disciplines beyond the player book

[galafrone]

[Panda]

I can sympathize to a degree, but the expansion in 3E was very uneven in how it was applied. Check out the Cavalryman or Swordmaster compares to the Scout or Thief. The latter two are also relevant to show how strange the half-magic applications could be. Scouts get Wilderness Survival through half-magic, which is also a First Circle discipline talent. Navigation is in a similar situation, though the half-magic is a crutch until Third Circle. This was probably done to make room for the Infiltrator specialty, though it explicitly makes the Infiltrator more optimized since it takes full advantage of all the half-magic offerings. Thieves use half-magic mostly as a crutch until they get the actual talents. This is just the surface and to me it's a mess.

I, personally, would allow a Warrior to make half-magic tests to recognize basic applications of military tactics. Nothing to give a mechanical effect (which Tactics can now give to other PCs), but something which can help assess a situation and give the players some information to play with. The thought going forward is half-magic fills in areas where there aren't talents which apply and gives some information, but doesn't entirely replace a talent or skill. Otherwise, why have talents and skills and not just shove a bunch of stuff in half-magic? It's a slippery slope argument, but not an entirely unfair one and serves to illustrate where a line was drawn and why. All of this being said, how anyone wants to apply half-magic at their own table is their decision and there is no wrong answer, just one which differs from the official answer.

[etherial]

[Panda]

My suggestion, to save yourself a lot of work in the long run, is to use the following equivalencies for nine of the disciplines from Namegivers of Barsaive:

Boatman: Air Sailor
Messenger: Scout
Outcast Warrior: Warrior
Songsmith: Troubadour
Taildancer: Swordmaster
Windancer: Troubadour
Windmaster: Warrior
Windscout: Scout
Woodsman: Archer or Scout

The other six don't have anything else quite like them, for better or worse. As Josh indicated, there are is nothing in the current schedule for disciplines beyond the 15 core disciplines. Those nine disciplines are unlikely to be updated since their themes are serviced by an existing discipline. The remaining six are a little more curious and some get thought during those spare moments (usually while at the gym). The goal is to make each discipline something which is not just a slightly different take on an existing discipline. Instead its own entity with a reason to exist and clear themes, rather than just to produce more mechanics.

[galafrone]

thanks Panda
that's what i always thought
the ones that i "need to do" are

- travelled scholar
- horror stalker
- shaman

i will start with the first 2, because are more conceptually simpler than the shaman (and i am still reading the new spells)

as i wrote, i will put the TravScholar in the "middle ground" aka the 5 durability+free talent+ karma at 1st
the horror stalker is more "hard to guess", because it can be a in the same slot as the 5dur ones OR in the 7dur category..

[Telarus_KSC]

Awesome. I came to the same realization once I started going through the Namegiver's Compendium. I did start a spreadsheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Not much but Boatmam filled out. I had the idea to turn Boatman into "Boatman/Sailor" and loosen up the racial restrictions, as there definitely references to human and elven boat cultures in the cannon, like Scavian barges, Urupa the 'new' merchant city, oh, and the mention that the Elves are the only ones who knew how to tack against the wind, which is why Upandal gave the t'srang the secrets of the Fire Engines. So, the "Sailor" side could cover wind driven boats, and the "Boatman" side would cover Riverboats and Barges. I had kind-of a 16-17th century "Pirate" concept in mind. I like the mechanics of the "Cast Net" talent, but think it should just be Cape & Net Technique (for that swashbuckler feel). Maybe also throw in Animal Bond at Journeyman for those t'krang that like the giant sea otters, or the classic pirate's parrot/monkey/whatever.

Anyway, that was just the first round of brainstorming. I like focusing on Horror Stalker & Traveled Scholar. What do you think of opening up the Racial Restrictions a bit on these Disciplines? Would you like to get the talents listed for Horror Stalker & Traveled Scholar in the Namegiver's Book put up on the spreadsheet of 4th Ed talents? I don't want to add talents to that list yet, just see what we can already cover.

Shaman's going to be a bitch, but it gives us a chance to really change how the concept is expressed in the rules. May have to go and re-re-read the Spirit rules .

[bleeding]

[Panda]

[Sangius]

[Panda]