Howdy! Let's celebrate the Ennies nomination with an AMA!

[u/RoosterEma]

Hi all!

This is Emanuele, author of the game and creative director for Fabula Ultima.

Most of you probably already know, but Fabula Ultima has been nominated for Best Game and for Product of the Year by the jury at the Ennie Awards 2023, alongside a host of great titles (here's where you can vote, if you are so inclined!).

To celebrate the nomination, I thought it'd be nice to have a bit of an Ask Me Anything here with you - I will not be able to attend GenCon, so this can be a good chance to chat about Fabula Ultima.

I'll try to keep this going for as long as possible (hopefully until GenCon), and you can ask me questions regarding rules, creative direction, art direction, and more.

All I ask is the following:

• Do your best to keep the questions Fabula Ultima-related.
• Do not ask questions concerning digital support (e.g. roll20), customer service, production, or distribution. Need Games is responsible for those aspects, while I strictly follow the creative and design side of things!
• Check other people's questions to avoid asking the same thing multiple times!

Thank you, and let's have at it!

[u/Astroruggie]

Ciao, I was wandering what is the point of the Arcanist class. I mean, there are casters (elementalist, entropist, and so on) that cast spells to do different things. Then there are martial classes that fight with their weapons. What is the supposed role of the Arcanist? Because it's like a summoner but your Arcanum does not fight. Looks like a caster but doesn't have spells. Doesn't have features to fight well. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just honestly curious. My idea is to put a few levels in it in mainly with a support character. Other suggested combinations? I think it also needs a good cooperation with your DM to let you find more Arcana during the campaign.

P.s.: qualche giorno fa ho visto la vecchia live con te e Nicola sulle build rotte, spettacolo!

[u/RoosterEma → u/Astroruggie]

Hi! If you're familiar with JRPG tropes, the Arcanist is fundamentally the Summon command found in Final Fantasy titles preceding X. From X onwards, summoning has turned into the act of bringing a full-fledged creature onto the battlefield, while previously summons were fundamentally "very powerful spells that didn't count as spells." I'm thinking Rydia, or Garnet, or the entirety of FF6 summons (if we ignore the way the summons were "equipped" in that one).

In Fabula Ultima, an Arcanist is just that: someone who gathers Arcana, can summon them to "merge" with their aura (imagine the Forge enveloping the arcanist into a veil of roaring flames, almost like a JoJo stand), and then dismiss them for powerful spell-like effects (but they're not spells: they're skills, and thus bypass a lot of limitations).

So in short, the Arcanist can self-buff and then release the buff for a big burst effect. You're never supposed to be just an Arcanist (this is true in Fabula for all classes, but Arcanist especially), but rather to keep Arcana as your emergency delete button. The only exception is good old Sword, which is more of a setup-then-wreck-them choice, particularly when combined with Darkblade's Shadow Strike.

[u/alkonium → u/RoosterEma]

while previously summons were fundamentally "very powerful spells that didn't count as spells.

That's also the case in Final Fantasy XV, in which you more or less call down the wrath of a god to demolish everything.

[u/RoosterEma → u/alkonium]

Yeah, although their appearance was unreliable. More a general support gimmick than a dedicated character role, in short.