An Analyses of the Competitive Fabletop Meta

As we all know, Fabletop is a highly competitive multi-player game. The objective of the game is to be better and more powerful than all the other players, whilst simultaneously using these players to your own ends so that you can defeat the final boss, the dreaded ‘Game Master’.

This pro-level, expert guide will teach you how to optimise your Fabletop build. Please feel free to use this forum to share your own tips for rising to the top of the FT Meta.

Might, Agility and Wisdom

Overall in Fabletop, the base states are fairly well balanced:
As you are likely to use your best stat for attacking, all stats scale equally well for combat. There are however different amounts of out-of-combat usage
-Might is probably the weakest stat of all, scaling well for damage, athletics and endurance, but little else. Still a solid choice overall.
-Agility is slightly better than Might Ranged combat, stealth, dexterity, acrobatics, dodging and often ‘speed’
-Wisdom is probably the strongest stat overall. To give an example of Wisdom’s power, it covers 50% of the core stats of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’. Intelligence, wisdom, senses and all of speech makes this enough on its own, but if there is any form of fantasy element to your Fabletop game (one of the main arenas featured in the current game), this stat also affects magic. The only caveat with wisdom is that by a strict reading of the rulebook, ‘agility’ would be the stat for all ranged combat, including magic-missile type attacks. It is therefore at the GM’s discretion whether wisdom can be used as a main combat stat. The GM may use the their “ ‘attack style’ is an optional rule “ attack to nerf your damage. This can be avoided however with a 1/3/3 build. Which brings us onto…

Stat Spreads

The most obvious thing to do is put a ‘4’ into your combat stat, ‘2’ into your next most important stat and a ‘1’ into a stat you don’t need. This is a solid choice. Especially in a game that allows custom traits.
Putting a ‘3’ into all but one stat can keep you with high dice in 2/3rds of situations. You lose a little bit of DPS but become more well-rounded to non-combat scenarios
Going 3/2/2, 2/3/2 or 2/2/3 prevents you from having any weakness, and you can still equal the previous build in damage. You’re much less likely to have individual rolls that are super high however.
You should min-max and put a 4 into a stat to optimise for damage. For utility choose either of the other two builds.

Life and power:

Power is objectively better than life when compared pound-for-pound in Fabletop. This is because a roll to block / dodge / otherwise avoid damage, costs 1 power and spending a power point also adds 1 star to a roll. You are therefore, in theory, just as tanky as 2/6 then as a 6/2, as you can just use power to block / dodge / otherwise avoid damage. However, big hits could hit a character to 0 life even after a block roll if no stars are rolled against a 4 or 5 damage attack. It is therefore probably sensible to have 3 or 4 life points in reserve.

Go 3/5 if you are playing a mage, healer or other class that relies on regularly using power point abilities. Otherwise, go 4/4. If you are thinking of being ‘the tank’ or another ‘big tough brute’ archetype, you may be tempted to go 5/3 or even the dreaded 6/2. However, due to the previously mentioned method to avoid damage with power points, this is actually the wrong move. Having a high life stat only adds to flavour, character RP and fun; none of which are at all important if you want to win at Fabletop.

Choosing your Bonus Traits

Here is a tier list of all the built in Fabletop traits
S: Mage, Mystic (space-fan), Flight, Climb, Gadgets, Armor*
A: Warrior, Gunner, Wolffen, Military, Doctor, Marksmanship (space-fan), Mercenary, Kung Fu, Cyber Arm, Ork, Elf (Cyber City), Detective, Scientist (mod-crime), Journalist, Bodyguard, Martial arts, Marksmanship (mod-crime), Huge, Fire control, Ice control, Power Beam, Psychic, Force Control, Claws, Senses
B: Rogue, acrobatics, influence, mystic (med-fan), elf (med-fan), halfling, tech, diplomat, influence (space-fan), Science, Subterfuge (space-fan), Leadership, Physical, Hacker (cyber city), Gearhead, Slick, Brainiac, Subterfuge (Star Voyage), Shadowy, Hacker (mod-crime), Infiltration, charm, quick, leader, entangle,
C: Nature, influence (med-fan) performance, dwarf, gnome, underworld, engineer, navigator, communications, Scientist, cyber senses, Mechanic, Armor*
D: Pilot (space-fan), Survival, Pilot (Mod-crime),
E: Bureaucracy, Street wise
F: Holy

*note on ‘Armor’: if this trait allows the player to roll even a single die of passive armour in combat, it is S tier. Otherwise, if it only allows the players to add 1die to a an existing roll to reduce damage, using a power point, it is only C tier.

Custom Traits

The goal of custom traits is to stack as many things into a trait as possible and argue with the evil GM as much as possible if they don't allow your most over-powered, broken ideas.

In general, you want to cover any stats you have assigned '1' into by piling everything this base stat covers into trait descriptions. For example, if you've dumped might, make sure you have custom traits adding to strength, athletics and physical endurance.

At the same time, try and make at least on, or ideally both, of your traits add to combat to optimise your DPS

Remember, don't take 'no' for an answer, keep arguing with the GM until you defeat them (Just watch out for their dreaded 'table ban' special move, which is the most broken attack in the game and NEEDS to be nerfed as it is undodgable)

Conclusion

You now know everything you need to make the most brutally efficient and over-powered Fabletop character possible. The GM will quake in fear when they hear you have used this expert guide.

Oh and one more important point: have a happy April Fool's day 2025

But what if... you wanted to cripple yourself? What if you want a challenge? What if playing as the most OP character ever is too easy for you, and you want to go through the truly hardcore Fabletop experience?

Analyzing everything that's written, I've come up with "How to Be the Worst" - An Anti-Optimiser's Guide to Fabletop Failure.

Base Traits

The worst possible trait spread you can do is 2/4/1 or 4/2/1. You might ask "Why would I make Wisdom the worst stat if I want to be the most useless person in combat?" That is easy to answer once you read the next paragraph.

Life and Power

All your characters should have 6 Life Points and 2 Power Points. Power is too useful in combat and in general play, so you should have the least amount possible. And to make it even smaller, at the start of every session, spend 1 Power Point to attack with a non-standard Base Trait, and choose Wisdom all the time. That way, every time you make an attack, be it ranged or melee, you will always roll 1 die, and you will have only 1 PP to spend during the entire session.

Bonus Traits

For every genre, there are unique bonus traits. I've come up with the absolute worst combination of major and minor traits you can possibly have for each genre. Some are more useless than others, but still.

Medieval Fantasy:
Rogue: 1 - Stealth, perception, mobility, locks/traps (Warrior and Mage are too powerful in combat.)
Holy: 1 - Enemy of Evil, religious vow (no explanation needed. The Worst of The Worst)

Space Fantasy:
Pilot: 1 - Flying/navigating vehicles & starships (you will most likely spend most of your time on the ground or in a starship, so navigating one would be very rare)
Underworld: 1 - Smuggling, gambling, bargaining (when will you have time to do any of that?)

Star Voyage:
Navigator: 1 - Starship navigation and piloting (same as in Space Fantasy)
Bureaucracy: 1 - Contacts, regulations, loopholes (the hell "loopholes" mean? Will you really be dealing with the law this much?)

Cyber City
Gearhead: 1 - Pilot vehicles, fix things (same as above)
Cyber Senses: 1 - Enhanced vision and hearing (sadly still pretty useful, but only outside of combat, but even then...)

Modern Crime
Mechanic: 1 - Fixing & building things (especially great if you are not very creative)
Streetwise: 1 - Local knowledge & contacts (excellent if you will go out of the "street" of which you are "wise")

Super Powers
Leader: 1 - Fortitude, persuasion (sadly most of the major traits are very useful. This is the least useful one, but still a good one)
Entangle: 1 - Trap enemies, swinging movement (again, all the minor traits are superb. This is the least superb one)

Conclusion

Congratulations, you now have a scientifically accurate, most useless character there can be. Of course, you can make them even more useless by creating your own custom traits that you, ideally, won't ever use in your entire game.

Having that character be ranked up to 100 XP will show everyone how much of a hardcore Fabletop player you are.