Official Rulings

• 30 stat set rolls is the cap for standard characters. We don't want such low stats that they are unplayable, we don't want dump max stats since it destroys balance. A good practice is 1-2 stats below 10, 2 16+ and rest around 11-13 for character creation as a guidance for helping newer players.
• In general, when starting out in the system as a new player. It is expected you'll experiment with your EXP and buy stuff up and down as you explore the system. However, after a newbie campaign, if you buy something up and use it, you are unable to buy it down without a GM reward usually. However, there's an incant called Philter of Regression that refunds EXP. You get 1 free 4 rank to use on a character similar to you getting one free Res from Isis / one free attune. Once you use it you will have to pay for another one or get a GM reward to enable buying something down.
• Every player with at least one rate 100 character may create 2 rate 50 characters per calendar year. In addition to 50 rates, the newly created character gains 15,000 gc and small RP item.
  • The character may use their starting gold to purchase items with the Crafting and Enchanting system, or magical rituals including Attunement and Mutation.
  • The character must be written up as a CHR item and playtested/approved to be eligible for games.

• Impaling - Some weapons give you an option to impale your enemy. To perform an impaling attack, choose a creature within your movement rate. As a full action (using both action and a fifth), move to the target and make an attack at half of your Combat modifier. On hit, the target takes the weapon’s “impale” damage instead of “strike”. You may roll Weapon and Maneuver skills with the impaling attack, but cannot use any Advanced options. Impale damage above 1d12 does not turn the weapon into an Oversized.

• If spell plugging is used on the effect with resistance check, the resistance check can be reattempted every time the effect renews its duration.
• Graft Armor can be used on Natural Armor to remove its penalties.

• Charge (M), Skewer option - Use two dice to move up to an enemy within your maximum movement range and make an impaling attack using your full modifier. On impale, for two extra dice, the enemy is forced to make a 4d6 vs STR or be moved with you for the remainder of your movement rate. Advanced.

• Items created with spells or through the Crafting and Enchanting system must be written up under NEW item code.
• Permanent or long lasting effects must be recorded in the character's CHR number. This includes Mutates, Attunes, Rituals and any permanent change to the character that is not a result of GM’s magic item. Out of game date must be written next to any new additions.
• Items made from materials in Playtesting, if deemed fine, are put into the playtesting category. If the spell(s) for the item are not in the final stages of Playtesting they need GM permission to be used on games.

• The first game you GM per week and submit the adventure writeup for the game (through the website), you receive a total of 3500 exp and 400 gold. 3000 exp amd 300 gold of this can be put on a character that has not been played that week (using the same reset at 7:00 PM Saturday at regular club meeting start time) or not already received GM exp that week. The remaining 500 exp and 100 gold can be placed on any of your characters. Any subsequent games GMed that week gain 3000 exp and 300 gold, which can be put on a different character that has not been played that week (using the same reset at 7:00 PM Saturday at regular club meeting start time). You should not be stockpiling exp over the course of several weeks to dump all on one character and should be putting the exp on a character each week, since this may lead to characters doubling up on exp when they shouldn't have. This GM exp also applies if you are coGMing.
  • If you don't submit the adventure writeup, you do not receive GM rewards! It is difficult to enforce this, so it is held on honor system. If it is suspected that GM exp/gold fraud is occurring, the IRS Rules Coordinator and/or President may have to be notified to resolve the issue, checking through the adventure writeups and your exp budget. CoGM writeups should include a note on who was the coGM and GM of the game.
  • If applied to the character rate 35 or lower, GM experience is 5000 xp instead of 3000 xp.
  • GM exp cannot be placed on a character you have not played in a game at least once before. Once they have been played once, GM exp can be spent on them.
• Rewards (including experience points) MUST ONLY be granted on games where all club members have been informed of, and reasonable efforts have been made to include all local members. Town actions where access is limited are not an appropriate time to reward players.
• Club is now on the Gold Standard. 10 silver = 1 gold. Standard pay for a game is 300 gold, and maximum pay is limited to 500 gold (see ruling below). Less dangerous games may have a 200 gold pay.
• When rewarding players in addition to standard reward of 2500-3000 exp and 300 gold, GMs have following options (should be notated in Adventure Writeup):
  • Extra gold, any gold exceeding 500 gc must be a part of extra gold reward that should be given instead of other options.
  • Extra experience
  • Magic item
• Upon a character dying and is not savable by any means, the character is considered permanently dead. After which should the player make a new character, they may add 1/3 of the dead character's rates in addition to the starting rate for that new character. Should for whatever reason that announced perma-dead character be somehow resurrected, a new character made that gained the extra EXP loses that EXP upon the dead character being brought back. Any attempt to shenanigans this rule into getting free EXP should be reported to the rules coordinator.

• Modifications to an item should only be made if permission has been given from the GM who original wrote the item. If that GM is inaccessible, then refer to the rules coordinator or an approvals GM.
• Magic items that modify other magic items should be given out sparingly. In general, any modifications to an item should be made to the original item's writeup for the sake of simplicity. Alternatively, the original item should be deleted, and the GM modifying the item should write up a new item.
• Oversized weapons (weapons exceeding 1d12 damage) should only have access to oversized skill.
• Enchantments on weapons should follow general Enchantment rules and slots systems.
• Effects generally should not stack. This is because the gm giving them out can't control what others do, meaning your item can be broken if it's allowed to stack.
• Combat NPCs should follow the action economy mechanics of Summonable Creatures even if the NPC is sentient enough to act on its own.
  • Gaining experience by NPCs should not be possible. Mechanics that allow the character to spend their own experience on NPC skills can be allowed, but everything must come from the character’s own pool of exp.
• Avoid giving free rates to players. For example, free creature abilities should be minimized, and rates granted should be considered.
• Rateburning items cannot be created by players, and should be taken seriously when items go out. This isn't to say that they shouldn't go out, but they should be “activate per month” for less powerful/temporary effects, and “activate per year” for more powerful/permanent effects. Alternatively they can require an appropriate xp cost, and be more frequent.
• Items should not have absolutes that the gm in the moment cannot overrule. This puts the gm in a difficult situation, where they either overrule the item, angering the player, or have their plans spoiled.
• All damage above 2d6 needs to have either a resistance check or a roll to hit.
• Spells with duration less than 5 minutes are intended to be used in a limited combat, and should not be made into effect items.
• Gods are npcs; any effect that makes you competitive with a god (i.e. ignoring flux) or gives you base or flux should force you to be an NPC. This should never be forced on a player.
• There are inherent limitations to classes for a reason. An item shouldn't be given out that allows a priest to still be powered while breaking creed, nor should an item go out that allows psions to act while casting.
• Skills specific to using items are allowable, but a new skill for general use is the realm of the rules coordinator and should be proposed to them for approval.
• Creature abilities outside of standard limits of availability MUST be written up.
• GMs are expected to give out magic items on no more than roughly half of their games. Use common sense for this one; thing like healing potions are fine to be given out more frequently, GMs could give out items to only half of party and then have them “roll off” for it, etc.
• GMs are expected to tie the power of their magic items to the difficulty of the game they run. However, GMs should not run difficult games just for the sake of giving out better pay.
• GMs are only be allowed to give out custom items every three games. This will not have to follow an explicit pattern; it is just expected that no more than 33% of all characters going on a game are to get custom items. GMs would be expected to avoid showing bias here.
• All magic items have a recommended word count of 100, and a word cap of 200. This will prevent the queue from being flooded with excessively complicated/long writeups. An “RP” section may be added to each item so GMs could go further into describing aspects of the item, but this section can have nothing that communicates any mechanical benefit. On rare occasions for momentous games (finales/legendary agems/etc.), a longer more complicated item can be written, but this must be denoted in the item and an adventure writeup attached.
• All items that have already been given out must be tracked through some way, shape, or form if they are to be given out again. They could be included in the adventure writeup, resubmitted through the database, or the GM could contact the rules coordinator directly. This is to prevent GMs from giving out a frankly irresponsible quantity of items on one game by using old items to bypass the approvals system.
• Any items with unclear formatting, mechanics, etc. will be hard vetoed.
• Most items are now expected to be based off of spells, creature abilities, and skills within the manual. Alternatively, the item should be easy to interpret into AQ's mechanics. (Example: The amulet of Pokerface is a manual item, a 1/day Fly would be a standard spell effect, and an iron longsword that deals an extra d6 fire damage would be easy to interpret into an in-game mechanic.)
• Magic items should not generally be able to create more magic items. Special care should be taken when writing up magic items that take the form of a living creature, such as a plant or creature, as they can easily get around this rule.
• Effects that deal more than 12d6 damage should not be given out. Effects should never be able to “nuke” an area or kill everything within an area, regardless of how likely it seems that it will backfire on the player.
• Effects that can repeatedly stun, incapacitate, etc. enemies should be given out extremely sparingly, if at all. In the rare case where these effects are given out, they should also be fairly limited or restricted in some capacity, such as having a relatively easy resistance check.
• Items should only use contested checks for relatively minor effects. Characters can boost their attributes to extreme heights, and it is somewhat unreasonable to expect a target to resist a contested check against a character who has obtained an attribute score exceeding 20.
• Effects that can instantly kill enemies should be given out extremely sparingly, if at all. These effects should also be limited in the amount of times they can be used or the strength of the effect.
• If an item can provide beneficial effects to multiple targets, then the scale of the effect should be reduced appropriately.
• Items that require significant investment of exp or gold from the player can generally be more powerful than items that provide instantaneous increase in character’s power.

Old Rulings