Just got my book and am looking forward to giving it a try but after reading the first 75 pages and doing a little solo character burning, I wanted to clarify a couple things:
Page 52: “Exponent 1-4 skills must be advanced by filling up the routine test requirement. Then, meeting either the difficult or challenging test requirement will push the skill to the next exponent level.” This makes it sound like a player needs to get the difficult/challenging test only after they have the requisite number of routine tests, though I didn’t get that impression from the chapter itself. During the chapter, I got the impression you could get them in any order. Which is correct?
Page 69, Epiphany: Am I correct to assume that after a player has an Epiphany in one of their skills, the total Artha spent for that skill resets, giving them a chance to work toward a second Epiphany in the same skill?
How does one go about tracking accumulated Artha using the character sheet? I see a section of F, P, and D circles on the left, one for each Belief and Instinct - does that mean you can only store a maximum of one point of each type per B/T that earned it?
While burning characters, do you need to address trait-based prerequisites as you go or do you simply need to square everything by the time you’re finished? Example: Using the Human Noble setting, let’s say I’m Born Noble. This gives me one trait point which later I must spend on Mark of Privilege. May I then take the Lord lifepath, which requires me to have the Your Lordship trait, counting on Lord’s unassigned point to be able to buy that trait later on (since you don’t buy Traits 'til Step 6)? Or should I be making an exception and buy the prereq traits as I go? Back to my example, before taking Lord, would I first have to take, say, Squire which offers me a trait point to use on whatever I want?
Also, while I’m at it, I think I also found a couple typos, if this is an appropriate venue for such things:
T1. Page 15: there appears to be a problem with the table/description: while the text says “Light gray is easy. Medium gray is hard. Dark gray is too hard…”, the table has dark gray labeled easy and light gray labeled too hard. Clearly, the labels on the table are correct, but either the colors cited in the text or the actual colors used in the table are transposed. Caught this in the preview copy as well. Not too big a deal but something I imagine you’d like to fix.
T2. Page 37, Exponent 0: Also addressed here so I won’t go into explaining it myself, but I am curious about an official ruling. 'til then I will treat it as a comma instead of a period.
T3. Page 38, The Written Word as Practice: “Passing the Reading test and lets the player count the spare time reading as practice for the skill.” I’m assuming the ‘and’ I’ve italicized is extraneous?
Sorry for the huge post. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide!
There’s also F, P and D circles in the top right, above the section for tracking artha spent on skills. The circles next to beliefs and instincts are marked off when you spend that kind of artha on that belief or instinct, which becomes important when you get to a trait vote.
You just need to be square by the time the character’s done.
Yes, but this is a lot of play time to be spent (as in a year at least per epiphany). We had a player white out his Faith but it took a lot of focus over a long period of time.
The facing page to that should start with a section “Artha and Epiphanies” that has three bubbles across the top for artha tracking. The ones by Beliefs and Instincts are meant to be for tracking for trait vote purposes. I have not found them that useful, to be honest, as Beliefs turn over fairly frequently in play.
Trait and skill pre-reqs can be squared away at the end, unless there’s some LP that states otherwise (i.e. “must have taken previous LP that gave X trait/skill”).
Yes, but if you look at the instructions on how to burn a character, it does not instruct you to pick an LP, then spend your points (how could you? You don’t even know your stat pool until you’ve chosen your last LP) and traits. You spend them all at once. According to the rules on character burning, you will not have the Your Lordship trait at the time you pick Lord. What you will have is an LP that provides it.
The OP isn’t asking if he needs an LP that provides the trait before he can take Lord; he’s asking if he has to have already bought the trait before taking the Lord LP.
It just means, to my reading, that the character has to have the opportunity to get the Your Lordship trait and the points to spend on it before taking Lord. I apologize for not being clear in my previous post.
So, in short, baronkohinar, I think that you may indeed have to take another lifepath that gives you a free trait point.
Hirram is correct. Choose all LPs first, then total trait points, then buy traits. (Of course, you may wish to keep a running tally if there are important traits you’ll be wanting or if you need Your Something for a later LP, but you don’t buy the traits during character burning.) Taking Born Noble, Noble Prince, and then something to get you the trait point you needed to buy Your Grace is perfectly legit.
(You might be asking “Why not reorder the lifepaths?” First, sometimes you would. But there are two possible reasons not to: First, it might be undesirable or impossible because of leads. If you’re trying to get into a tricky setting, you might need to take your LPs in a certain order. Even if not, if you’re taking three Noble and three Soldier LPs, the difference between switching every LP and only making the jump once is four years (which probably doesn’t matter for a 6LP character, but even one year can be significant). Second, sometimes there’s a story told. Say I’m Born Noble, Duke, lead to Court, Constable, lead to Outcast, Vagrant, Insurrectionist. If you reorder those to put the points before they’re needed*, you change the story from “rises to great heights, falls into the gutter, comes back mad” to “born with silver spoon, runs away from home, flirts with fiery politics, comes home in triumph and joins the army.”
Hey, thanks for quick responses. Not only do appreciate the immediacy of the help, I also feel validated that (with the exception of #3) I made the right judgment calls on all those rules. Further, I got another of my players excited about the system today as well, so it looks like we have a campaign in the making. Thanks again guys for all your help.
P.S. So far as the possible typos go, are reports of them welcome/is this an appropriate venue for them or should I send them somewhere else/not bother with them at all?
I think you need to meet the requirements before take the LP. If a LP say you need some specific Trait to acquire it, you need to take that Trait through a previous LP to do so. (The point cost doesn’t matter here, but later you must purchase that Trait.) That’s the point of Leads and the fun of burning characters: you must make decisions and, sometimes, make some sacrifices too.
I’m not sure if it’s a translation error, but this is incorrect:
You need to be able to meet the requirements before taking an LP, and you must meet the requirements before finishing burning.
Born Noble -> Prince of the Blood is a legitimate burn. The character will have: Mark of Privilege, Your Grace and Born to be King. He’ll be rich, gullible and unskilled. But hey, he’s royalty. I recommend playing this as a 10-year-old boy.
As I said elsewhere, my english sucks. But yes, that’s what I meant with: “The point cost doesn’t matter here, but later you must purchase that Trait.” The LPs do not have trait points requirements. You spend the points later, when you finish your character. Am I right?
