Horror Stalkers

Discussion on playing Earthdawn. Experiences, stories, and questions related to being a player.
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ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm
Horror Stalkers

Post by ChrisDDickey » Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:24 am

I know that Horror Stalker is not an official part of 4ED (yet). But I would like to discuss how Panda's Horror Stalker "first draft" might work in practice.
http://pandagaminggrove.blogspot.com/20 ... ne-30.html

So the old "Horrors" book (copyright 1995), says
Followers of this Discipline go about their dangerous business in a most disturbing manner. They allow themselves to be Horror-marked, then use the connection to track the dreadful entities and do battle with the enemy. Though considered insane by many, this tactic has proved time and again to be one of the most effective (if suicidal) ways to find Horrors and permanently dispatch them.
However I don't see how any of their talents allowed them to "use the connection to track". How did they do this?

In 4ED, how could it be done? If you have a Horror Mark that "Bear Mark" has sequestered, can you use the mark as a link for "Mystic Pursuit"? How about if Bear mark has not managed to sequester the mark yet, can you use Mystic Pursuit upon a normal mark? Can a normal (non-horror stalker Adept) use Mystic Pursuit upon a horror mark? Is there any other Talent or circumstance where purposely getting horror marked could possibly be considered a (somewhat suicidal) advantage?

Assuming you are not a spellcaster who can raw cast, or cast Astral Flare, is there any way to increase your chances of getting horror marked (assuming it is somehow an advantage) other than wandering around trying to look like an easy mark? Shouldn't the horror stalker have some sort of "Astral Flare" ability?

So what do people think of Horror Stalker Discipline and Talent lists?
Sense Corruption just seems to be a more detailed expansion of horror stalker half magic. A good talent, but it kind of weakens the half magic ability. You would never roll the half magic, though I suppose having the GM roll it for you is still a powerful advantage.
Gaze into the Abyss seems to double up your horror lore and Call of Harrow ranks. Is it useful for anything else? I mean can you add it to Mystic Pursuit? Astral Sense?
I was pretty unimpressed with Karma Purge, until I recalled that some horrors have much bigger karma dice than me. Giving up a bunch of my Step 4 karma to cancel a horrors step 10 karma suddenly started sounding like a good deal.
Exploit corruption I think I am missing something obvious. OK, so obviously this can be used for the occasional Mystic Pursuit or Steely Stare, and for that matter it could be used along with Gaze into the abyss to make sure your Call of Harrow tests get lots of successes, but it seems to me that there are probably one or two Talents this was supposed to work with that are no-brainers. I just have not thought of it yet. It specifically says it can't be used with Attack, Damage, or Initiative. It seems to me it can't be used with Avoid Blow, since that is a test against a horrors test, not a test against any of a horrors defenses. So what is the killer combo here?
I think Bear Mark and Bane Strike are obvious.

I would love to see the discipline extended beyond circle 8. Particularly as the discipline is meant to be a 2nd discipline, I would have loved to see ether "Soul Strike" or "Ethereal Weapon" make an appearance. If there is one discipline who needs it, this is it. I mean a Horror stalker gets the ability to see horrors lurking in Astral Space at circle one, and the ability to do anything about them, never?


So what do you all think? In general about the discipline and how it works, and about tactics?

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: Horror Stalkers

Post by ChrisDDickey » Fri Oct 05, 2018 5:20 am

OK, discussions on another channel answered some of the questions here.
It seems like previous versions of "Bear Mark" included explicit text that the mark could be used as links for talents.

For example:
original bear mark did more did the exact same thing as written as in panda
+ this
Bear Mark also allows the adept to exploit the Horror’s connection to him towards his own ends. If he knows a magical ability that allows him to track or locate a target, he may use an isolated Horror-mark to fulfill any requirements that ability has to establish a connection to a target. For example, the isolated Horror-mark counts as an item associated with the target for the Direction Sense talent.
In the "Horrors" book Bear Mark was worded somewhat differently, it had added
Horror stalkers may also use the Bear Mark talent to determine the location of the nearest Horror that has marked them. To do so the character must make a Bear Mark Test ...
So with that rule set, it was direct, you did not need a 2nd talent to track the horror.

So that whole suicidal tactic thing seems to have been removed. Or at least not explicitly called out as being legal. Some GMs have commented that they would allow a detected Horror Mark to serve as a 2 way link, not just a one way link. So the horror can affect you, but you can use the horror mark as a link for Mystic Pursuit.

Also, the comment was made that it seems that "Exploit Corruption" does not seem to have a "no brainer" link to any one specific Horror Stalker discipline talent that all Horror Stalkers have. It is just there to serve as a huge bonus to: maneuver, distract, taunt, tactics, or any other buff or debuff talent that the Horror Stalker might have from his other discipline.

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