[Late to the party] Looks great overall!

[thegreyelf]

Got my PDFs of the Expurgated Edition yesterday. The only issue I had was, even following the instructions, I could not get them to print out properly to save my life...I tried 6 times, and the page numbers just never came out in sequence.

I ended up running it off, using the guillotine cutter at work to hack the pages apart, hand-collating and spiral binding with a black plastic binder (akin to Chainmail), which probably works better for the length of the book anyway.

Would've liked to see a bit more art--even if it was amateur art done by Geoffrey himself. As it stands I nicked a couple pieces from the net to put on the 2 blank pages the map leaves.

Just gave it a cursory flip through but wow, this looks meaty. The writeups of the Old Ones look fantastic. I am looking forward to checking out the psionics system as well.

One question: as it stands it looks like there's no real reason to play a Fighting Man in this setting, as Sorcerers can do everything Fighting-Men can do and more. Is that correct or am I missing something?

[geoffrey]

May 22, 2009 7:43:14 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

One question: as it stands it looks like there's no real reason to play a Fighting Man in this setting, as Sorcerers can do everything Fighting-Men can do and more. Is that correct or am I missing something?

Jason, first of all thank you for your kind words.

I'm sorry it's not printing-out correctly for you.

I'm afraid that art by Geoffrey would have people going insane and fleeing in terror.

Now for your question: Sorcerers need 50% more xp to rise in level than do fighting men. If a player simply wants to bust some skulls, he's better off playing a fighting man. He will go up in level faster. Another consideration is that, precisely because most sorcery requires human sacrifice, sorcerers tend to be pariahs. "Hello, Mr. Innkeeper! Part of my job as a sorcerer requires me to sacrifice people like you. Do you have a room available for me?" ;D

Finally, not only are sorcerous rituals and their components difficult to acquire, but sorcery itself is a two-edged sword. Performing sorcerous rituals is definitely a work-related hazard for sorcerers!

If I wanted to have a PC and maximize his power and effectiveness on Carcosa, I'd roll-up a fighting man, cheat and say I had psionics, and then devote my time to acquiring Space Alien high-tech items. Then go around blowing things to smithereens with all sorts of energy weapons.

In my campaign, players choose to play sorcerers from the inherent interest in dark, occult things. They like delving into strange, forbidden places in search of weird lore and artifacts. Absent that desire, I'd play a fighter.

[thegreyelf]

Ok, I missed the 50% XP requirement--that makes a HUGE difference.