Goodman Games

Area B-1 (Tomb of the Fallen).

The entrance from the south-east text describes "A strange and foreboding portal bars your way." However, the tomb map illustrates that entrance as a twisting hall opening directly into the tomb.

Currently Unanswered Questions
1) p20 Demihumans are said to speak their racial tongue only if they have Int 8+, but elsewhere the text is not clear, and it seems they speak them automatically.

2) p32 Otyughs are mentioned in Turn Unholy, but I can't find any references.

3) Does the Thief getting the modifier to Intelligence mean that he can only cast Wizard spells?

4) p57 Luck: the wording is not appropriate, or the description is wrong since the Luck modifier can be negative (so after all those years of practicing, they still get the spell wrong?)

5) p.60 Halflings lack the Slow characteristic like Dwarves (as elsewhere it's mentioned they move 20'.)

6) p.61 Large part of the page is empty. Was something meant to be there?

7) Table 3-5 in the Equipment chapter: what's the purpose of the Weight column? No other equipment has weight listed, and the Barding refers to weight of normal sized armor which doesn't exist.

8 ) p.82 last entry of the table an Helm is mentioned, but there is none in the equipment lists, and it's not clear whether helms are part of armor or not. Not sure Helms are mentioned elsewhere.

9) Mounted Combat. It's specified that trained characters get +2 to the roll, but there are already training rules, by which a trained character rolls d20, an untrained one rolls d10.

10) Undead are specified as being immune to hold. But there is no hold spell.

11) Do we track the change in luck bonuses for e.g. fumble modifier, when players burn and gain luck?

The biggie is that we now need the writeups of the 4th-level Magic Wand and Magic Rod spells as Harley said they were not deliberately left out (and so are errata).

Agility and Missile Damage
On the character sheets on the beta pdf, the Agility mod is added to Missile damage. In the released rules, any mention of this is either absent, or I missed it.
Was it cut?

Surprise
In chapter 4 (combat), you can learn that the rolls for initiative is based on the result of the surprise roll. Below, you can read that characters who were not aware of the opponents are surprised. Okay... but how does it apply (in terms of rules) ? Surprised characters miss a round ? Or take penalty ? Or act at the end of the round ?

Initiative
is initiative dynamic or static? Do the players roll every new round or just at the beginning?

Luck Tracking
Do we track the change in luck bonuses for e.g. fumble modifier, when players burn and gain luck?
I know the luck bonus for special ability is fixed at level 0, and I thought this applied to all uses of luck, but then I read on p110 that for mercurial magic tables, you use wizard's luck modifier 'at the time the wizard learns the new spell...
I presume you do change modifiers when other abilities are temporarily affected?

Luck and Perceptiveness
Say I have Luck 14 (+1), and I’m not a thief/Halfling.
I burn 4 points, so my Luck is now 10 (+0)
Because Luck is used for listen checks, does this now mean I can’t hear as well as I once could?

Level 6 Spells?
The abilities table says you can learn level 6 spells, but there are none in the book and the wizard table only goes up to level 5.

Mounted Combat
Mounted combat seems also a bit confusing.
To avoid falling from a horse you roll a D10... against what?
If you are trained because of your occupation you get a +2?
Doesn't your dice change to a d20?

Thanks for these class-specific sheets, but I've found a few things which I can't find in the rules (I assume it was playtest stuff):

Next to Agility, there is a box for "Missile Damage". I can't find a reference to this in the rules.
Cleric sheet: under the lay-on-hands chart; it has reference to "CL" instead of the "dice" chart on page 31.
Wizard: under spells, what is supposed to go in the "check" area?

Minor Stuff
If each sheet is specific to class, you could probably pre-fill the "Class" area on the sheet.
On spellcasters (Wiz, Cleric, etc) you may want a space for "Caster Level"
Thief sheet: automatically add "thieves cant" to the languages section.
Luck: since any class may 'burn' luck points, it might be desirable to split the luck box (just like the Thief and Halfling sheets).
Dwarf/Elf/Halfling: you may want to automatically add their racial language.
Elf: you may want to add the elven immunities (e.g. sleep, paralysis).
Halfling/Elf/Dwarf: for infravision, point out the distance (e.g. 30-feet).
Warrior/Dwarf sheets: in the 'combat basics' box, you may want to re-label "attack" to "attack/damage/deed die".

I think I have spotted an error. Someone please correct me if I have got it wrong or repeated someone else.

p. 86 Crit table V is for level 5+ Warriors but on table 1-14 on p.54 the level table for dwarves (dwarfs?!?), shows that levels 6 to 10 have the level V crit table as well.

Missed that. Sorry!

dwarfs?!?

However, I will henceforth be calling my son, and he will be signing up for GaryCon under the name of, Collin...



Hey..you got the last name right - which is more than those slackers over at Adventurer, Conqueror, King can say!

And Doug is working on a kickass new cover for the second alternate cover edition...

Will there be an official place to download a pdf of both the errata and index?

To be honest I feel ripped off. That's a pretty large list of errata, whole blocks of text missing, no index, and a 2nd printing almost out to fix all of it. It's quite clear that the book should have had at least another editing pass. I strongly feel I should not have pre-ordered, and I will not likely do again in the future

I do not work for Goodman Games (although I respect those guys a lot), and I feel for you. Truly, I do. And I agree that it should have had another editing pass. Heck, I wish I had gotten a chance to do that editing pass!

But....I am glad I pre-ordered. And I am glad that I got this game when I did, even if that means I am going to also buy the second printing. That problems will be fixed in the second printing is not because Goodman Games wanted to rip us off, but because they are committed to minimizing problems in the future. I cannot help but believe that this is not only a damn good thing, but a rare one as well.

RC

I am not a professional editor, and I spotted lots of errors on the first read. I don't know how many editors GG employs, but evidently they are not enough, or are not good enough. They could rely on fans, who apparently do a much better job than professionals; and would work for free or a pdf. I am definitely not happy.

Rather than just feeling unhappy about it, though, what would you propose that Goodman Games now does? What do you think would be fair?


RC