Players’ manual
pp 39 and 31 age effects and war breaking out rolls
p39 “3. Clark decides to go to college for a liberal arts degree. He gets RECON and PERSUASION at level D. He makes a RECON roll and succeeds, earning a specialty – he rolls a 3 and gets Linguist. He picks Russian as his second language. He rolls a 4 for age, turning him 22. He rolls a D6 for age effects but gets a 2 so he’s okay. He rolls a D8 for the war but gets a 7 – no war yet.”
As you can’t roll under 1 for age effects or war breaking out (p31), there’s no point rolling or either after the first term.
pp 31, 48-9 Specialty
Why limit each specialty to a one-off during character generation? Why not allow multiple gains of the same specialty so you can get, for example, a particularly good sniper or sharp shooter (sidearms +2 or better)?
p23 character sheet: attributes, skills and specialities
This could be better organised so that skills and specialities are grouped with the relevant attribute. It would make it easier to refer to during play. If necessary, cut down on the space for weapons and gear.
p53 Initiative
I think the card draw system is too random. Could initiative not be determined by, say, the Agility die modified individually by perhaps a Mobility speciality relevant to the situation (usually RUNNING?), and the TACTICIAN speciality for the whole group.
p54 Hidden initiative
Seems overly complex for no good reason. Delete?
p54 Mark your actions
The description doesn’t work as written, if you did a fast action (left 90°) and slow action (right 90°) the card would be in the starting position. I don’t think this can be rescued and the tip isn’t worth keeping. Delete? The only replacement I can think of that might help is a form that allows referees to keep track of initiate and actions taken. But not sure even that is necessary.
p55 Free actions
Add “drop weapon/held item”
p57 diagram: Searchlight area of effect
Surely the foliage should affect the area of effect. Use a diagram without foliage? Clarify that barriers will affect the area of affect on a line of sight basis.
p61 Blocking
It doesn’t say what one rolls to block an attack. Presumably “Close Combat”
p79 Decontamination
“When you have left a hotspot, 1 rad will leave your body every day. If you wash your body in clean water, half of your rads (round fractions up) go away immediately. You only get this effect once after being contaminated.”
I find this confusing. I assume it’s possible to get into a hotspot more than once. That being the case, it’s not clear whether washing can get rid of 1/2 total accumulated rads or just what you acquired in the most recent hotspot. And similarly what does the final sentence mean in that context. My suggestion is that you can wash half the most recent contamination away but not anything that was previously present.
p137 Scrounging
Would be helpful to specify that the roll is for SURVIVAL skill (with a +1 modifier for them SCROUNGING speciality).
REFEREE’S MANUAL
After p9 page numbering has reset for chapter 2.
p3 (should be page 12) Stationary encounters table
“Only encounters marked PP are triggered.” What is “PP”?
p23-8 Factions
There should be stats for faction leaders.
p34 Mikhail “Rasputin” Vukov
“Rasputin” spelt incorrectly.
p39 Rasputin’s new vision
“Rasputin claims to have had “visions” of members of one or more of the PCs’ relatives or military comrades thought lost. He’s actually telling the truth, having seen these
people pass through here prior to the group’s own arrival.”
I’m struggling with logic of that set-up and how that would role-play. It means Rasputin has to be told by the PCs that they lost relatives or comrades and then has to persuade them that he has seen those people pass through and remembers who they are. I just can’t vision how that works in play.