Rules Question:
The Grenadier talent, core rule book page 78, is listed as ranked. However, there is nothing in the description that says what having more than one rank means. Is it a typo? Thanks!

Answer:
That is a typo and we’ll correct that in a future printing. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

Question : When a character is mounted as laid out in Realms of Terrinoth , does the character's and/or mount's silhouette change?

Answer : The silhouette is the same as the mount’s value. A person on a horse is pretty much the size of a horse, and so on.

Answered by Tim Huckelbery.

Questions:

In Realms of Terrinoth for Genesys, are "Encouraging Song" and "Dissonance" talents considered spells? If using Verse, does the PC have to spend 2 strain like other spells, and would the harsher threat/Despair results apply? For a character using a willow instrument, could they gain the extra advantage, or is that only for Augment, Curse, Heal, Dispel and Utility?

Also, is "Second Wind" meant to have been left out of Realms of Terrinoth for balance reasons?

Answers:

Neither of those are spells, so you don’t need to spend strain to use them, don’t get benefits from implement materials, etc.

Second Wind isn’t in the talents list, but that shouldn’t stop your group from adding it in if everyone is cool with it!

Hope these help and thanks for playing,

Speaking of Errata, here is a couple of questions we got to ask Sam Stewart, Developer of the GeneSys Role Playing Game, about vehicle combat on the GeneSys thread on Facebook:

Q. Are the Pilot-Only Actions the only way to make a vehicle move?

A. They are (save for the forced movement of travelling at a certain speed).

Since I haven't seen it mentioned yet... Version 1.0 of the Errata and FAQs for Genesys and Realms of Terrinoth was released a few days ago.

Rules Question:

One of the pregenerated heroes for Realms of Terrinoth, Ulma Grimstone, begins play with 2 Dwarven Firebombs and Bottled Lightning. However I've yet to find an entry for these items in Chapter 2 - Call to Adventure. What should the Encumbrance Rating, Price, and Rarity of Dwarven Firebombs and Bottled Lightning be?

Rules Answer (By Tim Cox)

You are correct that those items don’t appear in Realms of Terrinoth! We can assume those are Ulma’s personal creations, so a player who wants to make use of those or similar items might create them using the crafting rules beginning on page 112, or the GM might make them available for purchase from certain NPC alchemists and other merchants.

I would give both encumbrance 1 by default, but of course allow a character to spend Advantage on the crafting check to reduce the encumbrance as normal. Since the cost of ingredients and difficulty of the crafting check are based on the cost and rarity of the item, the GM would need to assign those values, whether or not they decided to make these items available for purchase. Personally, I would probably go with 75 silver/rarity 6 for bottled lightning and 200 silver/rarity 8 for dwarven firebombs.

I hope this helps! Thanks for your question.

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Tim Cox

RPG Developer and Fiction Producer

Fantasy Flight Games

Rules Question:
On page 15 of the Genesys Core Rulebook, the sidebar mentions that characteristics have a "softcap" of 5. What is the hardcap?

Answer:

There is no hard cap, just very few ways to increase a characteristic beyond 5 (and it’s something we strongly discourage you do except in some rare cases). For example, some cybernetics in the science fiction setting allow you to increase a characteristic to 6, but they do not stack (you can’t use two cybernetics to increase the same characteristic twice) and they come with drawbacks (decreased strain threshold).

In designing your own setting, if in doubt we recommend keeping your characters at a 5 max.

Rules Question:
With regard to vehicle rules, I’ve been wondering about the effect of difficult terrain on the forced move a vehicle must make each turn in structured encounters, according to its speed (CRB pg 221, Table III.2-14). We know that difficult terrain requires twice as man maneuvers to cross (unless a talent like All-Terrain Driver is implemented), and also adds Setback dice to skill checks made while traversing it. I’m just curious as to whether the terrain could affect the velocity (represented by the forced move) by perhaps halving the number of range bands (rounded up) that must be covered? Because from experience, covering broken terrain in a vehicle - be it in a Humvee, truck, or main battle tank - you can’t just go full out unless you know what you’re doing (having a specific talent) or you’re skillful enough to maneuver that beast (driving/piloting skill). I’m thinking that, if a PC doesn’t have a talent such as All-Terrain Driver, a Dangerous Driving action, if successful, should allow the driver/pilot to mitigate the effects of terrain for that turn only, with subsequent checks being required each following turn as long as the GM rules the vehicles are still in the badlands, swamp, what have you.

Answer (from Sam Stewart):

The forced movement would also be affected by difficult terrain.

I hope this helps!

I would like to submit this: https://pastebin.com/Z4pE9wjJ

Let more Q&A trickle in, my dear friends!

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Rules Question:

I have a question regarding the Barrier Magic Attribute "Reflection" on page 219 of the Genesys Core Rulebook.

Reflection reads: If an opponent makes a magic attack against and effected target and generates 3 threat or 1 despair on the check, after the check is resolved, they suffer a hit dealing damage equal to the total damage of the attack.

However, on page 211, under 'Spending threat and despair on magic skill checks', the options for 3 threat read 'The spell is slightly more powerful than expected, one character of the GMs choice is targeted or otherwise affected by the spell as well'

So, isn't the default effect of 3 threat already more powerful than the benefit of the barrier reflection? If the GM were to select the 'caster' as the additional target, the effects seem identical. Alternatively the GM could select another target, making the default 3 threat option less restricted than the benefit afforded by Barrier Reflect. Is this correct? Should barrier reflect be applying to non-magic attacks instead? Note: On page 166 of the Realms of Terrinoth book, the Necromancer 'Wall of Bones' spell has a Reflect component that applies to both magic and non-magic attacks.

Reply:

The Reflection attribute as listed in the Genesys core rulebook is correct. It is true that Threat can be spent to cause additional targets to be affected by a spell, which does mean that the one can end up with the same result. This is also correct.

The two really shouldn’t be compared side by side because one (the Reflection option) is under the control of the player, while the other (the option in Table III.2—4) is under the control of the GM. The second option also applies to any spell cast (including healing, augmentations, etc), and can target any other character in the encounter (not just the caster or their target). But the player isn’t going to be able to be the one who selects who the second target is going to be under the spending Threat option in Table III.2—4, so it’s not an ability they can count on or control.

The Reflection attribute does not work against ranged attacks. The Necromancer’s spell in the Realms of Terrinoth does, but that is a specific spell for a specific NPC, and thus does not necessarily follow the same rules.

Hope this helps!

Rules Question:
The "Master" Tier 5 talent says: Once per round, your character may suffer 2 strain to use this talent to reduce the difficulty of the next check they make using that skill by two, to a minimum of Easy. You should use this talent in all settings. If upgraded dice are used to determine the difficulty, how is the difficulty reduced by two? Are upgraded dice downgraded which counts as one reduction itself?

Reply:

Reducing the difficulty of the check is not the same as “removing dice” (even though the effect is similar). So you actually reduce the difficulty of the check before you upgrade or downgrade the check, so upgraded dice shouldn’t matter.

So this is how it would work:

1. The GM sets the difficulty.
2. You use your Mastery talent to reduce the difficulty.
3. You and the GM add dice based on abilities and environmental effects. (this is usually adding Boost and Setback dice).
4. You and the GM upgrade the dice pool based on skills, the Adversary talent, other talents, story points, etc.
5. You and the GM downgrade the dice pool (if there’s anything calling for that).
6. Finally, you and the GM remove dice based on talents and abilities (this is usually removing Boost and Setback dice).

Obviously this is a very long-form version of what can be a pretty fast process at the table. In a practical setting, what’s actually going to happen is your GM will say “you need to make a Hard check” and you respond with “well, I’m going to use Mastery to make it Easy instead.” Then your GM will shake their fist and glare at you, and you’ll do the rest of what you need to do to form your dice pool.

In Shadow of the Beanstalk, does broken ice reactivates automatically at the end of the runner's next turn or does the Sysop needs to use the Activate Program maneuver to reactivate ice?

There is a debate in a thread, starting here , where people are coming to opposite conclusions. This should be clarified.

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Got an answer from Sam Gregor-Stewart. (RPG Manager of Fantasy Flight Games)

Q. Does broken ice reactivates automatically at the end of the runner's next turn or does the Sysop needs to use the Activate Program maneuver to reactivate ice?

A. It reactivates automatically. Hope this helps!

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I assume this means that there is legacy text left in the Activate Program maneuver description.

On 3/26/2019 at 8:30 AM, Aazlain said:

In Shadow of the Beanstalk, does broken ice reactivates automatically at the end of the runner's next turn or does the Sysop needs to use the Activate Program maneuver to reactivate ice?

There is a debate in a thread, starting here , where people are coming to opposite conclusions. This should be clarified.

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Got an answer from Sam Gregor-Stewart. (RPG Manager of Fantasy Flight Games)

Q. Does broken ice reactivates automatically at the end of the runner's next turn or does the Sysop needs to use the Activate Program maneuver to reactivate ice?

A. It reactivates automatically. Hope this helps!

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I assume this means that there is legacy text left in the Activate Program maneuver description.

A ruling like this needs a page number to back it up! We had a lot of people trying to find this answer and we came to the opposite conclusion. The wording around this is particularly unclear or I missed a section.

45 minutes ago, themensch said:

A ruling like this needs a page number to back it up! We had a lot of people trying to find this answer and we came to the opposite conclusion. The wording around this is particularly unclear or I missed a section.

The wording is definitely unclear and contradictory. Probably due to leftovers of a previous version of the mechanic that was not edited out or corrected. I have asked for further clarification on specific excerpts of the book on specific pages. I will post the answer when/if I get it.

Rules Question:

On page 103 of Shadow of the Beanstalk, the O2 bottle allows a character to avoid the effects of suffocation for up to 10 minutes. This is talking about narrative play, however this game treats certain effects that have a timing of 1 round to be 5 minutes in narrative time. Therefore my question is, in structured play, does the O2 bottle last for 2 rounds?

Answer:

I think it’s fair to assume that an O2 bottle would last for the duration of a single encounter in structured time. However, if the encounter is stretching on for a significant length of time (5 or more rounds0, you can rule that the O2 bottle starts to run out. Alternatively, you can just have it run out because of Threat or Despair!

Hope this helps,

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Rules Question:
Hello!

I would like to ask a question concerning a Conjure magic action.

When a character casts a Conjure spell during encounter with a Summon Ally effect, on page 217 GCRB it is written that: "The character may spend a maneuver to direct the creature, allowing them to determine its action and maneuver." Does the character have to perform the maneuver to direct the creature every following turn? Or a single maneuver with "Attack" command is enough for the duration of an encounter?

Secondly, can a character summon two creatures/items (different type or not) by performing a Conjure magic action two times? Or the second Conjure spell "replaces" the effects of the first spell?

Question:

I'll keep my questions right to the point. If my players wanted to purchase an Android; how much would one cost? I imagine the better and more specialized the model the more expensive it would be. But what would be a good starting figure? If just leasing a model what would the costs and conditions be?

Answer:

Hello Noah,

We deliberately did not include prices for bioroids or clones. Since both are arguably sapient as well as sentient beings, we felt doing so would come down on the side of them being a commodity for the players (even though in the game world, they certainly are treated as such). Therefore, the prices are to be set by the GM. However, we can certainly offer some guidance. Remember that androids are replacing human workers in a lot of menial jobs, which means they are not so expensive as to be a novelty to the very wealthy. However, they’re not cheap enough that everyone has an android, either. Think about items in our modern day world that seem similar (such as a good new car, for example) and you’ll have a good starting point.

QUESTION: The Tier 2 talent Heightened Awareness (p76) it states that allies in short range of the character who possess this talent gain <B> and if engaged they get <B><B>. How does the character with the talent benefit from that talent? I’m looking for what mechanical effects. <B>? <B><B>?

ANSWER: Only allies benefit from this talent; the character does not.

Question:

I just had a question about stacking items that increase encumbrance. For reference I'm mainly referring to page 96 in Shadow Of The Beanstalk & the Cross-Body Bag, Load-Bearing Gear, Modular Backpack, and Utility Belt. Can all of these items be stacked, or is there some limit? 18 encumbrance (before Brawn) seems really high.

Answer:

Hi Noah,

The limit should be determined by realistically what your character could wear. So a cross-body bag and a modular backpack would be hard to combine, for example. But a utility belt and modular backpack make a lot more sense!

Rules Question:
Question about the heal spell. On a successful roll, the target heals 1 strain per uncancelled advantage. But can I then spend those advantages for other effects, such as recovering my own strain or passing a boost die? Or am I actually spending those advantage to recover the target's strain?

Hello Christopher,

You are spending those Advantages. Generally speaking, dice results only do one thing (so if Advantage helps you recover strain, it doesn’t also give your ally a Boost die on their next check, and if a check specifies what the Advantage is used for, you can’t also use it for something else).

Hope this helps!

Sam Stewart

RPG Manager

Fantasy Flight Games

Rules Question : Hello I have 3 questions regarding the signature weapon heroic ability from ROT page 78. In the improved version of the ability it says. The signature weapons gains either the reinforced quality or is of Ancient material. In the Ancient material entry on page 97 it says "Increase the weapon’s damage by 1 and reduce its Critical rating by 1. The weapon gains the Reinforced item quality. Reduce the weapon’s hard points by 1 (to a minimum of 0)." Does it mean the weapon gains Reinforced either way ? Also if the weapon allready has attachment will i need to remove them when reducing the hard points. Also if you choose the ancient material does it stack with the initial elven, steel or dwarven material ? Thanks in advance

Hi Great questions here.

1) Yes, both options give you Reinforced, but Ancient also has other benefits and drawbacks and so some players might want to just take Reinforced and not the option for Ancient.

2) T he weapon would reduce its number of hard points by 1, yes. Since attachments must occupy hard points, this could cause the weapon to lose an attachment, if there are no longer enough hard points to support it. (This is one reason a player might want to just add the Reinforced quality instead of Ancient)

3) An item can only be of one type of craftsmanship, so the effects would not stack. With the Improved effect of Signature Weapon, if you choose to “reveal” the weapon’s Ancient craftsmanship, the effects of Ancient craftsmanship replace the effects of the original material.

Hope these help and thanks for playing!

Question:

For the Prepare item quality on weapons, is it intended to be once per combat check or once period?

If a weapon has Prepare 1, do I have to prepare before each attack or is it one prepare and I can make as many combat checks as I want?

Answer:

You prepare before making combat checks in general—within the bounds of common sense. Prepare is supposed to represent a certain amount of setup or prep that goes into firing or using a weapon (anything from getting your feet set to deploying special sensors). So generally, once it’s prepared, you can just make attacks with it. However, there may be some circumstances in which your GM could require you to spend those prepare maneuvers again. Those circumstances are going to be fairly limited, such as “I want to haul this missile launcher to a different part of the battlefield, then shoot something else.”

Rules Question:

Question on the Burn quality. It says that "[w]hen Burn is triggered, one target hit by the attack continues to suffer the weapon's base damage each round…." Does the target suffer wounds, which bypasses soak, or does the target take damage and soak therefore applies?

Answer:

The target takes damage, and therefore soak applies.