I haven't had occasion to commune with my collection for a while, so I sat down and counted. Not including Adventures, which may have adventure-specific spells:Jaracove wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:15 amI could put up with having to buy 2 books just so I could get my character to 15th Circle (I hope this trend ends and they have one book to 15th Circle and perhaps a separate book with the setting info if it can't be crammed in). But now it looks like I have to buy 3 separate books if I want my spellcaster to get to 15th Circle and have access to all spells available to him?
ED1 has spells in 7 books, including ED1, ED1C, the Earthdawn Survival Guide, Secret Societies of Barsaive, The Ork Nation of Cara Fahd, and not one but two books entirely devoted to expanding Spellcasting and Magician-oriented adventuring.
ED2 came closest to your demand with spells in only 2 books (ED2 and ED2C) but had 2 books allegedly under development that were devoted to Magicians.
ED3 had 3 books with Spells in them (ED3PG, ED3PC, and Cathay Players' Guide) and also a free pdf with the spells from ESG reprinted.
This is of course not including the books with additional rules for Questors, Talent Knacks, Discipline Variations, Thread Items, new Disciplines, new Races, new Racial Variants, new Equipment, etc.
I really don't think it's fair to ask FASA to correctly guess everything you'll want to do with your character for the next 10 years and put it in a several-thousand page book now. And even if they did, are you really sure you wouldn't rather spread the cost of paying for that book out over 10 years? I've been playing Earthdawn for almost 20 years and have never had occasion to cast a 9th or 10th Circle Spell, so the fact that these were pushed back from ED4C doesn't bother me, especially with how ED4 has expanded the utility of low-Circle spells with Extra Threads and the Cantrip Thread Knacks.Earthdawn is my favourite rpg bar none - but this just killed it for me. I can't justify buying 3 books just so I can have full access to my character (let alone the expense). As far as I'm concerned, that information could and should all be in the core rulebook.
Maybe you just mean "core spells and abilities" should be printed in those two books, but...Many of the core Elementalist and Nethermancer spells came from Arcane Mysteries. Silent Stampede is now a core Illusionist Spell and it came from Cara Fahd. And where would Wizards be without Bedazzling Display of Logical Analysis? It is the fate of a crunch-heavy RPG to continually expand the game world by printing more books.