Jarkoon - Adventures on Planet X!

Hello, I am delighted to see this game updated and a map of Jarkoon, no less! I had a rules question I was hoping you could help me with. The Psion Powers of Heightened Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom appear to allow for these ability scores to be raised beyond 18 to 22! Am I reading this correctly? The Ability Bonus section of the rules mentions bonuses only up to an ability score of 18. How should ability scores over 18 be treated? Is this something that is just up to the Game Master to make a ruling on? Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi Simon! I'm a big fan of your X! series, and was thrilled to see one of my favourite genres (Sword & Planet) receive the X! treatment. I have a suggestion for another favourite genre of mine: how about Golden Age jungle adventure? This is a genre that has really been neglected in tabletop RPGs despite being a great fit for the hobby. What's more, Comicbookplus is positively full of Golden Age jungle comics (such as Sheena, Thun'da, Cave Girl, Kaanga, Rulah, and many more).

OK, then.

Not only do we have a game that does Flash Gordon / John Carter / __insert sword & planet pulp hero here__, but I think I just found the game that can do Dark Sun in 18 pages, too.

:D

And if you get all the games in Simon's X series, you can mix and match. For example, chase rules are in the Lies & Spies release, but they could easily be imported into a sword & planet (or even fantasy) setting if you wanted to do that. Awwwwesome.

A great little game, and my second in the X! series. 7 classes (1 an alien race), a bestiary and some world background in about 18 pages. The classes ooze golden age atmosphere and cover all the bases. Nice bestiary including psionic spiders, the very cool Grimgazer, and degenerate remnants of the old masters plotting revenge from subterranean lairs (make sure and create new creatures from here http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Comic_Book_Characters - gotta love the Batmen of Luna). Jarkoon gives enough info to get something started and open-ended enough to really make it your own . Would also be great for Barsoom, Old Mars, Amtor, Mongo, Scorpio, Callisto, or ...whatever you want, even Planet Hulk (the genre conventions for sword & planet consistent and well-developed).
You could probably even do an inner-earth kind of thing - like the Warlord comic with just flavour changes - like 'offworllder' becomes 'surface dweller' and adding lizard men and also a commie cold-war antagonist. A lost world thing...See more would be even easier, get a good dinosaur reference, and maybe add some Nazis.

Seriously, buy it. It's a lot of bang for your buck, and a distilled crash course in the genre. Mr. Washbourne - after reading this I really, really want some kind of psychedelic feudal space opera like Dune for me lol - I think it could probably cobble it from just from the Jarkoon rules alone but I'm sure you'd do it a million times better.

I discovered one other small mistake....the Astronomer's Invent Device progression seems off. They are listed as receiving a level 3 device at level 3...looking over the pattern from the other X games I am assuming this should be a level 2 device.

I am home sick today and was surfing drivethru for something new and interesting. Just bought and read Jarkoon - Adventures on Planet X! I love it! The rules are a nice simple adaption of old style D&D. The character classes are great. The world and background take me right back to Lin Carter, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Moorcock, etc. Simon, I hope you plan to put out some supporting material in the future. Till then, as well as mining to books of the genre I think several Conan adventures could be adapted well.

Thank you good sir! And may I suggest you go with your first instinct if the advantage/disadvantage system didn't feel right for this one. I tend to muck things up if I get too fiddly with something. My initial gut feeling is usually spot on because it hasn't had time to be prejudiced in any way.

This is GREAT Simon! But I have a few questions- what is the range of the Psion's telekinesis power? The Astronomer's Levitation belt- is it one use per level per adventure like the Feather fall belt? And if so, is there a duration or is it meant to be up or down any distance per use? Lastly, no Advantage/Disadvantage chart on this one?
Questions aside, this is easily my favorite of the X series. Thanks a million!