Earthdawn 4e Announced

[Vyvyan Basterd]

...or you could just play oldschool ED and leave D&D to D&D...

I would love to play ED. I bought everything FASA produced back in the day. When the adventures dried up I tried making my own...

I play D&D because I know I will have a steady inflow of published adventures to help do most of the work for me. I find very little time to craft my own nowadays, especially if the system is difficult to craft your own adventures in. Which I found to be the case with ED. YMMV.

 

[Then]

At least we can see actual dragons for a change.

D&D dragons are pathetic compared to Earthdawn dragons.

As for Redbrick and product...be prepared for a long wait. Small company with so many different products they do equals not many people per product, look at their ED stuff. see any actual new product? No. It's been 'in the works' for 5 years....

 

[Vocenoctum]

At least we can see actual dragons for a change.

D&D dragons are pathetic compared to Earthdawn dragons.

As for Redbrick and product...be prepared for a long wait. Small company with so many different products they do equals not many people per product, look at their ED stuff. see any actual new product? No. It's been 'in the works' for 5 years....

Paint me cautiously optimistic. I loved ED as much as I loved SR. FanPro destroyed SR for me and I wasn't very impressed with LRG's ED. I have no clue how Redbrick is, but I'm willing to give them a shot.

The problem being, I can easily see this as getting lost in the shuffle and never released. I mean, when did they start? When will it release?

How will the GSL stuff about not chaning a rule constrain them from some of the central concepts of ED?

I'll buy it either way, but I doubt it'll be here this year.

 

[SteelCoyote]

I would love to play ED. I bought everything FASA produced back in the day. When the adventures dried up I tried making my own...

I play D&D because I know I will have a steady inflow of published adventures to help do most of the work for me. I find very little time to craft my own nowadays, especially if the system is difficult to craft your own adventures in. Which I found to be the case with ED. YMMV.

Lol, I'm in CO, look me up and we'll blow the dust off the FASA stockpile I have. If ED seems overdone, we can whip out Crimson Skies or MechWarrior

I agree that ED was do it yourself, which was most of the appeal (at least for me); but yeah, it sucks when you don't have time.

-=-

D&D ought to be ashamed that ED had a better Dragon concept. "Never Deal With a Dragon" held true for both ED and SR, especially where "deal" meant "attempt to kill".

I liked that.

-=-

Too bad some companies are narrow minded. I would have loved to see the innovative new ideas Shadowrun would have brought to the d20 System.

I always thought D20 Modern/Future was the d20 stab at SR...and never found it entertaining.

SR was/could be downright brutal. One-shot PC kills were a very real threat in most of the campaigns I played and ran. As someone said, any Joe Punk can get a lucky shot in every now and then, and one's all it takes.

Now, consider that the Joe Punk is actually a Corp's hired gun waiting in ambush to take out a certain "problem" and it's a whole lot deadlier than mere random chance.

...Especially if said Gun's been doing nothing but aiming his Smartlinked/E-3x zoomed Heckler & Koch MSG67 at your character's head for the past three rounds...

As I recall, the GM set the stage with:

"Ok, since you're all crowded around the single terminal the Decker's using, you're all covered in Blitzkrieg's grey-matter as the HV round takes the majority of his cranium off its base, leaving his jawbone and very little pulp above it. Roll initiative; except you, Blitz, you can make up a new character...Sorry."

-=-

And, since we touched on it: my love of SR holds up until 3e, which I loathe. 2e was the pinnacle for me. The "Initiative Pass" crap of 3 ruined the "Fast Vs Tough" balance that 2.0 achieved (at least IMHO). SR 2.0 fixed the wonkiness of 1.0 (and no more "Turn to Goo!") and it's the only edition I miss and still would love to play...

 

[Jhaelen]

As for Redbrick and product...be prepared for a long wait. Small company with so many different products they do equals not many people per product, look at their ED stuff. see any actual new product? No. It's been 'in the works' for 5 years....

Hmm? I've seen plenty of new products. Where've you been looking?

I sincerely doubt, it'll take that long.
They wouldn't have made the announcement if they weren't confident they'll be able to get it published in the near future. If they manage to get it out at about the time WotC publishes the Eberron source books, I'll definitely use Earthdawn as a campaign setting.

If it's significantly later, I'm still going to buy it, but probably won't use it as my game's setting.

I've also seen several attempts by fans at translating stuff from Earthdawn into 4E D&D, e.g. the races. So it would probably also be possible to get a campaign started before the 'official rules are available.

 

[Voadam]

Indeed. The hardest to replicate is the insane speed Shadowrun combat takes place. In 3 seconds (a round), the average street samurai can probably get off 6 shots and probably kill 3 simple guards.

Shadowrun was only lethal to the PCs if you fought against opposition of equal strength or where ambushed. There was a high theoretical lethality, but it rarely was actualized in the game.

But the rest of the Shadowrun themes can be very easy to replicate.


But err, weren't we talking about Earthdawn?

Let me introduce you to the high level straight 17th level fighter in my 3.5 D&D group. Elven archer with improved multishot and often with haste going gets 6 arrows a six second round. He has something like a (magically enhanced) 26 dex and improved initiative. Regularly kills multiple non leader guards in a round.

In 3.5 init and ambushes matter a lot, fights don't often last more than a few rounds. Fighting equal strength opposition in D&D can be lethal too but they also have a good survivability factor against lesser foes from level based hp and saves, though lesser foes can occasionally get lucky.

Earthdawn had even more directly applicable D&Disms with their classes and spell systems and magic items.

 

[Andor]

Let me introduce you to the high level straight 17th level fighter in my 3.5 D&D group. Elven archer with improved multishot and often with haste going gets 6 arrows a six second round. He has something like a (magically enhanced) 26 dex and improved initiative. Regularly kills multiple non leader guards in a round.

In 3.5 init and ambushes matter a lot, fights don't often last more than a few rounds. Fighting equal strength opposition in D&D can be lethal too but they also have a good survivability factor against lesser foes from level based hp and saves, though lesser foes can occasionally get lucky.

Earthdawn had even more directly applicable D&Disms with their classes and spell systems and magic items.

So wait .... are you saying the explaination for Hawk the Slayer was elven cyberware? Those cheating pointy eared bastards...

 

[SSquirrel]

Artificer might also come close?

While I do have a few Eberron books, I never have sat down and really absorbed them completely. The whole "hard time getting too enthused when I know I won't get to use them anytime soon" dilemma. So entirely possible. Just spoke for the AE stuff since I know it well

 

[The_lurkeR]

Any word on when this is coming out?
Poking around in their forums (very briefly) I didn't see any dates mentioned.

 

[arma]

Any word on when this is coming out?
Poking around in their forums (very briefly) I didn't see any dates mentioned.

Hi,

RedBrick does not, as a general rule, announce release dates.
Every book receives as much work (and sometimes more ) as it needs to receive to be a good, useable, and quality product.
Our intention is to make good games, nothing else*.
The publishing model RedBrick (among a few others) spearheads allows us to circumvent some of the restrictions imposed on the more traditional publishers, and RedBrick is not trying to get a release out every year/quarter/month/week, and is not bound to the "typical" page numbers**.

Things are a bit less predictable where release dates and sales price are concerned and there are less previews and teasers. We cannot change this, sorry. (And we don't want to.)



*well, perhaps earning that extra buck so we can pay for convention presence
** as in "this is going into development soon, itwill be a 96-page product"