FAQ and Errata Thread

[Jason Vey]

Any errata and clarifications about the game will be posted here. To avoid cluttering the thread and keeping , only the Admin can post here. Feel free to open your own threads for posting questions or potential errata for me to check.

To begin:

P. 2: Larry Elmore's website is www.larryelmore.com/
P. 2: "under the Open Game License version 1.0a" is repeated twice.

[Jason Vey]

Page 8, Table 1: Ability Check Modifiers lists "5-7" and then "9-10." It should be "8-10."

Page 8, Strength: References to "Fighters" should be references to "Warriors."

Page 10, Table 6: Charisma has the same issue.

Page 12: Instead of treating wizards and warriors as though their AC is one lower than it is (given how AC works in this game) Elves simply gain +1 to hit in this situation.

Page 17, Bane of the Dead: The calculation for undead morale is wrong (it would in effect get better against higher level priests using that formula!). It should be "4 plus the priest's level (maximum 11)."

Page 18, second paragraph: "Thieves don't have the hit dice of fighters..." should be warriors, not fighters.

Page 18, Thief Abilities: To the end of the first paragraph, add, "In addition, all Thieves should add their full Dexterity score to their base chance of success on Locks, Traps, Pilfer, and Stealth skills. Thus, a first level dwarf thief with a dexterity of 17 will have a Remove Traps skill of 17 (Dex) + 15 (Dwarf) + 10 (1st level) = 42%. See Pages 19 and 21 for more information on racial and level advancement bonuses. All skills have a maximum rating of 99%; a roll of 00 always fails.

"When checking for success, the Referee should grant a bonus of 5% for every level above the opponent the thief is, or a penalty of 5% for every level below the opponent the thief is. Thus, when a first level thief tries to disarm a trap set by a third level thief, he suffers -10% to his skill. When a third level thief tries to sneak up on a first level character, he gains +10% to his stealth skill. If the opponents consist of multiple characters (ie. a trap set by two thieves), penalties or bonuses are cumulative. Thus, a fifth level thief trying to disarm a trap set by a sixth and seventh level thief, he suffers -5% for the sixth level and -10% for the seventh, for a total penalty of -15%. If the trap was set by a fourth and sixth level thief, there is no penalty or bonus, as the -5% from the sixth level is offset by the +5% from the fourth level."

[Jason Vey]

Page 28: Polymorph self description is truncated. The sentence completes, "...or supernatural abilities, at the discretion of the Referee."

Page 34: "a stone golem would become a flesh golem" is an anachronism, as golems are not listed in the monster section. Replace this with, "An animated statue would essentially become a Frankenstein monster, but..."

Page 37, Dispel Evil. Given the way AC works, rather than granting a +4 bonus to the caster's AC, the spell should impart a -4 penalty to opponents' chances to hit the caster in combat.

Page 45, Ability Checks. Characters gain +1 to ability checks at first level and every multiple of three thereafter (ie. 3, 6, 9, etc.)

Page 47, Base Movement Rates: movement rates are per round.

Page 52, Attack: "subtract your opponent's dexterity reaction modifier (if any)," should be "account for your opponent's dexterity, if the opponent is a Warrior."

Page 54. There are typos in the "Ranged Attack Matrix." For slings, both AC 7 and 8 should read "2/-/-".

For Light Crossbows, AC 8 should read "2/2/-"

Page 55, before "Damage," insert the following:

Unarmed Combat
Unarmed combat is generally possible only between unarmored opponents. A kick or fist does very little damage against someone clad in any armor heavier than padded. If a character wishes to attempt to punch an armored opponent (assuming the face or other unarmored area is accessible), his "to hit" roll is adjusted by the opponent's dexterity as though his opponent was a warrior regardless of class. Damage from unarmed attacks is temporary, healing at one point per hour, unless the attacker is wearing gauntlets, in which case damage is "real".

The Melee Attack Matrix by weapon should include "Fist or Foot, human-sized or smaller" and with armor class 1 has a target of 7, against AC 2 has a target of 9, and against all other ACs is "-".

Page 61, Healing refers to the Paladin's ability to lay on hands. It should reference the Paladin and Priest's ability to lay on hands.

Page 62: The Saving Throw Matrix lists "Fighters." This should be "Warriors."

Page 74: Lycanthropy lists the poison table as being on page 21. It's actually on page 20.

Page 75: Poison has the same reference error.

[Jason Vey]

Page 76, before "Monster Creation" insert the following:

Morale for Monsters: all living monsters have a morale rating of 11 minus their hit dice, to a minimum of 3. Intelligent undead monsters have a morale rating of 12 minus the monster's hit dice, plus (if applicable) the hit dice of a cleric attempting to use "Bane of the Dead" upon them (minimum of 3). Non-intelligent creatures such as black pudding, zombies, and skeletons have no morale under normal circumstances, but see "Bane of the Dead," on page 17.

Also add:

Abilities for Monsters When making ability checks for monsters, assume an ability check bonus equal to +2 per three hit dice (or fraction thereof) the monster has.

Page 78, Experience per Hit Point should read as follows:

Experience Per Hit Point: A monster’s hit point total influences the amount of experience it confers. To calculate this, simply multiply the number of hit points by the hit dice of the creature, and divide by 2. For example, a 5 HD creature has an average of 18 hit points. The base is 160 experience points plus 5 experience points per hit point. 90 extra experience points would be awarded for this creature, for a total of 250.

[Jason Vey]

CLARIFICATION: All hit dice--characters and monsters--are rolled with d6's. This is not as clear in the text as it should have been. However, Referees wishing to "power up" their games somewhat can use d10's as hit dice; if this is done, each monster should see 2.5 x (monster's HD) in Hit Points (round down) added to its species average, and average XP adjusted accordingly.

CLARIFICATION: When a thief uses a Vital Strike, that only applies to his first attack in the round. When an assassin attempts to assassinate, he gains no other attacks that round, regardless of how many attacks he would normally have.

[Jason Vey]

Page 80, Dragons, Third Paragraph, first sentence. This reads: "Dragons come in four types: Fire, Ice, Storm, Swamp, and Poison."

It should read: "Dragons come in five types: Fire, Ice, Storm, Swamp, and Forest."

[Jason Vey]

CLARIFICATION: In general, monsters attack as fighters with levels equivalent to the monster's hit dice. If a monster's attack routine contains more attacks than would normally be allowed to an equivalent level fighter, the monster's attack routine trumps the hit dice limit. Thus, if a 2HD monster has a claw, claw bite attack when normally he'd only have 2 attacks, he still gets his claw, claw, and bite. If the monster has neither a hand or bite attack, use its least effective attack form as its base attack.

However, if a monter's routine contains fewer attacks than he would normally be allowed, he gains one extra base attack per attack he would normally have. This base attack is always a "hand" strike (claw or slam) if the creature has hands or forelegs, and is always a bite otherwise. Thus, a monster with 8 HD who has a claw, claw bite routine gains his claw, claw, bite, then gains 4 more claw attacks, for a total of 7 attacks total.

[Jason Vey]

Just to let everyone know, I'm trying to actually keep the errata in page order rather than scattering them, so a lot of times when new errata come up, they will be placed in modified posts earlier in the thread. I'll try and post a notice whenever a new errata is inserted...like now. I just inserted errata in the first post, for page 2 (the copyright/credits page) and have clarified the thief skill errata for bonuses and penalties.

[Jason Vey]

Just inserted errata for page 34.

[Jason Vey]

Page 82: Elemental Experience by Hit Dice is...strange. Eliminate the table and replace it with, "Elemental Experience by Hit Dice: Calculate XP for elementals based upon the guidelines found on page 78. Elementals of Class 1 and 2 have Special Abilities 1 and 2. Elementals of class 3 and 4 have Special Abilities 1, 2, and 3.

[Jason Vey]

Page 100, Rod of Cancellation: Delete the parenthetical note regarding a sphere of annihilation, as this item is not included in the S&S rule book.

Page 103, Staff of the Woodlands. Instead of summoning hard wooden splint armor, the staff's barkskin ability conjures "Hard wooden armor with protection equivalent to studded leather or scale mail."

Page 105, Treasure Table:

Extraordinary Items should only encapsulate "% to have" and "# Items." This is a table formatting error; GP Value Adjustment is not part of the Extraordinary Items entry.

The Treasure Table, which was excerpted and modified from another OGL source, unfortunately uses all die types. This table will be corrected and included in the PDF; in the meantime as a "quick fix" alter any entry of 1d4 to 1d6-1, any entry of 1d8 to 1d6+1, and any entry of 1d12 to 1d10+1. Any added "pips" simply increase the total value (ie. an entry of 1d12+9 now is 1d10+10, while an entry of 1d4+1 would simply be 1d6).

Table 4 lists Artifacts, but no rules for artifacts have yet been listed. For the time being smiply increase Rods, Staves and Wands to 91-98, and Cursed Items becomes 99-00.

[Jason Vey]

The following spells need to be added to the spell list:

CAUSE FEAR (Level 4 Wizard, Level 3 Priest) Panic and terror race through the hearts of the creatures affected by this spell if they fail a charisma-based saving throw, causing them to flee from the caster as fast as possible. The creatures cower in abject horror if cornered, and if forced to confront the caster, any effected creature suffers a -2 penalty to all rolls. It effects all enemies of the caster in a 25 foot x 25 foot area.

CONE OF COLD (Level 4 wizard) A cone of extreme cold shoots from the caster’s hand, mouth, or other focus of the caster's choosing (so long as the caster chooses a part of his own body, or an item he is currently holding) affecting an area 50 feet long that is five feet wide at the point of origin and 15 feet wide at its farthest point, causing 1d6 points of damage, plus 1d6 per caster level. All within the cone's path may make a Dexterity-based save to halve the damage dealt.

DANCING LIGHTS (Level 1 wizard): Depending on the version selected during casting, the caster creates up to four lights that resemble lanterns or torches (and provide the same amount of light), or up to four glowing spheres of light (which look like will-o’-wisps), or one faintly glowing, vaguely humanoid shape. The dancing lights must stay within 20 feet of each other, but otherwise move as the caster desires (no concentration required): forward or back, up or down, straight or turning corners, etc. The lights can move up to 100 feet per round. A light winks out if its distance from the caster exceeds the spell’s range. A creature that interacts with a dancing light gets a wisdom-based saving throw to recognize it is an illusion.

REMOVE BLINDNESS OR DEAFNESS (Level 3 Priest) This spell cures either blindness or deafness whether normal or magical in origin in one target. The spell does not restore ears or eyes that have been lost, but it repairs them if they are damaged.

The reverse of this spell causes the creature touched to become blinded or deafened, as chosen by the caster if he fails a constitution-based saving throw. Blind characters suffer all the effects of blindness listed on pages 61-62. A deafened character suffers a -4 penalty on initiative and has a 25% chance to miscast and lose any spell that he tries to cast. Remove blindness or deafness counters and dispels the reverse of the spell.

[Jason Vey]

Okay, folks, that should about do it for the errata. Thanks to JimLotP for his extensive reading of the book to gather the stuff I just added.

[Jason Vey]

Revised Edition Errata

Sometimes no matter how hard we try...things slip through. Sigh.

I can't include page references yet, as we're still trying to get the format right on this as far as looking the best when it comes from the printers. But I'll include ToC references for ease of finding them.

Thief Table 1: Racial Bonuses (Last page of Thief character class): reads "Hear Noise." Should read "Perception."

Also: the entry for Dwarves should grant +2 to remove traps, not +1.

Spell Lists: The first spell list is titled "Magic User Spells." It should read "Wizard Spells." There are also two other instances of "Magic User" that should be to Wizards, but I'm not sure exactly where they are, as the global find/replace caught them

Ability Checks: In the example for arm wrestling, it reads "If neither result equals 12, the contest is deadlocked..." It should read "if neither result equals 11..."

Hit Points of Ships (Last paragraph of Waterborne Travel): Lingering d10 References. Large ships should have 2d6+12 and full-sized galleys 3d6+16.

[EDIT]If you ordered your book after 1:30 PM EST on Saturday, April 11, 2009 all of these errata should be fixed.