I'm also liking that the class attributes in Everstone are 'disengaged'. By that I mean there aren't any prerequisites. Want Cleave but not Power Attack? Go for it. I really like that.
Yeah, they really did try and open things up. It's mentioned in the book, but bear mentioning again... you can take just about any feat that you qualify for. Certain ones got a remake for Everstone, so it's always possible for the GM to give a similar treatment to other feats. And of course, some feats just don't apply. I think metamagic feats fall into this category although I'm not positive, since I've refused to play a caster in 3E.
Another thing to notice is the Everstonian ability to "Focus Energy" (pg 57). For 5 Energy points they can re-roll checks and a few other things. Depending on the kind of game you want to run, you might consider allowing _any_ of the characters to do that. In fact, you could just use a base cost of 5 EP to function like Action Points; it's an easy license to be cool. I personally disliked the usual Action Point approach of only getting a certain number a level and all that. If you simply do it as an Energy Point cost, you're going to have people actively trying to do cool stuff. Another advantage to tying it into the EP economy is that it's one less resource that people have to track. Instead, it becomes another potential tool for the player to deploy. It makes 'em think about what they can do and what their energy will allow.
The other reason for noticing the ability is because it's an easily overlooked one. The players might need to be reminded every so often about that capability for their character.
I had a copy of the Everstone Companion printed up and bound yesterday as well. That one is next after the core book.
Yeah, the Companion is pretty groovy. It talks a bit about using the dynamic casting but they didn't actually include the conversion chart for EP per level. It's on page 165 of the main book. There's also some bits in there for the golem familiars that you might consider using for the regular War Golems.
I really want to play a War Golem.
Heh. That's the one my wife zeroed right in on too.
The War Golem is the weakest class in the main book I think. The reason I think it's weak is because all the other characters can just _buy_ these various weapons and stuff. The War Golem on the other hand has to pay for them using character points. And the majority of what the War Golem can buy is weapons.
Some might argue that it's "fair" since the golem can't ever be disarmed, but I'd disagree. I get the impression that they were of two minds regarding the War Golem. One, "This is COOL!" and two, "Crap. People are going to complain about how overpowered this is, we'd better try and 'balance' it".
If the War Golem had extra stuff that it could put points into buying, that'd be one thing. But there's actually not very much for the War Golem to invest in. It's kinda like the Fighter out of the core book I guess. It's going to have enough CP that it can start loading up on Feats.
One thing that I think helps to address this is allowing a few bits out of the Companion for the Familiars; if you can do it for the little fellas, it's hard not to allow it for the big ones.
Another thing to consider is allowing some of the Tattoos to be inscribed on the Golems as well.
In my game, I also modified the Golem slightly. Instead of it being the towering monstrousity that it is in the book, I shrank it down to Medium; my game was an urban based one, and I felt a smaller War Golem made sense. It was the "Urban" model.
In general, I noticed that the Everstone characters were definitely tougher than a regular D&D character. Everstone doesn't have access to easy healing in general, unlike D&D, but since it's using a version of the Vitality/Wound Points system, that lack of easy healing isn't actually as much of a hinderance as you might think.
The other thing to possibly watch out for is the teleportation thing. I didn't have a problem with it, but for some reason teleportation of one sort or another seems to give a chunk of GMs a fit. It's not that difficult to work around, especially since a lot of the scrying spells aren't in Everstone by default. And the Teleport is a self only spell (Moon Magi), with the Portal spell (Shadow Magi) being useable on a much shorter range.
There's other ways of dealing with it too, so that certain areas can be made "proof" against Teleportation like you might expect them to be.
One is that a War Golem can be a Magi. Yeah, if you read the fluff you're given the strong impression that War Golems are barely above trained dogs in terms of their IQ and self initiative. But they don't _have_ to be that way.
Moon Magi get the Unravel Spell ability (pg 86). Depending on the situation, I can certainly see Moon Magi being a part of a security force, and of course being equipped with Spell Breaker (pg 151) on their armor. It'd also make a fair amount of sense for a security force to be composed of more than one type of Magi. I got the rather strong impression that in the game world, they tend to like to have a team of 3 and possibly have that augmented by a Wargolem. Certainly a team of Moon Magi and Sun Magi would make a lot of sense.
Then there's Runes of Warding (pg 85). Certainly they could be put to use securing areas.
And last, but certainly not least are the Magi Shackles (pg 137). Given the nature of the Magi, it certainly makes sense that they'd have Shackles in the first place. It also doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption that the principle that the Shackles work on could be applied to certain areas. Say, a throne room. Guards assigned duty in the throne room could be equppied with some sort of shielding that renders them immune to the effect of the Shackled throne room, but others wouldn't be.
And hey, at the end of the day... look at the world around you. All kinds of crime and stuff goes on despite there being technology of various sorts that should discourage or outright prevent the crime from happening. No reason to think that Everstone is going to be any different.
The big key to remember with Everstone is that it's not a European medieval world with some magic tossed in there, like some people want (or run) D&D to be. It's full on, in your face, big magic. It might not be in the hands of "everyday" people, but it's certainly not a rare thing that's going to freak out people.
