[Edit] Ah, it looks like I messed up carrying capacity. A large airship costs the same as buying one, it's only a smaller one that seems to cost twice as much to make as to buy.

I'm not sure if this was an oversight or an intentional decision. Does this sort of principle that projects are more expensive (and often require quest components) than buying things hold true generally? If so, it seems to devalue the usefulness of projects in general.

Hey all,

I’ve been looking at getting a steampunk themed game of Fabula Ultima going without too much success so far, so because I’m me I ended up writing a little lore primer on the city I plan to start the campaign in. This is all Homebrew stuff and I want player input to expand upon it but it should give a good indication of the vibes I’m looking to create.

If you’re interested in the game great, if not I hope you enjoy a little lore primer on a fictional steampunk city.

For those interested the link to the game is right here.

Thanks folks.

I absolutely love the system. Villain mechanics, built in multiclass, sacrifice mechanics, narratively driven quirks, scene-length abilities.

However, I realised I do not know much about JRPG games like at all despite this system being inspired by them. (I've only finished Clair Obscur, if that can even be counted as a JRPG) I feel like I should do my homework and not tell my players "Yeah I plan to run JRPG the system while knowing nothing about JRPGs because I find the rules neat".

What are some of YOUR favourite JRPGs you would recommend?

Hi all, I'm extremely new to FU (I read all the books, but haven't played or watched anything) and I have decided I will port the campaign I run from DnD5e to FU.

I'm already selecting some suggestions for my players for their characters' concepts, but there are 2 that are giving me some trouble, but mostly just 1 of them really.

See, I'm not a newbie on 5e, and I created 2 homebrew subclasses for a Barbarian and a Warlock.

The barbarian one is focused on fire damage and hitting enemies (of course hitting enemies is a barbarian focus, but in this case it's similar to Diablo, where the more they hit, they get a resource to make other skills).

The warlock is not that advanced, since their main class is wizard, they only jave 1 or 2 levels of warlock, but it's the one I'm having the most issue with. Their patron is a "demon of information", so they have some spells that have use outside of combat, like understanding foreign languages they don't know, that sort of thing. I can't find *any* class that even gets close to what a base warlock is, let alone this homebrewed one (whereas I can find more similar things for the barbarian) and I'm not sure how I should handle this. I don't want to start homebrewing on a system I have no experience in, but that seems unavoidable, so I at least want to NOT homebrew an entire class.

Do you guys have any suggestions? What should I do? I'm ok with giving them special skills outside their classes, but I really don't know what would be the best choice with my lack of experience. Any help is welcome.

Also, just to not make a second post, but do we know if more books are planned in the future? Specifically more Atlases? I imagine there will be more books, since their newest is Bestiary 1, but I'm hoping for new classes in the future.

I have a dnd character who commands an army of constructs based on guardian scouts from BOTW and the DM for the campaign he is supposed to go in is half considering changing the system to Fabula ultima since the techno fantasy atlas gave them a lot of inspiration but im unsure which classes are best or if it's even possible without homebrew

Played FU a little bit a few years back, got very enamored with the system, but then got sidetracked and lost touch. As a way to force myself to reread the rules in depth, I figured I'd try my hand at making a fairly simple homebrew class. Have I made any obvious blunders here?

Brute

ALSO: Thug, Bodybuilder, Pitfighter

“Your strength against mine!”

 Brutes are driven by the pursuit of physical perfection, obsessed with pursuing and vanquishing the largest and most dangerous foes for glory or personal growth. Bombastic, domineering and utterly without subtlety, their use of indiscriminate force to achieve victory can have catastrophic consequences. Does might really make right when even the most insignificant obstacle is a barrier to be smashed to bits?

 ·         Does your strength come from without or within?

·         Do you seek ever greater challenges out of desire, or to escape from something?

·         What precious things did you have to break to get where you are now?

·         Who in the world can rival or exceed your power?

Brute Free Benefits

·         Permanently increase your maximum Hit Points by 5.

·         Your Unarmed Strikes increase their base damage to [HR + 5] Physical.

Brute Skills

TAKE THAT!

Any time you would inflict Dazed, reduce the target’s Insight die size by 2 instead of 1. When you gain an Opportunity from a Critical Success on an attack, you may choose to inflict Dazed in addition to another Opportunity.

THE BIGGER THEY ARE…

You ignore immunities to Dazed, Slowed, Shaken and Weak in enemies who have a Might die the same size as yours or larger.

STRENGTH FOR STRENGTH

When making a Check targeted at a target with a Might die the same size as yours or larger, you may always substitute one die in your check for Might, regardless of the nature of the roll. How does brute strength help you overcome this obstacle?

WALLOP                               [✦ 5]

When you hit a single target with a melee attack that would do damage, you may have the attack deal [+ 2 x SL] damage. You then become Weak until the end of your next turn.

INDOMITABLE                   [✦ 5]

You gain a bonus equal to [SL] on all [MIGHT + MIGHT] checks made out of combat. Once per scene, you may reroll a failed [MIGHT + MIGHT] check; you become Weak for the rest of the scene.

Does anyone have a good list of reward items they've made that are unique but not 700z or more like in the book. I had to come up with an item my player found, he rolled a 9 which wasn't a full success, but I had him find a heart shaped pendant that heals 1d4 at the end of each combat round and is worth 350z. I feel just giving zenit for things could get repetitive. TIA.

Edit: As a newer DM I actually decided to edit this item to make the item properties and values unknown to the player. Since he didn't buy it from a shop, he really has no idea what it does, unless he were to take it somewhere to get it appraised/researched. I think I'm going to make it where if his hit points were to drop to 0, the heart pendant glows and breaks, and he is revived with some additional health.

Made it in Fultimator. Thought Spiritist was good for representing her magical origins. I don't know exactly what other classes I'd give her; maybe rogue? I'd give a monster hunter Loremaster, but I ended up dumping INS, so it doesn't seem as useful. I suppose Guardian might be good to work for, just for extra survivability, but it doesn't feel quite as on theme with the original character.

I don't have any intentions to actually play her, I just did it for fun.

Page 319 explains what information making a general open check gives you. Page 74 indicates that studying a creature's special actions requires a separate attempt.

Neither of them mention a creature's Other Actions or Level.

Is there an official answer to this? If not, how have you handled it?

We want to put our friend(new in fabula) in campaign we play, my players have 9lvl (it will be 10 before him joining), but the most troublesome thing I encountered is what role in the party I should propose to him. We have:

Dr. Sand [robot quirk] (Wayfarer 4/Tinkerer 4/Entropist 1) with faithful companion which is scorpion tank - mainly support with tanking companion

Brzeginia [elemental soul quirk] (Medium 3/Orator 2/ Dancer 4) - mainly debuffer and support

Morrigan [arboreal quirk] (Invoker 3/Chimerist 2/Floralist 4) - Magic dps and support

Carmilla Von Cuor [cursed quirk] (Darkblade 5/Entropist 2/Weaponmaster 2) - DPS

Torkilsa [Repentant Enforcer quirk] (Mutant 4/Rogue 2/Commander 3) - Sub-dps and support on main DPS

Which role and classes I should propose to him to not feel the same as one of the other PC??

Hello!

I thought NPC types/species in Fabula Ultima are easy to understand:

• beasts are just animals
• constructs are artificial beings
• demons are embodiments of emotions, believes etc.
• elementals are forces of nature coming to life
• humanoids are normal people
• plants are just plants (and fungi)
• undeads are dead come to life
• and monsters are everything other

But in Natural Fantasy Atlas I've seen dragon (which was normal creature before), that had demon type. Judging by the how NPC species description was written, it should be monster, but it is a demon. I don't know why. Maybe because it was consumed by lust for vengences?

So... How you use NPC species in homebrewing your own NPCs? Do you use descritptions very strictly or do you use some twists?

Hi everyone, I'm newbie DM and I wanna try host FU Techno but the thing is I kinda want my camp have more tactics. Like in Lancers the movements is very important to make Player think about their decision. Does anyone have a tip to make a camp like that?

I've been running a campaign for about a year and due to the whole Fabula point system, it's taking some really weird turns. I assume everyone else has similarly weird, off the wall decisions made by their players. I'll go first as an example:

• The world is actually two flat sides of a coin, held together by the interlocking swarm of large centipedes under the crust.
• The Goddess of Harvest is also the goddess of golf, hobbits, and the sun, resulting in all hobbits being significantly more radioactive than most other species.
• There was also a conspiracy to put the skulls of undead inside golf balls to make them fly further due to the inherent soul magic in the skull. This retroactively made the soul be located in the brain and also golf balls to somehow be the size of heads.
• The Hare God of Trickery did the Prometheus thing by stealing thumbs from the God of Hands, resulting in all intelligence species having thumbs... but also rabbits and hares too.
• Kiwis don't have beaks, just lips. There's no good reason for this.

Up front: No real play experience, on either Player or GM side; this is all the result of years of Turbo Hyper Autism-ADHD Hyperfixation Special Interest caused by happening upon the game while googlediving for an otherwise completely unrelated hyperfixated special interest (ambient music soundscape mixing I'll come back to you someday... wait for me...). I am under NO illusion that this untested thing by a "Read The Books (and did Nothing Else)" amateur is balanced, or even as-is playable. But I've had these custom-built Classes just sitting in my docs for at least 2 years now, and Potentially Maybe doing Some Single Thing for even just a Single Someone would be more than doing Absolutely Nothing. If this ends up as a springboard for a better version of itself from someone else, or even if somebody just lifts one concept or Skill for something else, I'll be satisfied.

Suggestions for rebalancing, mechanical changes, or even just language clean-up are welcome and wanted (can't guarantee that I'd respond soon, or even at all—firefox & reddit hate each other SO MUCH on my computer, I was only able to make an account & log in it by using Edge. I Do Not Want To Be Using Edge Any More Than I Absolutely Have To). If you happen to ever play any version of this, I would be IMMENSELY appreciative if you shared your experience for others to learn from.

(Plaintext only, I don't have the specs or patience to mockup a pair of pages, sorry.)

SABOTEUR

ALSO: Explosives Expert, Trapper, Trickster

[IN LEIU OF A NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS, AN OVERVIEW OF PLAYSTYLE: SABOTEUR is a Class designed around SUBTERFUGE and REACTIVITY. Mechanically and aesthetically, think of it as close to a midpoint between ROGUE and TINKERER—impeding opponents and creating single-use offense-focused items. Optimal use of its combative Skills relies on at least a cursory knowledge of an enemy's capabilities and behavior; it is better suited for the kind of Player to enjoy a "wait and see first" approach (or is a habitual Study-er) than those who just want to hit hard ASAP.]

FREE BENEFITS

• Permanently increase your maximum Inventory Points by 2.
• You may initiate Projects to create traps and restraining devices.

ANTI-ELEMENT MINES (⭐️4)
During your turn, you may use an action and spend up to [SL] Inventory Points to choose one damage type that is not physical and one creature you are able to see, planting element-triggered explosives around them. The next time that creature performs an attack, Spell, or Skill that deals damage of the chosen type, the mines are set off, dealing [Inventory Points spent this way × 5] physical damage to them (after their action ends).
Creatures that are currently flying do not trigger your mines. The damage dealt increases to [Inventory Points spent this way × 10] if you are level 20 or higher, or to [Inventory Points spent this way × 15] if you are level 40 or higher.

RESTRICT (⭐️3)
When you successfully Hinder a creature, you may spend 20 Mind Points to make that creature unable to perform one type of action, depending on the status effect you inflicted: non-offensive Spells if dazed, offensive (🗲) Spells if shaken, ranged basic attacks if slow, or melee basic attacks if weak. This restriction lasts for the next [SL] Rounds, until the start of your turn that Round. If you successfully use this skill on a creature who is already affected by this skill, they lose the prior restriction placed upon them.

STICKY BOMB
After an enemy hits or misses you with a melee attack, if the Result of their Accuracy Check was an odd number, you may spend 1 Inventory Point to have the attacker suffer 10 physical damage at the end of this turn, ignoring Resistance.

SALVAGING (⭐️3)
At the end of a conflict scene, if your current amount of Inventory Points is less than half (rounded down) of your maximum IP, you may spend up to [10 × amount of enemy creatures of the construct or humanoid Species that were brought to 0 HP or left the conflict scene] Mind Points. You recover I IP for every 10 Mind Points spent this way, plus an additional [SL] IP if any of those creatures were humanoid.

TRAP TRICKERY (⭐️2)
When you fill or erase sections of a Clock related to activating or deactivating traps, you may spend up to [SL×20] Mind Points to fill or erase an additional section for every 20 Mind Points spent this way.
Additionally, if you use the Inventory action while you are in Crisis, you may spend 1 fewer Inventory Points (to a minimum of 1 Inventory Point) if the created item targets one or more enemy creatures only.

Somewhat experienced player but first time GM here.

I'm getting ready to run my first campaign (in general not just in Fabula Ultima) in the new year, and I'm planning for 4 players, to where even some of the plot in the world was built for a full party. However, I'm unsure if I will be able to get a full party from among my friends interested in TTRPGs. I was wondering in the case I end up with less than 4 players, would it be better to tweak the campaign for the current party size and rebalance all the encounters, or have NPCs to fill out the rest of the party so it remains at base level balancing? I know there are tips for rebalancing things in the core rulebook but I wanted to hear other people's experience with doing it.

Thinking of running a fabula ultima campaign, but after looking at some rules, I started having some questions about mid-high level content and wanted to plan my campaign length around that.

1. I heard that defense stats simply stop mattering past a certain point as enemy outscales your defenses easily past level 15-20.

Which I did notice when I tried putting a level 15 adversary in my oneshot recently. (I was freaking out during combat because if something was hitting so often in 5e that means I have severely fucked up the balancing)

While this does raise some questions about whether tanking would feel rewarding at that point of the game, my main concern is bounded accuracy.

As modifiers for both to hit and damage grows higher, I can see the dice value becoming less and less important, which makes me wonder if combat would still be fun at that point. (I genuinely have no idea, if its still fun please do inform me)

1. I also noticed that once you hit a certain level and mastered at least 2 classes, everyone's class features start to overlap alot, and at that point everyone's characters would become less unique and flavourful. I want to know how everyone circumvent this. (As in do you allow each player to essentially patent a class and prevent other players from taking levels in that class? Otherwise how do you preserve each characters identity?)

2. I genuinely have no idea how balanced this game is at higher levels. Do some PCs outscale others severely after a certain point? (For example I can see that the Orators condemn and encourage are very strong if you put the skill points in and also take the heroic that allows you to do it twice, but that kinda caps out at level 10+ ish, it doesn't seem to scale much after that) I recognize that you can always make it work with custom items, but that requires so much effort and math that I don't think I can handle it.

Hi, I'm a first time player and I wanted to ask, I'm thinking the Gourmet class and the Pilot class sound very fun, can I take both at character creation? What would be the best Skills to do this character? Should I take a third class?
tyyy

Hello everyone, how is it going?

I'm currently playing a campaign using the FU System, and I'd like some guidance on how to improve my character's build.

My idea is for him to be a caster focused on elemental magic, like a true Final Fantasy "Black Mage" style, but with some support spells (our party only has 1 other character with healing and support abilities, so I chose to dedicate a few levels to that).

Anyway, my current build is as follows:

CHARACTER LEVEL: 09

ATTRIBUTES:

• Core: DEX [d6] / INS [d10] / MIG [d6] / [d10]
• Others: HP 39 / MP 77 / IP 06

CLASS LEVELS:

• Elementalist Lv 3
• Loremaster Lv 2
• Spiritist Lv 4

CLASS SKILLS:

• Elementalist: Elemental Magic Lv 3
• Loremaster: Flash of Insight Lv 1 / Focused Lv 1
• Spiritist: Spiritual Magic Lv 4

CHOSEN SPELLS:

• Elementalist: Ignis / Fulgur / Glacies
• Spiritist: Heal / Aura / Cleanse / Barrier

QUIRK: Flight

I'd love suggestions on how to optimize this build, focusing primarily on elemental damage and, if there are levels to spare, improving support capabilities.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Note: The picture used for the post was taken from Pinterest, and the Discord server where it was posted originally was deactivated, but I searched, and it looks like the original artist is named "kinociao".

Hey Hi howdy! As stated above I'm wondering if there are any supplements that peeps know about that let one play a Monster! I'm going to be playing solo this time around but want to try something like Reincarnated As A Dragon Hatchling.

Hello!

After launching the public playtest, I have received a lot of great feedback from first-lookers on the published content. I love hearing it and reading through it, taking notes, and designing the (much-needed) changes. This update serves as the first major balance change log, which was strictly based on feedback I got from people who went through the playtest and noted many weird or broken interactions. 

That said, here are the changes made:

• Most notably, the wording. I have made many revisions regarding free actions, halving effects, capitalizing words, and bolding them. Not everything is finished (keep them coming if you see any), but I think it's clearer than in the first version.
• Brightheart received a bit of a nerf. Mainly impacting his Helping Hand Skill, where it no longer provides a bonus to the leader's check, but instead they recover MP or from one status effect. Divine Protection is now a "reaction" similar to Guardian's Protect, where, by spending your Connection Points, you can reduce incoming damage, instead of creating a semi-permanent buff. However, it now affects all damage, instead of only attacks. On the other hand, Incomparable Aid and Stand Together both received a small buff that should help them stand out more and bring out the flavor.
• Bloodweaver probably received the biggest overhaul since a lot of people noted that their resource management is basically non-existent. That's why their every spell has been bumped up in cost, and the Emergency Resources Skill has received a small note that it cannot reduce the HP loss below 5. In addition to the cost bump, some spells were completely reworked (Suffering, Living Weapon, Open Wounds), and some were replaced with new ones (Devouring Maw is replaced with Spreading Pain, Sea of Blood is now a Heroic Skill replacing All Out, and is replaced with Bulk). Other spells were either left untouched with some wording revisions or received small balance changes to better fit the fantasy of the class. Bound by Blood has also received its fair share of balance changes. It now recovers HP scaling purely with Skill Level, and instead of suffering physical damage, it causes the enemy to lose HP, also scaling with Skill Level. As a bonus, the enemies now have an option to perform an action, repeating the contested check and breaking the bond if they're successful.
• Automaton's Skills received a name change (Acceleration is now Escalation, Installation is now Augmentation, and Expectation is now Determination) as well as some minor balance changes. Concentration now only makes the next attack or spell automatically hit, instead of all, Escalation now only allows default inventory objects to be created, and Overdrive, other than wording revision, can only be used once per scene. The biggest change comes with the Augmentation Skill. The whole text of merging equipment has been rewritten, providing more specific information on how it works and behaves, and the list of augments (previously traits) has been reworked, making each augment cost a different amount of zenit (making the process cost more), but providing the Automaton with the ability to add any number of them to the merged equipment. Shield and Armor augments have also been combined into a single list, since they shared a lot of them already.

And that's about it! At least, these are the highlights. To fully check out what has changed, I recommend giving the updated PDF a second read (or a first, if you haven't already!). If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it.

If you're in the Fabula Ultima TTJRPG Discord server, I have also published a post there under #mod-for-fabula-ultima, so you can freely share your opinions and observations. 

Devlog on itch: Symmetria Ultima Balance Changes #1

Check out the Symmetria Ultima Playtest for free on itch: Symmetria Ultima Class Playtest

I have just read the new playtest version of the Fūma Shuriken Heroic Skill, and wanted to build a character around that concept!

FŪMA SHURIKEN

Requirements: you must have mastered Sharpshooter, and acquired Barrage.

Two-handed thrown weapons you have equipped are treated as also belonging to the firearm Category for the sake of Skills and effects that require it.

Once per turn, when you hit one or more enemies with an attack using a two-handed thrown weapon, you may choose one option, or choose up to two options if the attack was not a free attack:

- this attack deals 5 extra damage;
- all damage dealt by this attack becomes air;
- the next attack you perform with that weapon during this scene gains multi (2);
- you gain a +2 bonus to Defense and Magic Defense until the start of your next turn, until you use this Skill again, or until you no longer have that weapon equipped;
- fill or erase 1 section of a Clock;

I'd imagine going rogue + Dancer, So I can use the Sharpshooter for the usual combo of High Speed > Warningshot at the start of the battle then Dance (Banshee or Nighmare) > Wardancer > Cheapshot.

This combo works from level 6 if using "HEROIC SKILL AT CHARACTER CREATION" optional rule, although it costs 10 MP (20 MP if uses Barrage) at the start of each battle and 10 MP on the first turn (5 MP on subsquent turns dancing).

If not using the rule, the earliest you can get Fūma Shuriken Heroic would be at Lvl 14, Although might be best to raise Wardancer and Cheapshot Levels Early? (Also I feel like getting Dodge Early might be interesting, but delay other skills too much?)

Any ideas or insights in this build?

My game has been on a hiatus for awhile because work hours got stupid for the GM (me), but things are supposed to be leveling out within the next month where I should be able to get back to running semi-regular sessions. Which has me needing to catch up from where we left things off, specifically in the area of loot.

long story short, they had a pretty lengthy wilderness adventure where they picked up four levels but not really much loot of note. That wrapped about the time work decided I didn’t get to have a life, so we never got around to resolving the reward they would have gotten had we been doing this continuously. we’ve done a bit of a time skip, so I was thinking of just doing the disconnected dad at Christmas thing and giving them a Zennet value and saying “buy what you want (and/or if you want something custom, I’ll work with you).” I may have just missed it, but are there rough guidelines out there somewhere for how much stuff characters should have per level (which would also be useful if someone’s creating a character at a higher level than 5th)? If I did just overlook it, I’ve got all of the books, so a page/section reference works fine.

Hello,

I'm playing my third FU campaign as DM with my usual group, and to spice things a little, we decided to allow the playtest material. Overall pretty fun, but an interaction between Floralist and the Fuma Shuriken heroic skill came up and i wasn't really sure on how to handle it.

The group's Sharpshooter made a ranged attack, and used Fuma Shuriken to select two options. One of the selected options was

you gain a +2 bonus to Defense and Magic Defense until the start of your next turn, until you use this Skill again, or until you no longer have that weapon equipped; or fill or erase 1 section of a Clock

Next was the Floralist's turn, during which the growth clock of his magiseed filled a section, and i was unsure if it would cancel the Sharpshooter's bonus (a clock section has been filled) or if that would happen only if clock was modified due to the Sharpshooter's own action.

Since my players missed that point and i didn't want to penalize them, i went with the latter on the moment and let it slide. But looking back on it i still don't know the proper way to handle it. I would be happy to have your insights on the matter.

Thanks in advance

Hello! Recently, I posted an idea about a character who was a Chimerist/Orator/Wayferer, but I've got time to developt more about this Idea and read some classes from the High Fantasy Atlas, on special, the Dancer and Commander, and reading this, I though: What if I made a disney princess-like character, who with time and adventure, developt her capabilities to fight.

Till level 60, classes that I thought that would combine well with this idea:
Orator: Princess "need" to sing in every movie
Chimerist: Conection to the nature and her pet.
Wayferer: Every princess need her mascot
Dancer: Same as Orator, but now dancing
Commander: She need to have some degree in control
Weapon Master: Her training in fighting to help her friends "Peacifully" (breaking their bones)
Fury: Her determination

I planned to not master two classes, between Wayferer, Chimerist, or Fury, and her having high Dexterity and Willpower to simbolize all this, while her being a debuff-like support.

But well, althought I've talked a lot about the build itself, I have come to ask if other players that you know have done something similar, and how it went on your tables.
EDIT 1: I discovered that the max level is 50. But well, that is not a problem (I hope)