Earthdawn 4e Announced

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I didn't see this on the news page or anywhere in the forums, but a 4e version of Earthdawn was announced; its called Earthdawn: Age of Legend. You can read about it here

Sounds interesting.

Anyone know more about redbrick limited? What's the quality of their material?

Is there reasonable hope for them to create supplements, specifically adventures to go with the new setting?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Sounds interesting.

Anyone know more about redbrick limited? What's the quality of their material?

In a word, awesome. With the caveat that they are all done with the Print On Demand technology of Lulu.Com, which means that they are (a) slightly more expensive than other gaming books, and (b) it takes two weeks or so to arrive after you have ordered them, since they need to be printed first (it takes longer for hardcover books than for softcover books). Oh, and they are all in black & white only.

I recently bought the Earthdawn Player's Companion together with some Fading Suns books, which is a massive, 524 page hardcover book, and it is done very well indeed. The Earthdawn Gamemaster's Companion and Nations of Barsaive, Volume One are also on order.

Is there reasonable hope for them to create supplements, specifically adventures to go with the new setting?

Odds are good, especially since they have published quite a few adventures for their existing lines (though some of these adventures might be PDF-only).


What I like about Earthdawn is that it justifies all those D&D tropes. I mean, the setting is supposed to be prehistoric Earth, yet it all still seems to work somehow:

- All those abandoned dungeons waiting to be plundered: They were settlements who hid from the horrors, but whose defenses have been breached by them. Now brave adventures descend on them, slay the terrible monsters within, and loot the treasure! And best of all, this is a public service since the horrors are a threat to everyone.
- The way magic works actually explains character classes - by following certain mystical archetypes (swordmaster, troubadour, illusionist, thief), you can build your own "legend", and the magic forces of the world reward you for this by giving you extra power (oh, and incidentally: If you have good PR and stories of your exploits spread, you gain extra XP! I always thought that that was a nice touch...). This also justifies why characters not only gain all sorts of spectacular power, but also get more hit points - the magic makes their bodies more resilient.

I can see D&D 4E working very well for Earthdawn, as long as you don't insist on converting every Earthdawn talent. Just use existing classes, and make a note that all class powers ultimately derive from magic...

 

[fuindordm]

4e is made for Earthdawn. Much more than FR or Eberron.

I have to agree. There are a lot of parallels between the two.

Earthdawn has "recovery tests". 4E has healing surges. Healing magic activates and sometimes enhances the character's limited healing resource in both games.

Earthdawn has physical/spell/social defenses based mainly on your primary attributes. 4E has fort/reflex/will defenses. Armor soaks damage in ED, but is treated as a separate defense in 4E.

(Aside: I think armor as DR would work a lot better in 4E than in any previous edition, mainly because the damage scale has increased enough that any DR less than 10 will still not prevent all damage from most monsters.)

Earthdawn has 'karma' which can be used to enhance actions and sometimes are required for potent powers. 4E has action points. (ED has the interesting mechanic that karma is more useful for races with fewer special features.)

Earthdawn has thread magic and blood magic in addition to spells, that any character can use. 4E has rituals.

Magic items in Earthdawn do not usually bring exceptional power to the characters. They gain an enhancement bonus that scales with level, and might allow the use of an extra ability or two at high levels. 4E seems to have the same philosophy.

Yep, a 4E-ED conversion would be pretty darn easy. To use 4E in Barsaive, you would mainly need a bunch of new rituals for Blood and Thread magic,
allow magic items to scale with level provided their history is known, and to convert four races. The feel of the game would be almost identical.

The most difficult thing to covert would be the Questors and Lightbringers, but I've already seen proposals for "multiclassing only" classes. Three powers obtainable through multiclassing-style feats would be sufficient for each cult.

 

[Jhaelen]

Wow, this is really excellent news! I totally dig this setting

This might be _the_ chance for me to get to play 4E without having to convince my D&D 3E group to switch.

 

[hong]

What are Questors and Lightbringers?

 

[DeusExMachina]

Hmmm, interesting. I read some of the Earthdawn books back in the mid 90's and thought it was an interesting setting, but had some troubles with the system. Also I never managed to get a group to play it.
This could provide some good inspiration for my 4e campaign though...

 

[fuindordm]

What are Questors and Lightbringers?

One unique feature of the ED setting is that there are no gods. People do invoke the "Passions", which are personifications of some primal urge: creativity, nurturing, competition, and so on. They don't have goals in the world, priests, armies, or even personalities--but people call on them for aid and sometimes experience visions.

Questors are people who feel a very strong affinity for one passion and devote themselves to encouraging it in themselves and others. The character can decide to become a questor, and if they show their devotion consistently they can gain access to a few interesting powers.

Lightbringers are a secret society which characters can join in-game and spend some of their experience points on. They fight the horrors, but have a somewhat different view of their role in the world and the nature of magic. Again, PCs can gain powers by devoting enough attention to the cause.

Both could be handled pretty nicely by multi-classing like feats (permitting a power swap) with role-playing requirements.

Ben

 

[hong]

Hm, couldn't you do both via paragon paths?

 

[fuindordm]

Hmmm, interesting. I read some of the Earthdawn books back in the mid 90's and thought it was an interesting setting, but had some troubles with the system. Also I never managed to get a group to play it.
This could provide some good inspiration for my 4e campaign though...

The system was definitely quirky and far from generic, but it worked pretty well in practice. Certainly much better than 2nd edition D&D, which it was competing with at the time.

I did run a mini-campaign with it, and it was a lot of fun. The step system is pretty smooth once you get used to it--once you pass the d12, its job is to associate every possible average result with a triangle or bell curve rather than a linear curve.

The only thing it's really lacking is a Cthulhu-type sanity characteristic...

Ben

 

[fuindordm]

Hm, couldn't you do both via paragon paths?

Sure, but they're both meant to be choices a character can make fairly early in their career.