FASA Games, Inc.

@Mataxes:
Maybe you can drop us a line, when a new update will be in the blog

As noone replied I had time to write an add-on to Avoid Blow talent.
In general adept acts to avoid injury but sometimes Avoid Blow is the only way to escape from Death's hands with just a scratch on the face. Each use of Avoid Blow is a try to avoid or reduce taken damage. The adept makes an Avoid Blow Test against his opponent’s Atack Test result. If successful, the adept avoids the blow - he sees the atack coming and dodges out of the way at the last moment, if not, it means adept makes the hit less lethal as blow is less direct than opponent wants - hand will be hit instead of head, few ribs will be crushed instead of heart pierced, adept's body will change position to get hit in better armored part and so on. (My Aikido mentor says, if you fight with armed opponent and have no option to avoid injury use your hands and legs as a shield as it's better to be hit in hand than head - simple and true.)

And now a hard part as I'm not decided:
1) Even if Avoid Blow is unsuccessful the result show how many Damage Points will be negate. Result has to be at least equal to adept's PD in this round. The maximum protection adept can provide avoiding the blow is his Avoid Blow Rank (or Step, I'm not decided at this point too). [Adept's Physical Defence is 13, Opponent's Attack Test result is 29, Avoid Blow result is just 24, Avoid Blow Rank is 7, adept got 11 point over his PD - adept can't fully avoid the hit but makes the blow less lethal - 7 points of damage will be negated.]
2) Even if Avoid Blow is unsuccessful the result show how many Damage Points will be negate. Comparing result to adept's Physical Defence each success (5 points) reduce damage by 2 points. [Adept's Physical Defence is 13, Opponent's Attack Test result is 29, opponent gets 3 success, Avoid Blow result is just 24 - adept can't fully avoid the hit but at least 2 Success are negated.]

I prefer first option... Even if there is no chance to make it official, help me to make balanced house rule of this (or kind of Knack), please.

I like the idea of a rolling dodge that absorbs some of the damage. I'm holding off on thinking too much about mechanics until I see what the game is going to look like.

I'm in the same place at the moment. I want a better understanding of how the pieces of 4th Ed work together before I start house-ruling. I do like the idea, tho.

Can we get an indication of how things are progressing with Earthdawn 4th ed? The Kickstarter campaign said the PDFs of the Player's Guide, GM's Guide, and Companion would be released in August? Is this still happening?
The guys working on 1879 seem to post updates every week, but things have become very quiet in the Earthdawn camp. This doesn't fill me with confidence that we will get our books on time.
I sincerely hope I'm proven wrong

From the information I've seen, I believe things have just gotten quiet because it's so close to the deadline, and focus is being diverted to getting everything finalized and submitted. There is also GenCon Indy rapidly approaching, which is going to pull some focus (I know it is for me, as I'll be there ). But yes, a formal post would be nice.

I am working on an update that will either be going up tonight or tomorrow.

I am sorry about the silence, but when time is short and the choice is between finishing up notes on the layout or writing a blog post... only one of those actually gets the book done.

To clarify: I don't believe the Companion was ever hinted at being complete in August.