Rhialto_77

Thank you, that clears it up for me. This means maneuvering and casting spells to gain an advantage are still very much a thing at master level -as it should be. 🙂

Just bought the OQ3 pdf from DTRPG and am liking it very much. I have long being looking for a game that is mosly skill-based but does not have an excessively detailed skill list, nor adds long lists of advantages and disadvantages on top. OQ3 seems to do this just right. So thanks to Newt for publishing such an attractive rules-light game! I do have some questions on the rules, though. Regarding skill mastery: The main section on skill mastery (p. 42) states that masters never roll for skill checks and always achieve a critical success. Does this hold also if there are penalties to the roll, i.e., even at -50%, a master gets an automatic critical? It is also spelled out how mastery works in opposed tests - but what about combat and magic? Combat does not use regular opposed tests but the table on p.72: a critical attack vs a critical defense results in a normal damage roll minus armor. This would imply that combat between masters reduces to rolling for damage à la Into the Odd? For magic, a critical success for personal magic or sorcery means that the spell costs 1 POW only, regardless of magnitude. Does that mean a master of either skills pays only 1 POW per spell, ever? And are monsters with skills of 100 % considered masters? E.g., the dragon has 100 % resilience but must make a penalized resilience check to breathe fire more than once per hour. BTW, on p. 20, it states 'Characters with skills at 100% are Masters/Mistresses of their skills, and always succeed. Roll the dice to see if they get critical results. Masters never fumble their skill tests.' This looks like a holdover from OQ 2 since it contradicts p. 42. Regarding surprise attacks: I understand how surprise attacks by NPCs on the PCs are supposed to work. As each PC tests against the best NPC, each PC is either surprised or not during the first round of combat. However, if the PCs try to ambush NPCs, it is also a roll of each PC vs. the best NPC. So how do I determine which NPC is surprised if only some PCs make the roll? Any insights and clarification are very much appreciated.