[Lev Lafayette]

(Delurk)

Some questions on the review.

1. Characteristics are rolled in order, which isn't good for people who want a particular type of character (e.g., a strong character, or a dextrous character). Female characters can reroll their Attractiveness and optionally increase is by an additional 25% Skills are usually described in one or two sentences. Does this help in a fun and/or detailed system of character generation?

2. Does the magic system have anything to do with the beliefs or styles practised in medieval Europe? The magic system is individual spells and spell points regardless of particular skills. With the exception of Spiritual Warfare (which is quite OK), it's seems pretty boring, a mere rehash of existing dullards.

3. Believing in God is worth only a +10% bonus to Christian Piety. Is it not the case that an atheist (the worst heresy of all in the middle ages) can take a personal vow of chastity, poverty or silence and be more likely to receive Divine Intervention than a good believer who does not?

4. The 89 listed professions give a title and some skills. There is nothing in the game that discusses feudal obligations, responsibilities, expectations and rights. It would appear that the game promotes a 20th century mindset transplanted to a medieval physical setting without the psychological location, verdade?

5. How is experience determined? 1-10 per session says the book. Is this randomly determined? Of course not! But there are no guidelines. Skill increases require expenditure of experience points and a random test of the skill; it is quite possible to lose all of one's experience without any improvement. That's not fun or realistic. It this seriously a very good way to prevent player abuse and to add some extra excitement to the character generation process?

6. The chapter entitled mythical races gives descriptions for centaurs, dwarves, elves, half-elves and ... halflings. Yes, in the historical fantasy they had hobbits but apparently not dragons. That's all; five mythic 'races'. For a game that's set in the rich and diverse cultures of medieval Europe, north Africa and the middle-east is this not an insult of biblical proportions to everyone on the eastern side of the Atlantic and to all scholars of the period?

7. I notice that there is no mention that every successful hit in combat requires a minimum of eight rolls. Did you test the combat system?

8. Seventeen pages are dedicated in total to the two settings (1121 and 1348 AD - nice choices), even if they did leave out the Kingdom of Navarre which is critically important in both cases. Over one hundred and twenty pages is dedicated to illustrations and tables of weapons and armour. There a thirty-one different knives, an entire page, in reduced font and the table abbreviations are without a key. This is followed by fourteen different hand-axes, twenty different axes ... and so on to seige towers, oxybeles and cannons.

9. Are you not concerned with the anti-Islamic bias in the game? Check the bibliography.