Unofficial FaB PvE

What is FaB?

FaB stands for Flesh and Blood. This is a hero centric tcg with a revolutionary system. To find out more, check out fabtcg.com.

What is unofficial fab pve?

This is a fan made PvE mode of how I envision a campaign. This utilizes current card pool to build the enemy deck so you can take your bulk cards and use them! It is not trying to recreate the current game, as Blitz, CC and UPF are great amazing formats. Rather it is to create scenarios that require different deck building techniques. Siege of Solana is a stand alone PvE experience that is created for you to take a Blitz or Clash deck and defend against the horde of Demonstaria. For a full campaign experience, Into Darkness is the start of your adventure! You can find the all the ways to play here.

Where did this idea come from?

For a while I have been looking at creating a horde mode for FaB utilizing the Shadow cards. Ever since I read Morlock Hill story on fabtcg.com I have thought about how to do it. Once Dusk til Dawn came out, I finally decided this was the perfect time to do it! The rules have changed and been revised over time but the core is there. The primary driving force behind this is there are so many cool cards out there that just don't make the cut in blitz or CC, but would work so well in controlled PvE environment (lets build the ultimate shield Yoji!)

What were some iterations of the horde mode?

The most difficult part of designing this is the big difference between heroes. The heroes that thrive off of go again will do really well. But then there are Guardians and Brutes that thrive on hitting big. In addition, dominate is such a huge keyword in the game. How do you represent all of this in a game mode like this?

My first initial thought is to stack the cards, so if you hit big, you can hit multiple targets. While that would help to recreate blocking with multiple cards for the horde deck, it does make it lose the horde feel of the mode and how does it work with dominate? it also creates unnecessary complications when it needs to be simple. So the decision to keep them coming out separate stayed... but how do you deal with dominate? Simply put, dominate works similar to trample in mtg. It allows the guardians to not only kill a horde ally, but also deal damage at the same time, something that allies in this game don't allow (hence why Dromai is so good into Bravo!) Similarly, there are so many abilities that function close to intimidate that it made sense to build in the rules ways that allow you to intimidate and other types of abilities that either banish or put cards on top of the deck.

Another piece of the puzzle is how to actually have horde mode within the confines of FaB. Horde in mtg says all players share life and take turns simultaneously. But then how does Yoji work? That brought me to how other PvE games handle multiple monsters coming out at a time. With references like Dragonfire and Heroes of Terrinoth, I came to the conclusion that having the monsters align to a hero from the moment it comes out creates more strategy for heroes like Yoji that can pull attacks from other players. This way you can plan how your teams defense should work, when does Yoji need to pull a monster away? When is the perfect time to play that Oasis Respite to help an ally or yourself? I want you to have fun, not be bogged down by mechanics trying to recreate the competitive feel of FaB.

The Campaign starts with Into Darkness and has quests for each character. What are quests and how did they come about?

One the amazing thing about FaB is the use of equipment to give it the full RPG feel. But I didn't want everyone to be reliant on the randomness of a roll when you complete a level. Instead you should have some control over it. That's where quests come in, each unique to the class and the character.

PvE games should be difficult. But nothing is more infuriating than feeling like you wasted your time playing and gained nothing because you lost. I felt that just gaining xp and some copper wasn't enough to try and help you as a player if you failed. Completing quests helps to fill that gap, giving you something more to do than just completing a mission.

Specializations are unlocked through quests as well which plays a dual role. It is a way to tell a story without having to develop a mission around it and it gives you access to cards a whole level early. That idea really came from being heavily involved in the Clash fan format on Fabrary.net!

The market quests is a place to allow you to develop what you can buy from the market. Originally that was going to be exclusive to the Merchant class, but it's about allowing the players to have more control over what they want in their inventory and telling a story without having to create missions around unlocking it. Telling a story within a story. If you look at any RPG, often times you are completing tasks while going through the main story to unlock bonuses that help to make it easier along the way. That is the idea here. It also allows you to play promo characters that would probably not have as many quests to do such as Bard or Adjudicator classes.

Currently you can find Siege of Solana in the Projects section with Into Darkness Chapter 1 coming soon.