What to run when you are done with D&D?

[Reynard]

Assuming you have experience with it, what would you say is the "best" version of Earthdawn, rules-wise?

I just bought 4e and read through. The rulesy sections last night. It very much looks like a cleaned up 1e without any paradigm shifting changes. I'm not a huge fan of the design and presentation (walls of prose and limited art) but otherwise I like what see.

 

[beancounter]

Pathfinder

 

[Reynard]

Pathfinder

That's kind of like being tired of spaghetti and switching over to linguini, isn't it?

 

[Staffan]

Assuming you have experience with it, what would you say is the "best" version of Earthdawn, rules-wise?

Unfortunately, Earthdawn has always been one of those games that I would have liked to run but could never build a proper campaign in (as I said elsewhere, one of the major strengths of D&D and Pathfinder is the adventure support). That means I'm not enough of an expert on the rules to say for sure. I will say that it at least looks like they went through the rules and cleaned them up for 4e, while dealing with problematic things as well. They had some design diaries online that explained changes and the reasoning behind them.

But as far as I can tell, the differences between any two editions of Earthdawn (not counting those using entirely other engines) are on par with D&D 3.0 to 3.5. Sure, things are a bit different, but not excessively so.

Lore-wise, Earthdawn 4 has moved the timeline a bit forward. The main effect of this is that the Theran Empire no longer serves as the setting's Big Bad, and that there's a new ork nation around. I'm not sure to what extent these metaplot developments are included in versions 2a, 2b, or 3.

There's substantially less art in ED4 compared to ED1, or at least it feels that way. Most of the art that's there is concentrated to a handful of full-color pages which do look great, but they're not as mood-enhancing as the ED1 art. There's nothing as great as Lorm the Unhappy Troll, for example:

 

[Reynard]

There's substantially less art in ED4 compared to ED1, or at least it feels that way. Most of the art that's there is concentrated to a handful of full-color pages which do look great, but they're not as mood-enhancing as the ED1 art. There's nothing as great as Lorm the Unhappy Troll, for example:
View attachment 149901

I would legit pay a premium for a big Earthdawn coffee table art book.

 

[Voadam]

I’m not a fan of 5Ed, but I have to admit this was a good idea. In fact, I would have appreciated it they did that to ALL the direct damage spells.*

* I have no idea if they did or didn’t, not having bought any 5Ed.

They did. So for more than baseline amount of magic missiles you need to up the spell slot level. Usually it is one extra die of damage per additional spell level. So about equal to the old magic missile every other caster level increase if you use your highest level slot, or half of the old fireball lightning bolt d6 every caster level one. The baselines are a bit higher though with magic missile doing three bolts at 1st level and lightning bolt doing 8d6.

 

[beancounter]

That's kind of like being tired of spaghetti and switching over to linguini, isn't it?

You specifically requested an alternative D&D style game...

Reynard said:
"More specifically, what do you run when you are done with D&D specifically, but still want something "D&D like" -- dungeons, monsters, traps, treasure, etc...?"

 

[Voadam]

That's kind of like being tired of spaghetti and switching over to linguini, isn't it?

1e Pathfinder is very much a very close cousin of 3.5.

2e Pathfinder is a fairly significant d20 departure. I would not be comfortable mechanically swapping around PF 2e modules or monsters with D&D the way I would 3.0/3.5/PF 1e/D20 Modern.

 

[Aldarc]

You specifically requested an alternative D&D style game...

Reynard said:
"More specifically, what do you run when you are done with D&D specifically, but still want something "D&D like" -- dungeons, monsters, traps, treasure, etc...?"

I'm not sure if it's really an "alternative" to D&D when PF1 at least was billed from the start as "keep playing 3.5 D&D."

 

[dragoner]

I have run Mythras instead, in the Jennell Jaquays thread I posted a picture of Caverns of Thracia with my Mythras core; I also used Mythic Constantinople with it, pretty fun. It can also do sci-fi with M-Space.