What's happening with the other discipines?

[Spader]

I'm talking about the disciplines from Namegivers of Barsaive.
Are they covered in one of the planned books from the Kickstarter?

I'm a bit concerned about those because I planned to migrate my current campaign to ED4 but I already have a Shaman and a Horror Stalker in my group.

Thanks.

[Mataxes]

They are not currently planned to be included in any of the Kickstarter books.

That doesn't mean they won't see some development or release in the not-too-distant future (maybe as a web supplement), just that they aren't slated for inclusion in one of those books.

[Spader]

Thanks!

[Panda]

Interestingly, each of those disciplines has unique challenges in getting them out there. The Horror Stalker has a fairly significant number of unique talents which will require individual attention. Nothing insurmountable, but neither are those activities trivial. It will be straight forward, just time consuming.

The Shaman, on the other hand, is an order of magnitude more complicated. While I cannot speak to what the Shaman will look like in the end, since nothing has been started beyond notes (many notes), I can say it has always made me frown to note the Shaman could never muster it's own spell list. Just cribbing from other lists, it was (imho) lacking in its own distinct spellcasting flavor. My opinions on the discipline may be somewhat iconoclastic, such as disliking fetishes, which feel like they were made different just for the sake of making them different. I have opinions on the reasons behind those decisions and they weren't unreasonable at the time, but now is an opportunity to give the Shaman a chance to be it's own discipline and not simply living in the shadows of others.

Developing a new spell list is a complex task, particularly when it is one which has never had distinct themes. Each of the four spellcasting disciplines in the Player's Guide has a unique approach to their spells. They have some mechanics and themes which don't appear elsewhere. Well, that was the goal anyway. Part of the development will involve figuring out exactly how the Shaman fits into the existing landscape, in what ways they are distinctive, and what interesting things are they going to bring to the game which the other disciplines don't already. The good news in this is this was all kept in mind during the Player's Guide development. Some spaces have been carved out for the Shaman to fit into; they are already set to have unique spells. The bad news is, as mentioned above, this all takes time and they may still live in the shadow of the other four spellcasters at the end of the day. Hopefully, they will feel less like something between an Elementalist and a Nethermancer, and a lot more like a Shaman.

[Heretikzer0]

Good thing to hear about the Shaman. I remember when you and I were chatting about it. I think out of the two people whom I knew played a Shaman spent a significant time socializing with spirits (The essence of various Shaman archetypes no?) and bargaining for favours. Similar and dissimilar between the other spellcasting classes and their use of Summon, I hope that the Shaman can see some distinction in this area. I'd love to see what you guys come up with for unique toolset ideas. Do you have any plans to see Shamans come into some level of conformity with Shadowrun Shamans? Will they be strictly limited to tribal archetypes?

I also felt that the Purifier class had been brought up a bit in the last edition, but they seem to lack a certain oomph. There is only really two paths of build diversity with them, which tips between full blown offensive fighter - and nature lover.

And the Taildancer was brought up quite a bit. As a personal test, I built one of each (both T'skrang) and on paper the Taildancer pulls ahead quite a bit. Considering one of the cooler aspects of T'skrang society was in fact that their culture is rich in Swordmasters, it stands to reason that there would be far more Taildancers now.

The Messengers and The Travelled Scholars to me seem to be in better places with the last edition, though I'd like to see some development when it comes to the new forwarded storyline. I could see both having quite an impact on how the war turned out.

And I know this might seem to be a bit of a brick drop, but is there any chance that Questors and Lightbringers will be brought in line with the rest of the game? I've had a soft spot for these two professions, but honestly I was never entirely happy with the way their talents are handled. I had always felt that Lightbringer should be its own discipline really. Questors are a diverse group, and i've had to disallow Questors in my campaigns because of their 'tack-on' powers.

[Mataxes]

I don't know what the final shape of questors is going to be right now, but there is a "Passions & Questors" book in development, and I desperately want to see them be something better than the prior iterations. (After the Players & GM's Guides the release plan is: Travar, Companion, Elven Nations, Questors.)

Lightbringers aren't specifically on my radar, but depending on the shape of Questors, they might end up in a similar design space (since they were both based on the same kind of design idea in ED1).

[Panda]

There are no plans to align anything with Shadowrun. The game lines have officially been sundered. To be fair, beyond some metaplot and overarching themes, they never had much to do with each other in the first place. While a central theme to Earthdawn, even the fabric which the metaphysics of Earthdawn are built upon, patterns never really appear in Shadowrun. This is just to illustrate that while they share a common thread, they are very much so cut from different cloth.

The final direction regarding many of the expanded disciplines is still in discussion. A discussion which hasn't really been addressed in a while given the other, much more pressing, matters at hand. Major points of discussion include themes and mechanics. Specifically, each discipline should have clear themes and a mechanical identity which make it a unique entry, rather than occupying space which is already entirely covered. For example, besides plying water instead of air, the Boatman shares a great deal in common with the Air Sailor. As mentioned above, it is a similar story between the Swordmaster and Taildancer.

[Heretikzer0]

Thanks for the replies, gents. I realize not many of these questions may not be answerable at the moment, but I'm somewhat excited for it anyway.

[Lys]

[Panda]

For Windmaster, you mean Warrior, right?

It is actually an interesting example of something which could carve out its own niche due to how a windling has to approach melee combat. A Warrior is very straight forward, while the Windmaster has a greater "Spec Ops" feel due to their access to sneaky talents. They inhabit a curious edge realm where they could be a heavily modified specialty, or a full-blown discipline which focuses on using flight and tactics over raw power. The question remaining is: will there be enough design space out there for the endeavor to be worth it? Which is the major question lingering around many of the expanded disciplines and why there are no set plans for anything right now. Once the initial promises have been delivered, then we can start to really discuss these items.