Earthskin and similar talents

[Gkeckley]

Spending the karma should help yes. However, you should not have to spend a karma to increase your odds of at least 1 success to over 50%. Especially since with the way it is worded you spend the recovery test then you make the roll. If you do not get one success then you get nothing and are out a recovery test. Not sure if they meant it that way, but it sure looks like it.

[Marceli]

I see problems on this. But i wait for Players to write more that this
Why talent do not have basic protection + success ? It cost Recovery TEST so it should always work. You can not achieve greater protection still get basic protection.

[Baravakar]

[Marceli]

Back, yep this talent is bad. You spent recovery test and can fail to gain anything.
It is normal to MD go up with circle, so most cases talent give you +2 MD and rarely more.

My advice at least:
you get +2 MD always and if you beat your MD you get bonus as normal. I do not like idea that you spend recovery and gain nothing.
Also working only talent hours for cost of recovery. It is a lot weaker from earlier editions.

[Baravakar]

I thought of a follow-up question to this issue.

In previous editions, the character needed to have a thread item in his possession for it to work. If the character is about to use Earthskin and has a thread item that increases Mystic Defense, can't he just hand the item to another person so its benefits won't interfere with the talent?

His natural defenses can no longer be reduced, but the benefits of the magic item can be circumvented.

[Telarus_KSC]

5th Circle Warriors, 7th Circle Elementalists, and some Journeyman+ Weaponsmiths will have Earth Skin.

Let's say Step 5 or 6 Per average. Per Step 5-6 is base Mystic Defense 6-9.
So Earth Skin Step 6-7 when first purchased (assumes a 5 or 6 TOU). Step 10-12+ once it's Rank is at the character's Circle.
Let's assume that we're rolling a Karma with this test, and that this adds +4 Steps on average to the result.

I'll calculate (using anydice.com) the %chance of success for target numbers 6-12 (allowing for other MD bonuses). I'll bold the range of unmodified Mystic Defense ratings.

Tou 5 + Earthskin Rank 1 (Step 6 +Karma):
Step 10 vs 6 | 84.38% success rate
Step 10 vs 7 | 76.56% success rate
Step 10 vs 8 | 67.19% success rate
Step 10 vs 9 | 56.25% success rate
Step 10 vs 10 | 46.88% success rate
Step 10 vs 11 | 38.67% success rate
Step 10 vs 12 | 31.64% success rate

Tou 5 + Earthskin Rank 5 (Step 10 +Karma):
Step 14 vs 6 | 93.06% success rate
Step 14 vs 7 | 89.58% success rate
Step 14 vs 8 | 85.42% success rate
Step 14 vs 9 | 80.56% success rate
Step 14 vs 10 | 75.00% success rate
Step 14 vs 11 | 68.75% success rate
Step 14 vs 12 | 61.81% success rate

(Edited to correct talent rank attribute)
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So, those are pretty good numbers overall. If I run into a problem with Earth Skin, I may just refund the Recovery Test on failed rolls.

[Marceli]

Don't joke.
5 circle have usually 10-12 MD below you are duck to shoot from magician (or spellcating monsters).
6-7 is 13-14
8 i s around 14+

And no they are not, with 12 MD you still have 40% fail with sacrifice test and 5h work. It is maximed talent on that circle that cost a lot.

It is very bad balanced talent. End try use it with elementalist

[Gkeckley]

Elementalist is the worst case scenario. You typically start with at least a Perception of 16 then by 8th circle you will have raised it to a 19. You could do a blood sworn to raise it to a 21. That is a base MD of 12. Note that you could start with an 18 Perception (more doable if you are an elf/windling/dwarf) then raise it to a 21 then do a bloodsworn for a 23 perception and a base 13 MD. Add in that at 8th circle an elementalist is +3 to MD giving them a base of a 15 or 16 MD without items or threads. Their toughness will typically start around a 10 to 13. If you assume a 13 then raise that 3 times for a 16 toughness and step 7 and assume 8 ranks in Earthskin, then you are rolling step 15. So without karma you succeed 50% of the time and will get +2 steps and occasionally +4 steps. Not bad until you realize you lose a recovery test 50% of the time and get nothing in return. You also invested roughly 22,000 legend. My opinion (other people's opinion may vary on this) is you should not have to spend karma for the talent to be effective. Especially when it is a Discipline talent that the Elementalist has to raise.
It also just feels wrong to me that to use the talent you have to remove any items that raise MD then get your +2 or +4 from the talent then pick up the items and now you get that bonus as well. It just feels like you are working the rules. You could solve this problem if you said within the talent that you roll against your base MD not your enhanced MD. You get the same end results as dropping your items and it is really just semantics, but it does not feel as if you are working the system at that point.

[Panda]

It bears to mention there was an update to this talent months ago which was not incorporated in the text. The powers that be were notified earlier and the omission will be corrected.

[Gkeckley]

Awesome. Thank You I appreciate the response. Keep up the great work. It is highly appreciated Panda.