It means what it says. Drakes walk on all fours. As for a zweihander swinging drake... the drake upgrade does not let drakes use the weapons. Drakes don't have opposable thumbs. Of course, they get a d10 bite, and a d8 claw, and a 2d6+con breath weapon, and their claw and bite attacks benefit from Martial Arts and other unarmed feats.

What do they need weapons for?

I've seen dragon described as both Quadruped and Hexaped.  It just depends on what you define the wings as.  So with that bit of art's odd perspective on the legs we thought wings + rear limbs.

Now that I go back and look at it there is no beast quality for weapons.  I sit corrected, faulty assumption that the one from armor carried through to weapons.  Of course I've never needed to look it up as I play a drake martial-artist, per Krensky's last point.  Right now his bite is 1d10+8 15+ threat with an effective Massive quality from a trick.

<tangent> Drake quality == component bag readied with weapon ready.  That weapon trait always leads me down the thought-path as to how a "Beast" race creates weapons at all.  I know you can make kits with beast quality, but that just doesn't true up logically with me.  If you have the manual dexterity to make a weapon then why not have the ability use it?  Other than the "I have big teeth and claws already." angle of course.  Thieves kit?  Can you imagine a drake picking a lock?!    I know how mine does it...  *SMASH* Spoken matter-of-factly:  "Door's open."  hee hee

I'll answer some of these.


"Just played my first session tonight. I was stoked, and I still am about continuing the campaign. Love the rule system."

Welcome aboard!  It's a fun ride.  

"It seems to be that Armor Check Penalty applies to any ability that is modified by Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution, and no other abilities? Did I interpret that wrong? At which point an armored mage seems like a most appropriate scenario, if anti-thematic. "

From the book: ACP, A penalty applied to the wearer’s physical skill checks.  So yes, I agree with that part of your assessment.  On the send part though, ACP is applied to all classes evenly.  A mage suffers it the same as an assassin, burglar, soldier... some classes (soldier for one) get perks that mitigate it as they level and every one else can take the armor feat chain to get relief.

"Is there anything preventing a player being able to cast cure spells more or less indefinitely outside of combat?"

Well yes, but you have to read between the lines a bit.  Count the downtime as a scene and you limit their points there.

"A mage seems to be able to case cure spells pretty much at a whim - while the priest, typically a character able to heal, relies upon mend checks (which are limited to twice a day outside of combat) and only if they have "life" as an alignment path is there any room for actually casting heal spells. Is this a purposeful bent, are there going to be more diving casting options in the upcoming magic book? Or arcane casters going to be better healers?"

This is a common 'baggage-carryover' from D&D.  Very common.  FC priests are not stereotyped into healing.  They have a wide range of things to draw from for build, but are fairly siloed in that build.  However they are freaking awesome in that silo.  My wife's fire/life priest was hellish on mobs.  Summon fire elemental every combat with no roll?  Yes please.

That spellcheck roll is one of the prices a mage pays for their flexibility, a priest just makes it so.  There are campaign qualities that really make this distinction important.  

TL;DR version: Mage is flexible but more fraught with dice-errors.  Priest is broad definition but narrow focus with reliable and potent effects.

"Does Damage Reduction or Damage Resistance stack unless it says otherwise? Does armor piercing have any effect against damage resistance?"

Yes and yes, if memory serves.  Rules monkeys will have to correct me, running short on time.

"Under what conditions does a character with a Flight Speed need to make a Maneuver check?"

Think of it as making a ride/drive/pilot/check; Only when you are doing something fancy/risky IMHO.

"For the Drake, is "quadruped" anything other than descriptive? Is there anything keeping a drake from using a zweihander with the Drake upgrade?"

The art points to Drakes as Quadruped = 2x wings + 2x rear legs, the D&D wyvern template.  This. Drives. Me. Nuts. so we went with a quad = 4 on the floor setup with the fronts being manipulators but poorly suited for folk constructs and thus "Beast" designation.

By the rules anything with the Beast upgrade can be used by a Beast character... so if you tack that on to a greatsword, go for it.

Later!

That's been a common refrain with my drake.  His chompy-chomp is murderous, but there are things out there you don't want to take the chance of contamination with.  Tentacled Horrors From Beyond are good candidates here.

"Are you going to eat that?" is the common joke at the table.  There are fights where, afterwards, the drake goes off a bit and gags repeatedly because he just ripped great bleeding chunks out of something unpleasant with his teeth.  Would you want to take a bite out of a rotting corpse?

Plus, never count a Martial Artist with action dice down until they're dead. 

Hehe.  This ^ 

One of our group took a really nasty crit and survived the day from the MA's core skill.

Getting a 404 on that image you posted.

Specialist mages may not find it so bad when they don't have access to all 888 spells in the system...

Actually our Reaper has cast it exactly once, then figured out it was better to use weapons as they, also, generally surpass the spell pretty much every way possible.  It drives him loony because he wants to use his spells, but so far the guy all about death magic is a better melee'r. 

The spell just needs something, divine dmg perhaps?  Of course then the latter spells get nutso.  Shorter casting time?  Longer range?  Drop the save?  Make it a straight-up attack spell with all privileges thereof?

The devil seems to be in the progression of the line, fixing the first rank could scale up to zomg proportions when at later ranks.  Divine dmg mass cause? >.< Ouchies.  Even removing the save for half makes me take pause at that level.

It is an unfortunate oddity we are still mulling over at our table.

Cause wounds is a bit wonky in a few ways:  It's a pseudo-attack you have to roll over defense (and have to stand in harms way for touch range), can't crit for dmg, is a full action cast, does kinda poopy damage, has a save for half roll, and to top it off, is subject to damage reduction.  Buuhh?

My group has been scratching its collective head over it for some time.  As we read it; it is inferior in every. way. possible. to its contemporaries.  Are we missing something?

As always, tasty.  I need to get offa my ass and post a few ideas that have come up in our game.

Two words: Screaming Shield

*giggle*

Aren't you a little short for an Ultramarine?
</tangent>

Pure mageness makes the "Wyledcat" even more fun... not could the buggers have a null-field (High magic resist) but their proximity makes spellcasters' magic go spectacularly haywire.  

You wouldn't lead them in a charge against 'melefs but that cohort of battlemages is gonna hate life shortly when they get on the scene.

Another fun image: Displacer-beast cav anyone?  The whole bloody charge is coming from a differing direction than you see them.  hee hee  

Perhapse a critter that amps its rider's own magick? Kind of a Dragon-lance in reverse thing.  Hellooo tank.

Anyways I'm runnin' my mouth now.  

Sounds like the Guymelef from Escaflowne.

Big armored steam/magika-driven proto-mecha.

I'd go number 1 if that was the imagery you were going for.

An alternative is give the lancer some setting-based advantage that makes them desirable in the field.  Perhaps the steeds most often used are inherently resistant to energy weapons/whatever is the Big Tech on the battle field.  The fact that they could carry larger munitions on-target (due to steed carrying capacity) and have speed/maneuverability/resistance makes them dangerous to larger targets.

For example: If you were to focus this on airship combat (for giggles) they might fill a role similar to our fighter-bombers now.  

Your skymanta's peculiar energies it uses to fly also have the handy side effect of scattering most any Neem!ium-based directed energy into a harmless light show.  Although rare, your ilk are tasked with many duties from ferrying commando teams through Neem!ium boarding shields to delivering several types of munition on-target.  Leach-limpets are your favorite, draining the powerplants of Aetherships and making them easy prey for capture... of course the Fwakoom!ium-based "Cloudcracker" ship busters are always a crowd pleaser.

For a ground based one imagine a field that causes havoc with some basic tenant of the 'tech.  The guys driving the 'jacks freak out when they see Wylde-cats cav headed their way, for if they get close enough all of their fancy gear goes bonkers.  At best it gets erratic and worst tears itself (and the operator) to bits.

my $0.02

..by Olympic I meant "Olympic style fencing"  not actual Olympic competition, btw.  Just in case there was any confusion since I tend to write in the shorthand my brain thinks in when I'm tired.  hehe  Always drives me nuts when I run into yet another SEALspecopsGreenBeretUltraAwesomeDudeSniper (who is 19) on the Internets and don't want to be that guy on accident.

Meh, gaunts never bothered me that much.  Most people trying that trick were pretty easy to bait into fixating on "catch the sword" long enough to bury the other one in them.

Psh fencing rules were more like guidelines for me.  When I did NCAA I drove the judges nutso with my antics.  Some of my team mates dubbed my fencing style "Screeching Weasel" and involved me being in the air as often as on the ground.  There was a reason I fought epee, no stupid right-of-way for a judge to put me over a barrel with because I wasn't from a proper school or fenced a proper game.  Dismantling a few of their expensive import students with said antics didn't win me any favors either.  Best. Match. Ever. was getting a french guy so pissed off he threw his mask and blade across the strip when I won.  Had it been a commoner like me I would have been black-carded and ejected from the premises.  He got a shrug when I raised an eyebrow at the judge.  That would be a large part why I stopped Olympic fencing.

Then I went into ren-style and things got much more fun.  Doesn't hurt that one of my sparring partners was an old akido/judo/something guy and would toss (heh) the occasional throw in for yukks. 

ARMA has a great piece on Sword and Buckler fighting (as distinct from "Sword and Board" fighting with a larger shield) http://www.thearma.org/essays/SwordandBuckler.htm

HA!  That brings back memories, make that doublet green/silver/black, add some dashing boots (always hated hosen), drop the serving plat.. er.. buckler for another pointy item and you have me in my tourney-fighting years.   

Bucklers are great an all but unless in mixed unit battles with a formation, I always did better with another main blade in-hand.  Two rapiers was not quite as raw protective in potential, but there was the MAD principle that only a case-of-rapier fighter can pull off.  Properly done you can make an opponent feel like he is fighting two separate combatants.

My fave was to fight two people, worked great as a skirmisher.  I'd harry a flank and force two to peel off from their unit or let me rip up their line.  I'd dance them away from their unit and then let my group (with a sudden numerical advantage) press the attack.  I'd play out my opponents as long as I could if I couldn't just dispatch them outright.  It was much fun. 

Wish I had more pictures from that time.  *sigh*

I must say that it was a pretty fantastic adaptation!  Three cheers mate.

Sure, it can be annoying when the players oneshot your boss,

And this is my main concern with this rule. You know... there is the climatic final battle against the Orc shaman, and then, in the first round, the warrior of the party gets close to the Big Bad and scores a critical hit and he spends his action die... and then he (a soldier with STR 18) rolls maximum damage with his Zweihander...... All of that in the first round.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm over-exaggerating the probability of that scenario happening, but the probability is still there.... I don't know... Can the GM spend his own action dice to "cancel" the action dice spent by the players?

And then again, why are critical misses so mild when compared to critical hits? I mean, a critical hit is "probability of K.O.ing the Big bad in the first round", while critical misses are "probability of suffering a setback that, at worse, should only delay the players in the completion of their quest".  Shouldn't critical hits be more like critical misses? Maybe critical hits should only grant the players useful and flavorful advantages or bonuses for the rest of the combat, or something like that.

We had a fight in our game where I rolled up to the Bad with my drake MA and double-critted him (note: bite + MA feats = 16+ threats, ouchies!) into a fine red mist.  On the flip of that the drake has received at least two crits that nearly dropped him in one hit.  GM turned on the NPC auto-activate threat CQ and the big dragon gets a lot of attention...   

So, it plays both ways.  If you want to have less spikey combat, turn crits to vitality instead of wounds with a bonus to dmg or possibly a free roll on the Table of Ouch.