Subject: Re: Juinor Woodchucks guidebook...
From: Lizard <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 1997 00:13:32 -0800

At 02:02 AM 12/7/97 -0500, Kevin J. Chase wrote:

>Any rule for bonuses to Survival-type skills from the JWGB could
>just as easily apply to Carousing/Area Knowlege from the Hitchhiker's
>Guide to the Galaxy or to Occultism/History from Toben's Spirit Guide.
>In fact, considering the number of slightly silly Ultimate References
>in humour fiction, this might be worthy of its own advantage.

Hmmmm....
"Ultimate Guide":This advantage gives the user access to a book, datapad,
scroll, etc, which contains an ungodly amount of information. In theory, 
it can add +1 to any mental skill, or give the user a skill at IQ, for 
the duration of a single task. The main problem is the index. Finding the 
right page will take 5d6-IQ seconds. If a character has any form of luck, 
he can use one 'charge' of that luck to open to the right page immediately.

If the Ultimate Guide can affect ANY Mental Skill, the cost is 25 points.
If the Ultimate Guide can affect only a subset of skills (for example, 
the Intergalactic Guide To Handy Phrases for Travellers can give any
language at IQ for one sentence), the cost is 15 points.

Some guides are...er...fallible. If a guide is fallible, a special roll
must be made to determine if the information is accurate. If it is not, 
the character will critically fail the skill roll he is using the guide 
to aid. This can have amusing consequences. A fallible guide will fail 
on an 8-, and costs five points less than the equivalent non-fallible guide.

A guide can be temporarily lost, stolen, etc, but it is the nature of 
such guides that they always find their way back to their owners.