Had the book now for a week. V V Good.
Format is good
Design is good
Front cover is much better in real life than on net.
Design of Header on front page is not really up to scratch but not
major.
Rules design is very good, especially all the extras. Good to see
bound spirits, sorry, gaurdians back again. Good to see battle
magic, sorry, common magic back again. There are a lot more toys for
players to use than before.
All the examples are good and the loss of edges and handicaps isn't
all that much of a problem.
Two gripes, though.
- You can't get most people I know to easily calculate 10% of
anything (we're thick down our way). The old "for each full ten you
get +1" is much easier or even just saying take your full score and
knock off the last digit works. The same goes for forfeiting half
bids (can do it but takes too long). I can see why (You can say to
your player he parries sapping the force of the blow but knocked
backwards, etc), it's more simulationist, runequesty than before.
- Flesh Man as the Heortling Common Religion. This guy has been
seriously promoted. IMHO it should be Ancestors or "The Great and
Good Gods and Goddesses" or Folky implementations of Orlanth and
Ernalda (Tat and Tol?). I really like the Dara Happan Common
Religion with its figurines. That seems more Heortling than Flesh
Man.
Conclusion. I spend a lot of time thinking up daimons, gaurdians,
elaborate stead constructions and plot lines. I'm inspired.
I'm still a little unclear though about affinities use by initiates.
I need an in-depth article if there is one. In the meantime:
- An affinity simply gives a bonus to your mundane skills but does
it magicify your skill? So, as an initiate can I use a flight
affinity to run just above the ground (Flight augmenting run)?
- Can I use a combat affinity to stop a cut bleeding on the
battlefield by augmenting my first aid?
- I always thought (duh!) that you only used affinities to
improvise feats. I couldn't understand why Finovan didn't have
a "avoid detection" feat. Am I right in thinking you can use a
Raiding affinity to augment a sneak ability even though there is no
named feat to support it? Can a devotee use his Raiding affinity
*actively* to do this even without a named feat? Why doesn't he have
this feat anyway?
- If a devotee uses his affinity actively in a way not covered by
any feats is it always improvised.
- Can an initiate instead of improvising a feat *actively* (at -10)
use an affinity *actively* along the same lines using the logic of
the feats and some inspiration? At what modifier?
On a side note....
My gaurdian has "Detect Quail Eggs 4w" as his awareness ability. Is
he ever going to detect a lunar ambush? What about being ambushed by
giant quails?