Seeking some feedback on a possible ED4 change

[Telarus_KSC]

Thanks guys! This is exactly the kind of feedback I need to polish this. I was also not liking the racial packages very much.

How about this - you get a Cultural Package and a Background Package. The cultural packages are location-based, but also serve to point to which culture your family came from. Combining one with a Background Package would generate a unique individual. So, things like "Throalic Noble", "Kratas Underworld", "Servos Tribesman", "Jerris Artisan", "Highland Troll Military", etc. Not directly tied to Race, but the culture you came from would definitely be influenced by the dominant race.

Some ideas....
Barsaivian (more general than the others), Theran (more general than the others), Cathayan (more general than the others), Throalic , Scythian, Blood Wood, Shattered Elven Kingdom, Highland Troll, Lowland Troll, Servos [or Other Jungle], Landis, Cara Fahd, [City-State] (Such as Kratas/Jerris/Travar/Urupa), Serpent River House, Serpent River Tribal, etc, etc.

We could come up with so many of these!

This also ties into an idea of mine that having these things called out on the character sheet leads to more ties from the Character to the World. If I know a PC has a "Throalic Spy" background, then I know he's worked with people who have worked with J'role (or maybe has even met him). This would then be something I could leverage as a GM, with say, a member of the Eye of Throal dropping off a task with the PC in order to get the Party hooked.

[sirserafin]

It will be about Named Spells...

Named Spells have pretty high cost in Legend Points and only magician can cast them....
But why the magician is always the person who pays LPs for casting such spells? Accumulating thousands of LPs is pretty hard and ends in slowing down advancement of magician if he like to cast some spells on his team mates. Why the LPs cost (or big part of this cost) of casting Named Spell cannot be transfer to other person if one want to cooperate and take a part in kind of ritual to do it?

What do you think about it? Any ideas for mechanic and flavour text to add this to Earthdawn?



And keeping in mind last update... any extra threads and success levels will be also the part of permanent effect for Named Spells?



I know that everyone works hard last time but come on... really? Does noone have nothing to say or I missed the answer given in the other thread?

[Lys]

You can already use thread weaving to transfer the strain from attempting to Name a spell to another character, I don't see why you couldn't do the same to also transfer the LP cost. In fact, I would imagine that the standard procedure when hiring a magician to Name a spell upon you is to let them attune their pattern to yours so that the cost is borne by your body and soul rather than theirs.

[Marceli]

[Xandarth]

I've only read the first 4 pages of this, but really people? People are actually claiming basic addition is hard when they are tired. This system is one of the easiest I've ever seen for unconsciousness in an rpg.

ED is simple, you work out your your UR and DR whenever upgrade your durability and then the player knows immediately when they hit those thresholds.
Given the existence of illusionary damage the best way for a GM and your players to be record each hit and wounds as the accumulate them is to have each player keep a running tally of each wound and damage they receive with a total at the bottom that they change whenever the add new damage like this ("-"'s added to correct whitespace formatting):

12|-1
-1|--
18|-1
34|-2
---|--
-------
65|-4

Whenever they receive new damage - have them add another line to indicate the damage and any wounds associated with it.

Meanwhile you as GM keep track of any illusionary damage to all characters like this (you can easily track 18 or so characters on a single sheet A4 sheet of paper - put the PC's on top to make it harder to see past your gm screen:

DR|UR|WT|KD
68|56|13|8
----------------
12|-1|--|--
--1|--|--|--
18|-1|--|--
---|--|34|-2
---|--|--|--
---------------
31|-2|34|-2

Column on left is damage. Next is wounds, then illusionary damage and finally illusionary wounds. The best thing about recording damage this way is players don't know if any damage they have received is illusionary - but they can easily try to guess which wounds to attempt to disbelieve.

If you are having trouble working out if (31+34[65] => 56) - rendering the character unconscious - but (65 < 68) - meaning they are still alive - I can't see how you are capable of playing pretty much any RPG ever made except perhaps Amber.

No wait - still need to be able to add up to 100 to create a character for Amber and you need to be able compare numbers to see if they are bigger than each other. I guess even diceless RPG's are in the too hard basket for people calling for this rule change.

If you make a move to "simplify" the damage rules further, you might as well remove the illusionist discipline.

[Telarus_KSC]

From my understanding of the Illusion rules, you can't disbelieve damage after the fact (after it's been dealt/confirmed), only as it's being caused. This is why Illusion sources do not deal damage past your Unc Rating. I like to say that because illusion spells still have Spell Patterns, they can still affect other patterns in lasting ways (within the limitations of illusion)

[Utsukushi]