My ED Questions

[Jaracove]

I think this is the right forum for my questions.

What's the power creep like in ED3R?

By that I mean, when does it start getting crazy, trying to design challenges for pcs? By challenging I mostly mean throwing monsters at them, but if there is anything else, like target numbers that throw up issues, please comment as well.

Similarly (and this is coming from a 3.5 background), how do non spell casters fare alongside spell casters, do they sit back whilst the spell caster does all his funky cool power stuff, or can they pitch in and be equally impressive?

I guess I could sum it up as; is the game balanced concering powerful characters, both in challenge from outside, and comparison with each discipline?

As an aside, I bought ED when it first came out under FASA's 1st ed, and it's alwasy had a soft spot in my gaming heart.

EDIT: Is there an errata listing and any idea when the GM Guide is out?

Thank you all

[Anunnaki]

[Panda]

Power creep is similar-ish to what you may expect from D&D: For the first three Circles, most adepts are learning their core competencies and things tend to go rather slow. Once Fourth Circle rolls around, Thread Weaving becomes a thing and relative power starts to scale up. This is, of course, entirely dependent on what Thread Items are accessible to the players and the rate at which the learn the Key Knowledges. Fifth Circle is where the adepts really begin to come into their own and the training wheels come off. What that means is interactions become more complex and attacks against defenses other than physical start really showing up. Each group is going to have a different dynamic based on the composition of Disciplines. For example, an Elementalist won't bring realistically bring any offense to a fight, but they have good support spells and excellent healing (meaning that the Group will be significantly tougher), while a Weaponsmith will increase the overall damage output of the group. In the end, there will always be appropriate threats to any group, though I would wager Ninth Circle is when things start to get somewhat crazy with significantly overt displays of power.

On the whole, it takes a lot for a spellcaster to outshine a combat Discipline in their area. There are specific scenarios where a spellcaster is going to have an advantage; specifically against targets with high physical defense and armor, and weak spell defense and mystic armor. Though their access to damaging effects is rather limited, particularly until the reach Fifth and Sixth Circle when they can get an Enhanced Matrix and Willforce. They tend to work best having one good damage spell and then investing in support abilities - combat really is not their thing. The requirement of Threads for powerful spells means they are still going to take time to pull off and access to them is limited: spellcasters don't automatically learn spells when they gain a Circle after Fifth Circle. I find the Disciplines to be very balanced regarding what they bring to the table. Specifically: everyone has funky cool powers.

As an extension of above, each Discipline has a focus on what they do and a play style that goes along with it. Don't expect a Scout to play like a D&D ranger and be as effective in combat as a Warrior or Archer, it's just not going to happen like that. By the same token, outside of combat, a Warrior doesn't really have a lot to do, while a Scout has all kinds of things at their disposal. This is also when spellcasters really shine as they will effectively have access to all of their spells when not pressed for time. I've been working on write-ups for each Discipline as well as information about the game in general and how I use the various parts on my blog. There should be significantly more information there, but let me know if you have any other questions.

[Jaracove]

Thanks for that indepth reply Panda, very insightful

[Nahor]

Yeah Loving the blog so far Panda. Any chance you'll end up combining some of your posts (especially regarding the disciplines) into a PDF for DL?

[Lanah]

I would say gameplay gets more challenging for a GM when spellcasters get Willpower, when melee/ranged characters get multi-attacks and when characters start to weave threads to magical items. Be very careful with giving away too many magical items on lower circles, this will hit you like a boomerang later on!

Spellcasters and melee/ranged classes are both powerful in their own ways. It comes always down to the plan your characters have when approaching an encounter. Usually GMs tend to use spellcasters as baddies but trust me, Troubadours or even Weaponsmiths make excellent evil characters, experiment with your NPCs!
For my part I can only tell you that Earthdawn is a balanced game (not including horrors).

[Panda]

Glad that people are finding useful things. I haven't considered making a pdf for download and honestly I doubt that I will. However, I have been trying to migrate everything to a wiki as I find the time. It's a format that works better for actual research, but is harder for me to actually sit down, organize and write. So the migration process is a little behind, but hopefully I will get some time to play catch-up soon. If there is ever a topic that you would like to see addressed, feel free to drop in on G+ (or wherever, honestly). Always looking for new topics.