Miscleanous questions & Terminology

[sirogit]

1. When a description of a Secret says "in combat"(Mighty Blow,Secret of Shattering), does that mean in actual -fighting-, or could it mean any use of Bringing Down the Pain?

2. It seemed to be implied that you can only use -two- abilities together. Is that true? It seems that would be kind of a shame for Ratkin, who you would expcet would commonly use Litter Bond + Athletics + Scrapping together.

3. I notice the book sometimes referencing "skills" and "attribuites". Those are really "Abilties" and "Pools", right?

4. Surprise: Do the rules for surprise go something like this in play:
Player: *Minds his own buisness*
GM: *Rolls dice*mm, a 15. That's a great success. You're being spied on. Greatly.
Player: No fucking way. I'm bringing down the pain.
GM: Y'okay, you take 3 levels of damage and your character can be aware of the thing now.
Player: *Goes spy hunting*

BTW: I can't say enough how much Shadows is an awesome game. There's lots of games that try to take Crap Fantasy and make it actually good, but its the only I've felt that finely isolates what sucks about it, whats redeemable about it, and changes accordingly.

Its like being contracted by Robert Jordan to do the 1671681 Wheel of Time book, and than writing it stoned out with Fritz Leiber and listening to Hawkwind.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

1. When a description of a Secret says "in combat"(Mighty Blow,Secret of Shattering), does that mean in actual -fighting-, or could it mean any use of Bringing Down the Pain?

Um, yeah, or maybe, or something. Those are "dinosaur secrets," by which I mean I wrote them when I was making a D&D clone. I rule that they can be used when fighting, whether in or out of Bringing Down the Pain. Note that the Secret of Knockback is cool in Bringing Down the Pain.

2. It seemed to be implied that you can only use -two- abilities together. Is that true? It seems that would be kind of a shame for Ratkin, who you would expcet would commonly use Litter Bond + Athletics + Scrapping together.

Did it? You can chain abilities all day.

3. I notice the book sometimes referencing "skills" and "attribuites". Those are really "Abilties" and "Pools", right?

Man, you'd think didn't pay my editors or something. (Ok, I didn't. And you're right.)

4. Surprise: Do the rules for surprise go something like this in play:
Player: *Minds his own buisness*
GM: *Rolls dice*mm, a 15. That's a great success. You're being spied on. Greatly.
Player: No fucking way. I'm bringing down the pain.
GM: Y'okay, you take 3 levels of damage and your character can be aware of the thing now.
Player: *Goes spy hunting*

Pretty much. And that was funny.

BTW: I can't say enough how much Shadows is an awesome game. There's lots of games that try to take Crap Fantasy and make it actually good, but its the only I've felt that finely isolates what sucks about it, whats redeemable about it, and changes accordingly.

Its like being contracted by Robert Jordan to do the 1671681 Wheel of Time book, and than writing it stoned out with Fritz Leiber and listening to Hawkwind.

Thanks! I think everyone will be pleased with my future plans for it.