How about: Roll 2 less on any manipulation skill check when either hand is free.

You could say that the first miss ends the action.

Is this really an issue? Are your players still getting lots of successes after 4 or 5 challenge dice?

A Chaos Star on a successful roll should always be an opportunity for a "Yes, but..." response.

You're right, it would be 4 groups of henchmen, not 12 individuals. I could definitely see allowing Perform a Stunt to be used to make an overrun/breakthrough sort of move. Perhaps a Discipline (St) check with per group of henchmen and [W] per PC assisting, and each success counting as a maneuver for disengaging out the other side. But I'd still give each NPC group one free attack, since the maneuver wasn't actually spent. I just wouldn't give them one free attack on EACH PC.

The book "...And A Ten Foot Pole" by ICE has been an invaluable resource for me with every fantasy game.

Venthrac said: I'm curious to know how the posters here would handle a situation in which a group of NPCs are trying to limit the party's movement. For example, imagine a long, narrow corridor like in the example given above. The party wants to reach the end of it, to claim a blasphemous tome that lays open no a Chaos altar. Between the party and the altar are a dozen mutants, at close range. They will do everything in their power to block the way and prevent the party from getting through. Because there are only moments to spare before the evil ritual taking place at the altar is complete, and because the mutants are (relatively) weak, the party don't want to bohter fighting them. Rather, they want to push on through and race to that altar. What's a good way to handle a situation like that? Could a player engage the mob, and then disengage out the other side and keep on miving? That seems too easy, given the active resistance the mutants are putting up. Should the players make opposed Strength checks vs. the mutants' Resilience or Strength? I'm a novice GM so I'm still trying to get a feel for this kind of thing. An engagement assumes a number of participants moving, circling, jostling, etc. So I'd certainly allow it. As long as the PC is willing to spend the 11 Fatigue to disengage from 12 opponents.

Don't forget that usually only one PC will have it, because the distribution of cards emphasizes diversity, but ANY and ALL monsters and NPCs can have it too.

My mistake! I thought the OP said it was on the career card. Listen to other people!

ZOD said: The recent Advanced skills discussion reminded me of a question I had regarding the High Elf Gambler in our group. He trained Education for 1 point with his last advance - is that correct? I would assume that if a race has access to a skill, it would be treated as if it were always trainable, but because it isn't on the Career card and I couldn't find a rule specifically stating that, I wonder if we're right. As long as the character acquired the skill first (by spending a point during character creation or spending an advance), it only takes 1 advance to train it.

phobiandarkmoon said: Fine, but it breaks the sense of advancement and achievement if you've become a Swordsmaster or a Witch Hunter and are now forced to become a plain old Soldier in order to progress. The best thing about the career progression system was the sense of working to become the master of a field in some way, especially evident in the wizard and priestly careers. That just isn't present in the new system because of the lack of advanced careers and the samey-ness of all the careers I plan to take Swordmaster and Witch Hunter and other careers that seem "progressed" but not "advanced" out of the initial deck before I deal them out to the players. Then they can aspire to those careers as well.

I'm just curious: how many people would be happier if FFG delayed the core set by a year, raised the price to US$160, but included rank 3 spells and some more advanced careers?

Is that actually the concensus? I'm not so sure.

Parzival said: I hear ya, brother. I am pretyy disapointed. I like the game. It is to bad that they are determined it seems, to sell it by bit's and pieces while giving us no clue as to what to expect. Sure a campaign here, GMs guide there is nice and all, but.....finsh the game. Give us something to do past rank 2. I don't know about your gang. But mine is not to pleased about making new characters every couple of months, Are you saying that you think FFG will the line right away, or are you saying that future expansions with advanced careers will be incompatible with the current rules?

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You could also treat it a bit like Positioning in Burning Wheel: - You make a manoeuvre target at one opponent or engagement; - If you don't specify anything else, nothing else changes. So, starting at Close range from the party and moving one manoeuvre away to Medium from the Party leaves you still at Medium from the monsters, since you didn't manoeuvre against them. Under this proposal, you would have to make an additional manoeuvre to change range against both the Party and the Monsters at the same time.

Lucas Adorn said: did you read my post about WS / BS? http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=166&efcid=3&efidt=288246 But that's kind of the point of action cards that use Weapon Skill but a different base characteristic, such as Weapon Skill (Ag). The skills are decoupled from the characteristics in 3rd edition and can be paired with any one of them depending on the situation. That makes it much more flexible, not less flexible.

In an engagement, the dwarf would be circling around as well. I don't think a "while simultaneously" in this game is worth only one Maneouvre. One to disengage to close range, one to move from close to medium i.e. close-to-the-elf.

I've played lots of campaigns where languages were delineated and specified, and really there wasn't much point. It's all color. If the GM has information he wants the PCs to have, it only makes sense to present it in a language that the PCs understand which language doesn't matter, only that they can understand it. If the GM has information he wants the PCs to not have, it only makes sense to present it in a language that the PCs don't understand again, it doesn't matter which language it is, only that they can't understand it. I think as specializations of Education, to indicate superior fluency and knowledge of idioms and esoterica, is fine.

Mikael Hasselstein said: Why is it that the "The Rainiest Place" in the Empire is on the lee-side of a mountain range. I'm no meteorologist, but wouldn't the rainiest place be further north near the sea - Nordland or someplace? Definitely a good point. The Empire is one giant basin, so it's possible that the prevailing winds swirl a bit, causing incoming clouds to pass from the Marienburg area, circle around, and dump their rain near Stromdorf as they come up against the higher ground and mountains. I live in Portland, Oregon, which gets a lot of rain, even more than Seattle per year. We're in a valley. Clouds come via the Jet Stream from the ocean, with enough energy to make it over the Coast Range, but then they come upon colder air from the Columbia Gorge or the higher plateau at the foot of the Cascade Range, and they dump all their precipitation. So perhaps Stromdorf is in a river valley.

You'd just have to figure out how much exploration counts as an Act, if you use the Encounter/Act/Rally Step formula.

Technically, an improvised weapon is DR 3, so a huge improvised weapon having DR 5 I see as just right. Clubs and swords deal serious wounds because of their small surface area. A tree trunk would be more able to deal impact but less able to deal pinpoint injury, so it evens out. And that dwarf with Toughness 6 would be the toughest in the world, since 6 is the highest possible. So yes, songs would be sung about how his skin turns blades.

Gallows said: The damage potential for the dwarfs troll feller strike is: 4+5+3+4 = 16 damageThe damage potential of the wizard ´using flame blast is: 4+6+1+1+1 = 13 damage The wizard has a lower damage and on top of that he needs to channel, meaning that unless he takes an extra challenge die he can only do 13 damage every second turn. He can also spend more power, but that is really not worth it because to get 3 extra damage he could just as well canst a new spell for the 6 power it costs. The Troll Feller Strike can be done every turn?

There's no reason you couldn't. There are location cards like Abandoned Ruins and so on. But it's not set up for the approach of entering one room, knocking it down, scraping it clean, then moving on to the next room.