Most Extensive and Crazy Houserules

[Tanthalas]

With ED4 doing away with other defensive talents in favor of Avoid Blow, I think your rule sounds like a pretty good tweak. If not to the base talent, I could see it becoming a pretty good knack. 'Grazing Blow', spend some extra strain, use the avoid blow roll instead of physical defense for a single swing...I like it!

[bleeding]

I must admit I had this idea because of a friend playing a Warrior. He's not very lucky with dices so I wanted to give him some kind of edge when fighting because he is famed for being a "hit points pool" for the group in any RPG. He always takes most of the damage, and often misses enemies so his only usefulness is that when he takes damages, the other players don't take them

[Slimcreeper]

I've had this idea percolating for the past couple of days: a knack or specialized talent that lets a spell caster cast the spell first and weave the threads afterwards. The matrix would take damage equal to the damage that would be caused by casting raw magic from the force of magic being funneled through it. The magician would throw spell casting first. Successful or not, the spell caster must spend his or her next available actions weaving threads until all of the threads are woven. If for some reason the caster isn't able to weave the threads or tries to take any action other than weaving threads, dire consequences ensue: matrix permanently corrupted, causing the caster to take raw magic damage whenever he or she uses it. The consequences apply even if the caster can't complete the threads through no fault of his or her own, such as being knocked unconscious. The idea being that the caster could get the effect off while it can still affect matters, but not be able to cast spells any more often than what is currently possible.

[Kasbak]

Hmm, interesting one there Slimcreeper. Though I think maybe doing it as a temporary construct would work better than something as permanent as a Talent or Knack. Perhaps a spell with a name like Thread Armor. Cast the spell before hand, and it creates an Astral construct of armor around the caster to protect their Pattern against warping damage. Have the effect equal its Death Rating, and once it takes enough warping damage to exceed that, it unravels and the remaining damage rolls over to the caster. You could also leave a caveat to extend the duration for a year and a day in the standard fashion with some Blood Magic damage, and then include your Thread Weaving mechanic to repair the armor or risk the warped and corrupted strands causing damage. For this option, I would still have any successful Horror Marks hit the caster, so the risk isn't entirely mitigated.

[PottyBert]

These are the current house rules my game is using:

[Slimcreeper]

Something else I would like to try (and this I will play test at our next session):

Instead of rolling damage after each attack, the PCs & NPCs record the damage step of each attack that hits (i.e.: step 8, step 9 etc).

The player or NPC that wins initiative for the round sets the pace. Each round after the first, whoever wins initiative decides if this is the round that everything gets resolved. If the character decides yes, then instead of taking actions, everyone rolls out their damage, taking wounds, getting knocked down, etc. The only exception is armor defeating hits (or any hit with 2 successes in the new system). Those are resolved as soon as they hit.

I think this will introduce a gambling mechanic which will add a lot of tension. Also, it will simulate the ebb and flow of adrenaline, and make individual rounds run faster. The heroes could continue striving long after they should be dead, some weaker but determined mooks could be dead men standing. Of course, there is the possibility that it will be weird if a bunch of people fall out at the same time, but I think the not knowing if your character has a stab wound that may be a time bomb that will take him out as soon as he slows down will increase the drama immensely.

[Antra]

[Slimcreeper]

Oh, this is not a suggestion for cannon ED, only my table. My goal is to have a nice rhythm for combat. For initiative, I don't typically roll NPCs unless they have a special ability - the PCs are trying to beat the initiative DN. I'm not sure about healing effects - I think they would be resolved when the character takes the action. Also, I don't think there is an incentive to push too much of the damage late because there won't be any wounds to slow down the big bad.

There will lots of unintended consequences, I know. That's why I'm throwing out there for you guys to think over. I've never played to high levels

[Antra]

I've only recently started playing Earthdawn myself, but I've used a somewhat similar mechanic in games such as Legend of the Five Rings and Mechwarrior to go for a bit of a more cinematic feel. (The mechanic I've used is that damage resolves every two/three rounds of combat depending on what game we're playing.) And while this keeps most rounds moving fast, it inevitably makes combat in already deadly systems, far more deadly.

And yes, it would prevent wound penalties from stacking on the bad guys, it would also prevent them from stacking on the Players. Having healing effects happen immediately would prevent players from going to long without opting for a damage round, as this would be the only way to heal their own wounds. So this could be a good counter point to your rule that keeps players from holding off on damage until all baddies would be dead when damage drops.

[Slimcreeper]

Meaning they couldn't plug a healing into the stack to ameliorate the damage; they have to actually take the damage to heal it? That's what I was thinking. If you let it go too long fight too hard, no amount of fireblood is likely to be much help after the fact.