Hey everyone, R. S. Tilton here, I'm basically assisting with the development. I have been playing GMing Earthdawn off and on for around 15 years. I run Epic RPG Blog with my kids, and have been gaming since I was 12.
My opinion on this is, it is a great change. Durability was always the first thing I would buy, as high as I could buy it. (my GM at the time, maxed ranks at Circle +3); it was no brainer.
Karma points as Luck/Hero points, that refresh for free when you meditate is absolutely fine with me, as long as we return to the ED1 race based karma. No 60 points of karma...
ED4 Preview #3
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zayven
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Re: ED4 Preview #3
Combat has always been a bit of an issue with Earthdawn's disciplines. The problem is that they aren't really built to work together tactically because Earthdawn isn't that kind of a game. It's one of the consequences of constructing the disciplines so thematically; it doesn't make real world sense for them to have their abilities slot them into very specific tactical roles. There's a lot of overlap between the combat oriented disciplines and most of the non-combat oriented disciplines have talents that are made to work best outside of combat.
Nowhere is this more evident than with the spellcasters. It's one of the first hurdles I always have to jump over with new players because they've been conditioned by D&D to expect any "mage" class in any game to be able to control space, inflict high damage from a distance, and dish out a variety of status effects at will. Compared to some other games, Earthdawn spellcasters are actually very limited in combat, especially at low circles. That's not a criticism of the game, necessarily, but it's something that many new players are not prepared to deal with and it takes them a while to figure out how to get the most out of those disciplines.
If you really look at the way D&D's classes are constructed, it's clear that they're supposed to fill very specific roles within the rules for combat (4th edition especially, but also in previous editions). Earthdawn's disciplines are more organic from a conceptual standpoint. They're much more well rounded than D&D classes, which gives players a leg up on roleplaying, but once the fighting starts, the lines are a little blurred, which can leave players frustrated.
I've always viewed this as more of a GM problem than a game system problem, though. The concept of the disciplines is fine and it's okay that not all of them have obvious combat roles. If the GM approaches the game too much like D&D, however, some players are going to get frustrated with their discipline choice. You need to do a lot of work to make everyone feel like they're getting the most out of their talents.
It actually might be helpful if the 4th edition books spend more time talking about the various roles within the average adventuring party. While it's cool that there is no "typical" Earthdawn party, it might be helpful for new players and GMs to have some example groups to serve as models for different sorts of campaigns. If you think about a game like Shadowrun, which doesn't have classes at all, the books do a great job of explaining the various sorts of roles that you might find in a typical group. There's a lot of latitude in how you divide those roles up and nothing is set in stone, but it's easy to explain to players what's expected of different types of characters. If the goal of 4th edition is to aim at new players and players that were scared off by previous editions, then something along these lines might be helpful.
Nowhere is this more evident than with the spellcasters. It's one of the first hurdles I always have to jump over with new players because they've been conditioned by D&D to expect any "mage" class in any game to be able to control space, inflict high damage from a distance, and dish out a variety of status effects at will. Compared to some other games, Earthdawn spellcasters are actually very limited in combat, especially at low circles. That's not a criticism of the game, necessarily, but it's something that many new players are not prepared to deal with and it takes them a while to figure out how to get the most out of those disciplines.
If you really look at the way D&D's classes are constructed, it's clear that they're supposed to fill very specific roles within the rules for combat (4th edition especially, but also in previous editions). Earthdawn's disciplines are more organic from a conceptual standpoint. They're much more well rounded than D&D classes, which gives players a leg up on roleplaying, but once the fighting starts, the lines are a little blurred, which can leave players frustrated.
I've always viewed this as more of a GM problem than a game system problem, though. The concept of the disciplines is fine and it's okay that not all of them have obvious combat roles. If the GM approaches the game too much like D&D, however, some players are going to get frustrated with their discipline choice. You need to do a lot of work to make everyone feel like they're getting the most out of their talents.
It actually might be helpful if the 4th edition books spend more time talking about the various roles within the average adventuring party. While it's cool that there is no "typical" Earthdawn party, it might be helpful for new players and GMs to have some example groups to serve as models for different sorts of campaigns. If you think about a game like Shadowrun, which doesn't have classes at all, the books do a great job of explaining the various sorts of roles that you might find in a typical group. There's a lot of latitude in how you divide those roles up and nothing is set in stone, but it's easy to explain to players what's expected of different types of characters. If the goal of 4th edition is to aim at new players and players that were scared off by previous editions, then something along these lines might be helpful.
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