This becomes particularly important when characters use an ability like Very, Very, Sneaky as a replacement for investing skill ranks.  A Burglar who is trying to Sneak/Hide in Intense Light (-4), in Sparse and Revelaing terrain (-4), while moving faster than 1/2 speed (-4) is going to have a -12 on his check.  After applying the -12, if the total is less than 0, the check is an error and Very, Very, Sneaky won't help.

This is why my burglars invest in smoke bombs.

Ninja! Vanish!

Your player made me laugh many, many times with this one. I have to second Mister Andersen's suggestion of acid with boiling water. You may also want to add some form of 'stop, drop, and roll' kind of action.

The real problem with having boiling water thrown/dumped/spilled on you is your clothes. It's easy enough to wipe the water away and flail that off, but you can end up with some pretty nasty burns if you don't get out of your clothes that have soaked the stuff up.

I worked with a guy that spilled his pasta water down his leg at the beginning of a double shift. He clamped down and bore through the pain throughout the shift, but the burn was so bad and he didn't take proper care of it after the fact. He ended up losing his leg from just above the knee down.

Granted, that's an extreme case and the amputation was regrettably a result of improper care afterwards, but boiling water is one of the serious hazards in a kitchen.

Long story short, I need a quick translation on this. Wasn't sure where to go to, but this has always proved to be a varied range of skills and knowledge on this board. Figured if no one could read it, someone'd be able to at least point me at the right direction.

(click to show/hide)

https://plus.google.com/photos/108859516006812464398/albums/5839282423575988881?authkey=CMubs-Cnju_sNg

Apologies for link instead of pic, in hurry.

Seeing as how they're coming out from a hidey hole and supposed to have been able to retain their idea of civilization throughout the monsterpocalypse, you might also consider Broad Learning or Enlightened Skill.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still just laughing at the idea of a stable, of any sort, Pat. Hehehe, that guy's such a kidder.

As far as penalizing in game, this might be a good time to introduce Cheating Death and/or Subplots to him. During the conversation, just let him know you're hitting him with a minor subplot or Cheating Death result for a few sessions as a way to slap his wrists, but also to introduce him to the rules that he'll be running into that are the usual results of a few bad rolls. Maybe he just thought that bad dice rolls = losing, and showing him that they are really just opening a door to interesting, and unexpected, stories could lead to him abandoning the fudgy behavior.

Sadly 'Sword and Sworcery' seems to be iPhone only.

Unless you pick up the latest Humble Bundle for Android and get the Sword and Sworcery beta along with a bunch of other fun ones for whatever price you set. Also, the games in the bundle can be played on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Seriously, these things are great. Available until the 22nd, I think

A quick trip over to thesaurus.com brings up "operator" and "broker" as two that sound decent after just a quick look through the class. I love the theme and have one player that will be possibly actually salivating over this class.

Another one that came up on thesaurus.com that I don't think really fits, but would love to see a class named this: The Boss.

I've got something along the lines of this tucked away in my notes

Second Wind (Refresh Trick): You may be targeted by a number of attacks per Refresh trick equal to the number of Basic Combat feats you possess and still spend and roll the action die to heal.

My steampunk game went much sillier when the dwarf priest decided to take the Path of Metal, and then the rest of the group decided to be a heavy metal band with him as the front man. Things went from silly to hilarious with hijinks like the giant PC with Truly Massive named "Dikfuk" who used a deck harpoon and the "Get Over Here!" trick.

And then, at the height of the campaign when they discovered an undead army marching on the town they were supposed to be performing in, they didn't warn anyone because an undead army attacking during their show would be 'more metal'

At first glance, I love the class. I also like that the Paths would be able to switched out to change the class to something a little differently flavored. I'm going back through the Wheel of Time series and this class feels very Aiel-y to me.

Possibly Fremen-ish, too with the right tweaking.

That's what I was thinking when I put up my idea. Also, if you want people to decide ahead of time, add the Level 1 only" prerequisite.

I had a brain wave about this while at work tonight. What if you were to script a majority of the adept powers as restricted actions and/or tricks that require a feat to be able to gain access to them. Give the feat decent prerequisites without them being impossible so people can it up later in their career if they'd like, and you could still design Specialties around the idea since it would easily be thrown in the bonus feat slot.

Then as far as the class goes, I think the Martial Artist does a lot of what the Adepts in what I remember from Shadowrun (it's been a long, long while for me), so you just tweak their Level 1 ability to grant Martial Artist or Physical Adept Feat.

Completely stealing ALL of that for potential Wheel of Time game. Also, love the idea of flat-footed when you run out of spell points to the point where I may be implementing that into a campaign quality.

Yeah, I meant Sage, but I was thinking about snagging some Enchanter and Trickster abilities and the Seer must have snuck into my thoughts there