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Message: <blockquote data-quote="easl" data-source="post: 6954395" data-attributes="member: 6856073">I generally agree with Morrus, but thought I'd add a few more comments.1. True, your spellcasters aren't going to be able  to go toe-to-toe in combat with the fighter builds right out of the gate.  Whether you, the GM or player consider that "as it should be" or "that kinda sux" is really up to you. The way the system is designed, I would say the mages and alchemists function more as a "skill monkey" type of character; with a few skills at 3 and a bunch of secrets, they can basically "magic substitute" for a whole heck of a lot of mundane skill effects.  Yes, you may need skill 5 to throw an effective fireball, but you only need skill 2-3 to create objects out of shadow, cast 'knock', and s on.2. I also agree that the skill limitation on spell effects is the primary reason why mages are limited in combat.  But assuming you want to be a blaster, Evoke 5 takes 5 skill slots out of a starting 13. That still gives *some* room for breadth.And in fact it's pretty easy to be a fighter-mage in this system.  Let's say you take Grand Elf.  You can conceivably start with MAG 8 and AGI 10.  So with Swords 1 (from race) and Dodge 1 (from, well, anything), you're already rolling your maximum 5 dice attack, have maxed out your derived defense, and longsword will do 3D+[2+str dice as flat bonus] damage, which is pretty decent.  Why work so hard to create fireball guy when you can be as accurate a swordsman (or swordswoman) as the best fighter in the party for one lousy skill point?3. You mentioned a lack of specialized spellcasters.  Those careers include Cleric, Druid, Diabolist, Firemage, and Necromancer.  That's a pretty wide selection IMO.  However if you want more, just an FYi: I asked the designers in an earlier thread about other 'elementalist' such as the firemage. They may be coming up with them. Until then, hoewever, they said it seemed very reasonable to use firemage as a template for whatever sort of specialized elementalist you want. 4. Re: your comment about having to take all the career exploits before universal ones: this is not true.  Your PCs can always take general exploits instead of a class exploit, so long as they meet the preconditions. Heck, your mage character could take trip, disarm, etc, instead of career exploits, so long as he/she met the prereqs.[UPDATE: the rules are contradictory on this.  Page 16 says you can take a career *or* universal exploit when picking a career.  Page 36 says you can only take universals once you have taken all career exploits.  Hopefully the designers will address this in the corrected version; until then, I'd go with page 16]Just an observation back to Monboesen, but your complaints of "a good defense seems impossible to hit" and "mages seem weak" answer one another.  Your mages are not so weak when they are the only PC in the party who can hit the high DEF opponent, with an attack that is opposed by mental defense.</blockquote>

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