As Mike noted, it's a single chance to make your opponent's defeat even more severe, and is only used once your opponent has been reduced to 0 AP. However, use it wisely - I have seen it backfire and the "defeated" opponent get back into play on a particularly bad roll for the attacker.
> 2: In relation to question 1, if Im reduced to 0 AP, but havent acted
> that round yet, do I still get to go ? Or is it not really "rounds"
> but just taking turns to try reducing the enemy ?
Depends on the number of contestants. In One-on-one, no-one else involved contest, then you are done as soon as someone falls to 0 AP. (With the possibility of a parting shot).
If there are multiple opponents and the contest is still raging, and you have an opportunity to do so*, then you get a chance to recover using the Final Action rule on page 74.
*An "Opportunity to do so" depends on the circumstances - in a melee, if someone is standing over you with sword drawn, you don't really have an opportunity. If you are left for dead and no-one is watching you, then sure, that's an opportunity.
> 3: Lets say Im using the list method to make a character. So I get to
> pick out 10 abilities that I want. If I want to have 2 retainers (say,
> two bodyguards), can I pick them as one "ability", or do they take two
> picks or ?
As Mike noted, this is covered in the FAQ.
As a personal note, I probably wouldn't allow two augments from a "Pair of Retainers" ability - while they might have two bodies, they'd provide a single augment as if they were a single retainer. Same with "Army of retainers" - a single augment, not 5,000 augments.
Depending on how I was feeling, I might allow you to send one retainer away to do some task while keeping the "normal" augment from the other, but in general a single ability only provides a single augment/action - no double-dipping.
However, an "Army" type ability might provide a Community Support augment (page 90-91), rather than the normal +2 of a single retainer.
> 4: I sort of get the impression that you can more or less define and
> create your own Homeland and Occupation keywords, but then, the book
> lists quite a few and gives fairly specific skills for them. Could
> someone elaborate this a little bit for me ?
You can definitely do this. I do it all the time. Homeland, Occupation, Magic, have at it. I even just invented the (invisible) keywords of "Male" and "Female" to allow a PC to "Survive Childbirth".
A Keyword is just a convenient container - it can hold as many or as few abilities are you think it should, and can operate as a "placeholder" for abilities you haven't thought of. Anyone can probably maintian any equipment used by their occupation, but we didn't include "Sharpen Quill Pen" or "Identify each animal in my flock" in the abilities, as these are actions that normally take place outside of the narrative. But if it comes about that you need to determine if the Quill Pen is properly sharpened, well, just roll against the Keyword ability rating. If the player then wants to improve his Sharpen Quill pen ability, it gets to start at the KW rating.
> 5: Am I right to assume that if I go with common magic, each of the 5
> magic tricks will start at 17 ?
The "Common Magic" ability is a keyword (page 104), and all CM is added to it as it is learned. Individual abilities can be improved normally.
> 6: The 20 points I receive to raise abilities can be used on both
> normal abilities, as well as specific abilities under a keyword,
> correct ? (so f.x. as a hunter, I could spend 2 points on something
> like Tracking, and that would give me tracking 19)
Yes. All ablities are abilities, whether they are included as part of a keyword or not. While the Keyword rating will determine the rating of a new ability (that is determined to be part of the keyword), individual abilities inside the keyword can have HP spent on them.
> I think thats all for now. Thanks in advance!
De nada.
RR
He was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad
R. Sabatini, Scaramouche
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