Earthdawn 4e Announced

[SSquirrel]

I remember buying ED back when it was first released and for some reason it was like reading stereo instructiosn...in japanese...when I don't speak more than choice phrases in other languages Maybe I was just too busy absorbing white wolf games and rifts. Then Iwent to college and started on CoC and otehr stuff and I forgot about my ED book. I think I ended up giving it to a friend of mine who read it and loved it. It always seemed like a neat setting and I dug the whole age before Shadowrun aspect, but the only Shadowrun I had ever done had been a friend's copy and I didn't pick up the cole rules for years. I'm glad it had a good conversion to d20 and will be making the switch to 4E tho, good games are something I'm always happy to see more of.

(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...)

The media presence was an interesting angle in SLA Industries. I'm still a bit miffed about an Aberrant adventure that doesn't mention till the very end "oh yeah, do all this real quiet like and don't let the media notice you". You know, after a knock down drag out fight on a public soccer field and one of our novas flexing for the camera trying to turn a quick interview into an audition for the XWF

 

[The_Gun_Nut]

Shadowrun featured strongly archetypal characters forming teams with good niche protection who routinely go on well-defined missions with clear goals. Whether or not the rules use "classes" or "levels" is not really relevant; it's *thematically* very D&Dish, and things like lethality or how magic works are easily changed from 'core' D20 (look at hit points in Babylon 5, where almost anyone can be killed by a PPG in one or two shots, or the magic system from Sovereign Stone D20, fully skill based, for example).

The setting/themes of SR adapt easily to the style of game supported by D20 -- strongly defined characters, team synergies, etc.

SR had archetypical examples of what a team would need, but this wasn't etched in stone. Indeed, the team members would often cross-train/cross role and the only difference between the sams and everyone else was the fact that the sam had more and higher rated combat skills. There was/is an incredible diversity to how a team may be put together and the stock "roles" are only one example. Levels don't work because of the lethality in the system. While it is often theoretical, this should almost always be the case due to proper planning and execution by the team. A gun in the hand of some random Joe Citizen has the potential to kill almost anyone (crazy troll cyborgs in mil-spec armor need not apply) in Shadowrun, even if the odds are against it. Combat is meant to be scary. Hit point based combat often is not.

Dwarfs and elves were born as dwarfs and elves and did not goblinize into those forms. Orks and trolls appeared later as goblinization swept the globe. Later, orks and trolls were born to normal human parents or to their proper metatype.

It requires a certain ambient level of magic for the exotic races genes to express. For t'skrang and obsidimen the level has to be a bit higher than that required for the others, including windlings. There is evidence in one of the critter sourcebooks for SR that a few windlings have already made an appearance as of 2050 with the relatively low ambient level.

Wasn't terribly impressed with Magic of Incarnum. Didn't seem to add too much to D&D.

Thread limits are based upon the rank of the Thread Weaving talent of the adept. If the adept had 5 ranks in his particular version of Thread Weaving, he could have up to 5 different threads up to rank 5.

One way to represent the improvement of magic items could be to do a quest when the character reaches the appropriate level to have the next level of the item. For example, a PC has a +1 weapon, and when the PC reaches the same level as a +2 weapon, a quest can be undertaken to learn about/unlock the abilities of the weapon. When the quest is finished the item is upgraded and the PC gets new functionality out of it.

As mentioned, telling the stories of your adventures and showing the tokens and trophies of your exploits does grant PC's some extra Legend Points (the XP name in ED). Tales of heroism will help bind the PC's magic more tightly with the heroic ideals of the world and bolster their strength. I hope that this does carry over to 4E somehow.

I am not sure what's to happen first - but isn't one of the first things to hit us VITAS? Let's hope it won't be any of us...

One of the events to happen, yes. The first wave in 2010 wiped out approximately 30% of the worlds population. A second wave in 2022 wiped out another 10% of the population. That works out to be about 2.5 billion dead in a dozen years. Ouch.

I wonder what the adaption of Thread Weaving and Spell Matrices and matrix casting will look like. Possibly some switching out of the different at will powers in a vein similar to how the 4E wizard does with daily spells.

This shall be interesting!

 

[Mokona]

This is interesting, as FASA was very strongly anti-3e/OGL/D20. A pity, since SR would have converted very easily.

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. Rifts could really be improved by d20 combat rules as well, too bad Palladium is stuck in the 80s of game design.

Oh well, at least we've seen innovation from Green Ronin (Mutants & Masterminds). In terms of "corporate" success it is a common fact that established companies are "scared of the future" and aren't as quick to get behind emerging trends as startups.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It may be conventional wisdom, but I'm not sure it's any sort of fact, especially a "common" one.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I'm definitely going to check this out. A couple people told me Violet Dawn is a lot like Earthdawn and I've never even looked through any of the books. It sounds very cool.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Concerning using a horror's power (in ED sense) without defined rules:

With some abilities, sure, ones that warp the world around the Horror and the like. However, anything that is going to be directly interacted with, like mind-affecting powers, illusions, reality warping, and so on should at the very least have guidelines. Also, any power that is going to have ANY combat functionality AT ALL should be fully stated up and not DM fiat silly business.

You're right; I only had the long term, possession-like effects in mind. In my games, we had the horrors mostly acting as puppet-masters. I decided to not let the characters encounter a horror regularly to keep the feeling of dread, together with a serving of helplessness.

My perhaps upcoming (wheels already turning inside my head) ED4e campaign would probably feature one big epic tier horror, two or three paragon tier ones, and a big helping of other baddies working under their guidance.

Let's see... Big Bad Horror gives the PCs a quest to retrieve a legendary item. PCs find the item and start to unlock it secrets - with the help of BBH. BBH intends the PCs to defeat some other horror with this item. Later on, it tries to meke them its pawns. PCs resist and start to work against BBH, which throws ever more powerful whatevers against them, in order to destroy its former minions.

Sounds like a concept to me - oh, when will this book be available?

Huldvoll

Jan van Leyden

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

SR had archetypical examples of what a team would need, but this wasn't etched in stone. Indeed, the team members would often cross-train/cross role and the only difference between the sams and everyone else was the fact that the sam had more and higher rated combat skills. There was/is an incredible diversity to how a team may be put together and the stock "roles" are only one example. Levels don't work because of the lethality in the system. While it is often theoretical, this should almost always be the case due to proper planning and execution by the team. A gun in the hand of some random Joe Citizen has the potential to kill almost anyone (crazy troll cyborgs in mil-spec armor need not apply) in Shadowrun, even if the odds are against it. Combat is meant to be scary. Hit point based combat often is not.

The 3E priority standard system (but even to some extent the later point buys) and the equipment cost for critical equipment made it easy to identify classes.
Riggers, Deckers and Street Samurais all required lots of money, either for cyberware, for their cyberdecks, or for their vehicles and drones. This usually meant Priority A or B on money.
Mages needed Priority A anyway. And once you took mage, you had to decide for one tradition.
If you wanted a Ki Adept, you were usually best off with Priority A for attributes (Priority B was defaulted to magic).
If you wanted to be a face or a techie (without being a Decker/Rigger), you probably spend your highest priorities on Skills.

These broad choices already narrowed you down a lot. You didn't have to say in one archetype, and you could certainly find some wiggle room, but there were still broad concepts.

And Shadowrun combat was never that scary in my experience. But it required good strategy and tactics to be successful in it, and if you didn't optimize your character for firefights, you were certainly in trouble. (And of course, the GM can always set you against deadly opposition and that could mean fast death - that's certainly a feature of the combat model.)

I remember buying ED back when it was first released and for some reason it was like reading stereo instructiosn...in japanese...when I don't speak more than choice phrases in other languages Maybe I was just too busy absorbing white wolf games and rifts. Then Iwent to college and started on CoC and otehr stuff and I forgot about my ED book. I think I ended up giving it to a friend of mine who read it and loved it. It always seemed like a neat setting and I dug the whole age before Shadowrun aspect, but the only Shadowrun I had ever done had been a friend's copy and I didn't pick up the cole rules for years. I'm glad it had a good conversion to d20 and will be making the switch to 4E tho, good games are something I'm always happy to see more of.



The media presence was an interesting angle in SLA Industries. I'm still a bit miffed about an Aberrant adventure that doesn't mention till the very end "oh yeah, do all this real quiet like and don't let the media notice you". You know, after a knock down drag out fight on a public soccer field and one of our novas flexing for the camera trying to turn a quick interview into an audition for the XWF

Importance of media presence reminds me of a little tid-bit I recently read in a Torg book. To strengthen the "ordinaries" in the Possibility Wars, you had to ensure that your tale was told to enough people. If successful, that would allow even people that were converted when a new reality took over the region to survive a second conversion back to the normal world - cruical for the goal of the Storm Knights that wanted to restore Core Earth.

 

[SSquirrel]

One last thought. This is regarding crafting. There is an entire discipline dedicated to crafting who also can adventure. The Weaponsmith's variety of talents and abilities, while not as potent as a front line fighter, are respectable in combat and the discipline can also create and upgrade your adventuring equipment. I'm interested to see what will be done with this discipline.

In a 3E version of the game I would look at the Runethane from AE as something comparable to the Weaponsmith

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In a 3E version of the game I would look at the Runethane from AE as something comparable to the Weaponsmith

Artificer might also come close?

 

[Obryn]

I'm sitting here, tapping my foot impatiently, and glancing meaningfully at my watch.

-O