Q: I noticed a lot of NetHack references in the blurb (wraith corpse eating, shop-lifting, Gnomish mines etc.) Is this just for the blurb, or will I find a lot of annotations to this classic CRPG in FtA itself?
No, its not just a blurb. Nethack and OD&D were the two main inspirations for the game (and of course Nethack was originally inspired by OD&D, so there you go), and the game is full of a very "Nethack" feel to it. You could easily use it to play a tabletop multiplayer version of Nethack.
Q: The stunt thing in addition to movement and combat during the combat round sounds unusual. What's up with this one? What can I do with stunts, and what purpose do they have in the system?
Stunts are used to represent any kind of special maneuvre aside from just attacking or casting spells. So a "stunt" would be any action that didn't involve making an actual regular attack (or magic) in a combat situation. They also describe "special maneuvres" done with skills (any unusual use of a skill, in other words) even outside of combat. So in other words a "stunt" isn't like a feat, you don't buy them or earn them or something like that, they're just a term describing (and guidelines for the GM on how to handle) any kind of special non-standard action that would require an ability check to succeed at.
Q: Are there any dump stats like Charisma that most PCs can safely ignore, or was it a high priority that every attribute has at least a small substantial use for everyone?
The stats are the standard six D&D stats (str, dex, con, int, wis, cha). There are certainly "dump stats" for certain classes. A standard fighter might not need too much charisma; a wizard might make due with not too much strength.
But for certain, there's no stat that's low-necessity for absolutely everyone.
I tried to make sure that all the Stats had utility and that you wouldn't want to be pathetically low at any of the stats. But I wasn't overly obsessed with this particular kind of "game balance".
Q: I heard there're rules to generate dungeons, including room layout, monsters, traps, treasure and what else belongs to it. Does that mean that I can just pick up the dungeon tables and wing an adventure without any prep, or is it just meant to fill smaller gaps on-the-fly?
Yes, you could roll up an entire dungeon as you play, using just a tiny bit of GM discretion. Its the "smaller gaps" you'd probably have to fill in with your own creativity. The Dungeon design rules are made to create the type of dungeon, the rooms, the monsters treasures traps and other weird stuff in the dungeon. Its very complete and probably one of the best features of the game, IMO.
Its still EASIER to roll up the random dungeon before beginning play, but if you're fast with the rolls and good at improvising the little details there's no reason you couldn't just "roll as you go". Indeed, I did exactly that on several of the initial playtest sessions.
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