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Excellent Questions!

Diviner Reading: Each question requires a skill roll. All skill aspects require a skill roll unless they expressly state they do not. This is a potent ability if players discuss what questions should be asked and can use the Scholar's Signs and Portents skill aspect to firm up a line of questioning with a solid yes or now.

Leader - Do Battle Commander effects stack? - This is a GM call. Are the leaders capable of combining their orders to provide multiple benefits. That may very well be, or a GM might decide they cannot. Regardless, bonus from the same type never stack. Two leaders could not inspire the same character for double the effects.

Leader - Couragous Word - You have it right. "Your turn" refers to a player or NPCs turn, "the turn" refers to a turn in combat.

Heroic Pose - YES!

Prone - normally you cannot move unless it is your turn. A GM may also put a cost to standing up such as spending two move.

Travel - league is typically 3 miles as you say. Leagues were only used in this game to make travel speeds compatible with BareBones Fantasy. Li would have been a much more genre appropriate measurement but keeping these easy and familiar won out.

Poison - You make one resistance roll upon being poisoned. If you are successful the poison has no effect. Failure means the poisons effects will begin and either incapacitate or provide a window of opportunity to try to get a cure. This makes antidotes, qi healing, alchemists and bargaining for your life, if poisoned, very good options. Poison is a strong motivator used by villains to get something from someone. Strong poisons are difficult to make, expensive if for sale, hard to resist and deadly, very deadly. Imagine a villain showing the effects of Blue Toad Venom on a lackey. And then explains to the PCs that they have ingested a similarly strong poison, Handsome Chang's Motivator, and such a fate awaits them, unless they do a favor. Such a favor will probably be quite involved.

I would certainly allow a second resistance roll if something occurred to change the ability of the character to resist the poison, such as an Aid Spell used to boost STR for example.

Poisons make for great plot elements if used well, not just a crude bludgeon to destroy enemies. They come in just three strengths but there is a wide range between those simple categories.

I hope you find this helpful!

Great, thanks for the answers and clarifications. Wow, poisons can be really nasty. I see the value of using qi to expel them but some don't give you the 10+ minutes needed to do it...

Re the Battle Commander, I was figuring that different uses would be ok, it was the stacking I wasn't sure about, so that makes sense.

Looking forward to adventure #2!

thanks.

Something I would do if someone began using Qi to expel poison, is stop rolling damage on the poison until the Qi healing test is completed. It would be a constant reminder of what is at stake. I might also allow an antidote to be used to stall a poison for a short time. Those aren't hard rules but this game has more guidelines than rules so that you can play it the way you want as easily as I could make it.

I like the idea of stalling damage rolling while expelling poison.

BTW, how about Handsome Chang's Motivator? If you have a month before it affects you then you potentially have 3+ (qi) * 30 (days) to expel it even at STR-40. +1/day with meditation and +3 a day if Mystic 6! Or can you try only once for a specific poison? I assume there must also be an antidote that stops it completely rather than for a month (or maybe not?)

Definitely agree on rulings rather than rules but it's always nice to get a grasp on the intention of the rules first I think. Thanks

Ok, one more(!):

p38 : "Hidden Weapons" applies to daggers, darts, needles, stars, etc and imposes a hard difficulty on resistance rolls. Is the intention that the hard resistance applies only to attacks made from stealth/hiding, or is it for any attacks using those weapons due to your special technique? I'm not 100% sure but I think it applies to any attacks made with those weapon types.

Hoping to start running "White Breath Cave" on Thursday!

Looking at the "Animate" spell (p24), I can see there are some example animated creatures, but I was wondering if there is a more generic way to create them, as Mooks seems a bit weak, but Major NPCs might be too strong with Rank = Sorcerer Level(?).

Or just take the ones from the book and rejig them a bit:

Hopping Corpse Rank 1
Paper Warrior Rank 1
Skeleton Rank 1
Terracotta Warrior Rank 1
Stickman Rank 2
Wooden Man Rank 3
Stone Warrior Rank 4
Spirit Armour Guardian Rank 5
Golden Warrior Rank 6

You can only attempt to expel the poison once. Perhaps it could be tried again with a higher rank mystic. Handsome Chang's motivator is a poison designed for plot. It allows the villain to hold this sword over others to get them to do their bidding. A delaying antidote can be given out each month if the victim has been good and followed instructions. This works very well when an NPC starts doing questionable things and then you find out they have been poisoned and each month they go to their "master" and receive another month of life. Enter the PCs - find that antidote or force the villain to give it up.

You have it right. These weapons are thrown subtly and come from big sleeves, or waist bands or from with in robes and other movements obscure the attack. Stealth/hiding is not required.

Note the hard penalty from defending against ranged weapons can be countered with Arrow Cutting, which can be countered with Hidden Weapons.

Animate Spell

The intent is you use the example animated creatures from the book or make new ones using them as examples along with the creature creation guidelines.

Great stuff - thanks very much for all these replies!

Will see how we get on tomorrow with White Breath Cave.

Sorcerer/Spell questions (someone created a sorcerer/alchemist):

Raw Talent : Is it just the minor telekinesis that needs no skill check, or does that also cover detect magic/read magic?

Transform : Does a transformed person use the stats of the thing they are transformed into? Do they retain their LOG/WILL/BP/styles/techniquest/skills? How about special abilities of the creature transformed into do they gain those? If cast outside combat it lasts 2D hours, if you then enter combat will it persist (if cast in combat it only lasts 1D turns)

No skill check required for anything listed under the Raw Talent aspect of the Sorcerer skill.

Transform: When you use this to transform someone into a creature, they become that creature. Period.
Turn a bad guy into a pig? They are a pig.

Duration of spells does not change if combat starts.

Hope that helps!

Fantastic again thanks. Please let me know if you get tired of my questions!

Ran White Breath Cave tonight...worked very well, we had two Warrior/Thieves and an Alchemist/Sorcerer. They are en route to the cave (don't think I'm giving much away by saying that), managed to scare off a wild animal by use of a signal rocket, and rode at full tilt past another encounter before the others were aware of them...I think that is going to bite them later on though.

Something I'm a bit unclear on wrt Movement (p57). It says that a normal MOV is a free action. Free action isn't really defined anywhere that I've found, but in some Techniques e.g. Multiple Attacks and Multiple Defences it says "This is truly extra; free and clear of multi-action penalties. It still counts as an action", and the Technique Reference at the back makes it clear that the multi-action penalty fr these techniques is still advanced.

The example of Multiple Actions on p56 mentions that "If you attack, defend, run and jump you have -20 to the second action, -40 on the third and -60 on the fourth". "Run" I'm assuming means "Sprint" here rather than a normal MOV. I'm also not sure how you could do those actions in that order, as you would normally attack, run and jump on your turn, and defend outside it (it could be a defence against a counter-attack I suppose),

So does making a normal move still advance the multi-action marker, or is the intention that a move is something that you can always do on your turn with no penalty? Obviously Sprinting, Stealth etc do count for the purposes of advancing the multi-action penalty.

As an aside, can you split your MOV i.e. move 2, attack, move 2, attack, etc?

Phew - hope that makes sense!

Annnnd:

Scabbard of the Fray (p74) : This seems to be the same as a Shield (+20 resistance). Does it stack with a Shield? If not, what is the magical advantage of it?

Love the use of the signal rocket!

Movement

I believe you are understanding it correctly.

Move is free and does not incur a multi-action penalty. Running/springing is an action and it does incur a multi-action penalty.

You can split your move. This is how press the attack can come into play.

You could move some, use lightness some, move some more, attack, move some more or any combination. Battle grounds get very dynamic as PCs and NPCs are moving and leaping all over the place. There are tactics here too that your players will develop over time depending on their skills and play style.

Standard shield is +20 to resistance rolls against anything that it might help protect against.

The scabbard of the fray is +20 to resistance rolls vs melee attacks when held.

Shield blocks many things, scabbard of the fray only blocks melee attacks.

Scabbard must be held (see description and/or picture of heroine on the cover of the book), likely in off hand with weapon in other. I suppose one could drop their sword and put a shield on one arm and hold a scabbard of the fray in the other. Up to GM if this would stack or not.

Are you using the Destiny Cards for your game? They really add to the play. If drivethrurpg did boxed sets we would have bundled them with the game.

They are free to download: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/316061/Art-of-Wuxia-Destiny-Deck

Ok, that all sounds reasonable but I'm having difficulty in seeing what the advantage of it is as a magical item!

Yes I have them as pdf but haven't yet printed them out. Also we thought we'd get our heads round the base game first!

Unfortunately with shipping and taxes they would cost me about £30 (we are in the UK) i.e. approx $40, as it seems from Drivethru that they are printed in the US and then shipped. So I'll just have to print them myself.

Mind you at this rate I might have to go back and order the hardback rules, which are printed in the UK (I already have the softback)