Yeah, that's one thing I don't like about PPs (and the same applies to prestige classes to some extent): you may have a concept in mind from early on, but you have to wait until later to get the mechanics to back it up.
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Earthdawn 4e Announced
- Thread starter Shroomy
- Start date
Donovan Morningfire
First Post
Very interesting. I'd always liked the basic ideas of Earthdawn in terms of setting, and look forward to hearing more about this as time goes on.
Nightchilde-2
First Post
Okay, I'm totally geeking on this. Earthdawn was what I played when I wanted fantasy and was going through my anti-2nd edition phase. I noticed the similarities between Earthdawn and 4e and thought "man, it'd be pretty easy to convert..."
Looks like I don't have to now.
Oh man....I wish this'd come out. Soon. I'm normally not a fan of system ports but my love of T'skrang know no limit.
As for Redbrick's quality, quite good. Really couldn't tell much difference between their stuff and the FASA stuff in terms of quality.
Looks like I don't have to now.
Oh man....I wish this'd come out. Soon. I'm normally not a fan of system ports but my love of T'skrang know no limit.
As for Redbrick's quality, quite good. Really couldn't tell much difference between their stuff and the FASA stuff in terms of quality.
IIRC, the limit was one thread per rank in the Threadweaving talent. Threadweaving was also used by spellcasters to power their spells.
Another big issue with ED magic items was that you had to learn stuff about it in order to awaken the higher-level powers. I think you always needed to learn the item's Name (Names are a big thing in ED, as evidenced by the eight PC races collectively being known as "namegivers") to get the first powers, but later you needed to learn of various events in the item's history, previous owners, who created it, and so on. You could also relive the item's legend in order to gain bonus XP to spend on awakening more powers. E.g. if the original owner had perished fighting a certain horror, one of the item's high-level deeds would probably be killing said horror.
Exactly. When I first looked at Earthdawn, I thought "This is like D&D, only with logical reasons." People built magical underground shelters to hide from the Horrors, many failed, and can be looted by enterprising characters (though the horrors might still be there). You become supernaturally powerful eventually, because you're infusing yourself with magic. Spellcasters wear robes, because at the beginning of the scourge they wove their spell matrices into them and now it's tradition.
You have classes and levels (disciplines and circles), but they work in reverse. Your discipline gives you access to certain talents (early ones tend to be magic-boosted skills, with higher-level ones being more overtly magical). You spend XP to increase their power, and when you're good enough you can advance to the next circle in your discipline, which gives you access to two or three new talents.
It also has an interesting way of balancing races. In the game, there is something called Karma, which can be used to enhance certain talents. Some talents require you to spend Karma, while it's optional for others (depending on your discipline). You buy Karma by spending XP, and for the more powerful races (like Obsidimen and Trolls), it's more expensive than for others, and they also gain less benefit (an Obsidiman adds +D4 to the roll when they spend karma and pays maybe 10 XP for it, while a windling adds +D10 and spends maybe 5 XP). This means that more powerful races advance slower.
Like in 3e, there are no class limits based on race, but of course certain races are more suited to certain classes (you won't see many windling warriors).
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
This is not true. About half of the Disciplines in the core rulebook had Racial Restrictions.
Obsidimen could not become Archers, Beastmasters, Cavalrymen, Sky Raiders, Swordmasters, or Thieves.
T'Skrang could not become Beastmasters.
Windlinds could not become Nethermancers or Sky Raiders.
Elves could not become Sky Raiders.
Trolls could not become Thieves.
Dwarves, Humans and Orks had no discipline restrictions in the core.
Imaro
Legend
This just made me alot more interested in 4e. I loved Earthdawn under FASA, and really think it was, and to an extent still is, one of the best games for the fantasy genre ever created. I will be honest though, I'm hoping that the 4th ed. version will give Redbrick enough capital to actually get their classic version in game stores instead of it being print on demand... as this is what has made me hesitant to buy into the game again, the lack of it being easily available. Though in the end I would probably pick up both versions (as long as the 4th ed. version isn't another "DragonLords of Melnibone fiasco). In fact this would actually move into my number one setting slot and I probably would end up avoiding most of the WotC settings.
The few things of the top of my head, I worry about in a conversion (and take this with a grain of salt as it has been awhile since I played or read Earthdawn) are...
1. The magic system... while it took a minute to wrap your head around it, was a pretty elegant system. It replicated alot of flavor through mechanics and I hope they don't loose this in going with 4th ed. "blaster powers" system. There were no artificial limitations on what and how many spells you could cast except the time to generate the spell threads and whether your roll succeeded.
2. Talents and skills...some things in Earthdawn had both a talent and skill equivalent (like thievery), so an adept Thief might have the thievery talent, while anyone else could pick up the skill. Also there were no arbitrary restrictions on skills because of what type of adept you were.
3. Magic Items... Earthdawn had a totally different paradigm when it came to magic items. There wasn't a "trade up", or even "grab a bunch" mentality. Magic items in Earthdawn were more mythical in feel... every major magic item was a pretty big deal. Only through learning it's history and performing deeds that resonated with it's purpose was a character able to unlock more and more powers within the item. I don't see D&D 4e (at least as it is now doing this very well... it's almost a 360 of the... player picks/carries quite a few/auto-knows what it does, mentality)
The few things of the top of my head, I worry about in a conversion (and take this with a grain of salt as it has been awhile since I played or read Earthdawn) are...
1. The magic system... while it took a minute to wrap your head around it, was a pretty elegant system. It replicated alot of flavor through mechanics and I hope they don't loose this in going with 4th ed. "blaster powers" system. There were no artificial limitations on what and how many spells you could cast except the time to generate the spell threads and whether your roll succeeded.
2. Talents and skills...some things in Earthdawn had both a talent and skill equivalent (like thievery), so an adept Thief might have the thievery talent, while anyone else could pick up the skill. Also there were no arbitrary restrictions on skills because of what type of adept you were.
3. Magic Items... Earthdawn had a totally different paradigm when it came to magic items. There wasn't a "trade up", or even "grab a bunch" mentality. Magic items in Earthdawn were more mythical in feel... every major magic item was a pretty big deal. Only through learning it's history and performing deeds that resonated with it's purpose was a character able to unlock more and more powers within the item. I don't see D&D 4e (at least as it is now doing this very well... it's almost a 360 of the... player picks/carries quite a few/auto-knows what it does, mentality)
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
I wouldn't bet on that, even if the 4e version sells exceedingly well.
I mean, Redbrick is based in New Zealand. Do you know how hard it would be for them to organize printing, warehousing, and shipping for the main RPG market (the USA) when they are on the opposite site of the globe?
Having major print runs is always a significant risk for game publishers, and it would be even more so for Redbrick. Thus, they have done the sensible thing and stuck to Print On Demand, which has far fewer financial risks for them and allows them to have their publications "in stock" forever. I don't expect that to change any time soon.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
DragonLords of Melnibone fiasco? Inquiring demands want to know more. (In hope of avoiding to go off-topic too much)
I could see implementing mechanics to replicate that feel. I think 4E might provide a framework to do this - imagine such powers having a "Sustain" clause and only an effect if you stop sustaining it - and the effect based on how long you did so. There are probably other options, but it remains to be seen if they even want to adapt major portions of the Earthdawn magic system, or focus more on recreating the general theme of the individual spells and talents.
I have not played Earthdawn myself, but a few of my players did. They didn't really describe this as a strength, but mostly because it was way to hard to improve the non-magical variations of skills. (I guess that was intentional, but it also means that they don't offer much tot he gameplay).
I assume you meant 180, not 360?
Well, 3E already had Identify spells, and yet you had to "unlock" the Weapons of Legacies using other tricks. If the process of unlocking magic is done in an interesting way, neither 3E nor 4E game design philosophy should stand in the way of implementing something for this.
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