New Edition Questions

[Etorian]

First off, this is my first post here and I'm excited to bring our groups insights and opinions to the Earthdawn community.

I'm a gm/player from a group of 1st ed. Earthdawn players who have been playing since the first books came out. I don't know anything about the 2ed-Revised books other than having played a cathay game this last Gencon.

We liked what we saw and the versatility of the new way of constructing characters but were also bothered by a few things. I've talked everyone into giving this 4th ed. a try (ie. back it on kickstarter) so here are a couple of questions.

1. How will the new edition address spell stacking and forcing and have they already been addressed in the newer editions?
2. Will Riposte still be a separated talent with 2 rolls instead of a streamlined single roll mechanic? (I know this is petty but it really ate at us)

Thanks ahead of time for the info.

[Mataxes]

First off, welcome to the forums! Now on to the questions.

1. I'm not quite sure what you are referring to here. Are you talking about particular mechanics, or the application of the existing spellcasting rules in a particular way?

2. Again, I'm not quite clear about your question. Is your problem that Riposte is a single test that determines both the defense against the attack and the success of the return strike? (This is how it worked in First Edition.)

I am aware that the proper swordplay is parry-and-riposte (one is the defense, the other is the counterattack). Second Edition did try to address this with two talents -- Parry and Riposte -- breaking the maneuver up into two tests. Third Edition used a single talent, but dropped the +3 bonus from ED1, requires a Good result against the DN in order to counterattack, and the adept could only counterattack once per round. (ED3 also had its own Parry talent, which didn't relate to Riposte at all.)

The current version of the talent in ED4 keeps the single roll, and is pretty similar to the ED3 version.

[etherial]

[Mataxes]

Ah. Knacks will not be in the core Player's or GM's Guide. They will be in the Companion, but we haven't gotten to the point of examining them very closely.

So if that's what he's referring to, I don't have an answer at this time.

I took a quick look, and Spell Stacking is in the ED3 Player's Companion, but Force Casting doesn't appear to be.

[Tanthalas]

On the subject of Talent Knacks, I've read in a few places that 4th Edition is looking at changing Knacks drastically. I'm not sure if this thread is the proper place for it, but I wanted to throw in my two coppers about Knacks.

I have never played under a GM who has really liked and embraced Knacks. Their place in the companion books is probably the first reason that they are so maligned. They feel a little tacked on out there. Also, the way they are organized in Earthdawn 3rd edition is atrocious. Talent Knacks in 3rd are organized alphabetically, which makes it a very difficult task to find Knacks for talents you even HAVE much less knacks that you want. Most of my players ended up with custom made spreadsheets to figure out which knacks they wanted to track down.

That said, I think that Talent Knacks provide a very important aspect of the setting. And with a little bit of reorganization (and maybe a reference table or two) you will see them embraced by players and gamemasters alike. The increased flexibility they provide really brought excitement back into the talents that had become hum-drum. They open up many options that are too niche to be their own talent, but too powerful to be handed to a rank 1 user.

Just something to think about!

[Etorian]

Thanks for the quick responses! Sorry for the lack of clarity, our group is so familiar with the 1st ed. talent knacks and have some in house short hand so I forget to be specific when branching out.

I'm glad Riposte is back to a single roll, removing the +3 will make a few of our players whine but they can deal, it was too good as is.

As for the talent knacks in 1st ed.

Spell stacking allows additional spells to be hurled at the target for strain. I don't have rules right here but I believe it was 2 strain for each spell past the first with no cap on number of spells. It's game breaking but a cool mechanic that we've tried to nerf with some success.

Forced casting allows you to bypass the turn threadweaving for more complex spells by taking strain (I think 3 per thread) no roll required.

Great power and removes the caster's "I'll thread weave then wait for 20 minutes while everyone else goes" turn. Once again it can get a little shaky on game balance but I prefer to find additional perks for my other players to balance the power out rather than punish a caster for packing a nasty punch.

Especially when as a GM I want the casters' point of view on events occurring out of combat and find that this turn delay in mid-circles really turns my players off of the casters.

I'm just wondering if there will be a (hopefully balanced) mechanism to mitigate that turn delay and/or allow spell stacking for casters in these later editions or was it abandoned for game balance purposes?

I'm very excited about the direction you are taking the game thus far mechanically and finally pushing the timeline. I'm going to try and catch up on some of the threads here about mechanics so I can throw in my 2 cents while you work on the new edition.

[Telarus_KSC]

Welcome aboard!

I have to echo Tanthalas' comments on organizing the Knacks.

[Etorian]

Also echoing Tanthalas,

Our group has a tendency to push the limits on character design for both theoretical character building and play. I've had a warrior that swore off weapons and used versatility to cast spells through matrix items, an "Archer" who was all throwing weapons, a Cavalryman bowman (think samurai) and troubadour dirge that used inflicting crippling depression as a weapon in combat. Granted these are not typical builds that should be addressed in game design per se it is nice to have a mechanic to help flesh out the characters being designed.

Game mechanics being interwoven with the storyline was a real draw for me to this game and allowing the players to do that with their unique characters further enriches the game in my opinion.

[kosmit]

Also when talking about sorting things out... Remember for spells and repeat after me FASA: Discipline->Circle->Alphabetical like in 1st ED

[Gkeckley]

Amen to that on the spell organization.