The game will be starting on Monday, during the same time slot as the Rogue Trader game, 8p-12a Eastern Monday/Tuesday. That's something like 5p-9p for you crazy West Coast heretics.
As usual, we will use Skype for talking, Screenmonkey for tabletop and dice rolling. The Obsidian Portal site will be used for general shenanigans like character sheets, adventure logs, and whatever else you want to put up there. Several people are using the dragon age character creator to make portraits for their characters on the site, which in turn lets me make miniatures for them in Screenmonkey.
Some quick notes, to people I've not yet had the chance to talk to regarding rule changes. First off, I'm combining weapon groups and skill focuses, in that if you gain one or the other, you can opt to use them for either. This will allow other classes to use weapons they normally couldn't, and give fighters the chance to pick up a few more skills. Note that this also means that a fighter could use a weapon group increase to get a skill focus in a weapon group he already has.
Second, I'm going to allow herbalism to mix with chirurgy, using the basic rules for potion-making from poisons. Since there are fewer herbalism potions in the game currently, learning novice chirurgy will allow you to make basic herbalism potions, and pick 1 recipe (mana or healing) that you already know. Additional recipes will have to be learned as you go, and additional ranks in chirurgy will allow you to make more potent potions.
Third, while this won't come into play right away, I will be allowing a talent every level, rather than every other level, with the limitation to rank being that you can't have a rank higher than half your level, rounded down (First level being the exception, clearly). Novice = 1, Journeyman = 2, Master = 3, so the earliest you could learn any journeyman talent is level 4, earliest master talent is level 6.
See you Monday everyone.
