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