A 10-pack of DFRPG questions

[tbone]

It's time again to play Toss a Handful of Questions at the Forum!


1) Acid vials: Corrosion (Exploits 53) reduces DR by 1 per full 5 pts of basic damage. An acid vial does only 1d-3 damage. So, a standard acid vials doesn't reduce DR, and can't get past DR3 or higher. Do I have that right?

(Side thought: Good non-magical locks in DFRPG can cost thousands of $, yet are automatically defeated by a $10 vial of liquid. Hmm, I'm not sure anyone would bother using such locks. . . )


2) The temple is open . . . or is it?: Does the temple refuse to heal Excommunicated PCs? I haven't seen anything suggesting this, but let me know if I've missed something. (I would assume the official response is, "My child, the temple turns away no purse . . . er, person, right, no person in need.")


3) It's tough to be a druid: Nature's Strength reduces the potency of druidic abilities by 10% per -1, rounding down. This would mean that even the generic -1 penalty for dungeons reduces DR from the Nature's Shield ability by 1. Do I have that right?


4) Leohippus: I was going to ask what sort of hybrid the DFRPG karkadann is supposed to be – a lion head on horse, or horse head on lion, or what? But then I remembered that DF Monsters 1 should have a pic. And it does. So questioned cancelled. (The beast in the pic, by the way, looks like a lion and horse averaged out all around.)


5) Fear the 13: Here's a deeper question: Why the cap of 13 on Fright Checks? Why break from the usual "just roll the target or under" way of doing things?

Say Normal Norm resists fear on 13 or less, and Fearless Frieda (before a cap) resists on 19 or less, thanks to spending much more on Will, Combat Reflexes, and Fearlessness. What's gained by ruling that both fail equally on a 14 or higher? Even when faced with a more easily resisted case (a small Elder Thing) that offers a bonus, Frieda oddly faces the same 10% chance of failure.

It's not like beating Fright Checks is some awesome superpower that needs to be kept in check; complete immunity to Fright Checks is easily available to PCs through Unfazeable, and at low cost, too (15 points, which covers more than just Fright Check immunity).

In short, the cap is no big deal, and it's easy enough to file it away as a mysterious working of the mind. So I guess the actual question is simply: Does the "rule of 13" for Fright Checks serve some important purpose that I'm missing?

(Side thought: All that said, if there's going to be cap on Fright Checks, the use of the storied number 13 as the cap, and as the starting point for bad effects on the follow-up roll, is a nice aesthetic touch. : )


6) A big change: As DFRPG makes pretty clear on pages like Exploits 95, target SM applies to ranged and melee attacks alike. That's a pretty big change from Basic Set (which mentions no SM mod for melee); it makes wee monsters pretty hard to hit, and it means every gnome PC enjoys a -1 penalty on foes' TH rolls, and every halfling PC a -2.

Out of curiosity, a question for whomever's reading: If you weren't already using SM in melee before DFRPG, are you ignoring this change (or not even aware of it)? If adopting it, are you seeing players take a new interest in gnomes and halflings, to enjoy the new benefit? Have you gotten any complaints from players about the difficulty of hitting little monsters? (Maybe not, given the skill levels DFRPG PCs have . . .)


7) Cheetah Sprint: Say a martial artist uses Tiger Sprint to double Move, then uses Uninterrupted Flurry to take two Move actions every turn. She's now zooming along at 4x normal Move. I assume this is perfectly kosher (and fun!); am I missing anything that prohibits this?


8) Holy symbols: Do DFRPG clerics need a holy symbol for anything besides Turning? (An expensive symbol boosts Turning and Exorcism, so it's great to have one – but Exorcism, or anything other than Turning, doesn't appear to require a symbol at all.)


9) Talented medics: Chi Talent adds to what are called Chi Skills, including Esoteric Medicine (Chi), but Power Investiture does not add to Holy Skills (Esoteric Medicine (Holy) and Exorcism) or Druidic Skills (Esoteric Medicine (Druidic) and Herb Lore). Do I have that right?


10) Light range: For an Area spell, a radius of 1 means one hex; a radius of 2 means that hex, plus the surrounding six hexes; and so on.
But my understanding is that distance for light sources works differently: a torch's distance of 2 doesn't mean the holder's hex and the hexes around it, but rather the holder's hex and up to 2 more hexes out (i.e., what would be radius 3 in spell terms). Do I have that right?


Bonus question, one that I expect only an SJG insider could answer: This (now closed) thread notes that DFRPG's unusual book size (8"x10" instead of 8.5"x11") entailed considerable extra cost and labor. The question: Why was that size chosen? I like it, for no reason that I can explain in particular, but I wonder what spurred the idea. Better fit for a pre-selected box size? Just curious.