Bunch of questions from a newbie

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7. When rounding, do you round up or down(for example for how many Contingent Spells you get)? Totally couldn’t find a general rule for rounding °_°

My rule of thumb is always round down, but I think that Pedro once said the opposite.

Ha! unless specified rounding means well “rounding” and that is “if its .5 or greater you round up”

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6. For the spell Javelin of Lightning, do you need Weapon Training(Javelin) to make the Ranged(Thrown) attack roll without penalties and can you apply Weapon Mastery(Javelin) bonuses to the attack? Basically, how much does this the attack act like a normal javelin throw?
Bonus question: If it is indeed intended to completely emulate throwing a javelin, do you need a free hand to cast the spell, even though you normally don’t for psionic spells?

You do not need Weapon Training to use a weapon, you need it to gain access to Weapon Tricks. I’d rule you’d need a free hand since you use Ranged (thrown), and I’d argue that you could use Weapon mastery on it.

Its really important that this spell says “just like a regular javelin” and allows you to perform maneuvers as if it was a javelin. if it was intended to be like any other prionic attack spell it would use the same rules for those attack spells and not use ranged thrown.

answers to 4&5 and anything related to advanced spells is really waiting for the updated errata.

Yes, this was brought up before the old forums died. It is basically using the rationale is that while you cast with your emotions, you need the proper amount of insight to learn NEW spells (at least via the Arcane Spellcasting talent). From a game-writers perspective, it is just easier than coming up with a bunch of exceptions to rules.
Makes sense. I’ll have to shift a couple points around on that character then. *cringes*

Probably an oversight, but Reluctant No More is NOT Furious Rage. They are similar, but Reluctant No More is a bloodline talent which improves upon Furious Rage rather than being completely equivalent. Also, if you look at the fluff of the two talents RNM basically already states that the val’Tensen has mastered their Rage, while that is the whole point of the Fighting Style.
True, the val “version” already allows for more control(can use stances and bloodline talents, can attempt to stop raging to defend innocents via Relucant Warrior) and more uses(given a high enough bloodrank) all in one talent by itself, compared to just Furious Rage on its own. The bonuses The Rage Within grants to Furious Rage(lowering/negating avoidance penalty, Maertial Techniques etc.) are still nice though…guess it’s a choice of spending one talent on raging, or spending a whole boatload on it.

If it doesn’t say, I would assume the duration is “Scene”. Ultimately, I think it would normally fall under the “whatever is appropriate for your needs,” but I always assume Scene unless it says otherwise.
Huh, interesting. That would make some techs/spells quite powerful.

Advanced Spells were pretty heavily errata’d on the last forums, and I cannot remember all that Pedro did to change them. As we’ve been waiting for an updated errata document for a LONG time now, I’ll reserve further comment until I can find my notes on what was changed.

Gonna wait for that then.

Yes, you always have to state what is your (Primary) exploding dice.

Alright, thx =)

You do not need Weapon Training to use a weapon, you need it to gain access to Weapon Tricks. I’d rule you’d need a free hand since you use Ranged (thrown), and I’d argue that you could use Weapon mastery on it.

Its really important that this spell says “just like a regular javelin” and allows you to perform maneuvers as if it was a javelin. if it was intended to be like any other prionic attack spell it would use the same rules for those attack spells and not use ranged thrown.

For some reason I thought you needed Weapon Training in a weapon to not suffer a penalty when using it, but I see I was mixing that up with defaulting to the highest known melee skill-5 when using a weapon you don’t have a skill for. Oops.
I figured treating it as a “real” javelin throw, complete with required free hand, Weapon Talent(if you want the Tricks) and Mastery(if you want the bonuses) would be best. A spell for the Martial caster, so to speak xD

My rule of thumb is always round down, but I think that Pedro once said the opposite.

Ha! unless specified rounding means well “rounding” and that is “if its .5 or greater you round up”

7) I’m pretty sure I remember seeing round down (or possibly round against the player) somewhere (possibly on the old forums).

Conflicting opinions I see °_°
Thx for taking the time to help me out guys!

In my scientific statistical analysis classes we were taught to always round to the nearest number, and in the case of the halfway point (0.5) to round to the nearest even number. Thus both 3.5 and 4.5 round to 4. This allows a statistical evening that in half the cases you are rounding up, and in half the cases you are rounding down, allowing for an averaging of the effect….

That said, it seems to me that it should always be rounding up, or things that do half will have no effect at tier 1, and no advantage to tier 5 vs 4.

Things that do not stack:

Die bumps from the same source
Static bonus’ (ie: +X) from the same source
+dies (ie: +1d6) from the same source

Sources: Talents, Runes, Spell effects, Item quality, Other (I’m sure I’m missing one)

For example: If you have a Sword with both a Fine Quality Sanctified Rune and a Fine Quality Fire rune, they both grant a +1 to damage. However, since they are both static bonus’ and from the same source (runes), you would only get a +1 bonus (one or the other) rather than a +2 bonus. Similarly, if you were to have, say, a Legendary Fire Rune (from the val’Virdan Bloodline) and a Fine Sanctified Rune, you would get a +3 from the Fire rune, but not the Sanctified. The only benefit for having two runes which add static bonus’ would be to activate them for specific enemies, such as those who have a weakness vs. a specific element/blessed weapons, etc.

Wolf Pack and advanced tactics are both good talents in my opinion. Though you are right that they don’t stack with other talents that grant bonuses…there are other talents you could take and if you did then wold pack tactics might be redundant.

Still, static bonuses to hit and damage are not easy to come by in this system. WPT gives you a +1 to both while “flanking.”

If we want to be extra technical, when I said “customary” I am referring to the method known as the Traditional Method, since there is no need to avoid an upward skewing of massive amounts of data.

Your run of the mill Martial T1 character can expect to do an average damage of 10.611 damage on a hit. With Wolf Pack Tactics that’s 12.611.

If we now take Advanced Tactics for that extra +1 damage(compared to just WPT alone), the total goes up to 13.611, which is a slightly less than 8% increase in damage.

If you’re actually going for damage, you can get an average per hit of 21.091, 23.091 with WPT and 24.091 with AT on top, at which point the +1 damage from AT is down to a just over 4% damage increase.

For both cases, as the Tiers go up, average damage per hit will too, causing the % increase in damage due to that effective +1 to shrink even more(though quick, low damage weapons will benefit more from it, as long as you can still reliably do damage through your targets armor…that’s a damage per tick vs damage per hit issue).

I remain sceptical that grabbing AT as well, instead of just using WPT by itself, makes for a readily noticable difference. If you specifically spec for it maybe.