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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rodrigo Istalindir" data-source="post: 1792378" data-attributes="member: 2810">Here's my feedback, FWIW.  Keep in mind that this was a single-shot scenario designed to be played in 6 hours instead of a regular campaign, and that the characters were pre-defined.Character With the exception of spellcasting, most of my character's feats/talents were of the passive variety, so I can't offer much there.  Backgrounds, allegiances, and reputation didn't come into play.  Brother Temerius was a Smart1/Dedicated 6.Combat Some nice stuff.  Although I'm partial to a WP/VP type system, standard hitpoints in conjunction with MDT seemed to work very well.  It came into play several times during a fight with a ogre type critter, including one failure when the someone forgot that reach+AOO=bad things.  We were using the 'Fewer Dead Heroes' option that converted some lethal damage to non-lethal, and I liked this quite a lot.  Being an old SPI DragonQuest fan, I've always liked the 'Armor as DR' concept. The faster healing of subdual damage keeps PCs from being beat down for days at a time in low-healing campaigns.  The defensive class bonus is also nice, as it let me feel a little more comfortable wading into combat despite wearing light armor and having a 10 Dex.Action PointsThe DM started us out with 8 APs, and we used them.  A lot.  More than I would like to see in a regular session, as a matter of fact.  The fact that the laws of probability were seriously warped that day and we kept rolling '1's, earning additional APs, just made their use more frequent.  I'd prefer to see them be a 'once a session' thing for each player, rather than the once a round event they were in our session.  Their frequent use was a side-effect of this being a one-shot deal, so no one felt the need to save them for a rainy day, so things might be different in a real campaign.  It's something I'd have to keep a tight rein on as a DM, though.  Mechanically, they seem sound, although I would probably eliminate their use for the more mundane uses (ie confirming crits) and hand out fewer in exchange.Horror Check This only came up once, and I was sorely disappointed not to get to experience the 'Fight or Flight' variant, which I think is one of the coolest things in GT.  All but one person made their save, but I'm not sure how much of that was almost unheard-of good rolling on our part.SpellcastingAnother one of my favorite parts, and something I could probably discuss ad nauseum.  My comments in the other thread were regarding its use in a high-magic setting, where I think it wouldn't work very well.  In this game, however, it was about perfect.  Because we were allowed to heal between 'chapters', the long-term damage from spell burn wasn't debilitating, and that would be a real concern in a normal game.  Abandoning the 'fire and forget' spell system in favor of something that lets you cast the same spell repeatedly (assuming you can pay the costs) fits well with a low-magic campaign.  Since the DM picked my spells in advance, they felt much more like a class feature than spells. I do think the casting check results in too many failures given the penalties of spell burn, and the cost in terms of talents.  I missed probably half the time. and had to use action points more frequently than I would have liked just to get off a minor spell.  A fighter might miss half the time at low levels, but at least he doesn't hurt himself trying.  Given that a low-level character will fail even trivial spells half the time, and take spell burn that will weaken him for days (using standard healing rules), I think it a tad harsh.The spellcasting rules were the neatest thing in GT, I thought, and I think they got short shrift in the number of pages in the book.  Mechanically, it leaves a lot for a DM new to Grim Tales to balance to fit his campaign.  The chapter begs for more 'skull variants', and perhaps even 3 'rules groups' with pre-defined variations for successively more powerful magic levels.I really enjoyed the game, and look forward to playing more GT influenced games in the future.  I bought GT when it came out because I liked what I'd read of a lot of the mechanics, and I was glad to see them work so well.  (If you'd like more detail on anything, I'd be happy to oblige.)BTW, what's up with 'Slavelords of Cydonia'?</blockquote>

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