FASA Games, Inc.

To whom it may concern:

I played 1st edition Earthdawn and purchased and read 2nd edition Earthdawn (from living Room games) but I missed 3rd edition from Red Brick.
I just purchased the 3rd Edition Revised from Fasa Games (but I have not received it yet) and I was curious about backward compatability.

The reason I ask is that I have the opportunity to purchase some Red Brick Earthdawn products at dirt cheap prices (the guy who is selling them is moving and its like $50 for all his ED stuff)

So will it be compatible?

Thanks
Todd

Short answer, yes.

Longer answer, there are some things that are different from edition to edition, but nothing so radical that you can't freely swipe stuff across editions.

What Mataxes said.

Even between editions/revisions, the level of compatibility is high for Earthdawn. If you're picking up Third Edition books from your friend, then you won't have any problems with compatibility with Revised (in fact, you may not need Revised at all, depending on what you are picking up).

Kind regards, James

Very much this. At best, you may have to tweak Adept load-outs, or slightly balance creature stats according to the new Creature Design Table if coming from Classic.. Most magical items would work as-is, too (but, again, it may be worth tweaking once you have & understand the magic item design rules).

Because all 3 (4-actually, counting "Classic") editions run on nearly the same step progression, it's one of the easiest game-lines to swap rulsets for. Be on the lookout for other older stuff, too

The one sticky case being converting a whole group of high ranking PCs at once, which is easiest to handle by just letting them re-spend their LP one Circle at a time and kind-a hand-waiving the backstory.

And even that only matters if you want to be a stickler about the numbers.

There is nothing remotely game-breaking about pulling a creature from a First Edition book and using it as-is against a later edition character.

Well, unless you're grabbing a Named horror and throwing it against a pack of newly-minted adepts, but that isn't a problem with changes in the edition.