Is Spellbound's new Circle of Power/more focused spellusing base classes start with level 1 spells available for use rules going to mean expert classes like the Alchemist that grant spellcasting skill+3 schools at 1st level will be similarly affected?

Yes.

Flaring Pewter only lets you ignore the burdens while flaring - remember how Vin and Kelsier say a person who stops burning can drop dead? That's part of what they were talking about Gold on the other hand allows you to permanently remove the burden.

Hrm.. as a matter of interest then, what is the point of Pewter's healing ability?
It says it doubles your Healing rate to two Health per day in which you spend eight hours burning Pewter, so Pewter healing is only useful on the rare occasions that you aren't getting a Short Breather in a day, or need to spend all that day's breathers doing other things?

Correct. Pewter is insanely powerful without even factoring in the healing ability, so I don't mind a few curbs on it for purposes of game balance

That said, if flaring Pewter does allow you to permanently heal physical Burdens the way that Gold does, that'd pretty much solve the issue right there

Flaring Pewter only lets you ignore the burdens while flaring - remember how Vin and Kelsier say a person who stops burning can drop dead? That's part of what they were talking about Gold on the other hand allows you to permanently remove the burden.

At the time I set it as a Spirit vs Spirit contest targeting the Snake's willpower (and the Terris got a bonus die for setting himself on fire rather than just waving a burning torch).
Now, should the Snake automatically get to resist with its Spirit, or should this have been a "Take dice out of your combat pool if you want to defend" as normal for Combat? (though I think if I did that I'd have to make it a Wits or Charm vs Spirit to be more logical).

Similarly, emotional Allomancy during a combat, is it Metal vs Spirit as normal, or Metal vs Combat Pool?

Basically it boils down to "Do non-physical attacks in a Combat also go against Combat Pool, or the targeted attribute?"

When it comes to attacks against one of the Resiliences, you always use the Conflict rules and the attack goes against the opponent's Conflict Pool - basically, all attacks in a Conflict ARE Contests, but they use the defender's pool rather than the attribute you'd use outside conflict. So, for example, if your Terrisman wanted to wrestle a snake (a physical Contest) rather than try to attack their Willpower, they'd still defend using their pool of dice, but the Terrisman's pool would be formed using his Physique rather than Spirit. This very necessary abstraction allows characters to change actions and plans midstream during Conflicts, rather than worrying about losing actions or reforming pools in the middle of the round

Secondly, how frequently are other GMs giving their players Long Breathers? After three sessions the players are just getting their first Long Breather (the players had a couple of points of 'resting' for half a day or so, but they were kept on their toes quite a bit), and I'm rather worried about one of the players' burdens.

*snip*

So that's three serious, two grave and one mortal burden, and she's only just gotten her first breather. Sure it's a good abject lesson in using tactics rather than going off half cocked, but I'm a little worried that she's going to end up a ball of burdens and nerves if current pacing keeps up.

The frequency of Long Breathers, really, is up to you and the pace of your story. However, if you're worried the party's breaking down (it sounds like they are to me!) then I would absolutely start instituting some Long Breathers. As I suggest on page 449, you should reasonably expect about 1 Long Breather per session - for your players that would have given them all a chance to burn away those Burdens AND for some, if not all, to spend Advancements as well. What you really don't want is the players to stop trying things because they're just too frayed at the edges; if that happens the whole game will come grinding to a halt!

I've thought of three possibilities:
1) Assume that this is a bit of an anomaly, and keep going as per the normal rules
2) Allow long breathers that are in the weeks/months range to drop all burdens by one stage, rather than only one
3) Letting all breathers lower a burden *and* buy an Advancement

Does anyone have any ideas/advice?

My advice before changing the rules is first to look at how you define a Long Breather in your game. Anything over 24 hours can be a Long Breather as defined by the rules, and the players could likely make those spaces for themselves (choosing to lie low for a day or two, instead of a half day) rather than pushing through. You may even want to be a little more generous on when Long Breathers trigger - for example, on those half day rests every session, let them be a Long Breather if the party's got its butt kicked recently. There are no Fun Police that are going to kick in your door for being generous to the Crew for the betterment of the game

If that *still* doesn't satisfy, then neither 2 or 3 look like bad changes. But I strongly suggest start by looking at when you're allowing Long Breathers to come into play first, so you don't have unintended consequences down the line.

Also, can anyone point me at the ruling for using Pewter or Gold to reduce Mortal burdens without Advancements? The Burdens part says refer to the Allomancy listing for the rules on it, but I just can't find it.

In addition to Leonerd's point on Pewter, Feruchemical Gold can be used to remove Mortal Physical Burdens by spending 90 charges (pg 358). Feruchemical Duralumin can be used similarly for Mortal Social Burdens, and Feruchemical Aluminum for removing any type of Mental Burdens (though this is effectively a personality wipe, and has other side effects).

Hope that helps!

Unfortunately, we're all OK 'cause we're older than 10 years old... 

Man do I feel for Alex...

2008 is recent. I've written the game 3 times already (yes, really) and have had 5 publishers. I thought it was going to be out in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005...and then I decided to start Crafty to make it happen.

I'm not really sure what I'll think once it actually happens. But it will happen, dammit.

All charges went through at that time. The good news is, if you paid then, you will be getting the PDF at no cost, and very likely the book will be cheaper than its final version, as it's grown over time.

If you don't want the book anymore, drop me a line at alex@crafty-games.com and we'll work something out.

By RAW, yes. And by intent, I would say yes also.  Grueling Combatant represent the character cuffing and elbowing the opponent when they miss clumsily.  Harsh Beating means the character does that REALLY HARD.

Jim has the right of it. Watch out!

Spellbound s not cancelled, rest assured in that. But it is not an all-hands project, either.

Can I make the polite suggestion that you break some Spellbound news?  It's struck a few people I know as weird that you're talking Spycraft 3 a fair bit recently while not updating us on the product we paid for very nearly 18 months ago.

I know that sounds harsh, but I honestly can't think of a nicer way to put it.  For that I apologise.

Things tend to happen concurrently, if we want to get anything done. SC3 has been discussed lately because we just had our second summit on the topic where we nailed down the last niggling bits prior to doing a proper draft. So forgive us if we're a bit excited.

Spellbound is Pat's only project at this time, as I am taking the lead on SC3 currently. He will update you in the Spellbound thread, rather than here - the most recent update was made 5 days before he headed to my place for the summit, from which he returned home just 2 days ago.

Though.. if the Crafty are feeling generous.. ..did the dramatic conflicts survive to SC3 alpha?   

Alpha (the most very core mechanics) is not beta (draft of final game) so the answer is not yet

Just to echo (and confirm): It's less dense than FantasyCraft?

FC is a fantastic book, but as Gundark says, you get a real sense that if you change something over here, something waaaay over there that you never even considered is thrown out of whack as a result.

To kick off an analogy: FC (to me, at least) feels like a miniature Swiss Watch. Every piece moving in perfect harmony, but so complicated and interdependant that if you move that little spring, the whole thing falls apart. Which is kind of daunting  

Short answer: absolutely.

Long answer: The "Swiss Watch" aspect of FC has been on Pat's and my "to-fix" list since day 1 of the development process (over a year so far). We have heard very clearly, from a great many people in a great number of ways, that while they everything runs well, sometimes they need to pull it apart (because they want to tweak their game, because their players don't like a certain feature, because they don't have the time or will to use certain rules assumed as the core, etc.). We use the term "decoupling" a lot in this process, because we believe that having things run well alongside, but largely independent of, one another is a strength which will enable groups, rather than forcing them into a certain set of rules.

Now that doesn't mean everything can be broken off (like skills or the d20) but it does mean you don't have the cascading issues when you choose to hack your game however you like. Obviously, we'll be including lots of information to help you tweak to your heart's delight, and to provide those who don't care or want something "out of the box" to just pick up and run, but you'll find SC3 to be much more compartmentalized to prevent against the unintended consequences of the tweaking we so actively encourage.

The way the Career Level rules on p.27 are written suggests that the table 1.4 benefits (feats, interests etc.) are gained first and then you advance a class level. So yes, you could gain a prerequisite feat and then an expert class level at the same career level. That's how I read it...

That is correct.

So, I can't actually spot this one in the rulebook anywhere.
When you burn Iron or Steel and see all your handy little blue lines, are you able to work out what the metal you're detecting actually is? Can you tell the difference between iron/gold/zinc etc?

Definitive answer: No. The only way you can tell what metal is being used via Allomancy at this point is using Copper to sense which metal is being burned.

I do, however, like your idea of making this a Stunt - it doesn't strike me as a game-breaking ability and will only come in really handy in a few circumstances such as those you named. I say go for it!

I'm working on a.. combination lock/safe of sorts that requires pulling the right bits to open it

That...is awesome.

Thanks for the update.

Having clear statement is still better than nothing

waiting now for Alex/Logan

While we've been quiet, we have indeed been working on a bunch of new material for Mistborn. Aside from the Alloy of Law book Pat's already mentioned, we have Thieves in the Ninth House in the can and waiting to be reviewed, a new supplement very nearly done, a new adventure to go with it mostly written, and a new outline for the next "wave" of support material sitting here on my desk. The reason I'm not quite ready to speak to specifics yet is they need to be approved by Brandon's camp prior to us finalizing the work, and that often takes about a month. Once we have approval, however, we'll be ready to give y'all a peek behind the curtain