ED4 Preview #3

[Slimcreeper]

We don't need to be too dogmatic here; if there are few that should survive then fine.

That said, I think we could have Speak Throalic skill instead of Speak Language skill (it's the optional rule, and I think it is much more realistic. Languages have a bigger role IMB, though). You could do the same thing with skills - as someone mentioned, a Skill in Swords rather than general Melee weapons. Although, to be honest, I don't think it adds as much to actual game play to specialize the weapon skills.

You could, instead, specialize the talents - Instead of Melee weapons for sky raiders, Smashing Weapons: attack as rank, add weapon size to damage. (I'm just throwing things out here)

[Darth Quiris]

[Danger]

[kosmit]

Event Strain partially can make talent special. Combat skills should have much more Strain because not fueled by magic things are more tiring.

[Darth Quiris]

Why should non-Adepts have the exact same rules than Adepts for some things?

[Telarus_KSC]

Earthdawn was one fo the first games to shoot for mechanical consistency. Also, to avoid the whole "PC Class Levels" VS "NPC Class Levels" that D&D 3.X introduced. Having run ED before 3.x, I though that was a really clunky mechanic.

Non-adept NPCs in ED are supposed to be built via "Shadowrun/GRUPS/point-buy style" and some "advanced" non-adepts are definitely challenges for mid-high circle adepts.... Earthdawn is one of the very few system that can handle "point buy advancement" alongside "archetype-limited advancement" precisely because of the Skill/Talent split.

Skills are open game for anyone in the world (who can find a trainer), while Talents are limited to your Discipline. (BTW, this carves out the rules-space to make Humans & Journeymen awesome, something rare in fantasy games). The "find a trainer" portion may need some GM advice, maybe a "rarity" rating (using the Legendary Status ranks, or something).

In my opinion, there are 3 main things that differentiate Talents from Skills:
A) Training: Max Rank, Legend Cost, Training Time
B) "Pushing": Talents can be augmented by Karma, Blood Magic, Knacks, & Magic Items
C) In-world metaphysical effects: Airdance allows the Warrior to partially ignore broken ground. The Pick Lock Talent summons "glowy telekinetic lock-picks" & helps guide the Thief's hands, meaning a Thief Adept is never without tools (like a non-adept burglar might be). That sort of stuff.

I agree that some Skills may need to be cut (or combined, like the talents), but I think a review with the above categories in mind would also be helpful.

[kosmit]

I definetly would like specified demographic info about Barsaive because from every sourcebook we did have other amounts of adepts etc.

[Mataxes]

Sorry, Kosmit, you're probably not going to see hard numbers for that.

Every game is different, and different groups may want to make their version of Barsaive more (or less) populated -- not only by adepts, but by Name-givers in general. There is a lot of "uncharted" territory, and we want GMs to be able to populate that area as they wish.

That said, there will be some assumptions about the relative population of adepts of different "tiers" (Novice, Journeyman, etc), when it comes to official products.

[Danger]

[Danger]