Oh, Fabula Ultima Might be For Build Sickos
A conversation in the Table Shapers Discord about Fabula Ultima character builds made me realize a couple things. First, I skimmed a lot of the character build options on this most recent re-read, and had a lot of difficulty getting through them in my initial read through. Second, same as a Shadowrun or a Pathfinder, there's a fun in just making characters.
I opted to spend my morning giving the classes a closer read. The build options are largely shallow, but mix-in just enough gimmicks to each class to make me see where you can start stringing classes together in interesting ways. Pretty much every spellcaster has a single-target attack that does one type of elemental damage and a one-to-three target attack that does elemental damage. Sharpshooter and Weapon Master both get ways to expand their attacks to multiple targets. And there are a variety of ways to recover hit points and magic points. It's the kind of design that encourages build flexibility without ever creating a trap that makes the character feel useless or under-powered.
Where I think it gets more interesting is with class defining abilities. Some of them feel like they should be free - take this class and you get this ability - but the game never does that. So you could pick a spellcasting job like Elementalist, but never actually pick the class' spellcasting ability. Some of the class-defining features are one-and-done pick-ups. The tanky, driven Fury's ability to improve their chances to crit with weapons is a one-off, for example. Combine that with the game's mandate that you start with at least two classes and you can see where folks will get creative. You have to really work to make a character who isn't moderately effective in a fight and who feels the exact same as another character in the group.
Which leads to the second realization that this game is fun to make characters in. It's a real "Build Sickos" game. As I read through the classes I found myself trying to make a fisher build. The classic example is a D&D 3e critical hit fisher, the kind of character that takes every feat and spell that improves their chance to land and confirm a critical hit. Only here, I started to see how I could play off the game's titular Fabula Point system. If you fumble a check - roll snake-eyes on your dice - you get a Fabula Point and your opponent gets an Opportunity. Several classes let you get extra bonus when you spend a Fabula Point and the Entropist has a couple abilities that let you manipulate dice rolls. Suddenly, I was building a character who could try and tank their dice rolls to fish for Fabula Points, then cash them in quickly to recover their own resources or bolster an ally while improving dice rolls and generating more experience points. The character began to feel like a gambler who could throw cards and try and nudge their attacks in either direction, never doing a huge amount of damage but fishing for big swings in fortune in neat ways.
The one thing that makes me hesitant to call this an actual Build Sickos game is the same sort of problem all Build Sickos games run into. You don't play games in a vacuum. My gambler has some real implications for group fun, as Fabula Point generating fumbles turn-up the danger in a scene. Similarly, maybe a free-wheeling, card tossing gambler doesn't fit-in with the setting the group brews-up at the start of a game. But that's always been the Build Sicko trap - my D&D 5e magical girl-themed Warlock is cool and can put out some damage, but D&D 5e isn't a magical girl game. Fortunately for build sickos, I think Fabula Ultima has enough flexibility in how you theme characters that you probably aren't trapped too often. If my Gambler doesn't fit the theme, maybe I turn him into a Hexer, throwing cursed darts at enemies instead and invoking the fates for weal and woe.
I'll wrap-up with the build I now want to try if I'm ever a player in a Fabula Ultima game.
Entropist 2
- Lucky Seven: Once a scene, swap a die roll out with a number you have banked. The number you swap out becomes the new banked number.
- Entropic Magic: Learn an Entropist spell, which you cast using [INS + WLP].
- Divination - Entropist Spell. Until the spell ends, after a creature you see performs a Check, if it was not a fumble or a crit, force them to reroll both dice. The spell ends after you force two rerolls. Fury 2
- Frenzy: You crit with brawling, dagger, flail, and thrown weapons if both dice show the same number and aren't a fumble.
- Indomitable Spirit: When you spend a Fabula point, choose to either recover HP, recover MP, or remove a status effect on you. Loremaster 1
- Knowledge is Power: When you make an Accuracy Check, replace one of the dice you roll with Insight.
- Weapon - Shruiken: Accuracy is [Dex + INS] and Damage is [HR + 4] Physical. Theme them appropriately to the game.
At higher levels, I'd pick-up more ranks in Entropic Magic and grab some HP and MP drain spells, improve Fury's Indomitable Spirit, and either take Loremaster's Focused for more MP or try and master a class to open-up other classes like Orator or the Symbolist class from the Atlas High Fantasy book that expand my options when spending Fabula Points.