From the Vault: E-Dawn 6

This newsletter isn't a recap, but is very rant based about some things I don't like about Earthdawn. 

E-Dawn Volume 6: June 2004 Edition

On Half-Magic

Why does this exist in #Earthdawn? The main rulebook classifies all abilities into two categories, talents with magic powering them, or skills, mundane abilities based on skill and learning. The Adepts Way and Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets brought in a concept allowing for the combination of talent and skill, magic and mundane, or Half-Magic. Conceptually, this was meant to fill in the gaps of a Discipline’s knowledge. So rather than clean up the skills system and give more skill points to have these Discipline background skills, they introduce a new concept that is essentially a cop-out. Worse, the Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets adds in Half-Magic abilities that I argue are not Half-Magic, but rather pure magic, and should be talents such as elemental weaving or summoning abilities. Even worse, I don’t know how many times I’ve asked for a Half-Magic Test and the player responds with, “What is my Half-Magic step?” Then we have to waste a minute of session time explaining its Circle/ 2 rounded up and calculate it, for the billionth time. In a game where ranks determine abilities, Half-Magic is an aberration, an almost #DungeonsansDragons-esque concept of leveling growing abilities ala saves and base attack bonus.

But how can this be fixed? First of all, determine the Half-Magic of a particular discipline. Been thinking about the Air Sailor recently. Half-Magic is essentially Climbing, Craftsman; Airship, and Discipline Lore; Air Sailor skills. At First Circle, all of these skills gain 1 Rank. At Third Circle, all of these skills become Rank 2, At Fifth Circle, all of these skills become Rank 3, and so on. At Fifteenth Circle, they would be Rank 8, within the maximum parameter of Rank 10 for Skills. At First Circle, the Air Sailor discipline gains Karma on Climbing, Craftsman; Airship, and Discipline Lore; Air Sailor tests as a Discipline ability. Now we have Half-Magic except that we’ve split it into magical discipline sources (Karma) and the raw skills. It should also be easier to roll these tests with the ranks defined rather than figuring it out via equation every time.

Disciplines that have purely magical Half-Magic skills, like Elemental Weaving would gain them as Talents at the appropriate Circle with 1 Rank automatic at that Circle. After that it can be raised as any other talent of that Circle. This also means an Elementalist can actually increase his Elemental Summoning and Weaving abilities rather than relying on passive statistics.

On Journeyman

I have tried a great deal many things to make this Discipline work. The unfortunate truth is that the core problem is that the discipline concept itself just doesn’t work. Essentially, it’s a Discipline based upon Versatility, but none of the other racial Disciplines are based upon their racial advantage. Nor does a Discipline based upon Versatility have the purpose or focus that any of the other Disciplines do in the Earthdawn world. It started out as essentially a munchkin class to pick up all the best talents in the game, which I tried to cut down upon by the Journeyman path idea, rewarding those who had a decent Discipline concept over pure munchkinism. It’s not that hard to make a Journeyman character, but playing one is far too hard.

The real truth of the matter was that anytime I played a Journeyman, having to up Versatility to up my other talents forced my character to always be one circle lower than the rest of the party and it was impossible to balance my character out too. The fact that training via Versatility meant I needed 120 hours for Second Circle versus 40 hours for other Disciplines meant I would never be able to catch up to the rest of the group even in longer downtime periods. There is also the fact that many of the journeymen paths can be accomplished merely by having two Disciplines at high circles.

So after eight years of gaming there is still no solution to all these problems. Personally, I’m probably going to eliminate the Discipline entirely by our next game and make any current journeyman pathways into full Disciplines up to Tenth Circle in their own right.

On Vorst

The Vorst get +1 to TOU and WIL, but get to have one of the worst attitudes and double the time of everything they do. Seems a little unfair to me, especially since they can only meditate once a day to every other characters two a day meditations. I was wondering if anyone would rather the Vorst have a +1 to TOU OR WIL and ignore the time penalty except for things that require perfection where you actually make something substantial, like creation/forging of weapons or artisan skill tests and of course keep the attitude problem. What’s everyone think? I want feedback on this.

Unusual Discipline/Race Combinations Number 3

Elf Cavalryman

The first thing that strikes me is that the elf probably will almost always want an elegant mount, either a riding horse, war horse, or a Unicorn. A Female elf Cavalryman on a Unicorn is definitely a fantasy classic.

Strengths of the Elf here: Dexterity of +2 means that they have a higher chance to hit with Melee Weapons than most Cavalrymen, especially if playing Earthdawn First Edition. The +1 on all mental statistics is extremely useful, since Animal Bond is based on Charisma, Spirit Mount on Perception, and the crucial Trick Riding and Empathic Command on Willpower.

Weaknesses of the Elf here: No strength modifier means the Elf is going to need high Charge ranks to keep competitive with enemy TOU stats to avoid falling off or dropping weapons. The -2 to TOU is not actually that big a deal, as the Cavalryman’s 7/6 Durability is very good. Unfortunately, a lower TOU step means the Elf will have less of an ability to use Blood Share to shift damage to his mount or vice versa.

Attributes (66 purchase points)

DEX: 14+2=(16) 7/D12

STR: (13): 6/D10

TOU: 16-2=(14): 6/D10

PER: 11+1=(12): 5/D8

WIL: 13+1= (14): 6/D10

CHA: 12+1=(13): 6/D10

All but PER is Step 6, and it will be by Second Circle by adding +1 to it. By Fourth Circle you probably should up PER again and CHA to 14, giving you 8 base Social/Spell. After that I recommend +2 in Willpower to up Trick Riding, your best evasive talent by Sixth Circle you’ll be at Step 7. You’ll definitely want to put 2 Ranks in Charge and Trick Riding at First Circle, making only Animal Bond Step 7, all else at Step 8. I recommend picking up Animal Training as a Talent as Skill as soon as possible.

If going for the Unicorn idea, don’t try it till Sixth Circle, when you have Dominate Beast available and Durability [Mount] as well. Animal Training is a plus too. Unicorn are dangerous foes, you’ll probably need a party to fight them off if things go badly. Though the legends say the lonely lady is the chosen of the unicorn…

This distribution is pretty good, as by Second Circle, you can up perception to 13 to get +1 step. You can also up willpower to 13 to get +1 step by Fourth Circle. This gives 4 Step 6 and 2 Step 7 stats by Fourth Circle. By Seventh Circle, adding +1 to perception, willpower, and charisma will add +1 Spell and Social Defenses and +1 Mystic Armor. Or you can decide to up dexterity to 16 to get +1 step and +1 Physical Defense by Sixth Circle instead.

          You should probably start out with 2 ranks in Dominate Beast and Unarmed Combat. Getting Karma Ritual and Claw Shape up to 2 should be the next priority. Animal Bond needs to go up to 4 to use Animal Training, but for now go to 2 and hold. Upon your level up, you’ll gain +1 perception. Put up Tracking and Creature Analysis to 2 and hold. You’ll spend a lot of LPs getting up Animal Bond and Animal Training to Rank 4, but it’s worth it since it’s the only way weaker creatures can survive at higher circles. After this you’ll breeze through to Third Circle fairly quickly, just up 4 talents to 3. Since your dwarf doesn’t have really good dexterity, he should concentrate on getting and training as many animals as possible to add more attacks to the group.