As Roderick specifically asked and I was at all the relevant seminars the main HQ changes/clarifications I recall were:
EDGES
These will be dropped other than as an option (given that they are included
in already published HW books) - instead weapons and armour will simply give
characters extra AP's (i.e. will work as if they were spirits).
I mentioned the suggestion made on this list that we treat all weapons, armour etc as named items (e.g greatsword 5w, leather and bronze armour 15) and use these to generate bonuses which Greg said was more or less what they had in mind.
AUGMENTS
Auto augments at +1 per 10 as per BA are in with more clarification through
examples as to how many can be used in specific situations - Greg is quite
happy with the idea of getting multiple augments from one affinity if there
is sufficient time to power-up.
CONTESTS
Major change is that after the first bump your extra masteries will not bump
you up but bump your opponent down.
Thus as I understand it 10w5 Harrek's two mastery advantage over 10w3 Orlanthi clan champion will bump Harrek's successes up to crits his failures to successes and his fumbles to fails AND the Orlanthi's successes will be bumped down to fails, his crits to mere successes and his fails to fumbles.
AFAICS this gives the Orlanthi a slightly better chance than he'd have in the existing system where Harrek automatically crits 95% of the time and succeeds the other 5%.
HQ will include many, many more examples than HW and these will specifically address how to deal with such hardy HW-rules list perennials as archery, Oscar and the troll etc.
MAGIC
Apparently animists will no longer be able to fully integrate spirits (which
always struck me as rather chaotic sounding).
There will be a universally available system of low magic for everyone but no real details were given other than that the aim is to emphasise the difference between ordinary people and the magical specialists (devotees/liturgists/wizards/shamans).
This actually sounds retrograde to me - as Nick Brooke said in the seminar - 'Battle Magic and Rune Magic - I like this system more and more!'
Mysticism rules will not be included in the HQ book as ultimately mysticism is about withdrawal and renunciation of the world and should not feature heavily in campaigns.
Generally theist initiates will not have access to specific feats but will use the affinity to augment mundane abilities.
As mentioned misapplied worship will be simplified down to a double HP's to advance rule.
HEROQUESTING
This is apparently the chapter that requires most work - the main points I
picked up were:
To avoid 'the chuck your family down the well' problem community support will be split up between stations of the quest as previously discussed.
Consequences for supporters will depend on whether their hero succeeds or fail at the station they were supported at.
In the example Plunder of Aron quest we played through, each participant got extraordinary support from their own cults and families for their key actions while the clan gave its ordinary support to our Helemakt devotee for his contest with the Aldryami.
Hedkoranth and Odayla got family/cult support for simultaneously taking out two giants guarding a pass using their missiles. Both missed badly and were killed in the landslide that the alerted giants set off - thus both hero's families and cults would suffer more severe consequences than if they had succeeded here but got killed later in the quest.
Carryovers will be dropped as too complicated - instead success in stations of the quest will give you bonuses in subsequent stations (which is what I thought a carryover was anyway - so it's really a simplification in terminology rather than a change in the mechanic)
CHARACTER GENERATION
Their will be keywords for 10 cultures in the HQ book including Heortlings,
Dara Happans, Esrolians, Aeolian Heortlanders, Kralori, some Panther
Hsunchen, what looked like a Pentan tribe and several others which I can't
recall as I only got a few seconds glance at the draft chapter Greg passed
around.
The three character gen systems will stay - the main difference being that culture keywords will start at 14 rather than 13. Professional keywords stay at 17.
Generally you will raise whole keywords rather than the separate skills (no HP cost was given for this) and where you do have a higher skill within the keyword it will probably be written in the format Warrior 19: close combat +8, Running +2 or something similar but Greg has no particular hang-up about how you represent this.
Personally I'd stick to the BA system of saying Warrior 19, Close Combat 7w, Running 1w rather than add yet another odd-looking notation system.
Followers will be split up between spear-carriers whose abilities you can't generally raise and more expensive sidekicks who you can buy separate ability increases for.
The rule that 30%/60%/90% of initiates/devotees/disciples HP's must be spent on abilities relevant to the deity will be formalised.
PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
Greg did give the impression we will still see the Hero Book as a separate
publication 'soon' and that this would come out before HQ and give us most
of the new rules.
The Dragon Rise campaign will now be Sartar Rising book 3, SR book 4 will take the campaign up to the death of Kallyr in 1630 or so and feature campaigns involving the Telmori and Harvar Ironfist.
I also got the impression that we're now talking about one Lunar Book again which will mainly focus on Dara Happa but will now also include brief 1-2 page character generation for the other main Pelorian cultures. I think 'end of this year' was mentioned but my memory may be at fault here.
ROGER
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