FASA Games, Inc.

Roth, do you think it would be possible for you to be a bit clearer what your point is, and perhaps not be so dismissive and condescending?

I think that for such characters you should stop giving adepts as opponents. Make their legendary status their opponent. Get people from far lands come to them and ask for help with powerful horror/monsters.
Get them into politics, let them settle in some town and take care of their net of followers. If they are questors put on them Avatars of Mad Passions.
Also - remember that you don't need to go DnD - characters at high Circles don't have to go on adventures as Book of Exalted Deeds. Opponents doesn't have to scale with players because of in ED there aren't many high circle adepts. Heck. That team could even bring Alachia down (or die almost succeding).

I'd like to clarify my Durability and Karma comments. While the proposed change will definitely leave some "range" for individual player's Durability & Karma Pools (via the other methods like Threads, etc & remembering the Rule of Three, if applied), it does narrows the overall range that any individual PC Adept will fall in significantly. This, then, makes it easier to create opponents that will challenge, but not TPK the party.

This narrowed range may have come across as "static values which only scale when you Circle up" and probably ruffled feathers that way (I also think static values are too "close" to D&D mechanics, but I also have strange opinions on how ED and D&D fit together).

There is one rules gap in the Earthdawn game system that could have used an upgrade... or a full addition too... and this is an idea taken straight out of the Indie games of the past few years and that's have a system in place for the more Social aspects of game play.

Take 13th Age... if Earthdawn incorporated 13th Age's Background Skills rules instead of having a grand list of available Skills than this would free up a ton of page space in the book AND give players a in game resource that truly speaks to the player's character in a personal way.

Another is from Burning Wheel, which has at the games core a system of Descriptors, which are similar to Aspects in Fate games, or Distinctions in most Cortex+ games... these little Personality Descriptors that get to the core of the character in a Narrative way that gives each player a real Distinct feel. Burning Wheel has 3 of them and when a player does something in the game and they are playing to their Descriptors then they get some kind of additional in game effect that either helps or hinders them.

Earthdawn could really use an idea like this... while the world and system mesh very well, it meshes well in a primarily combat driven way and non-combat comes second.

This all could tie into a character's Legendary Status and how Karma could be used.

What if character's had some of these Descriptors and they were in a situation where they could play a factor in a game encounter. Perhaps an Adept can tap into this by spending a Karma Point to use these Descriptors as Influence on the world.

This could also tie into the character's overall Legend Rank as well and perhaps each Legend Rank a character gains a new Descriptor that must be based on part of the character's Legend. Then the GM has a resource at hand... give the player a Karma point so the GM can then use the character's Legend against them.

Right now all this is roleplaying only based. Having an in game resource specific to this part of the character would be a fantastic addition to Earthdawn. It would even make up for the whole Durability thing.

It's been a long time since I have played in or run a high circle game but the most use we found for skills was when there were magic nullifying or reducing effects. So, the majority of the time useless when taking skills as a backup to a talent. Now when the GM made multi-disciplining hard skills were useful for getting some crossover into other areas of interest.

I'd love to read 13th Age as I have heard it has some interesting takes on things in it but time is not on my side right now.