0xal0t

As an avid player of Sorcerors/Philosophers they have a couple of big weaknesses. 1 As stated above, if the target is not surprised it could take 5 rounds before the Conx5 roll becomes x4 and less. A good warrior could throw a spear or axe in that time and the problem is extinguished. 2 The more peltists/archers on the opposition the harder it is to stay alive 3 Countermagic/Shield - unless you are casting low level sorcery - not really a problem 4 Counter attacks, Nothing like a Disruption Spell to knock concentration or peltists above go for more small damage rather than big damage, keep chipping away at Concentration (Int x 3) with small stones etc. 5 Post spell attacks - My favourite is wait for everyone to burn MP on spells then hit them with Drain Soul - sleepy time 6 They cant move while casting, push the battle lines, Leap, jump, fly, charge - give them a fright and interrupt 7 High Power or High Con always helps 8 Blindness, Darkwall, Lightwall, they cant move and any impediment to targeting screws them 9 Fanaticism, Berserk Shake Earth, Shattering, Fear, Befuddle, Demoralise, Group Laughter, Illusory Substance, Lightning, Madness, Mindblast, Panic Time is the sorcerors friend, take it away, bypass the minions protecting them use area affect spells if their power is too high, and mutitudes of bee sting type attacks can wreck a sorcerors day

We play some pretty tight rules on this. If you are using the spirit to cast its spells and/or use its magic points then you must be in contact with the item it is bound into. Otherwise it cant see/perceive/interact with you. If you are using a bound spirit without the aid of a control/command spell you can give it a single command (with some qualifiers depending on its Intellect/10 rounded up). After that it is free to act as it chooses. To have a spirit act in a predefined manner it needs to have Pow spent on the Binding Enchantment to make it work (Gusans armband has a spirit with Strength and Countermagic 3 known, the use of the command word {spinach} means that the spirit will attempt to cast in this order strength until it succeeds and in the following round after it succeeds on Strength it will attempt to cast Countermagic 3 until it is successful) It will only work if worn on the owners arm (bareskin) For using disease spirits we play it as the round of commanding the spirit, it manifests on this plane, coalescing around/in front of the commanding character then undertakes its command as of the next round. For awakened animals or spirits in animals we allow the PC to yell commands for action in the current round with a +5 SR action mod or to act normally the following round. For allied spirits we allow instant telepathic communication that means the spirit can act this round with no negative modifiers. The ultimate rule we follow on these things is how does the spirit percieve/interact with the world at large. We treat a spirit/elemental that is bound in a container as being like a Djinn (10,000 years give you such a crick in the neck). Once released and under control they are limited nothing to how they interact but the length of control/command is a limiting factor. PS you can always say in Binding Conditions that the elemental or spirit is able to travel/follow in the material plane but it can be a nuisance with movement rates or space they take up physically and may not be worth the power cost of doing so

Good review and some great helpful notes for scenario writers

RQ3 was 2 SR per Encumberance point. Based on the video and Jeff's comments you could estimate it at either 3SR per encumberance or 5SR per item as not too unrealistic. In our games the order of importance in surprise/unprepared combat is shield, helm, spear and then kill them all

In the skill descriptions in the land of the Ninja supplement it explains that kenjutsu uses both hands in the act of combat (more a hand and a half) in that most strikes in classic fighting as such it recognises that any strike using a katana etc for a nihonese character single handed will suffer a 10% skill penalty. The development of Ni to kenjutsu by Musashi was not widely picked up at the time. As such the skill for dual wielding is a new skill (non cultural) with a base of 5% to be developed independently. In making a second attack with your dual wielded sword it will occur 3 strike ranks after your initial attack SR. If you can find a teacher this is easy to develop fast but it is not culturally accepted until late in the settings for Jpan that you would normally play. Given that most alt Earth games are very anachronistic (romans greeks egyptians mongols Asterix and Obleix and vikings all around at the same time as Charlemagne and the crusades leaves a bit of leeway to make a renowned teacher to become available to train the skill) PS It also states that it only applies to Katana, Ninjato and Wakiizashi (and inferred would be a training bokken) as they are the weapons covered under Kenjutsu. All other weapons use standard RQ rules. As far as repetitive ki attacks these can only be done with a jo stick and nunchaku. he spends 1 pt ki on his initial attack and iff successful can hit again 1 Sr later until completing SR10. To do so he has to successfully roll his attack ki roll on each attack to do so. As ki starts at 5% and does not add your manipulation modifier to this starting number you have to train a while or be very successful very often to get this to ki master state when you are likely to be able to hit regularly. Given the average Melee SR in Nihon is 5 then most attacks would start on SR6 for a developed toon or 7 for an average toon giving a max of 4 or 5 attacks. still bloody impressive. I saw an earlier post about the 3 SR to ready a weapon and the same gap being between missile attacks. A melee round is 12 seconds is RQ3. While it recognises that there are lots of feints etc in a round the simple philosophy is that an averagely competent toon will generate 1 scoring attack with 1 hand in the round (not that that is all the movements that they make but one effective strike) it also recognises that at 100% or you can split attacks if you have the SRs to do so. with it recognising that my 6foot 6 mate has a greater reach than my 6'1", but that my little speedy 3rd dan mate has hands so quick I will always take multiple hits while i try to grapple him with his greater Int and Dex making him better technically than me and also a faster learner from his training. (read manipulation bonus. My agility sucks compared to him but if I hit him with one clean hit he will 1 fly through the air and 2 not get up. thus recognising Str+siz vs Siz+Dex and damage mods mine being 1d6 vs his zero. (why? because unless I miss my parry he does no damage vs every time i kick him he flies back 2m) The Missile ranks allow for a toon to draw, aim, fire, draw aim, fire represented in the round that the higher dex will get off the faster shot. Not unreasonable. While other techniques have been developed by say the mongols the elves or ninja you can see in history that very few cultures and even in those cultures that did develop techniques very few were raised to excellence. So for a system that needed to introduce a game mechanic and speaking from 23 years shooting and 21 of martial arts I thinking the system as written is fair (taking 3.6 seconds and my dex rank to pull an arrow from the quiver, nock it, draw aim and to release in 12 seconds), so a dex 20 archer loosing 3 full power accurate shots in 12 seconds is bloody deadly because shooters with semi auto rifles struggle to do so now. Remember the rules represent the average or normal system. If you want to develop a skill that represents a technique then use the existing rules to do so fairly but keep it fair. The rules state that the best an archer can shoot is based on 1/SR being 1/5/9 and when you think that he can fell 3 foes in 12 seconds he would make a good mate for Legolas, any other system would be a new technique to develop by the player starting at 5%plus manipulation mod as per Ni to Kenjutsu