Non-adept advancement

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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BRW
Posts:39
Joined:Tue Jan 31, 2017 5:00 pm
Non-adept advancement

Post by BRW » Sat Apr 29, 2017 11:06 am

How is non-Adept character's advancement handled? Specifically, the LP awards are dependent upon character's circle. On the other hand, the rate of growth of the cost for skills seems to make it almost impossible to advance the skills if LP's are awarded as for, say, the first-circle adept. On the other hand, it clearly should be possible for non-adept to become an expert in a given skill.

I know that non-adepts are definitely not the focus of ED game, but how would you handle this mechanically? Is there some published material on this topic.

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Loba
Posts:34
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Re: Non-adept advancement

Post by Loba » Sat Apr 29, 2017 2:42 pm

I'm not certain how you run things... but for me the LP awards are not based on the Circle of the adept. They are based on the Circle of the encounter. Since I do it this way, this applies to non-Adepts as well.

I will say this - non-Adepts are fragile. Once you hit Circle 5-8 events, single hits can get upwards of 50 points or more. Any non-Adept (save perhaps a high toughness Obsidiman) is likely to die. Now, you CAN have a non-Adept who is wearing Crystal Plate forged 9 times with a Footman's Shield and an Espagra Cloak. That is fairly good armor and might allow a non-Adept to survive such hits.

In my current campaign the characters own and fly a small airship. Their crew is only 15% Adepts. The rest of the crew are just non-Adepts with the Air Sailing skill. I've been allowing them awards of 10% LP to their crew from what they are awarded, presuming the crew is involved. The characters are now Circle 8 and most of the non-Adept crew now have Air Sailing skill Rank 5-7 (depending on their focus). It might seem generous to grant this LP to the non-Adepts. Let me tell you, each and every one of them risk their lives in every encounter. One slip that would be a challenge for a PC would outright kill an NPC. Due to this, I think it warrants the reward. They've lost 5 crew members already (and they have spent time naming them and giving them backgrounds). I quite enjoy this dynamic.

To me, the real question is, aside from GM fiat, how do you award LP to folks working an everyday life? The shopkeeper who has been selling her wares for 6 years, before then worked as the trader on a T'skrang river boat for 2 years and before then was born to a farming community where she tilled the earth for 4 years and played as a child for 10 years? How many LP should this character have? Good question. I don't have a good answer. I normally use GM fiat and wing the difficulty and challenges the character may have endured over their life. Were they a participant, a victim or running away all of the time or always saved by a stronger force or some mix? I don't really know how else to do it.

But image your Theran soldier who has been training for 3 years before hitting the field and then worked as either a Footman or an Air Sailor for 3-6 more years. It seems reasonable their 3-5 primary skills might be between 5 and 7. Higher if they had specialized training and specialized experiences like serving on the front lines in one of the wars. Less if they are some frightened soldier who stays behind to clean the base.

Hope that helps,

~ Loba.

Telarus
Posts:267
Joined:Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:16 am

Re: Non-adept advancement

Post by Telarus » Sat Apr 29, 2017 9:40 pm

Circle and Challenge Rating are roughly equivalent (Adepts get a lot of cool stuff though). So I decide on a "Rating" for the character and then I use the "character's Tier" given on p 141 of the 4E Gamemaster's Guide as a reference:

If you need to make a test for a character, you can add a Step modifier to the
appropriate Attribute based on the character’s tier. Novice characters will typically
add +1 to +4, Journeyman characters +5 to +8, Warden characters +9 to +12, and
Master characters +13 to +15. These modifiers should be the ones used for tests
involving the gamemaster character’s primary focus. For secondary skills and
abilities, use modifiers based on the next lower tier, or just have the character make
an unmodified Attribute test.

I generally only use those to balance encounters, though, and I award half LP to henchmen/hirelings who take risks and contribute to the action (usually half of the minimum for that Circle). So, if a few non-adepts _seriously_ helped resolve an encounter, each one would get a "half share". Example: 3 player character Adepts of 4th circle and 2 NPCs of Rating 5 (early Journeyman Tier) defeat a really challenging "monster" encounter (like, the players almost die), each player would get 700 LP for the Conflict Award. The assisting gamemaster characters would get 250 LP each (half of the minimum 500 LP for Rating 5 characters.

ChrisDDickey
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Re: Non-adept advancement

Post by ChrisDDickey » Sun Apr 30, 2017 4:05 am

I consider that the published rules only cover the adventuring life.
Most of the world are not adventurers, and they use different advancement rules than adventurers do.

A farmer, merchant or craftsman who may have never faced a monster or other adventuring challenge in their life, nor have earned anything more than a very local legend, do not earn LP in the adventuring way, but an older farmer is still likely to be more experienced and better at his trade than a younger one. I don't consider the mechanics for non-adventuring advancement to be not worth worrying about - just recognize that it happens behind the scenes and by gm fiat. Fake stuff up as needed. Just keep it appropriate. Master merchants should be experienced and rich. You probably will not find many young green-grocers with a haggle skill above 2. You probably will not find many major merchant house factotums with a haggle skill of less than 6.

Also, in my game I have introduced more non-adventuring disciplines. The Weavers and the Potters/Glassblowers are fairly common craft disciplines and do most of the enchanting in my version of the world. I have never needed to bother enumerating their powers, I have just stated that most of the enchanted robes/cloaks/carpets/etc are produced by members of the Weavers discipline. This is not Non-adept advancement, but it is non-adventuring advancement as they don't advance by the LP system, but by another system that I have avoided specifying in detail as it does not impact PCs at all. They hare whatever level the GM wants them to be. Sometimes I have had one toss off a comment like "Oh, I am not advanced enough to weave a flying carpet yet". but I have never bothered to write up a list of what items can be produced by what circle Weavers.

I find that attempting to shoe-horn the whole non-adventuring world into using the system used by adventurers rarely makes sense. I just say that everybody else uses a different system that there is no need for anybody (players or gm) to know about, and leave it at that.

All that having been said, if the question is about non-adept adventurers, they could still use the LP system as described in one of the previous posts.


yankeeschic
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Re: Non-adept advancement

Post by yankeeschic » Tue Jun 03, 2025 8:54 am

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