Fourth Edition House Rules

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
freid78
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby freid78 » Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:57 am

I have a suggestion about Legendary Status. I really like the Influence system on Game Of Thrones RPG. Instead of giving bonus to interaction tests, i would make the Legendary Status a stat that can be rolled. I would also make a general Legendary Status, but also region bases one (depending on the actions of the players).

For each rank, you gain a D6. Pulling a small favor need a success (5). Example, free food or free logging. For a medium favor, you need an extra success or two. For example, you could ask the city counsil to get extra man power for a quest or free passage on a airship. And of course, you could try pulling some major favors with 3+ extra successes like receiving a magical item and such.

With that, when the players are rewarded for a mission in a region, i could give them a legendary status in that regoin if the feat was noticable. Like killing an horror in a Kaer. It would make sense that the players are considered more heroic for that Kaer (hence, having a legendary status as a bonus, but specific with that Kaer). And of course, the heroic characters might also be binded with some extra side quest... they are, after all, heroes!

freid78
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby freid78 » Mon Jun 08, 2015 11:16 am

I've also made some changes to include keywords on weapons and armors. I've used some of the 3rd ed for stats (like Bark armor), and blended them with 4th. I've also extrapolated some stats to make sense of it all, like for example, how come we have stats for an espagra-scale cloak, but not a wyvern-skin cloak? By making a wyvern-skin cloak and an espagra-scale armor, you get a basic idea of what a weaponsmith could "forge" with any other animal skin.

Basically, you have 4 types of physical damage : Slash (sword like), Pierce (arrow/spear like), Chop (axe like) and Blunt (hammers and mace like). Vunerability means you get -3. Take a Ring Mail for example, which is basically a leather armor with big metal rings on it. Well against an arrow (which is piercing), the rings wont do much help. From 6, you get only 3 armor points against an arrow. The special, like 3 vs cold, means you get a bonus against that type of damage. Living means it auto-repair itself.

I'm using a simple rule that everytime a player receive a wound, it lowers the armor rating by 1pt.

Are armors stackable ? No, they aren't. But you get clothes that can be stacked with armor, just like cloaks. The initiative penalty of 0/1 means that wearing the cloak without armor has no penalty, but with armor it gains a penalty. The blood pebble and living crystal are not "clothes", they should be in the Blood Charm section, but since they can be stacked, i've put them there for an easy look. The Obsidiman skin should be considered like a "second skin", or just like clothes.

Finally, the shield shatter numbers were revised to get a simplier model, using the user wound threshold instead.

Armor Table
Armor Physical Armor Mystic Armor Initiative Penalty Vulnerability Special Cost Weight Availability
Padded Leather 4 0 0 20 20 Average
Hardened Leather 5 0 1 40 20 Average
Hide Armor 5 1 2 3 vs cold 50 25 Average
Espagra-Scale Armor 4 3 1 500 20 Rare
Wyvern-Skin Armor 8 1 3 2000 50 Rare
Bark 4 3 2 Chop Living 100 20 Unusual
Fernweave 2 3 0 Chop Living 125 15 Unusual
Ring Mail 6 0 2 Pierce 110 30 Average
Chain Mail 7 0 3 Blunt 180 40 Average
Plate Mail 9 0 4 Lightning 3 vs Slash 3000 60 Unusual
Crystal Ringlet 4 4 2 Living 500 45 Rare
Crystal Plate 7 7 5 Living 12000 90 Rare

Clothes and Cloaks Table
Armor Physical Armor Mystic Armor Initiative Penalty Vulnerability Special Cost Weight Availability
Blood Pebble 5 3 1 Slash/Pierce Blood 300 NA Rare
Living Crystal 6 3 2 Slash/Pierce Blood 1100 NA Rare
Simple Clothes 1 0 0 Slash/Pierce 1 3 Average
Padded Clothes 2 0 0 Slash/Pierce 2 5 Average
Leather 3 0 0 Slash/Pierce 10 15 Average
Obsidiman Skin 3 1 0/1 100 20 Rare
Dwarf Winternight Cloak 0 0 0 3 vs cold 275 2 Unusual
Warm (fireproof) Cloak 0 0 0 3 vs fire 300 2 Rare
Everclean Cloak 0 0 0 3 vs earth 275 2 Rare
Magical Poncho 0 0 0 3 vs air 300 2 Rare
Oak Leaf Cloak 0 0 0 3 on stealth 800 2 Rare
Espagra-Scale Cloak 3 1 0/1 200 10 Rare
Wyvern-Skin Cloak 5 0 1/2 1000 30 Rare

Shields Table
Armor Physical Defense Mystic Defense Initiative Penalty Shatter Threshold Special Cost Weight Availability
Buckler 1 0 0 1 extra 5 3 Average
Footman's/Rider's 2 0 1 2 extra 15/20 10 Average
Body 3 0 2 3 extra 50 15 Unusual
Bark 2 1 2 2 extra Living 15 5 Unusual
Ferndask 1 2 2 2 extra Living 20 5 Unusual
Crystal Buckler 1 1 0 1 extra Living 50 5 Rare
Crystal Raider 2 2 2 2 extra Living 150 15 Rare
Last edited by freid78 on Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Telarus_KSC
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby Telarus_KSC » Mon Jun 15, 2015 3:46 pm

Still catching up. I don't know if you've noticed this Freid, but Shields now do not grant Armor, they grant Physical/Mystic Defense bonuses.

freid78
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby freid78 » Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:45 pm


freid78
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby freid78 » Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:17 am

How are you considering weapon and armor deterioration ? There's rules about how to repair them, but nothing on how to damage them!

How about this :

For weapons, when a player rolls two 1's, the weapon lose 1 step.
For a magical weapon, the player needs to roll three 1's for deterioration.

For armor, when the player receive a wound, the armor lose 1 armor value.
For a magical armor, you need an extra success (or 5 more) on the wound threshold to damage the armor.

Looks nice?

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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby Mataxes » Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:31 am

The reason there are rules for repairing armor is because there are powers and effects that can damage them.

If you want to make a system more involved than that, have fun, but there are no plans to add that to the game as it stands.
Josh Harrison --
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Razan_GM
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby Razan_GM » Fri Jun 19, 2015 9:13 am

As for armors I would rather say that Damage needs to be high and compared with Armor stat, windling in chainmail and troll in chainmail should get the same chance for the armor to be damaged (Wound Treshhold got nothing to do with it).

So I would say that if incoming damage is Armor stat + 25 (5 "additional succcesses" from damage) then armor gets damaged, its really hard to damage armor unless you try to do it, and even then its definitely not easy.

To damage armor use Called Shot, add Weapon Size (only for weapons of size 3 and more) to Damage roll and compare it with Armor stat +15. If it equalls or is more, then armor value is decresed by 1.

Strong character (Str 7) with dagger (Dmg 2, size 1) after using Called Shot to hit the enemy wearing chainmail needs to roll 22 (7+15) for Damage to decrease its value by 1. Almost impossible to do it with average dmg roll of 9 (7+2).

Same character (Str 7) with sword (Dmg 5, size 3) needs to roll 22 (7+15) for Damage but adds sword size, so average dmg roll is 12 (7+5) +3 (weapon size) = 15. Very hard but with some luck on to Hit roll its doable.

All changes when you have weapon that was designed to do big damage.
Character (Str 7) with Pole Axe (Dmg 8, size 6) needs to roll 22 (7+15) for Damage. 7+8+6 = 21, better have some silver for repairs :twisted:

In real fights noone was trying to destroy armors because it was much easier to kill the guy inside. Enemy is wearing chainmail and no helmet with face cover? Use Called Shot (GM can say its more than -3) and hit his face so no armor is protecting him from your blade. There are always weak spots, just read about armors (Uncle google will help you), and declare it while fighting :P

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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby Baravakar » Fri Jun 19, 2015 5:33 pm

For my games I made a simple chart to use for the Rule of One (aka a fumble chart). On it I included times where the character's armor/weapon can get damaged. There are tests involved to avoid it happening but we play that it can theoretically happen at any time.

freid78
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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby freid78 » Sun Jun 21, 2015 7:49 am

I've been looking into weapons, historically, practically and in game terms and i would strongly suggest that for the crossbows, at minimum, shouldn't be able to use Second Shot. It's been said that a trained archer fire twice as fast as a trained (or untrained) crossbowmen. That a good archer could fire a 4th shot before the first one lands!

From what i've read, crossbow is basically good for untrained troops. The fact that the energy stored in the weapon doesn't need your strenght to hold, it's easier to aim. And finally, since the bow used on the crossbow is shorter, the range is also substancially shorter, around half of the range of a bow. So why would someone choose a crossbow instead of a bow? Basically, it's a newbie weapon. I would suggest putting a bonus on the attack test using a Crossbow to balance everything.

In bref : Crossbow have a bonus of +2 to Missile weapon attack test. Half the range of a similar size bow and cannot be used with second weapon.

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Re: Fourth Edition House Rules

Postby Slimcreeper » Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:17 am

Perhaps a +2 that doesn't stack with missile weapons skill/talent?


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