Fading Suns Player's Guide (Revised Edition)

[MBdS]

Fading Suns player's guide errata

From 2nd editiom Speak skill has become the player's guide Language benefit? But what about Read skill? Missing from the benefits section or incorporated into Language, so every player character can speak and read, now (the box at page 115 let suppose so)? In this second case how to handle illiteracy? -2 Affliction?

Body Shield: nice new rules for adding features, but seems prices are at odds with the tech levels  in previous chapter. Also the plastic body shield is listed as costing 2 firebirds, but it seems to be missing a 0 following the 2, and standing at 2nd edition should cost 20 firebirds (like plastic buckler which cost 5 firebirds more than TL1 buckler). 
But apparently the costs, standing to tech level table should be: body shield tl0 15 firebirds, body shield tl1 30 fb, body shield tl2 45 fb and a plastic body shield tl4 75 firebirds. 
In the description states that the tl4 shield got the hard property, but the table state it has the shock property. And hard comes from the feature bullet-proof. Which is right?
Also the multipliers for the different features stack or each is multiplied tomthe base shield prive and then added together?

Armor and stacking: all the armor dice do stack together? So body shield tl3 (3d) + cybernetic armor (5d) + synthsilk (4d) + impenetrable smart clothing (3d) do they all stack together giving 15d armor (more than a brother battle adept robe)?

2nd edition Remedy skill has become First Aid feature of Physick. The text at page 146 let suppose it is a specialized different skill, but i assume it is a copy and paste from 2nd edition, right?

Cash benefit page 146 description states a starting character has 100 fb, but table states he got 250 fb. Which is right?

The description if Fusion Cells on page 311 states that the weapons working with fusion cell gave the property "Fusion", but no such weapons exist in the tables. It easy to assume which they are, but a list would be appreciated.

Also, one question about mounted combat. Maybe im missing something but seems there's no really any advantage fighting mounted. Characters suffer a -4 goal penalty and they're combat skill is limited by their Ride skill.

[ragnarol]

Hi,

I bought a couple of days the PHB revised and overall I like the changes that have been done to the system. The book looks perfect on the iPad but its a pitty that it is so full of incosistencies, looks like it has been released to early without a proper revision done, thats the main reason I didn't bought the phisical edition.

But don't understand me wrong, the system has changed for good

I have some questions, comments, that I want to share with you

- Looking at the armor list we can see that the ceramesteel armor miss the Blaster keyword, that can only be found on the Armored/Marauder Spacesuit, shouldn't it has that keyword too?
- Combining armor and shields. At least there is an inconsistency between the list of armors and the pregenerated character (Sir Galen), who wears a leather jerkin and a standard shield.
- There are weapons (two handed axe) that talk about bonuses to dodge or penalty to parry, both things no longer existent
- Defense. What are the ways of increasing it? Currently there doesn't seem to be much ways, maybe it should be modified by Dexterity in the same way as the extra damage is obtained for Strength?
- Combat styles. We miss a clasical fencing style with maneouvers like thrust, parry, riposte. One of my players have all those kind of maneouvers so converting it to the new system will be a mess I have planeed to do a mixture of Torero/Serpentis, but I would prefer something official.

When is the next version of the PDF planned to be released? I mean with the erratas so far fixed.

Thanks for keeping FS alive,

[Angelman]

[ragnarol]

Thanks for the reply Angelman,

Maybe I have misunderstood the rules, but the ceramesteel armor protects much worse against blaster:

Cerameesteel: Prot 14 * 0.66 (sucess ratio) = 9.24 - 6 sucess due lacking blaster property = 3.24
Armored spacesuit: Prot 8 * 0.66 = 5.28

And the marauder one is amost 6.

I accept your explanation about the spacesuits been prepared for hot temperatures, and I agree with it. Just showing the maths in case I am not undestanding the rules right, not having a property remove successes not armor dices.

[Gannok]

I had a question about the Breaker quality you can give to melee weapons. It doesn't list a duration. How long does it keep the shield down for? Does it just have to be recharged now? The description just says it turns off the shield and ends there. I can make up my own rules, I'm just trying to understand the intent (which is unclear to me) of this quality.

[Angelman]

[Gannok]

That sounds about right to me. I'm not sure I like it though. It seems like a really cheap way to remove shields from the game and with how expensive they are (shields), their limited field of coverage (5/10), they don't stack with any real armor unless you buy the really expensive shields, and there are lots of ways already to break them, I think that having such a cheap and easy way is not so good.

I think what I like better is that it would drain charges. Either a fixed amount or based on finesse, something like that. That's my personal opinion though.

[ragnarol]

Yeah, I don't think I like it either. New rules seems to have nerfed energy shields enough, and (at least for me) energy shields is the way Fading Suns has to mark main characters, versus the normal dispensable adversaries.

Shield dampers, the new way of being able to disable them by shooting automatic fire, or the go down thing when they get damage over their capacity are good enough for me.

[Angelman]

I can certainly see those arguments. A very real problem with FS though, is that it doesn't have one genre or style, but instead lend itself to numerous ways and approaches of playing. It is almost inevitable that people need to house rule some things in FS to fit their vision, as the ‘official’ version of the rules can’t cater to every different style the game can be played and must necessarily function as suggestions. The less powerful energy shields might not suit your particular style, and you should definitely change the rules to fit your vision of the game.

I believe that FSR armor and energy shields were weakened to accommodate some of the power-combo complaints that were sometimes made against FS2. I can confirm that this definitely suits my style of gaming (although I didn’t write the rules), but I can see if tweaking is needed for other types of games.

Did any of this make sense, I wonder?

[ragnarol]

Yeah! Of course Angelman.

I wasn't expecting the new version to match all my likes Sorry if I sounded rude in my last post.

I really like the nerfing on the armors and shields, although not that particular piece.

As you said Fading Suns is so open that everyone needs to adapt it to their likes. For example, I am still not sure of getting the new combat system, we are going to test it first, but I love the new spirit abilities and the armor and weapon properties. But what I most like is that Fading Suns is again alive

Looks like not all the suns should be fading