Version 0.4 Thoughts, Typos, Etc.

[samwise7]

To make a Save, the player rolls 2d10 and adds in the
stat bonus of the required stat, and his level, along with any
other special modifiers that might apply. If the result equals
the Target Number of the Save or is higher, he succeeds and
is not affected (or receives a lesser effect in some cases).

I thought the saves were going to be +1 for every 2 levels essentially?

[imported_Rasyr]

No, Saves have always been "Stat bonus + Level". We had other things that were +1 every two levels (like the one mod for DEF).

[samwise7]

Page 7

Hit Points - This is a measure of how much damage a
character can take before going unconscious.

You might want to put in this glossary description at what point a character dies.

Saving Throw (Save) - This is a roll to resist or avoid
being affected by something (spell, poison, etc.) that is
not covered by another type of roll. There are 8 types
of Saving Throws, one for each stat.

You might want to define how Saving Throws are tabulated.

Page 9

Step 6: Develop Your Character (p. 17)
The player receives 30 Character Points (CPs) to use in
creating a first level character. For each level beyond first level
that the character achieves, he receives 15 additional Character
Points. These Character Points may be spent on learning
Skills, Spells, Combat Moves or acquiring Talents..

There are two periods at the end of this sentence.

[samwise7]

No, Saves have always been "Stat bonus + Level". We had other things that were +1 every two levels (like the one mod for DEF).

I think I've always messed that up.  hehe.  I like it. 

[capmarvel]

Movement by Terrain Type (page 57)...."Moutainous" should be "Mountainous"

[imported_Rasyr]

got that one about the Mountainous already...

[samwise7]

Page 14

The Magic Stat is the stat that is used in determining
Spell Points, and it is also the stat used for the
Magecraft and Spellcasting skills. If a Class does not
have a Magic Stat listed, then Intelligence should be
used unless and/or until the character learns a School
of Magic, and then the Magic Stat for that particular
School should be used.

The and/or part of the last sentence is kind of confusing.

page 16

There are other things, such as special abilities, shields, spells,
Combat Moves, and Boon Point results that can alter your
character's DEF for either good or bad. The majority of these are
situational, meaning that they only apply in certain situation.

Situation should be situations.


page 17

For the Fate Roll,
he rolls a 9, a 10, and a 6, bringing his total roll up to
37. This is 15 points more than the TN of the task, so
he earns 3 Boon Points as well.

The example uses the old 5 over the TN gets a Boon Point, instead of 10 over.

[samwise7]

page 18

Elvish - This language of the Elves.

Elvish - This is the language of the Elves.


page 19

If fewer than 5 ranks are required to bring the total
number of skill ranks to an amount equal to the associated
Stat Value, then the maximum number of skill ranks that
may be purchased is equal to

Huh?  I'm not really sure what this is trying to say, and the end of it seems to be missing.

[imported_Rasyr]

Get the final version of 0.4 that last thing was something that I have already fixed in it.

[imported_kustenjaeger]

Greetings

Just starting to read through and make a character - here are a few things spotted to date:

p. 13  Cleric description - reference to 'Pure Spell User'?
p. 13  Archer, p.14 Minstrel, Rogue have additional favored skills under 'Favored Skills' and then an additional Favored skill under 'Special Abilities'?
p.16  Hit points - I had to read this twice as in fact the CON+20 is not starting hit points but base hit points before adding level bonuses.
p.16  Spell points - may need to make clear somewhere that the Special Ability of Minor or Major Adept grants these additional SP just in case someone looking at Special Abilities double counts?
p.16  Fate points - in the example John has only a 10% chance of getting the result he needs so this looks a bit strange: I could understand him choosing 2 fate points because this would average at 11 ...
p.17 Movement - Is Base Movement = Racial Description + Speed bonus?  It could be read that spending an AP allows Base Movement + Speed bonus while running = 2 x Base Movement i.e. Speed doesn't make you run faster?   The AP table on p.38 does not resolve this as it just refers to Base Movement and Double Base Movement.
p.18 Learning skills - presumably if you have say 2 in a skill from a Background and purchase your maximum 5 ranks then the 4th and 5th new ranks will cost 2/5 rather than 1/3 (Fav/Std)?
p.18 Large space between 'which' and 'one' under Combat Moves.
p.31 Plate armour looks really cheap! 
p.31 As the basic Amor covers the torso (might be worth adding 'Torso' to the table) then helm, greaves and bracers add up to a total AR?

More later - probably next weekend after I get back from Miami.

Regards

Edward 



 

[imported_Rasyr]

kustenjaeger -- welcome!!

p. 13  Cleric description - reference to 'Pure Spell User'?

 pure spell user is a bit of terminology from a game I worked on previous to Novus, so that is a slight slip as it were... hehe I will have to fix that.

p. 13  Archer, p.14 Minstrel, Rogue have additional favored skills under 'Favored Skills' and then an additional Favored skill under 'Special Abilities'?

Yes, the classes are roughly balanced, and giving additional Favored skills is a way of doing that. Every class starts off with 7 Favored skills. If we thought that a given class SHOULD have a skill as a Favored skill, we made it so. And did so for every class. However, sometimes there were classes where we didn't come up with 7 skills, so we left the remainder as the player's choice.

The Rogue and Minstrel, to bring their class abilities into balance, got extra Favored skills (player's choice - and already figured into the listed Favored Skills)

p.17 Movement - Is Base Movement = Racial Description + Speed bonus?  It could be read that spending an AP allows Base Movement + Speed bonus while running = 2 x Base Movement i.e. Speed doesn't make you run faster?   The AP table on p.38 does not resolve this as it just refers to Base Movement and Double Base Movement.

Hmmm.. I thought that I removed Speed from the Base Movement stuff... Will double check

Good comments overall.. will definitely try to address them all...

[samwise7]

I printed out the free version, and I've been reading over it in preparation for my campaign.  I think I'm making my printer angry by printing these, hehe.

Page 18

Trickery Chr

In the skill summary table, you need to add that Trickery can be Chr or Dex.  I noticed you changed that in the Trickery skill description.


Page 19

"Basic Martial Arts (Spd - Unarmed): Anybody may acquire
this skill. This allows a character to fight when unarmed
using the Unarmed Combat Moves. Refer to p. 40 for
more information on the damage that unarmed attacks
do. This skill is a prerequisite for the Advanced Martial Arts.

Should the word Talent be added to the end of the last sentence, or should the word "the" be removed?


Page 19

Staves (Spd - Melee: Includes Quarterstaff, Short Spear
and Spear.

You are missing a ")" at the end of the word Melee.


Page 23

Advanced Combat Training
Cost: 15
Trainable: Yes
Description: The character receives special training that allows
him to enhance his melee capabilities. The Multiple Attacks
from High Skill (p. 36) capability described in the Combat
chapter requires that the character's Combat Skill Bonus be
split among the number of attacks he is able to make after
receiving modifiers for the number of attacks that he plans
on making and the number of foes to be attacked.
This Talent allows the character to use his full
remaining Combat Skill Bonus, after the adjustments
for multiple attacks has been made, for each of those
multiple attacks, rather than splitting it among them.
As with the original capability, this Talent may not
be used in conjunction with combat styles or skills that
allow for multiple attacks each round.

Does anyone else find the wording of this to be really confusing?  I think you have some long sentences that should be broken up and possibly reworded.  I read it twice, and I think I know what it does, but I'm still not all the way sure.  You might want to clarify that a bit.


Page 23

This Talent also increases how many Hits Per Level the
character receives, giving him 2 Hits Per Level.

This Talent also increases how many Hits Per Level
the character receives, giving him 3 Hits Per Level.

I still think you should replace Hits with Hit Points That's all I got for now.  The text is much cleaner and much more understandable.

[samwise7]

Page 43

It is complex because these Codified spells were created by a
more flexible set of underlying rules that allows for both the
creation, learning and casting of Codified spells, which are
easier to cast, and also the use of what we call Spell Bases in
Improv casting, that is creating and casting spells on the fly,
on the spur of the moment. These more advanced rules will
be covered in a later product.

I added the word "by" and bolded it.  Also, you need to break that long sentence into shorter sentences.  Maybe start the paragraph out with the word Magic instead of "It" as well.


page 44

These discounts are already figured
in and listed in the spell costs next to the spell's name.

You might want to put that line in a few more places.  Players might think they have a discount in addition to the one that is already listed for the spell.  They might not get confused by it however.


Page 45 - The Spells Vs DEF box

The next step is to compare this
SAME result against the target's DEF.
If it is equal to or higher than that,
then the attack hits. The damage, including
Scalable Damage, is resolved
just as any other attack.

I added the missing word "the" and bolded it.


Page 45
In the listing of spells by school table, it might be good to put an "*" next to the spells that are Fast Cast.


Page 48 - Dark Omen Spell

A
favorable omen might be the sighting of a vulture, or a
stain that looks like a rat or something similar in nature,
while an unfavorable omen might appear as a dove or
something shaped like a butterfly. (Base: Divination)

Your favorable and unfavorable example are reversed, hehe. 

The object, if a weapon will do its normal
Base Damage, but no Strength Damage.

This spell has the old Strength Damage that was removed.


That's it for now.

[imported_kustenjaeger]

Greetings

A few more bits and pieces from my reading last week (Deluxe version 0.4):

p.8  'Individual skills are the last type of item a player may purchase ...' - what does this mean?

p.13 Special Abilities: states that in all cases additional skills are already added into the favored skill list - Tim mentioned that the Rogue and Minstrel get a couple more to balance them i.e. 9 rather than 7 - in this case if the special ability section for these classes has already figured in the "1 Favored Skill" shouldn't it be deleted or is the p.13 comment wrong?  There needs to be more clarity here - it might be better to leave out the favored skills gained by the Special Abilities from the class's skills section to avoid people double counting - the same could be said for HP/level.

p.24/27 Shield Training cost is inconsistent - 5 in the table on p.24, 3 in the description.

p.36  Encumbrance Unit. Third line 'per' is unncessary.

p.38  The IP needs to be added to the Character Sheet.  In addition most of the Initiative section duplicates Item 1 in the Combat Round Sequence so is unncessary.  Step 4 needs a space between 'Step' and '4'.

p.39  Brawling. What are the 'appropriate modifiers'?

p.39 Called shots.  What about against the torso?  This has less armour than the total AR?

p.39 Dodging. If a character has Acrobatics with any levels at all as it is DEX based won't it always be prefersable to use it?

p.68 I think the TN+% = boon has already been picked up here?

p.69  What distance is covreed in a Climb or Move Silently task?

p.73  Hit Points - so a character with good levels in First Aid not only finds it easier to achieve i.e. reach the TN but also delivers more healing - this is a bit self-fulfilling - what about recovering hits for score over the TN up to the skill level of the first aider?

p.74  Is first level experience referred to anywhere else?  Shouldn't it be in the character section so it can be added to the character sheet.

p.74  Advancing Levels.  Why is the experience progression escalating (i.e. by previous increment +100) when awards stay more or less static - won't this mean more sessions to break a level as time goes on?

p.74 Awarding Experience Points.  Can't the top of the table be cropped and just say 50/session?  Why is there a reduction in experience for unsuccessful encounters - failure should usually be its own penalty as it makes it harder to reach the goals.

p.75  Second column line 4 all the words run together. 

p.77  Need to explain what the creature entries mean.  I assume that the Ant, Giant 'Attacks: 7 Bite (7) means an attack bonus of 7 and a base damage (in parentheses) of 7?   Likewise I assume the numbers in the parentheses after each stat is the bonus?

Character sheet:  Generally this is good - a few points:
(a) As noted above needs to be guidance to include the 100 xp at Level 1
(b) No obvious place for damage type of a weapon to be included
(c) Presumably the boxes against skills are designed to be ticked if favored?  I don't think this is explained - an example of how to fill out the sheet might be a good idea.

I've created a half elf Minstrel and a human Wizard; I'm in the middle of creating a Dwarf hillock living Cleric - when I've added one or two more I'll run a solo session.

My test with the initial two against a couple of Orcs raised questions about charges and running away that I'll add as another topic.

Regards

Edward

[Fidoric]

Not sure if it has been reported already, but the shaman was listed with 2 hits per level though he did not have any combat training talent. It should be 1 hit / level, if I understand it right.