teaching a group of new Arcanis players?

That sounds like a good plan, the only thing is at drive thru rpg, they can down load the old codex arcanis for free….

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/5 … ex-Arcanis

When introducing new players to Arcanis I do a 5-7 minute overview of the world. First I explain that the world is loosely based on the fall of Rome and that conflicts are more political than good vs evil (ie. more like Game of Thrones than Tolkien) second I outline the broadest strokes of history (land mostly stays the same, empires rise and fall), then political geography (Coryan and the successor states), then the gods w/out alignment and finally how the races fit into the world.

Then I do mechanics. The key thing to realize in this system (i think) is that your character is going to made up of skills and talents. It pretty much all comes down to one and the other. Most of your choices either directly adjust one … or have down the road impacts on future access. The Golden Rule is you need 3 ranks in a combat skill at creation and to be able to raise them by 3 ranks each teir to be effective in a fight.

Then from player concepts I help them either build a character (the long way) or I give them a pregen (the short way).

Most gamers get an attack roll even if its 2d10 plus an attribute die rather than a d20. Explaining the clock is a little harder but most people get it quickly. Finally I talk about recovery strain and combining maneuvers and/or spells.

As far as the “Golden Rule” goes perhaps I should say “attack” skill instead of combat skill. Arcanum counts just as much as melee balanced. And maybe I could say guideline rather than rule. If you’re a point behind at creation but you are going to take a path down the line that grants a ranks that’s fine too (or starting out with 2 ranks but having WM 1 or Wolf Pack Tactics).

But the 2d10 + Attribute die system in Arcanis creates a bell curve of probability so falling behind really hurts. In D&D/d20 system if you have a -4 penalty to hit then your chance to hit goes down 20%. I haven’t fully crunched the numbers, but if you are -4 behind the “curve” in A:RPG, then you are almost never hitting. In my experience ineffectual characters aren’t usually fun to play in heroic fantasy games…

As an aside I’ll note that it took me three serious tries to make an arcanis character I really liked and was satisfied with in concept and play. The first one was too slow in combat and I was bored waiting for my turn(s) to come up on the clock…I learned that for me personally I need go every 5 ticks (or thereabouts) or I get antsy waiting for my turn … no idea if that’s just me or if that reflects something many players experience. The second character was a divine archetype named Ryzard and he was cool at creation, but I had envisioned a warrior priest and I realized at higher tiers he wasn’t going to be able to hit anyone with his sword (now with the warrior priest talent what I was envisioning might be possible). Finally my third character was Eisener who was my primary through the crusade. Now I do a rough skill/talent analysis at creation to make sure I end up where I want to be.

As a wielder of a ‘big weapon,’ I can fully appreciate the complaints about that. I am also already noticing at 2.2 I am already starting to notice myself falling behind the attack curve. I can only gain 2 in my melee skill/tier as a Divine (3 in a path or two) so I soon will be significantly less effective than I used to be which could be eventually a problem.

That said, if the “hard-core” rules come into play at more than just the BI’s, than the people wielding the “Big Guns” become WAY more powerful and ‘fun’ to play. Even though small weapons like daggers can move every 3 ticks, they can only do an average of 7-10 points of damage a hit, which means they won’t deal wounds unless you get a minimum of a single explosion, and only then if they’re not wearing much armour. This as opposed to a Flamberge which can dish out about 10-13 points of damage on average, putting you much closer into ‘wound’ territory.

Of course, this also applies for Heroes, which brings AR back into the importance (all too many Heroes I’ve seen were moving to light armours to avoid Bulk and the Avoidance hits.

(including one who could never really grasp the initiative system in 3.5 D&D).
It’s kinda sad… Been so long since I’ve played anything 3/3.5 that I’ve forgotten the init system.

would be interesting to have a 10 min download video to tell of the story of Arcanis.