House rules for more power and less fiddling
Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 3:46 pm
Though Earthdawn has shed many of the burdening atavisms from the dark ages of pen&paper rpgs over its editions, I still have a need to simplify and streamline. Here are my house rules.
What do you think? Do they serve their purpose? Suggestions or critique? And what are your own house rules?
- 1) Karma is a permanent bonus d6 to all appropriate talents & tests except those attained by Versatility. => So more dice-power to the adepts, making even lower circles visibly superior.
2) These bonus d6 can be rerolled in a number of tests per day equal to the species' Karma modifier (e. g. Windlings can reroll the Karma d6 in six different tests). => So players still have an option to put in more effort or save their characters' asses.
3) All strain is reduced by one. => No one dies/faints from dodging (or holding threads ) which was always weird to me and talents can be used basically all the time. Strong talents like Riposte still hurt a bit however. This streamlines the game and makes adepts more remarkable again.
4) No training time except for advancing circles and leaning new disciplines. => If you have enough lp, just buy it whenever - even midcombat. Again streamlining, but I like the idea of sudden epiphanies in the relation to one's discipline. A sudden increase of power has a nice anime feel, too.
What do you think? Do they serve their purpose? Suggestions or critique? And what are your own house rules?