Pre-art draft feedback

[Panda]

Your tier, Novice, Journeyman, Warden, and Master.

[Gkeckley]

I take it you mean 1 additional thread per tier? Is that in the book and I just missed it?

[Mataxes]

Yes you did. It's on page 282 of the PDF - there is a table next to the section on additional threads called, appropriately enough, the "Additional Thread Limit Table".

But yes, it is limited to 1 additional thread per tier.

There are one or two spells that break this limit in specific ways (Dust to Dust, a Circle 5 Nethermancer spell, for example, allows you to weave more than the normal number of threads only for the purposes of extra targets).

[kosmit]

You can weave max 4 extra Threads. 1 on Novice, 2 on Journeyman, 3 on Warden and 4 on Master.

Another question:

So many spells are missing in comparsion to 3ed. Is it same case as with 3EDR? Or you thought they where useless?

I think that much of Discipline fluff is gone with some removed spells. Do you have some advice for people who would like to incorporate spell lists from 3ed to 4ed?

[Mataxes]

With regard to spells (and Morgan can address this as well if he likes) we wanted to strike a balance between classic spells and new ones, while fixing/removing the more problematic ones in one way or another. An attempt was made to actually focus the theme or style of the different magicians and cut down on some of the overlap.

With regard to adapting ED3 spells to ED4... a couple of guidelines off the top of my head (by no means exhaustive).

* Buff spells (like Air Armor or Crunch Climb) tend to offer a fixed bonus to a value or test.
* Damage spells frequently have their base damage scaled back, but offer a secondary effect to compensate (like Earth Darts gives a temporary penalty to Physical Armor, or damaging Illusion spells play with a character's perceptions)
* Some spells now play off of talents or other abilities the magician has access to (for example, Death's Head now changes the way Frighten works for Nethermancers, or Astral Sense changes the way the Astral Sight talent works for Wizards).
* In general, we tried to have the spells provide something other than straight damage when it comes to extra successes, and standard options with regard to extra threads.

[Panda]

From the moment 4E was announced, there was a continual demand for new material. In fact, the very first post in this thread includes a comment about new items. Space is a major factor in what can be included in the book (and we already went way over the allocation). There was a desire to cut some of the fat and spells represented the biggest bloat.

Adding new spells is also one of the easiest areas to bring in more material, given the structure of Earthdawn. This also means less room for old spells and I wanted at least eight new spells (to 3E) for each spellcasting discipline; one for each Circle. This still represents a significant investment in text for spellcasters. As Josh indicated, the final goal was to create a tight list of spells (if at least 45 spells per discipline can be called "tight") which brought home the themes. The initial development updated all of the spells. From there, spells were cut for a variety of reasons until there were 10 First Circle spells and five spells for each subsequent Circle for each discipline. Reasons spanned mechanics which weren't working, redundancy (you know many spells there are which play with rope?), inappropriate to the new themes we outlined, did not earn the space it would occupy (Boil Water), etc.

The end result is (hopefully) a collection which shows some variety, but also a clear theme for each discipline. There were guidelines used in the development to ensure a level of consistency and provide a clearer picture of how to go about making homebrew spells. Josh gives the broad picture of what took place in development. Just because it isn't in the book, doesn't mean it won't show up sooner than later. If there are some specific questions, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

[Gkeckley]

I have a couple of questions on how the spell Astral Sense works.

I understand it reduces the strain cost of Astral Sight to 0. Howerever, it says you are able to also sense presences that are not in your line of sight or are hidden. If you do not have Astral Sight active do you still sense presences around you? I took it to mean you have to have Astral Sight active. Just wanted to make sure.

To sense the presence do you need to make the astral sight roll and beat the target's mystic defense?

[Panda]

That is correct.

[kosmit]

You can cut space occupied by spells by correctly layouting them in the manner of talents. I adressed it in earlier post (the one about putting spell stats tighter and next to each other instead of one under another:
Threads: __ Weaving: __
Casting: __ Range: __
Duration: __ Effect: __
Area of Effect: __

Ok, you did great job developing new spells but maybe there should be some rules for using utility spells (moonglow, gills) with half-magic. Also some spells that are gone could have expanded usage like Puddle Deep with effect to choose (slowing enemies down or trying to drown them).

I hope that after you finish working on GMG and Companion you will have time to develop a guide with info about creating new spells.

P.S: And where the hell is Falcon's Cloak?

[Dougansf]