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Elementalist Talent Info

Illusionists Part 1 - Spells is up:
http://pandagaminggrove.blogspot.com/20 ... 18_16.html

Illusionists Talent Info

Nethermancers Part 1 - Spells is up:
http://pandagaminggrove.blogspot.com/20 ... ne-19.html

Really good commentary on why certain changes were implemented in the spells and spell progression.

Yeah. I knew many of the details (obviously), but I think the commentary adds quite a bit to the analysis.

I know it takes a lot longer for Morgan to work it up that way, but I would encourage him to keep it up. I think that (in general) people like to have look behind the curtain.

I would definitely second that. As a GM who has explored the Earthdawn metaphysics since first edition, this was a really cool look at the kinds of decisions you guys made regarding rules + setting metaphysics.

I agree. Also, Pandas Blogpostings were one of those things that kept my excitement for the fourth edition up even while there was a certain communication blackout in most other respects. Can't thank him enough for all the work he's putting into the blog and the forums (and behind the scenes )

Nethermancers Part 2 - Talent Info

Thank you very much, really to everyone; I appreciate your kind words greatly. I'm currently working on the Wizard spell list with equal insight provided and was hoping to have it up about half an hour ago. As I have learned, there is nothing more this world loves to devour than sweet, delicious hopes and dreams.

Legend point costs for spells - hopefully this will make sense as it is at the confluence of a few different things. To give some background, I introduced it initially because each spell gives the character additional options and these shouldn't be free. Particularly when outside of an action sequence, spellcasters generally have access to all of their spells. In my groups, I will often pose questions regarding how players feel about various aspects of the rules. Some of the house rules are dictated by me, while others are introduced, altered, or removed based on discussion and feedback from the players. For example, the specific karma rules we used went through a few iterations.

Getting back to spell costs: We played for quite a while with costs for spells and there were some interesting results and observations. The first, though relatively minor, was there were quite a few flavor spells which were simply ignored because they weren't worth the cost. There is also the problem with old spells simply being replaced by a better version in not too long. Earth Darts and Ice Mace and Chain is the classic example. Second, the extra talent added to the cost of spells meant the spellcaster was falling behind on the advancement curve. There were other reasons behind it as well which nothing could solve, but it was simply exacerbated by the additional costs. When put to the group, noting the effects, the ultimate decision was to remove the legend point costs for spells, but make them a more difficult to obtain (the trade off for cost being availability). Funny enough, the flavor spells still weren't pursued because of the effort involved and even when an enemy grimoire was captured, they were ignored.

Much of this went right into playtesting notes for fourth edition (ED4) to explore various ways to put the game together. Since legend point costs for spells are in ED4, there is a change somewhere. This comes from the general structure of spellcaster discipline design and spell lists. Spellcasters now have the same number of discipline talents as others and receive two spell matrices for free (one of which upgrades to an Enhanced Matrix). As well, Willforce is now a discipline talent. These factors reduce quite a bit of the "talent tax" from having more talents to raise and key talents not counting towards advancement. The other side has to do with redeveloping the spell lists. Compared to third edition (ED3), which had nearly every spell, the lists are rather spartan. However, every spell should be a good choice for someone depending on group and personal style. Additionally, spells taken at the beginning of your career are still useful at the end. Since each spell is now a viable option and not something which is going to be replaced, they are once again back into the realm where each adds new capabilities to the character.

The end result is essentially a situation where spells are similar to knacks of the Spellcasting talent which require more infrastructure, but can also accomplish more and without a strain cost. From a design perspective, this makes other parts of the system fall into place and create some nice space in which to develop.

Hopefully this was helpful and provided some insight to where things started and why they ended at their current place.