius around you as if you'd charged for an extra turn per level.

Brawler
Whenever you fight unarmed with this rune, you are considered to have a with a Tier equal to (The higher of Strength or Magic Rank)+Rune Level. Damage type is the same as the gauntlet the rune is equipped to.

+Damage
The level of this Rune adds an extra multiplier in the spell damage table, possibly causing a significant damage increase.

+Damage Over Time
This rune causes the target to take half the initial damage for the next #Level rounds.

No Friendly Fire
It's up to the GM whether friendly fire exists in the game anyway. If it does, it only happens on Blast or +Area effects. This rune stops either effect from causing friendly fire.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:52, Tue 21 Oct 2014.

I see the 3 attributes are a little unbalanced numerically speaking. Can I suggest something?

Strength

• Physique
• Toughness
• Health

Skill

• Accuracy
• Speed
• Guile

Will

• Spells
• Magic Rank
• Manna

Spells: Determines maximum # of spells you can learn.

Magic Rank: Determines how powerful each of your spells are.

Manna: Determines how often you can cast spells before you need to rest as well as determines how well you can cast despite distractions/damage.

---

I think that would make it a 3/3/3 setup for some good balance. Just something to think about.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:22, Wed 15 Oct 2014.

At the moment, there are 11 spells, which actually puts Will at a maximum of 5.3(etc), or 5 due to rounding, and I also have the advantage of not needing to worry Mana Cost or individual spells having levels at all. If I were to create a separte Mana stat, I'd need to change the equation, and add in spell costs. Even if I only did one table for ALL spells of a given level, how many spells per full load of mana should I set that at?

Although with Spells determining the maximum number of spells you can learn, and changing the maximum to 5, that would balance things out. I worry that casters might be a little bothered by only ever knowing a maximum of 5 spells.

You actually have a lot of options with that. And you can mix and match them.

1. Create more spells.
   
2. Make less spells?
   
3. Spell combos (you know you want to)
   
4. Spell boosts (improve particular aspects of your spells beyond their normal growth)
   
5. Spell books
   
6. Why cap 5? Why not cap 10? Or # spells known = stat x2? or x1.5?
   
7. Manna can be easy, just depends how fast you want your play to go. If you want fast paced, say # of spells = stat and then you need X time or X actions to recharge. Or another calculation, that's just an example.

Just some random brainstorms for you to consider.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:22, Wed 15 Oct 2014.

I could do that. I think it would go toward making it less Fable-ish, but it's a possibility


I've already consolidated some spells together... sorta. Like Blades is a maxed out Vortex that adds blades to the wind damage. It's a special effect f being 5th level. Time Control combines the effects of 3 spells (Battle Charge and an attack speed increase for both melee and range combat). If I cut a spell to make it even, I'd cut Berserk because it would be the easiest to cut.


Yeah obviously, or I wouldn't have made the default system Spell Gauntlets.


I don't understand how that changes anything other than me having to rework the formula.
Belay that, I figured it out midway through writing this post.


Neat idea, but I'm not quite sure what this changes, other than the possibility that characters don't learn spells at all, in which case I hate Vancian magic with a fiery passion that burns with the heat of over 9000 suns.

I may still end up going with an idea that you can read a spell book to gain experience specifically for that spell, but that won't change the Will math.


Fair enough. If I drop Berserk, the spell cap would be Statx2, which ends up being 10 for those with stat 5.


I don't know any more than I already did on the subject of how to quantify Mana points.

So taking from the list, of solutions you provided (changing the names out of amusement for a few I thought of). How about:

Will

• Magic Rank
• Tome (You can have 2 spells per point this Subattribute)
• Spell Boosts (You can add effects to Charged spells. This Subattribute represents the maximum level boost you can have on a spell)

This message was last edited by the player at 03:55, Wed 15 Oct 2014.

I too hate Vancian magic. Manna points and at-will cantrips for the win. But then again, if you're measuring in "round-by-round" uses (instead of per day crap), Vancian and MP sort of have a blurred line. Which is why I had that as an example possibility.


Oooh, shiny. I like it.

Oh, instead of "boosts" you can call them "augments" or "runes" or "enhancements" or something like that.

Runes it is :D

Schweet.

Yeah. I also had to tweak the Learning Spells section. Do you like what I did to it?

In reply to steelsmiter (msg # 11):

Looks good. Just a few typos to fix up and you're godlen. :P

Added a few Runes. Can't think of any more at the moment. Also restructured the first and second posts, and added several edits, including Height. Because Fable was amusing when you could be 7 feet tall.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:53, Wed 15 Oct 2014.

Any thought on how you will handle flourishes, and charging up spell?

Missed that one. It's something to think about. Do you have any ideas?


Yep. Already had that one.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:29, Thu 16 Oct 2014.

Do you have a round-by-round turn-based combat system?

If normally an attack costs [action] then make flourish cost [action * 2] and deal x3 damage but make only one attack at a small penalty. Riskier but if you hit its a great payoff and it blasts right through someone who's blocking.

IDEA:

Attack = 1 action
Block = 1 action (vs. 1 enemy/direction take 1/3 damage and get +3 defense, double these bonuses if using shield)
Charge Flourish = 1 action (flourish attack deals x3 damage and breaks block causing target to be stunned for 1 round)
Charge Spell = 1 action (charge up time reduced based on one of the Will stats)
Move = 1 action
Reload weapon = free action 1/round or 1 action every use thereafter in the same round
Switch weapon = free action 1/round or 1 action every use thereafter in the same round
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:52, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

Yeah, I'm not of any other way to do combat.


Well, in Fable 3, I know they could charge for around the same length of time as a spell (which I'm calling 5 rounds max). If I allow regular combat to scale like spells currently do, that gives them an edge because current damage codes are

[Melee/Ranged] Damage=Tier (max 10) x Attribute (max 5) x Skill (max 5).
Backstabbing foes deals Double Damage if you also beat their Guile

[Spell] Damage= Magic Rank (Max 5) x (Charge Turns up to 5) x Rune Level (for +Damage)

I suppose I could up the maximum Rune Level.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:52, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

In reply to steelsmiter (msg # 17):

Sounds good to me. Although I would make charge ups exponential.

Maybe...

1 action = 1 x normal bonus
1 charge up = 3 x normal bonuses
2 charge ups = 6 x normal bonuses
3 charge ups = 10 x normal bonuses
4 charge ups = 15 x normal bonuses
5 charge ups = 21 x normal bonuses

That way stopping someone from charging up is an essential function in combat.

Or something like that, doesn't have to be that exact calculation.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:56, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

Well, a more canonical boost would be a Combat Multiplier, which is the number of kills you got uninterrupted. That way foes could watch out for both flourishes and combat multipliers :D

Right, So I'm thinking on some changes

Mundane Damage=Attribute x (Melee or Ranged) x Weapon Tier
Spell Damage = Will x Magic Rank x Gauntlet Runes (Since you could have a rune on each gauntlet, if Runes individually max at level five, this means total maximum would be x10)

Affects Both
Charge Time (Up to 5 turns)
Combat Multiplier (Theoretically unlimited)

Thoughts?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:14, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

Hard enough to work a charge up in there. Adding a combat multiplier would just get ridiculous.

You'd have to go real time instead of turn-based and have a computer doing it otherwise it would just get beyond tedious to have to calculate both with exponential growth.

Unless you had one table for the combination or something? If you can think of a useful formula.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:45, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

I didn't say anything about that. My offer was instead of. Incidentally, I've found players to be quite ready to keep track of how many they killed in the ongoing battle.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:11, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

Oh, I see. Just ONLY use a combat multiplier and use it as a flat growth rate instead of exponential. Yeah, that'd be simple and easy.

But then you don't really have an effective "charge up" like you do in the games. But that's a small price to pay if you can get everything else.

I'm not sure how much you need with maximum HP of normals being right around 625, and bosses probably not much more than that.

You're making flat set caps?

In reply to Arkrim (msg # 24):

Yep. At least for players. I haven't wrote anything for monsters. I plan on doing that during playtesting. Fable itself specifies flat set attack value levels. Or at least the original does. There was a two handed weapon that bypassed the Sword of Aeons in 1 but they retconned it to be equivalent in Anniversary to be equivalent.

But like with Combat Multipliers of the actual fable games, Combat Multiplier has no maximum as long as you keep making kills. So um... I guess the final answer is... sorta.

Unless you're talking about HP, in which case, unlimited HP would be pretty weird.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:09, Fri 17 Oct 2014.

Also I noticed that I failed to account for the fact that you can have a rune on each Gauntlet, which would make the total maximum +10 on 2 runes.

Please correct me... as it could be that I don't understand.  And as thus perhaps an examination of the documentation might be in order unless I checked by brain out somewhere without making a note of it.

But it seems like combat amounts to a comparison of str for instance STR vs SPEED.  You roll you attribute in dice, and get filtered out a portion of those to get to count based on your skill.

That means, someone who's SPEED exceeds the other person's STR, even if the person has legendary skill.  That person will be unable to be successful at striking the individual?

It seemed like the type of weapon modified the type of damage it did, not how many dice you roll to try to beat their SPEED.

It seems like it is a fractional (by skill) attribute vs. a full attribute, which would make that attribute might have a disproportionate importance.  Would it seem there should be some filter on the speed attribute somehow, or some way to increase the dice rolled against it so that a faster person isn't impervious to all but the super strong?

Did I miss a component?  I know you have Speed rolls for defense, but specifically seem to indicate that they are only for Named foes.  Also, if their roll can exceed their speed, then there wouldn't seem to be much hope a defense roll would exceed their speed which is what is determining the number of dice rolled.  At best they would get SPEED successes, which was required to hit them in the first point.  Checking it against at something bound to be that value or less will assuredly be the same effect, unless you get to add your starting speed to begin with.

Understand I am not at all familiar with Fable... so I may be missing some key component that someone familiar with it would have no problem with.  But I figure I would point out what I'm seeing.

Good point, that's an oversight. I'll make the roll either based on the higher of Strength and Skill, or scrap Strength from the roll entirely, depending on what seems preferred.


Fair enough. I'm either changing that to "super skilled" or "Super strong or super skilled".


You know, that actually gives me an idea. The two options are either scrap the defense roll entirely, or allow active defense to apply Speed Dice+Speed Score for bosses/named and players. The only drawback to that is that it's possible to get a high enough difficulty the attacker can't hit, if speed is fast enough. That also means that players can't get hit if they actively defend, which could be an upside.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:01, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

Actually, upon thinking about it further, I definitely want Attribute Dice against Skill difficulty to hit an unmoving target, but rather I want to change defense from



to



So in essence, it would be whoever succeeds by more is the only one to actually succeed, even though rolls are generally successful.

But now I kind of want to add in a bonus for those that do nothing but defend on a given round.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:33, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

Potential... if you actively defend you win on a tie... if you passively defend you lose on a tie... unless you were only attacked by a passive attack (if that exists - like an AoO - or something like that that is a free or AoE attack)

Or allow them to roll once... and if it is higher than their passive roll, it can be applied vs. a number of attacks equal to their speed.  If lower, it is ignored.  (potentially a botch might have some wider negative effect though?)

Of note:  Saying Mooks get 1/2 their speed as a base... makes them roughly equivalent to someone with a 3 (or is it 4) skill?  Is that correct?  Is that what you are intending? (it is true, that since it is static a mook would get no benefit from odd speeds, as a limitation of sorts)

Usually for these types of games I like to establish priority as Player>Monster>Defender>Attacker, but active vs. passive defense is a nice touch. I've never been fond of active vs. passive offense though, so I'm not sure I really use it.


So I like the idea that one defense roll can be used on a number of attacks equal to your speed as long as your actual successes beat their successes.

So if you got 4 successes on 3 speed, you could defend against 3 attacks that don't get more than 4 successes, but if the second attack gets 4 successes(or 5 in the case of active defense) then further attacks against you would succeed.


Someone with a 3-4 can exceed them but is otherwise equivalent in the most likely success rate, yes. It is intended as a disadvantage that mooks can't roll defense, but say... a Lute playing contest involving speed would be Speed at Lute difficulty if that's what the contest was going for. NPCs could get rolls for that if it was storyline compelling and be on a more even keel. But it's easier to come up with 7-15 competitor names than a name for every bandit. Even still, some competitors are assumed to be making 1-2 successes. That separation between the figurative 'Men and the Boys' is kind of what I'm looking for.

Ok... question... but you can't get four successes with 3 speed... correct?  your attribute defines how many dice you roll, the skill limits the fraction of those dice roll which are considered success.  Am I correct?

Right. That's correct. Basically, if your attribute is low, you might be comparable to a mook. But if it's 3+ there's a chance you exceed them, because players always roll, so they're reasonably likely to average higher if they're above that statistical breaking point. An NPC has to have 4 before they can't be beaten out by a Player with attribute 2, and they can't automatically beat out a 4-5.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:38, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

Basically mooks are difficulty 1 until they have skill/attribute 4, at which point they are difficulty 2, and players get 1-3 rolls initially (because a starting attribute of 3 costs 12/40 points). Yes that leads to characters that don't have much more than a focus on one attribute and 1 skill, with 4 points thrown at a couple twos, but that's not really a problem for me.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:00, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

What is considered the Base skill level?

My reason is... if you have a skill that is one or two... the higher your attribute, the worse your result will most likely be.  And if skills start lower than three, your mook will have an advantage over the character.

Also the reason I gave the example was that you gave the example of someone having more successes than their attribute.  You indicated 4 successes with a speed of 3, which shouldn't be possible if you roll three dice.  (it also was a source of trouble with your original vs. roll)

What if you roll two colored dice for any attempt.  One representing attributes, one representing skill.  Your skill value determines the value that makes a success.  However, your attribute dice ONLY botch/count against you, when they roll a 6?

High attributes should generally only help you, (at least statistically) and become even more helpful as your skill goes up.  The skill points help raise the dice you roll to increase the ability to beat someone else's raw stat.

Just a thought.  Otherwise I would recommend any skill normally start at a min of 3 (potentially representing untrained, but doable, or 2 to represent normally requiring training, or someone subject to a disadvantage of some sort.)

Just some thoughts to consider as you scale things.

it's possible, but the player with a 2 could possibly get more successes than a mook that should be put against him in the first place (that is a mook that only gets 1 success ). I see I don't have a base skill level. Sounds to me like a good reason to say 4 points buys a 2 skill level, and 1 isn't worth fiddling with on skills. Subattributes are 1 though. So he's got a 33% chance of 1d6 succeeding out of the gate for a skill he purchased. I'm ok with those odds.


Probably just badly stating what I mean.


Nope. I want d6 dice pool with (possibly sub)attributes affecting your pool and skills affecting difficulty, and contests to be a resolution of who has greater successes (or a match against low successes in the case of mooks). This is non-negotiable.


Right, so 4 points gets you 2 skill it is. the suggestion of having 3 in something you're specialized in will be a statistically pertinent character creation suggestion rather than an outright rule.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:14, Mon 20 Oct 2014.

The issue is that if I have a skill of 2 and raise my attribute I have less chance of my action being an overall success.

With an attribute of one, it is a simple one-third chance.

Going to an attribute of two is particularly bad, giving you a one out of nine chance of success (granted it will be a two-step) success.  Of the times left four of nine will be a failure by way of a success and botch canceling one another.  The remaining 4 of 9 times it will be a double botch.

Next, at an attribute of three, your chance of at least some success is at least back up to 7 of 27 (still less than one third).  It is one chance in twenty seven of having a triple success and a six in twenty seven of getting a regular single success.  Twelve out of the twenty seven times I will have a one-level botch.  Eight out of twenty seven times (which is greater than the chance of any kind of success) you will come out with a triple botch.

If I were do the calculations, it isn't going to improve for higher attributes.  I think you need to make only a six be a botch normally. Technically your chance to fail per roll still outnumbers the chances of success, which is where the problem lies.  Adding extra chances just increases the chance of failure.

Another option that might reduce the bad impact of extra dice would be if you roll in order, and the individual gets to choose to use any number of dice they want except if the first die is a failure, they have to keep using the next until a success.  A little more complicated but doable perhaps.

I don't know how to satisfactorily answer your question.


At 3 dice, if you roll a success, you can't critical fail at all, because at the worst, a failure will cancel the success and you would only have 1 left over.

At 3 dice, you need all failures to get a crit fail. I'm fine crit failing someone with all failures.
At 4 dice, you must roll 3 failures in order to have 2 left over in order to critical fail. I'm fine crit failing someone with 3/4 failures.
At 5 rolling 3 failures gives you two successes, which cancel them out and you're left with an ordinary failure. I'm fine crit failing someone who failed 4/5 on their dice pool.

Best I can tell you is that all these statistical anomolies aren't something I have a problem with.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:37, Tue 21 Oct 2014.

I'll just go ahead and respond ot the other bit in a second post


I could change it to 2 sixes. Incidentally, another route that I just now thought of would be that 1s are critical successes, and you get a crit success if you roll even one after cancellations. That way, a 5 attribute has a better chance of rolling crit successes than a 1 attribute.

I am following the discussion, and from the sound of it you have a fairly stable method worked out. I'll admit to a knee jerk reaction to dice pool systems. Usually to the fist full of dice syndrome....HOWEVER it seems like the numbers you are working with wont exceed ten or twelve at worst.

Perhaps one method of dealing with success/botches is to set it up so that 1s increase the effect of the attack.

Such as a single one maxes rolled damage,2 ones doubles damage, and three ones triples damage all 1s deliver triple damage and knock the target down.

sixes cancel any bonus from ones, and reduce damage on successful hits...

one six without a one, minimum damage, 2 sixes without ones off balance, 3 sixes off balance and loss of next combat round. all sixes loss of next round( defense actions or movement only), knocked down, and loss of next combat action ( the character can not defend or stand up)

The dice pool will never exceed 5 dice under any circumstances. That would imply an attribute of 6.


I suggested a "1=crit hit rule" in my last post.


What's this rolled damage business?


They do this but


They cause unsuccessful hits instead. I don't like reducing damage in general, and anything that makes a normal failure worse, just by the sheer presence of a single six bothers me. The way it is set up, after ones and 6s mitigate each other, critical failures only occur with 2 remaining sixes. Thus sixes must almost always be in the majority for a critical failure.


I originally started out flat out saying "nope". Partly because damage is only varied with application of different multipliers, but also for reasons I already stated. Secondly, heroes in Fable are so special they don't go off balance without an adversary having taken them off balance. It just doesn't happen. Same goes for being knocked down.

Enemies in Fable do tend to take cheap shots however, and have obnoxious footwork, so cheap shots and side step results are just the sort of thing to add flavor to any fable game, but they aren't the result of any thing the Hero does. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Sidestep: The opponent easily evades your blow, and you take a swipe out of air.
2) Trip: The opponent sticks a foot out as they evade your blow, and you stumble. I considered having that affect defense until the next turn, but that depends on response to my previous defense options.
3) Bury the Hatchet: Your weapon digs into the ground where your opponent was, and you miss a turn.
4) En Passant: Your opponent does a neat little spin with his sidestep, and now you've got a nice wound across your back to show for it. No defense for that particular hit, but you don't take further penalty.
5) Knocked Down: Your turn is over, and you spend your next one getting back up.

If I could come up with 1 more, I'd make it an official 1d6 chart. Mainly because I'm kind of leery about attaching it to the number of sixes.

Unrelated to Rules:I've always wanted to take a fan map, something like this: http://www.independentcreator....739_d40e9cc867_b.jpg and put all the towns from all 3 main games. So you'd have Oakvale, Oakfield, Bowerstone, Brightwall, Brightwood, Rookridge, Bloodstone, etc. Or at least a map that consolidates the three continuities geographically.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:18, Wed 22 Oct 2014.

It also occurs to me that I could switch everything over to Dice Pool totals flip the results of 1s and 6s (or scrap those rules in favor of some total relative to TN being used to determine criticals). and change the success requirements to target numbers of 5, 10, 15, and 20. At a glance, it seems like higher attributes are significantly elevated in their importance. If I did it that way, mooks would passively roll 3 on every dice, so they might have a Passive Defense of 9 for 3 speed and 12 for 4 Strength melee attack (as an example).
This message was last edited by the player at 19:53, Wed 22 Oct 2014.

Certainly, that makes the attributes much more beneficial.  (someone with an attribute 1 will statistically end up scoring one half that of someone with a stat of 2, the same true with a score an attribute of a 4 being statistically double the value of one with a 2)

Strictly speaking, the question would be what does the skill values affect?  If you are looking for a somewhat new mechanic to use in your game, perhaps the skill determines the values on dice which get to be counted as successes.  Sixes over-run your ability, and are called a botch and cancel the highest successful roll.

So someone with a skill of 2 and attribute of one, rolls 1 dice.  If they get a 1, they have achieved a success with value of 1, if they get a 2, they succeed with a value of 2.  (probably another basic success).  If they get a 3 through 5 they have simply completed a simple failure.  If they roll a 6, they 'over-reacted' and have a botch.. which without any success die, to cancel, will result in a botch.

You could have a simple success require 1 and often only useful in non-stressful situations.
You could have the next tier of success require a target of 4.  Then following that a tier 3 success would require a target of 9.  A tier 4 would need a target of 16, and a tier 5 a target of 25.  (nearly impossible)

This would mean a person with an attribute of 2 and skill of 2 could rarely get a 4, (1 out of 36) but at least succeed almost half the time (16 out of 36).  They would simply fail 13 out of 36 times, and do a 1 layer botch on sixth the time, or double botch the same chance as their tier 2 success.

When comparing two directly opposing result, the actual target numbers rolled can be compared directly to determine the winner.

This would make the skill just about as important as the attribute... and having both key to doing really well.  [it does however lower what target numbers you would be able to expect/require]

Missed that one. If I do target numbers, Skills might provide flat +1/level maybe?


That's kind of how they already work except that sixes cancel 1s, then 2s, then 3s, and so on until all successes are canceled. The only difference you've described is the order in which successes are cancelled and the impact of 1s.


I really like this difficulty scheme. If I go TNs, I will use it :D. Coupled with my Skill grants +1/L scheme, this swings your odds a little bit. I may need to rework criticals being a certain value relative to TN in that case. I'm not really sure where to begin on that.


That's how I'd run opposed contests regardless of default TNs. For example if you had Attribute 2 (TN 4) you wouldn't just roll TN 4 all day against hobbes. You'd roll better than them. But of course they don't roll (being mooks) so it would be down to deciding whether they just use the default target numbers or assume rolls of 3. If they have an attribute of 2, that would be a base TN of 4, but they might have skill 1-2 anyway, so that'd be pretty close to the same. thing. At level 3, using your TNs would be anywhere from 1-3 points disadvantage for a monster. At level 4, base would be 12, but skill could be 1-4 so there's that. At 5, base would be 15, so adding 1-5 skill would be disadvantageous to using your TNs.

So how about Attribute dice + Skill points. If you succeed, count your 6s. If they exceed your 1s you have a critical success, or if you fail, and your 1s exceed your sixes, it's a critical failure?

I've changed it to reflect Attribute+skill. I think the only thing left is to decide whether to make the table in Message 41 official and add a 6th result, or leave it as is, or scrap that and set a fixed critical result (for both critical successes and critical failures).

A thought to consider is that you have skills and (sub)attributes having the same cost, but adding a point to your subattribute will add 1-6 points (average) while adding 1 to the skill adds 1 point, and will have a more limited scope.  (granted the attribute can actually come out a 1 which might contribute a critical fail, but there would be an equal chance of coming out a 6 potentially contributing to a critical success.

I originally thought that you were going to continue to filter which dice contributed to towards the target number, by using their skill.

(with that in mind you also might want to adjust the difficulty targets up a tad)
easy 4, average 9, hard 16, heroic 25, legendary 36

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Everything already does have the same cost. Skills add points, (sub)attributes add dice (except in rare instances where using two of them makes one of them add dice and the other add points). unless you're talking about something other than a 1-5 scale, which isn't really in keeping with Fable 2 or 3 (and in Anniversary it was more like 1-7 but I prefer this as I want d6 dice pools).


Nah, I'd just drop it back down to having 4 levels of difficulty, going from 4-25

Incidentally, I'm thinking I want to also include some professional skills outside combat. Probably:
Smithing
Lute
Gambling

Probably won't include Bartending, wood chopping, or baking though. They don't seem like they would be useful for making reasonably quick money, or impressing some high ranking socialite (or for that matter, a demon door). Maybe baking at a festival... hard to say.

I might go into playtesting if that's it. I won't advertise for it here, obviously, but if enough people PM me with interest it's a possibility.

Sorry, in response to your question above about not getting it.

My point was why advance a skill, when it costs as much as an attribute, it has a smaller scope (Affects fewer rolls) and will tend to have approximately 1/3 or less the impact.  It would seem that in those conditions, the skills should probably cost less.  (or did I misunderstand, and skill addition gets added per die rolled?

Does that explain the thought/concern any better?

Nah, skills are added on a 1/1 basis. I see no point adding as much as 25 to a roll flat out just because skill and attribute are both 5. Also, it would be pointless to have TNs in the 25 to 36 point range at that point.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:22, Sat 08 Nov 2014.

This message was deleted by the player at 16:28, Tue 11 Nov 2014.

How About Old Score Multiplied by New Score (min 1)?:



I'm thinking if I were to include non-combat skills like Smithing, Gambling, or Lute, I'd make several points on a success roll equal to an experience point. Not sure how many just yet.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:50, Sat 08 Nov 2014.

Here's how gambling worked in F2


so even though the math doesn't work out the same, I could probably get by with "wager 2500xCurrent Level to get 1 point win or lose". Some people might not like the win or lose that Fable 2 allowed so it could get you 2 points on a win.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:07, Mon 10 Nov 2014.

Using this table I could say Margin Of Success=Chains. Every 10 chains is 1 point.

Couple thoughts...

You could tie skill experience acquisition to critical successes and critical failure with that particular skill.

Another thought occurred to me.  I noted that you could only get a botch, in cases where you failed by Target Number, and could only have a Critical success in cases where you succeeded in your Target Number.  You might consider allowing someone to succeed by Target Number, but have a Complication added if they have more 1s than 6s and you could have someone who fails still have some kind of 'advantage' granted if they roll more 6s than 1s.

Just some thoughts.

DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER! Yep. I'm using that. Not critical failures. If you need something to compensate I'm open to ideas though.


I thought of counting sixes or 1s depending on whether your base roll was a success or failure. That's probably too complicated.

How about +/-(Skillx2) for criticals. So 1 skill means success or failure by 2 is critical, 2 skill means success or failure by 4 is critical, Skill 3 means success or failure by 6 is critical, and so on up to +/-10?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Wed 12 Nov 2014.

Alright, so provided that I do end up using critical successes for skill accquisition and this:



and message 53, is there anything else I'm missing before I consider running a playtest?

It's official! I have found a map: http://th01.deviantart.net/fs7...iomcaife-d3csg92.png