Fabula Ultima Review | Cassius' Compendium™ 

I really don't agree at all on the assertion about combat. It can be really fun when you're considering tactical options, and playing with the turn order and the rolls into consideration. The game does want you to give encounters unique mechanics and wants you to think really hard about them, it stresses this a lot. Using the clock system helps, it means that characters have more to do within combat then just hit things. Players learning the intricacies of their classes abilities taught me a lot about what I could be doing with creatures too. For example: We have a tank in the party who doesn't have taunt. I wondered, and nigh worried how this could work since tanking didn't seem viable outside of using the guard action which took up your turn. We were in an encounter, and the tank used their Protect skill from the guardian class to defend an ally, then said "Let me go next, protect refreshes every turn" and it felt like my brain opened to the wide universe. This character also has counter attack, which lets them attack an enemy on a miss, and an ability that lets them trade damage for status effects, + the culinarian class from the playtest material This encouraged me to make my combat encounters more effective at targeting characters in different ways, using the clock mechanics more, exploring my own ideas, and even encouraged the other players to look into methods for synergizing their characters abilities that have made them all very interesting in what they can do. If you're running Fabula's combat like you would expect D&D encounters to run, you're going to have a really boring time of it. But if you take the same kind of creativity that's in the narrative side of play, into the combat side of play, it can actually be really fun and really unique.

Isn't the class issue kinda mitigated by the fact that you are required to multiclass at least 2 classes at character creation?

So pedantic note the arcanist can’t just do damage for free. It costs 40 mp to summon an arcana and then i believe it takes at least one turn of being merged before dismissing it to do the damage, so its a pretty big investment of mp and turns, as well as giving up the merge benefit

Fabula Ultima is a game with a lot of potential in my opinion, so I'm glad to see reviews of it! More people should be aware of it

Commenting to suggest another rpg system focused on roleplaying: World Of Darkness. Huge focus on characters, roleplaying, etc. in an urban fantasy setting. You play as your choice of a supernatural meanie, like vampires, werewolves, wizards, etc. Highly recommend it to people who want less focus on combat, more focus on roleplaying as a character

I hear what you're saying, FU isn't for everyone, but it sounds like you beefed it when it came to the encounters. The CRB tells you that Conflict Scenes aren't just a punch fest until everything is dead, you're supposed to provide different goals and gimmicks so that every conflict feels unique and exciting. And it is a bit of work, ngl, but that's what I like about and the fact that combat doesn't slow down the game so much you'd rather end the session early.

I started playing Lancer last week, it’s genuinely incredible it’s the most video game like TTRPG I’ve ever played. I’d love to hear about your campaign.

YEAH LANCER VIDEO LETS GO

Just commenting to say awesome thumbnail lol. Do you have any plans to make more XCOM videos? Like the long war class series you were doing?

I'm actually kind of confused on your take with the combat, if you're using the full suite of tools provided to design unique enemies, giving varied elemental affinities, and playing to the party's strengths and weaknesses, combat for me has been very tactical and requires good teamwork within the group, and I've experienced this both as a player and GM. Combat is a blast with my group and they've said its the highlight of the experience for them.

Honestly the problem with positioning in most TTRPGs is that while they have wargame-derived tactical combat, they refuse to actually be TACTICAL games. There are actual TTRPGs that are tactical, such as Cyberpunk, Dark Heresy, Only War, GURPS, and the like, where being out of cover is a death sentence, getting shot has potential character-altering or character-ending consequences, and positioning being a huge part of the game. But D&D and its derivatives (outside of d20 modern) are just really dogshit at making characters engage with the mechanics.

I need to comment on the slander im hearing about Necromamcer and Ace of Cards Classes. First off, Necromamcer is not just trying to be your stereotypical raise the dead girl boss, but much more than that stereotypical template of what a necromancer is. And Ace of Cards is an April Fool's class, of course it's going to require something silly like a deck of playing cards for one of its core features.

Are we talking pathfinder 2e? yea its kinda bad for roleplaying but I actually like the combat compared to 5e.

:)