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A related question - do you think it would be a useful idea to publish a third Reforge Power pdf, with "beta" rules? As in, things that are on their way into the other two. I'd be happy to test things at my tables from a collection like that. And, I'm a little bit reluctant to just throw ideas into your already pretty awesome mix of great rules. : )

Random input:

I feel that "Manticores always hunt in pairs" (BoB, page 124) is missing from page 61 in the GM's booklet (ie a succesful Lore roll).

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Question: Do you allow Lucky to affect the Burn critical table?

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Asleni, the language - To me, this comes off as more fantasy trope than lore:
"A bumpy and short-cut language that most listeners perceive as hard and effective. Those who speak Ravlandic can recognize many words that have to do with horses, horseback riding and nomadic life." (page 13).

I suggest the following:
"A fiery language favoured by poets and lords. Those who speak Ravlandic can recognize many words that have to do with horseback riding, mining, theater, strongholds and the hierarchies of nobility."

"a bumpy and short-cut language" doesn't quite fit with the poeople who are known to have introduced song and poetry into Ravenlands. Plus, these are the folk that introduced construction and nobility among the human populations.

My guess is that the Eilanders saw their new Galdene neighbours as romantic, fierce treasure hunters, who composed grand ballads and epic plays of their exploits, who were hard at work searching gold in Vaskan or mining for the same in Thynda, and rulers who erected defensive walls of stone and majestic strongholds, as often as they were seen roaming the plains on horse back. (pages 21, 23, 47 of the GM book)

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On the language of dwarves, I suggest removing "mining" and replacing with "minerals", or something like that (would stars and the sun / astronomical terms be more interesting?)... as they traditionally do the opposite of mining (with the except the meromanners, possibly). "Dwarves can forge stone seemingly out of nothing in enormous underground workshops, stone that is carried to the surface to expand the world." (page 57)

Survey the Lands: The area covered by the hexagons are only 65 km^2, but I still agree that it would be hard to scout that in 6 hours, so either you know what to look for on a success, or you need to add a bit of fantasy to it, just like making Stables for horses, probably would take more than 4 Quarter Days IRL.
I don't think upping the time to perform a survey is the right way to go, it would become a too niche activity.
Also I don't think that adding multiple permanent resources to one Hex, really is they way to go either. Exploring the lands should be part of your groups activities, not just stomping around in the same Hex, it takes away from the feeling of the Forbidden Lands game.
If you really want a solution, I feel one solution could be to just add a Survey talent, that maybe also grants a +/- modifier to a roll on a table you first roll on, on a success, like the Hunters quarry table. Maybe a d10 or some other die, with results like 0. Big treasure. 1. Old overgrown house. 2. A fresh corpse. 3. A good spot for a camp. 4. etc. 7+ roll on the regular table (can only happen once). Then you increase the time it takes to survey a Hex, while still allowing minor things to be found while doing it.
I will probably not implement this in the core rules though. But if you test it out, and it becomes popular, then I would consider it as an alternative.
But for us the Survey the lands action works kind of as it is, and it feels complicated enough.

As for a beta, well.. I kind of already did that.. and was very lucky that DaydreamDaveyy actually took his time to read through it.. but I really don't think there will be enough playtesters or readers to approve of a beta now, since the changes I intend to add aren't equally complex. I think I would just run it on my table and ask my player's of what they think, and that will be enough, combined with the input I get from you guys right now.

"I feel that "Manticores always hunt in pairs" (BoB, page 124) is missing from page 61 in the GM's booklet (i.e. a successful Lore roll)."
haha.. I kind of agree.. but this is also feels like a retcon that was added just for that event in BoB.
Like on page 177 in the Raven's Purge, the manticore hunts alone. So this lore result would then only confuse such a player.
Maybe some lore that "Manticore parents raise their cubs together"? I can add that.

Question: Do you allow Lucky to affect the Burn critical table?
Yes, it affects all critical injuries, even Horror injuries as stated in the original core Player's handbook rules: "When you suffer a critical injury".
If you want to house rule this, just go ahead. But I try to not change every core rule I see >.<
I wouldn't make it not affect the Burn table though.

"Asleni, the language - To me, this comes off as more fantasy trope than lore."
This is based on Klas Bas added rules for languages:
viewtopic.php?t=4440
I haven't updated it in a long time.
As for your input, could you direct me to all the pages where lore like this is mentioned?
I have both the Swedish and English books, so references to either will work.
For things like mining, they are nomadic and wouldn't mine much at all, so I think dwarves would have influenced that more.. but I must say that I am a bit rusty in this regard, it was a long time since I read through their lore, so please point me at things and I will change. The Bloodmarch wasn't released when that was written, so I think we have more to go on now as well.
Also I think that Elves are more interested in the sky then dwarves, and would influence the language more in that regard. They have the red wanderer, and they built the telescope the players can find in the Eye of the Rose.

This I will consider for the next version (I just made a list to remember everything):
Player's booklet:
- Hold spell should be rank 4
- Could try to explain the armor resistance of the lightning spells as there is room.
- Could try to better explain the Machine Soul spell.
- Web spell is missing monster entry. Should probably just be that it dosn't have any effect, but it is still fun if some spells could have some effect on monsters, but.. might be too OP. Perhaps monsters with low base Strength could be very partially affected?
- Improve wording of the "FAST SHOOTER: UNSUSTAINABLE SPRINT" talent module
- Likely change Burn injuries to also accommodate for cold/frost injuries
- There is probably room to add a mishap table to Survey the Lands in the Player's booklet. Since all the other mishaps tables are in the PHB, I will add it there and not in the Gamemaster's booklet I guess? That would separate the tables between the books though.
- Break Acrobat into Acrobat and Fleet-footed. This will be a major damaging change though, as it will affect a lot of page numbers, likely changing version to a 3.0.
- Diver. Improve and could encompass Survey the land actions in water hexes.
- Languages - need more input if this is to be changed!
Gamemasters' booklet:
- Quagmire quicksand failure? I will look at it, but I might not change it.
- Some kind of Water-survey tables. This will likely break page numbers in the Gamemaster's booklet, so it would be a major 3.0 like change. Messing up things for people who has printed it.
- Add lore: "Manticore parents raise their cubs together"

Do tell if I missed something, or if you find something else. I will not give a date on when I might fix this.

Edit: I should probably allow a sailor to survey water hexes, so you could use that or diver? Since the mishap tables would need to be different for water and land hexes, I will not have enough room in the Player's booklet.

Maybe some lore that "Manticore parents raise their cubs together"? I can add that.

Yes, it makes sense that not all Manticores are lucky enough to have found a partner... Maybe that they strive to pair up, raise children and hunt food for them together... While making it atleast equally possible to wander into a lone manticore's territory. Quite homely creatures : )

Asleni, the language
This is based on Klas Bas added rules for languages:
viewtopic.php?t=4440
I haven't updated it in a long time.
As for your input, could you direct me to all the pages where lore like this is mentioned?
I have both the Swedish and English books, so references to either will work.
For things like mining, they are nomadic and wouldn't mine much at all, so I think dwarves would have influenced that more.. but I must say that I am a bit rusty in this regard, it was a long time since I read through their lore, so please point me at things and I will change. The Bloodmarch wasn't released when that was written, so I think we have more to go on now as well.
Also I think that Elves are more interested in the sky then dwarves, and would influence the language more in that regard. They have the red wanderer, and they built the telescope the players can find in the Eye of the Rose.

Yes, it feels quite common to read such things into the Asleni culture in Ravenland (Raven's Purge). I referenced these pages above: 21, 23, 47 of the GM book. But since I feel this is so important I'll paste some quoutes here as well : )

Sid 19: Sedan guld hittats i floden Vaskan, varav vattnet fått sitt namn, lockades Kvarderklanen från Aslene in i Ravland [...].

Sid 20: Aslenerna var av annat kynne än eländerna, hetsiga och dådiga, och de hade inte svurit lydnad under Landalagen. De förde med sig sång, skådespel och många goda vanor till landet, men också sturskhet och stridslystnad. Snart började de uppföra enkla borgar och tränga längre in i Ravlands mer ogästvänliga delar. När alver och dvärgar protesterade sökte korpsystrarna medla och hävdade att Landalagen gav dem rätt att befästa sina boningar mot vilda djur och andra faror.

Sid 20-21: Aslenska bergmän hade letat guld allt sedan de kom till Ravland. År 690 e.s. fann man rika fyndigheter vid Gletra i Tyndebergen och gruvbrytning upptogs genast. Dvärgarna
protesterade eftersom Gletra ansågs ligga i ett område förbjudet för människor. [...] Sedan dvärgarna blockerat all handel med Aslene genom Mistrapasset kom ett nytt avtal till stånd, där aslenerna fick behålla gruvorna mot att de i övrigt underställde sig Landalagen. [...] Människorna kunde därefter inte få avsättning för allt guld som gruvorna gav, och därför finns gott om gömda
guldföremål kvar i Ravland. Guld har i landet begränsat värde för folket i byarna och anses bland dem medföra olycka. Ingen vet idag var Gletragruvorna låg. [Notera att dvärgarna själva inte bröt guld i Tyndebergen, och heller inte spred guldföremål till populationen i Ravland från någon annanstans]

Sid 22: Aslenska borgherrar ["lords" i engelska översättningen] uppvaktade enträget dvärgarna om hjälp med att driva alderlänningarna tillbaka över bergen. [Jag tolkar det som att alla referenser till furstar/lords innan de alderländska krigen refererar till Kvardiska borgherrar. Eländerna, älvestamlingar och dvärgar verkar inte använda det ordet?]

Sid 46: De aslenska klanerna är krigiska och företagsamma i jämförelse med eländer och håller strikta hierarkier. De blev snart en härskande kast som byggde borgar och trängde längre in i Ravland
mot alvers och dvärgars vilja. [...] De är inte längre något nomadfolk, men nomadtillvaron har för dem ett romantiskt skimmer och långa tider av friboende vildmarksliv ingår sedan blodsdimman försvann i deras uppfostran.

Survey the Lands: The area covered by the hexagons are only 65 km^2, but I still agree that it would be hard to scout that in 6 hours, so either you know what to look for on a success, or you need to add a bit of fantasy to it, just like making Stables for horses, probably would take more than 4 Quarter Days IRL.
I don't think upping the time to perform a survey is the right way to go, it would become a too niche activity.
Also I don't think that adding multiple permanent resources to one Hex, really is they way to go either. Exploring the lands should be part of your groups activities, not just stomping around in the same Hex, it takes away from the feeling of the Forbidden Lands game.
If you really want a solution, I feel one solution could be to just add a Survey talent, that maybe also grants a +/- modifier to a roll on a table you first roll on, on a success, like the Hunters quarry table. Maybe a d10 or some other die, with results like 0. Big treasure. 1. Old overgrown house. 2. A fresh corpse. 3. A good spot for a camp. 4. etc. 7+ roll on the regular table (can only happen once). Then you increase the time it takes to survey a Hex, while still allowing minor things to be found while doing it.
I will probably not implement this in the core rules though. But if you test it out, and it becomes popular, then I would consider it as an alternative.
But for us the Survey the lands action works kind of as it is, and it feels complicated enough.

Yes, I think I was unnecessarily unclear - as I agree with what all of what you are saying here. I'll whip an alternative table together (at some point in spacetime), and then we'll have something more concrete to look at to see where we differ, and if you find it useful.

(oh, and the math nerd in me would love to point out that hexes in FBL are 87 m^2, but that's not part of Reforged Power anyway, so let's leave it be

- Likely change Burn injuries to also accommodate for cold/frost injuries

Here you go! Either you got a starting point here, or something useful. Mostly are just one-to-one copies/conversions of Burn, but I added a few creative ideas as well. I hope you can copy paste the format (tabs). I'm using the Burn/Frost charts so the player doesn't just outright die when broken while having the COLD condition. Which is a proposed rules change. (And may raise the question if Lucky applies, since it'd give you a double benifit.. not outright dying, and even less not dying : )


Roll Injury Description Lethal Time limit Effects during healing Healing time
11 Numb and Tingling No None
12-13 Shivering Fits No You spend your entire next round shivering uncontrollably, unable to take any actions.
14-15 Frostbitten Extremities No Immediately take 2 Empathy damage.
16-21 Frozen Gear No One piece of carried equipment (the GM decides which) takes an item damage or is lost to the cold.
22 Cold Panic No The cold makes you panic and hug the closest ally tight. They take one damage to Str and Int. (Or become cold?) (maybe this one is a bit silly)
23 Chilled Sinuses No You lose all sense of smell and to some degree taste. Higher quality food and drink have no effect on you. D6
24-25 Pyromania (Treat as a horror injury) Roll an extra torch or firewood resource die every day, or burn something else up. You may roll in-sight to try to ignore this for a day, but if you suc-ceed, you must then also pay 1 Willpower Point. D6
26-31 Frostbitten Skin No -2 to manipulation rolls, unless you try to intimidate your target, then you instead add +2. D6
32 Impeded Blood Flow No Every time you are healed or recover Strength, ignore the second point of Strength recovered. D6
33 Aching Joints No Penalty -1 to all rolls for Strength. D6
34 Cryophobia (Treat as a horror injury) Gain the critical horror injury 52: Lesser phobia towards frost. 2D6
35 Decreased Thermal Regulation No You take double damage from the COLD condition 2D6
36 Frozen Clothes & armor No The clothes and armor you wear is moist and frozen to your body. It need to be thawed away by a fire to be removed. If not removed, make another Frost critical injury roll every quarter day. Until thawed.
41 Shivering Hands No Penalty -2 to all rolls for Agility. Negate the effect for a turn (15 minutes) by consuming hot beverages. 2D6
42 Vasoconstriction No Double all Agility damage you take. You can travel one less Quarter Day before you need to roll for Forced March. 2D6
43 Blackened Toe No You lose a toe, permanently . -1 to move rolls, until you have adapted. 2D6
44 Frostburnt Torso No You cannot wear any heavy body armor, only very light-fitting clothes. 2D6
45 Restraining Scars No Penalty -1 to move rolls. If not healed in time, the effect becomes permanent. 3D6
46 Frostbitten Eyes No Same effect as for being in total darkness, and bright light also hurts your eyes (avoided with a blindfold over your eyes). D6
51 Frozen nerves Yes D6 days Each Strength [bane] inflicts damage, even if the rolls aren't pushed. You always roll your full amount of Strength even if damaged. If not healed in time, the effect becomes permanent. 2D6
52 Frostbite Infection Yes D6 days Pain, pus and swelling. Roll against a disease with Virulence 9. Also suffer both "Frostburnt Torso" and "Shivering Hands" for D6 days.
53 Blackened Finger Yes? D6 days You lose some fingers. -1 to all rolls that use your hands. Permanent
54 Frozen Terror Yes D6 days Your hollow screams immediately inflict a 6D6 fear attack on all your allies within short range. Also suffer both "Aching Joints" and "Shivering Hands" for 2D6 days.
55 Cold-induced Fainting Yes D6 days Decreased blood flow to the brain make you fall unconscious for a Quarter Day. Also suffer both "Frostbitten skin" and "Shivering Hands" for 2D6 days.
56 Frostbite Gangrene Yes D6 days Your body tissue turns necrotic, and slowly spreads from body part to body part. Roll for a critical Slash injury every quarter day until healed. (Hmmm, slut på idéer...)
61 Frozen Hand Yes, -1 D6 days The hand becomes so frostbitten that it requires amputation. Two-handed weapons cannot be used. Permanent effect. Permanent
62 Frozen Foot Yes, -1 D6 days The foot becomes so frostbitten that it requires amputation. Running becomes a slow action. Permanent effect. Permanent
63 Frostbite Disfigurement Yes, -2 D6 days Gain permanent "Frostbitten skin," but the frostbitten nerves grant you the talent Pain Resistant at rank +1. Permanent effect. Permanent
64 Frozen Body Yes, -2 D6 days Gain permanent "Restraining Scars," but the frostbitten nerves grant you the talent Pain Resistant at rank +1. Permanent effect. Permanent
65 Frostbitten Brain Yes Make a helmet save (see PH page 105). On a failure, you instantly die.
66 Frozen to Death Yes You die. A frozen statue remain.

Cool!
I will try to work on this when I get some time over.
Lots of nearby days will unfortunately have to be spent at the local hospital, all treatments are going kind of well so far, but it will steal some time. I usually work quite fast though, so no real worries. Making water survey work will take most of the time, as that one might require some extra thinking.

Also thinking of improving some spells...

Lord of Flies
Could probably be massively improved to this:
"After casting this spell, nearby insects will agitate each time you draw blood. After each round, if one of the slow or fast actions you performed this round inflicted at least 1 point of Strength damage to a living target, gain 1 Willpower Point.
This spell creates a blanket of insects upon casting it."
Duration, perhaps 1 Turn per Power Level? If it is 1 turn or 3 turns doesn't really matter much though. So it could also be something like PL 1 = 1 round, PL 2 = 1 turn, PL 3 = 1 Quarter Day ?

Elemental Infusion
Should probably be changed to this:
"You channel the powers of the elements. Gain Willpower Points equal to twice the Power Level.
Halve your WP after the duration ends. The spell cannot be cast again during its duration."
Reason, this makes it combat oriented and that makes is more powerful. The duration should probably be a Turn.

Web
Added: "Monsters are immune to 1 PL per 10 points of Strength, and the only effect the web will have, is to reduce the monster’s movement rate to 0, during its upcoming initiative."

Machine Soul:
Improved description, so that you maybe could better understand its usefulness?
"This spell animates machine-like objects, granting them the ability to perform actions when manipulated. The object gains Strength 1, with a +2 bonus per extra Power Level. It operates for a Quarter Day, but Power Levels could also be used to double the duration. So, it could power a pump, power a mill, or power a mechanical spider and make it steerable. Crafting the machine requires metal, a forge, and successful rolls. If made into an artifact, a good complication could be that it would require fuel."

Possess:
Added "Monstrous undead will break the control if it takes any damage."

Bane:
Upped armor reduction to -2, as -1 felt a bit silly.
Changed to 1 round/PL from 2.

Wind Blast
Removed "Monsters are immune"

Elemental Shield
Changed to 1 round/PL from 2.
Improved the others to:
Earth: Ignore the first two Strength damage you take each round from physical attacks, reduced before armor.
Fire: Anyone that ends their turn within arm’s length distance takes 1 fire damage and also catches fire, taking another fire damage per round. The fire cannot be extinguished while they remain in range and while they are not, it still takes a slow action and a successful move roll.
Water: All movement within arm’s length from you counts as rough terrain for all but you and those move rolls also suffer a -3 modifier.
Wind: Non-large projectiles cannot hit you. This includes sling stones, arrows, crossbow bolts and throwing axes.

Nothing is final, these are just some ideas.
And I should probably read through all of them and double check if they could be improved. Feel free to come up with your own ideas for improvements too!

Last gaming session, after an unanimous vote we changed the value WP moves towards after each session from:
Empathy
to:
(Empathy + all ranks in Kin & Profession talents)/2

It is slightly harder to calculate, but we felt that it makes Kin & Profession talents more exiting to get.

Lots of nearby days will unfortunately have to be spent at the local hospital, all treatments are going kind of well so far, but it will steal some time.

Hey, best of luck to you and your health!