Believe me, after finishing up Drakes (playable dragons) this afternoon, I'm wantin' to do some teasin' as much as you guys want some inside goods. I'd guess we'll avoid any serious info today, but it's only 9 hours or so to go before the day of sillies is concluded .

[OotS: Classic Fantasy]

We're getting enough finalized this week to start looking at a preview of some sort in the not too distant future.

Goblins got a last little tweak (2 of their species benefits were just way too synergistic - in the hands of NPCs they'd be anhilating players with alarming regularity). For those who follow Magic: the Gathering (or have decent wiki-fu) you might get a chuckle that goblins can take the Lava-Born and Lava-Clan feats from OotS: Classic Fantasy...

Akki are GO! 

A big part of it depends on what you need to round out the package with the other elements in place. I wols say that choosing your main non-feat benefit probably comes first as there are a lot les choices to deal with there, and one you have your best fir for that, the 2 smaller benefits (also comming from a limited field of choices) should begin to reveal themselves. The feat presents the most choices, and should come last to cover areas the others couldn't. We also have some attempts (that may or may not fit your veision) for these Origins you might want to review.

Yes.

So, I watched the movie in a fit of boredom while my computer was down with a virus this weekend. It's bad. I knew it was bad, but only watching it could really convey the depths of bad involved. The question I have is does anyone know if the book is as agonizingly trite and pointless as the movie, or was there some sort of Hollywood injections of poo into otherwise merely mediocre teen-boy-empowerment shlock?

When it's a major plot point the dragon can't fly while carrying three people, and then you strap (conservatively) 900 pounds of armor on it in the next scene, someone ain't thinking. I want to know if it was the author or the screen writter.

Here's what happens:
Improvised weapons (page 346) give a -2 penalty to attack checks and damage.
A forte gives a +1 to attact checks.
So, when a Pech picks ups some odd bit of junk and throws it, he only suffers a -1 to his attack roll because he is good that throwing odd bits of junk. THis does not confer any special expertise with weapons that do not impose a penalty to attack checks - those are already a better choice than than the -1 piece of junk if they're available.

The intention of the ability is to show that while Pech are generally not trained warriors (and if they are, they can take the proficiency the normal way), when it comes to picking up a rock or grabbing a flowerpot and letting fly, they are pretty darn accurate. Especially considering their bonus to Dex.

Firstly, thanks for the clarifications.

No problem. I'm looking forward to feedback once the packets get emailed .

Questions continued: For gear pick issues, will this be considered a faction, freelance, or mixed setting.  (eg, what set of categories do extra picks from Cha bonus get to choose from).

Go with freelance.

Scott is currently down with some fuggly flu, and looking forward to assignments that he can print out and take a marking pen to from bed rather than having to perch in front of the keyboard for. Since Alex's delightful SRD-monster-to-Spycraft-NPC translator showed at the begining of the week, and the "Grand History of the World on Fire" is vectoring on final approach, it'll be a busy week, failed Fort save or no.

[Classic Fantasy]

Oh, I'd forgotten the Archer specialty was in both. I was reviewing the specialties in Classic Fantasy, which has a couple other known bugs.

That's about what I figured . I'd play in a game like that, and the new action I mentioned should go well with your running-stomping-crunching moments. It was originally developed to handle a certain undead mamoth plowing through an entire party of PCs .

My curent thinking is unarmed attacks are blunt. Special gear (treat as common item and play on!) will cause you to treat specific unarmed attacks as edged while the gear is worn. Likely we will add an advanced trick like those seen in Practice Makes Perfect allowing characters to treat their attacks as edged when they wish to, changing modes freely with each attack. Sort of the logical extension of the term "knife-hand strike" .

This would have come in handy for over the Feast of Chocolate Weekend.

Two players teamed up with a 1/2 Elf Centaur Martial Artist and a 1/2 Elf Thug/Scout with plenty of Sneak Attack and Wolf Pack Mastery it quickly became a thing of amazing synergy.

Adding the tidbits of Mounted Combat would have only increased the bloodshed

Yes and no. Remember, when combined as a 'mounted character', they share vitality, but they are only -one- character - so they fewer actions each round and don't trigger flanking by themselves. Its not automatically better than they are seperately, just different, with new strengths (shared larger size and likely speed) and new weaknesses (use the lowest of each of their three saves), especially without any specific training/feats.

In the instance where one character has gotten hammered and is looking dicey on the damage taken front, giving up those actions is still a fantasitic trade-off for taking cover behind the other character's vitality.

The Lancer's abilities to always pick the best of the shared stats lets them hide the weaknessess of one behind the strengths of the other. That's where some of the true nastiness comes in. For those who have World on Fire, read through the spear feats and ponder...

Off the cuff summary: If unicorns are animals and one impales you it's because of instinct or fright. If unicorns are beasts and it impales you its because it didn't have it's coffee this morning and it's grumpy .

Beast very specifically means "smart but no hands"
Animal means "not very smart at all"

It is not some hodge-podge way of trying to seperate what is real and mythological in our world as if that were in any way relevent in a fantasy setting.

Both are very clearly defined in the rules and serve very different purposes when making NPCs .

Alright, I'm cold-running this as my access is currently Spycraft 2nd Ed (2nd printing) and World on Fire, so my team is comprised of all humans.

Nothing wrong with that. Blackspur is located in the Sunchasser setting, which is somewhat human heavy, so such a group will not look out of place.

Points of Order - Are the origins and feats (that don't require Allegiances) from World of Fire permissable?

Yes, within reason. If a feat or class suffers a logic breakdown (Bug Supremacy for example) then I would avoid it.

Is this a stat buy or stat roll series of builds?  If stat buy, what's the point total.

Standard attribute purchase per core rules.

[Fantasy Craft]

Last night I had a player try out his 1/2 Elf Centaur and with it came some questions...

I can imagine .

When you make a Trample attack do you have to move into a foe's square?

No. The basic "trample" works very much like a kick attack. Fantasy Craft deals a lot more with creatures of sizes other than medium, and as a result having a trample attack will open up a new combat action for going stompy-stompy through a field of smaller opponents.

As Tramples count as Kicks when he takes Kicking Basics do his Trample attacks no longer drop his Initiative too?

Correct.

If he kicks someone behind him with his hind legs as a 1/2 action is there any penalty? I ruled he had a circumstance penalty of -2 as he was trying to fend off others in front of him too.

Being flanked doesn't ussually give you an attack penalty. Basically because Spycraft doesn't give you extra action/attacks just for having lots of weapons at your disposal, it also doesn't penalize you for choosing to use one part of your arsenal over another.

What about heavy 'centaur' shoes which act as Brass Knuckles? By the rules, Brass Knuckles only work on standard unarmed atks, how broken does it get to allow them to add to Kicks? or/and Tramples?

That doesn't sound unreasonable to me . Not great for sneaking on coblestones, but centuars aren't real stealth-friendly to begin with .

And finally I seem to remember reading somewhere that Unarmed attacks are Blunt attacks. Are all unarmed attacks blunt? Does anyone have a reference for or against this?

That seems reasonable. Why does the question come up?

Thanks

Hope this helps .

Also, I believe Blood of Ixion may get an addition that it allows you to take feats/classes as if you had the Elf talent.

[Archer:]

Hey gang,

We were left wondering "Why is everyone gravitating so heavily towards to the Elf Archer?" So, going back and reveiwing the whole set of specialties revealed the Archer talent was way, way over-powered (between 9-11 design points depending on how certain benefits were evaluated), and the Lore-keeper was also off slightly. Here are the corrected 7 point versions.

Archer: You’ve made a living by your skill with the bow, either as a hunter or a warrior.

• Bonus Feat: Bullseye.
• You gain the Exotic (Hurled) weapon proficiency.
• Your Possessions include 1 additional Caliber I or II bow of your choice. Further, at Levels 7 and 14, you gain a free upgrade for this weapon.
• Each time you make a successful hurled attack that inflicts lethal damage on a standard character, you may inflict 1 additional point of lethal damage. This bonus damage increases by an additional 1 at Career Levels 5, 10, 15, and 20.

Lore Keeper: You collect lost wisdom from all corners of the world.
Requirement: High magic campaign quality.

• Bonus Feat: Choose 1 High Magic feat.
• You gain a +1 bonus with Knowledge checks. This bonus increases by an additional +1 at Career Levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.
• Each time you gain 1 or more ranks in the Profession skill, you also gain an equal number of ranks in the Investigation skill. This may not increase your Investigation skill beyond its maximum rank.