[OSSR]Earthdawn (1st Edition)

[Username17]

What the die steps are "for" is to create something that is on average equivalent to getting a +1 bonus, but also increases variance so that your chances of failure don't linearly march to zero.

So if you're looking for a 5+ and you are rolling a d6, you succeed 1/3 of the time. If you got a +1 bonus, you'd succeed half the time. And if you got a +4 bonus you'd succeed all of the time. With die steps, one bonus goes to d8 (which succeeds half the time, just like a +1 bonus), but four bonuses goes to 2d6, which still fails 1/6th of the time.

Now there are some seriously wonky bits. Like for starters, our fourth bonus went from d12 to 2d6, which is actually only an increase of 0.5 in average result and a huge decrease in variance compared to the thing that came right before it. That also makes the jump from a linear RNG to a curved one, so your chances of getting very high numbers actually go down at that point (but because you have two dice to explode with, not quite as much as you'd think at first). The jump to 3 dice is 16 steps later and mostly doesn't happen.

Another wonky bit is the thing where it jumps from d10+d12 to d20+d4 rather than the more sensible "d12+d12." No one knows why this is, but it makes the curve flatten out a lot between step 13 and 14. As in: while the curve between step 8 and step 13 is essentially a triangle, at exactly step 14 all pre-explosion outputs between 5 and 21 are equally likely (5% likely, as it happens), with all "curve" being visible only on outputs 2-4 and 22-24. It's just fucking weird, and I have no idea why this happens.

It's a noble experiment to thread the needle between the need for characters to get bonuses and the desire for it to be possible to fail at tasks, but I don't think it worked. Earthdawn's wonky die rolling scheme is an evolutionary dead end.

-Username17

[darkmaster]

You know, it's kind of weird that earthdawn isn't just set so far back in the past that all this stuff could happen. Like- stone henge is old, really, really old, and there's evidence of structures very much like stone henge as far south as the coast of Africa, suggesting an empire or group of affiliated empires and kingdoms that held the territory to.. build things at all that we just don't know anything about except they seemed to have built a massive continent spanning calender because- well... that's my bet.

Anyway, it's not like you can't have things so far back that we just don't remember it at all, or that you couldn't, in a world where magic and fairies exist have the earth just be older because wiblily wobbly timey wimy. So... why not?

[Ancient History]

Well, as mentioned, Earthdawn itself gives no indication of its date in relation to "contemporary with the players" at all. So you could just arbitrarily say it's set in 1 Million BCE or the Hyborian Age or whatever. The date-setting pretty much comes from Shadowrun, for a supplement written and released before Earthdawn was a thing. Even in that context, Earthdawn is hilariously anachronistic at times - stout doesn't even begin to touch on some of the bizarre crapola that went into the Theran Empire Sourcebook with its reincarnating popes in pseudo-Renaissance Italy and weird fantasy Egypt vibe and crap.

[Concise Locket]

In a world of magical airships, I'm not going to get bent out of shape about porters. Trying to reconcile Earthdawn, Shadowrun, and the historical record is a recipe for depression.

[talozin]

A brief digression about the history of dice.

You may or may not be aware that the "polyhedral dice" popularized by D&D and used by legions of games since then are basically a set of platonic solids like you can buy in any high school science catalog, except with numbers on them. Tradition ascribes the idea of using platonic solids as fancy dice to Gary Gygax, although, like every invention ascribed by tradition to Gary Gygax, saying so loudly and firmly in a large enough group of gamers is a good way to start a fight.

At any rate, if you look at the set of platonic solids you will rapidly notice that there are five of them, essentially the d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20. Importantly, there is no platonic solid with ten sides, which is inconvenient if you are trying to do random number generation on a percentile basis. Presumably it did not take long before some bright fellow realized that while there is no 10-sided platonic solid, one could be simulated by just numbering a 20-sided solid 0-9 twice. The earliest d10s were just that.

And so were the earliest d20s. I don't know why -- I like to imagine that the icosohedron technology of the time was so primitive that inscribing readable double-digit numbers onto a d20 face was impossible -- but in the very early, pre-Basic Set days of D&D, a d20 was also a 20-sided solid numbered 0-9 twice, and you were obliged to get a crayon and color in one set of numbers a different color than the other so you could tell if you'd rolled a 5 or a 15. The d20 in my White Box D&D set is like that.

[Nath]

You know, it's kind of weird that earthdawn isn't just set so far back in the past that all this stuff could happen. Like- stone henge is old, really, really old, and there's evidence of structures very much like stone henge as far south as the coast of Africa, suggesting an empire or group of affiliated empires and kingdoms that held the territory to.. build things at all that we just don't know anything about except they seemed to have built a massive continent spanning calender because- well... that's my bet.

Stonehenge is actually not that old, most estimations put it somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC. The date featured in Shadowrun set the end of the Fourth age circa 3100 BC. The "Constant-Mana-Cycle-Length, Peak-In-The-Middle theory" as I call it, would set Earthdawn era somewhere around 5300 BC. The Barsaive culture is older than even the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture that you probably never heard about before (it appears according to Wikipedia there's something called the Bug-Dniester culture that matches the date and geographical extent of Barsaive, and I never heard about it until today).

[Lokathor]

Another wonky bit is the thing where it jumps from d10+d12 to d20+d4 rather than the more sensible "d12+d12." No one knows why this is, but it makes the curve flatten out a lot between step 13 and 14. As in: while the curve between step 8 and step 13 is essentially a triangle, at exactly step 14 all pre-explosion outputs between 5 and 21 are equally likely (5% likely, as it happens), with all "curve" being visible only on outputs 2-4 and 22-24. It's just fucking weird, and I have no idea why this happens.

Yeah, in 3e it goes to 2d12 instead of using d20+d4.

Anyway, most of the "real world history can't possibly be connected to this history" problems can easily be waved away with either "when the mana cycle went below the magic point it altered the fossil record, so that's why it appeared to have never happened and everyone thought it was a myth" or more simply, "it's an alternate world don't worry about it man". I mean, Lord of The Rings is also supposed to technically be in the distant past of Earth (like 6,000 years ago), that's why it's called Middle-earth and stuff. That's also obviously false, but no one gets too bent out of shape about it.

Earthdawn's history becomes increasingly impossible to reconcile with the real world the more you read about it. The Dragons have stories about Verjigorm and the creation of the world and all that. Also there's been a previous Scourge that the Dragons survived through before. Scourges are only once per Age, so it must have been during the 2nd age, since odd numbered ages are totally non-magical. So the creation of the world happened during the 0th age, or something? Who even did all this naming of the ages? The Immortal Elves? The Dragons? Both of those groups would have been asleep during the 1st age. Unless an "Age" starts with an awakening and then lasts all the way through the no-magic period and doesn't tick over until the next awakening happens. But I don't think that jives with Shadowrun lore about the 5th age either.

The thing about the whole game being named Earthdawn after some ship despite the fact that "it's during the dawn of Earth" is such a better explanation that people just assume that's the reason, well that part is totally weird.

[Ancient History]

Major Races of Barsaive
Many of my people say that the other races are too big, take up too much space, and use up too much air. Theirs is a shortsighted view–they fail to see the irony. After all, how boring the world would be if there was no one to make fun of.


The above quote is brought to you by a Windling. They are basically Tinkerbells, and exactly as annoying as you'd think a player character pixie race might be.
In other words, less than kender, more than gnomes. - AH

FrankT:

One of the things that really defines Earthdawn is an attempt to get rid of “out of game terminology.” Almost everything about the game is discussable in-character with in-character terminology. So, all the sapient races are “Name Givers,” all the playable races are “Major Races,” and all the races that you aren't familiar with by having read Shadowrun books are “Exotic Races.” Yes, really. There is an in-character term for the races that players who are new to the game but have already played Shadowrun are unfamiliar with. Honestly, I think that's going a bit far.


I count 2 humans and no Windlings, but whatever.

This chapter is only 6 pages, but it's information dense and covers a lot of ground.

AncientH:

The basic skeleton of this chapter is, of course, Shadowrun 1st edition, which did about the exact same thing. It's a bit different from how oD&D did things, and every header is accompanied by some italicized in-character quote from a character or document. This "Shadowrun-style" approach actually continued on into some of the sourcebooks, where the in-character portions were presented as documents from the game with pithy annotations replacing shadowrunners posting comments to a document on a BBS.


Herr Laubenstein's trolls look like hoboes.

FrankT:

For whatever reason, Earthdawn chooses to give us information in feet and inches and pounds. It's the same numbers as Shadowruns meters and kilos (subject to a few typos), but it's in imperial instead of metric. I don't know why this is. Maybe to make it seem “older?” Maybe because a lot of their design work was done in the 1970s and was obviously done in stupid imperial numbers and they didn't want to hunt through everything and delete all the references to yards and furlongs and crap? It is what it is.



The big division in describing Dwarves is whether to use the Tolkienian “Dwarves” or the pre-Tolkienian “Dwarfs.” Earthdawn splits the difference and uses “Dwarven” for the adjectival form and “Dwarfs” for the plural form. This pleases no one and confuses the crap out of everyone.

AncientH:

Still better than "dwarrow." The important thing about Dwarfs in this setting is that in addition to coming first alphabetically, they're the de facto race. Yup, not humans: most of Earthdawn is based around the predominantly Dwarven kingdom of Throal.

FrankT:

Elves not being “special enough” is something that every author must tackle at some point. As the archetypical “Mary Sue” race, they need to be “more special” than everyone else. Ancient tackled some of the ways that Earthdawn Elves are different (and you know, better), but there's one thing that I think stands out:

Elves with skin of a pale green or iridescent, pearly color called cetharel exist, but remain rare.

That is literally the only time the word “cetharel is ever mentioned. Not just in this book, ever. Every mention of cetharel online is just people making copypasta of the Earthdawn race descriptions. Just by drawing attention to cetharel, I have now created more unique cetharel sentences than have previously existed. I predict that within a few days, this OSSR will be on the first page for google searches of the word “cetharel” (AH note - once, my Sperehtiel Dictionary was the top hit.)

That is how fucking special Earthdawn Elves are. You will never be that special. Every word used to describe your skin tone is a word that is ever used in some other context.

AncientH:

Shadowrun is a game set over a hundred years since The Hobbit came out in setting; people name their dwarf kids Thorin and assume elves are vegetarian dandelion-eaters just because of the cultural inertia of J. R. R.'s memes. In Earthdawn, they don't have that, so they adhere to Tolkienesque stereotypes more self-consciously than in SR. But they still do it.


Our ears are pointy indeed.

Sperethiel in ED is identical to Sperethiel in SR, with maybe less borrowing from Gaelic and more made-up fantasy words, but even taken together they're little more than glossaries.

Humans are always a hard one for fantasy RPGs, and in ED where they're just one race among many, their defining characteristic is that they're very family-oriented and independent-minded. On the other hand, they're not all white, so there's that.

FrankT:

Obsidimen are big tough hard skinned dudes. If that sounds exactly like a Troll to you... you're not wrong. The fact that Obsidimen are a thing is one of the tells that Trolls were added late in development. These are an alt-race written up in the 70s when people thought they were being edgy by making their own non-Tolkien races by the expedient of taking [Thing] + Man and making a [Thing]Man. So Runequest of course had their [Duck]Man and their [Goat]Man, and proto-Earthdawn had their [Rock]Man. And their [Lizard]Man, but we'll get to that in a bit.


Obsidimen look like dumb Babylon 5 Aliens.

The Obsidimen actually are a major hole in the plot. Like, I literally have no idea how these guys survived the Scourge. Supposedly, they weathered the Scourge by bonding with their liferocks and going into the Dreaming. But that can only last like 10 years before they go loopy. [AH edit - the book says they can spend decades attached to their liferock; they go loopy if they don't merge with their liferock.] And the Scourge lasted hundreds of years. They need to go outside on a regular basis, because after a few months with a roof over their head they shut down. So they literally can't have made it in the fallout shelters. Clearly these guys have been in the setting for a long time, but their writeup doesn't make a lot of sense.

AncientH:

To expand on what Frank said, these guys are seven-foot-tall man-mountains that are basically flesh-and-blood earth elementals. There are no women and gender is a questionable issue; all obsidimen in a given "brotherhood" come from the same Liferock - literally, a big rock formation - which they can merge with and have special magics yadda yadda. Most of those are just for story purposes, but there's some stuff on name magic and pattern magic later where it becomes sort of important. Some liferocks didn't survive the Scourge.


They have a special word for that headdress.

Obsidimen are kind of interesting as as protagonists of one of the "Lost Earthdawn" novels - three books commissioned by FASA but never published because the line was cancelled. Many years later, during the second flowering of Earthdawn gaming, they were published by a small press. They were...okay.


Also, Jak Koke is not to be trusted.

FrankT:

Earthdawn uses “Ork” like Shadowrun does. As we touched on in Warhammer uses “Orc” in fantasy and “Ork” in science fiction. It's just more sciencish if it's spelled with a “K.” At least, that was the thinking in the 80s. And Shadowrun was science fiction and it was made in the 80s. Earthdawn uses the K-spelling because Shadowrun did, even though it's a fantasy game and not a scifi game. Of course, whether you have Orcs or Orks, there is still a central question which has been raging in the fandom since before RPGs were even a thing: are they hairy or smooth?

This is not an easy question to answer. Orks are supposed to be ugly, but what constitutes hideous or handsome to one author will be the opposite to another. So the ball bounces around between shaggy Orks and bald Orks. Earthdawn is firmly in the shaggy camp. Orks and Trolls have more body hair than Humans. Or at least they do in the text. Sometimes artists will forget and draw low-hair Orks and Trolls instead. Like in that sky vikings Troll painting that Ancient posted in the first post. The Trolls there seem to lack chest hair or armpit hair. But according to the text, it's like Planet of the Apes in this shit.



At times, Games Workshop Orcs have had females with long hair. The company has since retconned all of that away.

AncientH:

Orks in Shadowrun are more-or-less a stand in for black people in terms of expressing racial prejudice. In Earthdawn, this is still the case - Orks had their own nation, but lost it, and before the Scourge were enslaved by the other races. Now many of them are sorta-kinda mongolish tribal raiders called scorchers.


Seriously, Jeff?

Orks speak a racial language called or'zet, which they wouldn't really get until their own sourcebook came out, and which was eventually ported into Shadowrun.

Trolls are Shadowrun trolls, except they're all fucking sky vikings. No, seriously, they tried to port Nordic culture straight to fucking mountaintop villages building flying pirate vessels called drakkars and they have a special class where they jump out of the fucking things and wield magic axes of Living Crystal. We'll get to that later.

There's also some low-land trolls, who don't do the whole skyraiding thing, but they're boring.

FrankT:

The T'skrang are semi-amphibious lizard people who have really big tails and are supposed to act like annoying douchebags. They have some matriarchal pirate federations, and that's about all this section bothers to tell you about these guys. How does one tell a male T'skrang from a female T'skrang? I don't know. Maybe they have lizard boobs like 4e Dragonborn, I don't fucking know. Nowhere in this entire book is it even mentioned whether these assholes lay eggs. You'd think that would be fairly pertinent information if you wanted to talk about lizard people and their society, but the authors prefer to offer quips about how T'skrang are known to exaggerate numbers and generally be annoying dicks.


This picture is like 90% of the information you get about what the T'skrang are physically like.

AncientH:

The T'skrang lifecycle (described in Denizens of Barsaive, Vol. I is a complicated thing involving laying eggs, magical mud, and lizard boobs. Whatever. You're lizard-people that prance around like fucking Nightcrawler with a sword.



Yes, they also get tail-weapons.

They also claim a relation to dragons and there's a sub-species with skin flaps that can magically glide.

FrankT:

There was a set of books that gave more information about the namegiver races. It was called “Denizens of Earthdawn Volume One” and “Denizens of Earthdawn Volume Two.” In it, they reveal such brain breaking concepts as the idea that there are more male Windlings born than female Windlings, and that Windlings mate for life and each Windling female only has 2 kids. They are a diminishing race. Every generation is, by definition, smaller than the one before it.

Or maybe the take home here is that having virtually no information is still better than having completely stupid information you have to manually reject and replace with something less fucktarded.

AncientH:

Windlings technically appeared in Shadowrun first, as pixies, in the book Paranormal Animals of Europe written by the inestimable duo of Carl Sargent and Marc Gasciogne. Aside from appearance, they're completely different. I ended up bringing pixies back in Shadowrun in the execrable Runner's Companion, because I think drug-addicted fairies with day-glo mohawks are funny.

Creating a Character
Our streets are filled with ruffians of every description. Some are worse than others, and grow to truly fearsome power. To those we give medals, in hopes that calling them heroes will make it so.


We have no idea what these guys are supposed to want either.

FrankT:

The character creation chapter is 18 pages long. But in the 10 step quick character creation program, literally the first bullet point on the list is “Choose a Discipline,” which is a page citation to the next chapter, which is 30 pages long. Step six is “Assign Talent Ranks,” which sends you to the Talents chapter (30 more pages); step seven is “Assign Skill Ranks” (34 more pages); and step ten is “play the game” and apparently involves having fun and eating pizza. So when we say it's “18 pages” what we really mean is that the introduction to the character creation is 18 pages long and that the actual character creation rules are over a hundred pages long.

AncientH:

Amazingly, Earthdawn acknowledges the basic rule that most players will choose class first and then the race that best serves that class with its bonuses. I approve. Character creation in general is basically designed along a "Okay, this is what D&D did wrong, so let's do it the opposite way." approach.

FrankT:

Characters in Earthdawn begin at 1st circle. That's like being a 1st level D&D character. The highest circle discussed in this book is 10th circle. For comparison: the cool special abilities that a Shadowrun magician gets just for having a magic attribute and a tradition (astral projection, spirit summoning, ward creation, etc.) are things Earthdawn casters have to learn individually, and they are relegated to between 4th and 7th circle for the most part. A starting Shadowrun character gets powers that an Earthdawn character would have to mostly complete the game to be allowed to purchase inferior versions of.


I'm not sure what this has to do with the power comparison between Shadowrun and Earthdawn characters, but I think Shadowrun characters should quote Mae West a lot more than they do. Because she was awesome.

AncientH:

Technically, Earthdawn goes up to circle 15 (and ranks max out at 15 for talents and 10 for skills), but at the higher circles things get insane and weird, so don't worry about it.

Other than that, the general format follows a lot of the Shadowrun layout, where you have the character generation divvied up into steps with italicized example following.

FrankT:

You can roll your attributes, but the writers of the book don't want you to. They want you to purchase them with points. The actual table is “fucktarded.” It's basically the kind of thing you're familiar with, attributes go up to 18 and it costs more to get higher values. So... exactly like every D&D derived stat buy system ever. But the details make it retarded. First of all, rather than giving you a lot of points to spend and starting all stats at the bottom, or giving you a few points to spend and starting the stats in the middle, the zero point is at 5 and you get a medium-large pile of points. Ugh. Also, while each point costs more than the one before it for a while, eventually they start costing less again. The 18th point costs less than the 14th point. Rrrgh.

The actual chart itself is also bad. The costs are simply scalars, and if you lower your stats below the starting value the cost is listed with a plus to indicate that the cost is negative and you gain points instead of losing them. Rrrgh. Also, the next step is to apply racial modifiers to your stats, but you retroactively had to buy enough of stats your race penalizes that you don't flatline. Some races have penalties big enough for that to be an issue. Rrrgh.


And then everything was on fire. Because of bad table formatting. The end.

AncientH:

Sadly, I think Earthdawn was a dry-run for the revised character gen system in Shadowrun. The idea of both systems is that you have a limit to min-maxing and have characters that are at least slightly well-rounded...at least, that's the intent. In execution, there's still some wiggle room.

There are six attributes, but they're neither exactly SR or D&D attributes - they're Dexterity, Strength, Toughness, Perception, Willpower, and Charisma - and things get a little funky after that, because Armor rating is divided into Physical and Mystic (instead of Shadowrun's Impact and Penetration).

Earthdawn characters have hit points (called simply "Damage") but it's merged with the Shadowrun Physical/Mental health track idea so there are a couple ratings associate with that - Death Rating (if you take this much damage, you die), Unconsciousness Rating (take this much damage, you fall unconscious), and Wound Threshold (if a single attack takes a number of points of damage equal to or greater than WT, they suffer a Wound which heals slower; generally DR/UR are set so you need to suffer a couple wounds before you collapse).

In addition, there are Recovery Tests. These are kind of like healing surges in D&D4, in that X number of times per day you can spend one and heal some damage. Fluff-wise, Namegivers "instinctively use the magic of the earth to heal themselves far faster than biologically possible."

Instead of armor class, there's the Physical Defense rating, Spell Defense rating, and Social Defense rating. These are the things people think they're being very clever when they re-create them in a D&D clone every ten years or so. As you might guess, you roll against the appropriate Defense rating to affect the character with a physical attack, spell, or social skill/talent respectively.

Higher attributes give higher bonuses/starting ratings to all these things, like AD&D attributes - have a high enough Willpower, for example, and you get some Mystic Armor and a high Spell Defense. That said, Talents like Durability generally add further bonuses than increasing attributes.

FrankT:

The days of universal attribute bonus tables had not really come when Earthdawn came out. So they do up a page long table that lists all the different crap that various stats let you do (like set your movement rate or lifting allowance) and put it all together. You'd think that the column headings would tell you what stat you were talking about – like maybe the table heading would be “Movement Rate (Dexterity)” or “Carrying Capacity (Strength).” But it doesn't say anything like that. Instead, you have to go to the text. And sometimes you look it up one way (for example: it tells you to use your Dexterity on the chart when calculating Movement in the description of Movement), and sometimes it goes the other way (for example: it tells you that Strength is what you use to look up your Carrying Capacity under the description of Strength).

AncientH:

Initiative is a secondary attribute derived from Dexterity; Karma is derived from Shadowrun and represents fire-and-forget bonus dice that you can purchase and spend. Each race has a different maximum karma point pool, karma action die, starting karma, and Legend Point cost to buy more. So for example, windlings start with 15 Karma, roll d10s, only pay 5 LP/karma, and have a maximum of 60 - while trolls roll d4, start with 6, max out at 20, and pay 10 LP/karma. This is because windlings are fragile and much more likely to get squished.

There are rules for movement and how much you can carry and all that crap, but that's standard stuff for games with AD&D in their genetic lineage.

The racial abilities Frank was talking about are things like Heat Sight (in place of Infravision or Thermographic Vision), Low-Light Vision (identical with Shadowrun), natural armor, tail attacks (for T'skrang), etc. Windlings get "Astral-Sensitive Sight," which is like Astral Perception in Shadowrun except it costs them 1 Strain* to use it. Humans get Rank 0 in the Versatility Talent, which only humans can take, and can upgrade it as normal.

* Strain is unresisted damage you willingly take to fuel certain talents and abilities. It's a form of blood magic. It's like Drain in Shadowrun, except, y'know, unresisted.

FrankT:

Much of the Create a Character chapter is filled up with descriptions of what the various racial abilities do. I'm almost positive there would have been a better place for this information. Earthdawn also uses Vampire's system of Natures and Demeanors. They are called “Hidden Traits” and “Surface Traits.” But despite a fair amount of discussion of gaining and losing these traits (and nearly filling a page with a table presenting 108 personality adjectives), I don't see that they actually do anything. They appear on first and second glance to be purely roleplaying prompts, with no advantage or disadvantage to having or not having these things.


On the surface, I may appear to not give a shit; but I want you to know that in the deepest, most important portions of my soul, I don't give a shit.

AncientH:

Unlike Vampire, these traits never ever come into play and no-one cares about them. I think they may even have been axed from subsequent editions.

You pick out your beginning talents and skills at this point - you have 8 ranks divvied up between your 1st-Circle Talents with a max rank of 3 to any particular Talent. Your get 2 ranks of Knowledge skills for free (i.e. two 1-rank skills or 2 ranks in one skill), a rank 1 Artisan skill*, and a rank 1 language skill**.

* All characters start with an Artisan skill because those who are corrupted by the Horrors cannot express themselves creatively without going full goth and incorporating themes of evil, blood, death, pain, suffering, etc. ... when they can do art at all. So a standard shibboleth for someone to prove they aren't Horror-marked is to demonstrate their artisan skill, be it basketweaving or dancing or singing or Troll poetry slams or whatever.


Now, draw something cute so we know you're not tainted.

** Everybody starts out speaking Dwarven (really, Throalic) and their root-race language (Elvish, Orcish, Obsidiman, Windling, etc.) for free. They also get to Read/Write (Dwarven) for free. The extra language rank can be applied to Speak or Read/Write another language, and you can apply your knowledge ranks to that as well. So if you want to start the game able to speak Theran, T'skrang, Troll, and Dwarf, that is within the realm of possibility.

FrankT:

The section ends with one of those “twenty questions” style character personality quizzes. You could certainly do worse.


I'd answer all the questions about likes and dislikes with “Queen of the United Kingdom,” but it turns out that would be an anachronism.

AncientH:

Earthdawn uses the standard precious metal coinage system, with the common (Throalic and Theran) currency being copper:silver:gold in the standardized weights and measures so 100c:10s:1g, with the silver piece being the general standard unit. This is noted to be just the easy convenient unit of account thing, and foreign and exotic coinage still has to go through exchange processes and all that. In addition, gems are handy for representing large sums of money and there are elemental coins which are mostly never fucking used or referred to ever again in the game, and later on orichalcum coins which are mainly used for magical payments. Anyway, you start out with 120 sp to buy your kit at chargen.


Warhammer? 125 sp. Tough luck, citizen.

If there's one thing which we should probably emphasize at this point, it's that this was the very first book in the setting, and while they've obviously got some idea of the world and a good handle on the mechanics, they don't really have a clue how well this is going to go over or how they're going to expand it, exactly. So there are a lot of elements that are a bit generic fantasy RPG-ish which they would later gloss over, forget, or tighten up. I really kind of would have liked to have seen what an ED2 would have looked like under the original team, because if SR2 was anything to go by, it might have blown D&D3 out of the water. But I digress.

Next up: Character Classes Disciplines.

[erik]

I count 2 humans and no Windlings, but whatever.

Top right. Windling on troll's shoulder.

Edit: I assume the 2 humans is sarcastic commentary on their art for elf/orc

[Blicero]

I really kind of would have liked to have seen what an ED2 would have looked like under the original team, because if SR2 was anything to go by, it might have blown D&D3 out of the water. But I digress.

Did the original team get kicked out before the revision was made or something? And was SR2 that significant as a game? (I started with 4E, so I know a little about SR3, and basically nothing about SR1 and SR2.)

[Ancient History]

SR2 is pretty much the definitive version of the game most of the old guys remember, because parts of SR1 were flat-out unplayable, and SR2 got all the really fun supplements and still had some of the original designers. SR3 went off the rails a little, especially near the end, which people didn't like, and SR4 was somewhat divisive, though still better than SR5.

Earthdawn never got a second edition under FASA; the game was headed into a major plot event ("Barsaive at War!") when the game line was cancelled for low sales (although this is relative; low sales back then are better than plenty of good sales today). They released the Dragons sourcebook they'd written as a free PDF and called it a day; the license wasn't picked up until later, and the original crew never got back together for it, though I think Lou Prosperi was involved here and there.

[Lokathor]

The 3e stat table actually does list what stat controls each secondary attribute in parentheses.

How are Death and Unconscious Ratings computed you wonder? Well, your Death Rating is 18 + floor(4/3 * Toughness). Your Unconscious Rating is similar, 9 + floor(4/3 * Toughness) + "1 for every 10 full points of Toughness above 1 (11, 21, 31, etc)". While I'm at it I suppose I'll add that Steps are 1 + ceiling(stat/3), Defenses are floor(((stat-4)*3/7)+4), Wound Threshold is 3+stat/2, Recoveries are ceiling((stat-2)/6) (with one every other day for Toughness 1 and 2), and Armor is ceiling((stat-10)/3) (none below 10).

Instead of having racial modifiers exactly, each race just starts with a different value in each stat, then you can add +1 through +8 to each stat, depending on how many points you wanna spend on each using a chart (you get 25 points).

Talents are the same as before (8 ranks), but now they also hand out a big pile of free skills too. 8 skill ranks anywhere, plus 2 Knowledge ranks, plus 1 Artisan rank, plus 2 Speak Language ranks (Which lets you speak Dwarven and your own race's language) and 1 Read Language rank (which lets you read Dwarven).

They did drop the stuff about gaining and losing personality traits from the main rules, but they kept the trait words as a huge blob of text you can skim and maybe pick out a word or two you like. They also have a sidebar about how hidden and surface traits are still an optional rule. If you use the rule and you can stick to your traits then you get bonus Legend Points.

[Nath]

Anyway, most of the "real world history can't possibly be connected to this history" problems can easily be waved away with either "when the mana cycle went below the magic point it altered the fossil record, so that's why it appeared to have never happened and everyone thought it was a myth" or more simply, "it's an alternate world don't worry about it man".

I'd say that if your setting has such a plausibility problem that someone can say with a straight face that it can easily be waved away with a magical phenomenon that dissolved the skeletons of all magical creatures as well as any man-made stone, metal or wood artifacts, and filed up the mines and stone pits everywhere in the world, then that setting's plausibility is definitively and deeply fucked up anyway.

Earthdawn's history becomes increasingly impossible to reconcile with the real world the more you read about it. The Dragons have stories about Verjigorm and the creation of the world and all that. Also there's been a previous Scourge that the Dragons survived through before. Scourges are only once per Age, so it must have been during the 2nd age, since odd numbered ages are totally non-magical. So the creation of the world happened during the 0th age, or something? Who even did all this naming of the ages? The Immortal Elves? The Dragons? Both of those groups would have been asleep during the 1st age.

The authors originally numbered the age to come the Sixth because they aligned themselves onto the Mayan calendar. So I guess they possibly did not see the problem they were heading into if the dragons were using the same numbering before it went to print.

But it can be easily waved away. The dragon mythos also shows that things weren't always the way they are. In Shadowrun, the Great Ghost Dance sets a precedent for human activity altering the cycle of mana by making mana level rise faster. It wouldn't be that far-fetched to imagine that the "First Age" had a mana level that was stable but not null: not too low so dragons wouldn't have to sleep, but not too high either so Horrors could not invade the Earth. The "Second Age" would hail the time (meta)humanity started to practice magic (or possibly specifically ritual magic), and, in a similar way to what the Ghost Dance caused, a few hundreds magic users were enough to cause the mana level to rise more than it ever did, knocking it out of balance and starting its oscillation.

At least, that's what I'd wrote if I was to address the issue for one of the games.

[momothefiddler]

But it can be easily waved away. The dragon mythos also shows that things weren't always the way they are. In Shadowrun, the Great Ghost Dance sets a precedent for human activity altering the cycle of mana by making mana level rise faster. It wouldn't be that far-fetched to imagine that the "First Age" had a mana level that was stable but not null: not too low so dragons wouldn't have to sleep, but not too high either so Horrors could not invade the Earth. The "Second Age" would hail the time (meta)humanity started to practice magic (or possibly specifically ritual magic), and, in a similar way to what the Ghost Dance caused, a few hundreds magic users were enough to cause the mana level to rise more than it ever did, knocking it out of balance and starting its oscillation.

At least, that's what I'd wrote if I was to address the issue for one of games.

Magical global warming?

[darkmaster]

This description of magic moving in a cycle with peeks and troughs really brings to mind a sine wave which begs the question, can you have negative magics? It might sound silly to ask if you can have less than zero of a physical force but it's already a physical force that waxes and wanes because... because. So the rules are already right out.

[Ancient History]

Depends on if you're talking about magnitude or direction. You can totally have m * a = -F, but only if you have negative mass or if you're accelerating in the opposite direction.

[darkmaster]

I was thinking more gravity or electromagnetic fields than an expression of momentum. I know dark energy supposedly gets stronger the farther away it is but no one is even sure if that's a thing.

[schpeelah]

I know dark energy supposedly gets stronger the farther away it is but no one is even sure if that's a thing.

Dark energy doesn't get stronger in far away regions. It's distributed across all of space at ~1E-9J per cubic meter so there's more of it between you and more distant points.

[Lokathor]

I'd say that if your setting has such a plausibility problem that someone can say with a straight face that it can easily be waved away with a magical phenomenon that dissolved the skeletons of all magical creatures as well as any man-made stone, metal or wood artifacts, and filed up the mines and stone pits everywhere in the world, then that setting's plausibility is definitively and deeply fucked up anyway.

Well the setting takes place in like 4000bc, and meta-variant evidence doesn't happen during dead-magic segments of time (all meta-variants revert to their non-awakened form). Similarly, magical materials would assumedly disappear or turn into non-magical versions. All of this combined, all that you'd be left with is archaeological evidence of human skeletons in caves using wood, stone, and metal tools. And that's mostly what we have on earth. Obviously they had less metal and more clay in real life, but whatever.

It's no more impossible than Shadowrun's existing claims that the world has had magic in it before and that the world of the 2050s is a 6th world. The only difference is that you're now playing in the ancient past instead of saying "oh yeah no one ever heard of those guys don't think about it too hard".

It wouldn't be that far-fetched to imagine that the "First Age" had a mana level that was stable but not null: not too low so dragons wouldn't have to sleep, but not too high either so Horrors could not invade the Earth.

You should read the complete version of the Dragon's myth about Verjigorm, the first Horror, but long story short, Horrors were around in the primordial chaos world before the Name Givers were, then the Horrors were essentially banished and swore to one day return and seek vengeance and such and such.

This description of magic moving in a cycle with peeks and troughs really brings to mind a sine wave which begs the question, can you have negative magics? It might sound silly to ask if you can have less than zero of a physical force but it's already a physical force that waxes and wanes because... because. So the rules are already right out.

The comparison that the books make is to that of a tidepool. The tide comes in and fills the pool, and later the tide goes out and the pool is disconnected from the ocean for a time. While they are disconnected both still exist of course, they just don't interact. In this case, the material world is drifting closer and farther from the metaplanes. When it's close enough to intersect some of them then you get a mana field.

[darkmaster]

I like to think you can have negative magic though, and like, at the bottom of the magic sine wave you get like, big dark ages and stuff.

[Ancient History]

Disciplines
My Discipline is more than simply my vocation, it is what I am. All that I am is because of my chosen Discipline. It guides me through my life on this world.


Not all of the character classes really seem adventurer worthy.

FrankT:

This is the chapter that has the character classes (well, the character classes from the basic book. Obviously there are more character classes in further books). But before we get into that, I think we need to take a minute to talk about Karma. Karma is very terrible and deeply intertwined with the game text at pretty much every level. The basic idea comes from 1st edition Shadowrun, that game posited that it would be a good idea for players to be able to spend permanent XP to modify individual die rolls. This is not, in fact, a good idea at all. Essentially, any rate you spend your Xps on die roll improvement makes you better in the here and now at the cost of slower advancement. There is a point in the future after which it will be a bad deal, and if you keep playing past that point, you're going to suck compared to all the other characters and if you don't everyone else can eat your dust. Shadowrun revamped the idea a lot in 2nd edition and then again in 3rd edition, and finally gave up and removed it entirely (replacing it with the continuously refreshing Edge stat) in 4th edition.

But like many things in Earthdawn, well nearly everything in Earthdawn, Karma here is a terrible grognardy idea that someone has put really a lot of thought into in order to make it completely in-character and part of the setting. Like, someone thought that the problem with spending XPs that could be saved for future advancement on modifying individual die rolls to turn failures into successes was that it was too metagame, rather than that it was broken as fuck and gives people tangible rewards for guessing when the campaign is going to end.

So characters in Earthdawn perform “Karma Rituals” where they expend the power that they have gained by performing legendary deeds (the literal in-character explanation for why adventuring makes you go up in level) for a charge of magical luck mojo that you later expend to activate super moves or give yourself bonuses on die rolls. So it's totally in-character and in-world that characters have the ability to permanently stunt their growth to perform individual awesome stunts. Depending on your discipline, your Karma Ritual varies considerably, and there is different shit you are allowed to spend it on depending on who and what you are. But it's all in-character. The people in the world can explain exactly how it works and why an Archer can spend his permanent XP to hide from an enemy and a Cavalryman can spend permanent XP to improve an action taken by his mount.

Now as it happens, these Karma points have found new ways to be broken. The cost of a new karma point is actually pretty small compared to the cost of increasing an attribute to the point where you'd get a continuous bonus. So unless you intend to play for a really really long time, buying and spending Karma like water is pretty much the correct power gamer's choice (note: people still hate spending permanent XP for instantaneous effects, so many players won't do it even so). And depending on what race you are, Karma points cost different amounts and give you differently sized bonuses when you spend them. And lest you think there was some game balance reason for this, the races that get bigger bonuses spend less XP. So there's a tremendous trend for Windlings (who get very powerful and cheap Karma points) to completely dominate short games.

“You white people are very good at doing stupid things.”

AncientH:

These are the major Disciplines in Earthdawn, and by "major" we mean they go up to circle 15 (although this being the core rulebook, the rules only go up to 8, but they assure us that later books will expand on that...and they do!) Other books give lesser-known and race-specific Disciplines that only go up to circle 8 or 10 or whatever. There's also mention of something called half-adepts or minor adepts, who are presumably Farmers and Prostitutes and stuff that don't go adventuring very much and whose Talents are dedicated to their own thing, but we don't see them much and we never get stats for them in this edition (not sure about 3rd edition, but I suspect not).

FrankT:

Every player character is an Adept. Adepts are people who have real character classes. A couple of times it mentions that there are characters in the world who aren't Adepts, and that they are zero level losers. Fuck those guys. But honestly, it never gives you any hint at all as to how many people in the world are not Adepts. Children, I should guess. Are there adults with no character class? I have no idea. The actual population of the region (let alone the planet), is unknown and the percentage of the population who are Adepts is also unknown. The entire world population at the time was supposedly about 7 million, but this book clearly shows people (and describes them in the text) in 4000 BCE running around with stirrups and steel, so mere demographic anachronisms are as nothing.

There are 13 classes: Archer, Beastmaster, Cavalryman, Elementalist, Illusionist, Nethermancer, Sky Raider, Swordmaster, Thief, Troubadour, Warrior, Weaponsmith, and Wizard. In addition, there is a badly made sample character for each class (I have no idea if the numbers add up and don't care – they claim to have used the random attribute assignment method they advise you to not use, so I don't think they care either). Two classes each get a Human, Elf, Dwarf, Obsidiman, and Ork, and there is one example for each of Troll, T'skrang, and Windling.

If some of those concepts seem stronger narratively and in actual adventurer contextual strength than others, you are not wrong.

AncientH:

So, the basics: Each discipline description consists of a short blurb on what it is, a pretty picture, suggested important attributes (i.e. the ones that the discipline's Talents mainly use), racial restriction (i.e. races that cannot take that Discipline), karma ritual (description of the thing you do), and suggested artisan skills...and, finally, a list of talents and bonuses you get by Circle.

Some of these bonuses are simple increases to static abilities - for example, at Fifth Circle an Archer's Physical Defense goes up by 1, and at Seventh Circle their Initiative goes up a step - while others are special abilities. For example, at 4th Circle an Illusionist gains "Glamour" which lets them create simply illusions at will for 1 Strain point, without having to cast a spell. The final type of special bonus for moving to a higher circle are Karma abilities - while everybody can use Karma in the game, how you can use Karma is generally restricted; adepts gain the ability to spend Karma on more things.

FrankT:

This chapter is the first place where we really see the agony and the despair that is the die step system in action. Basically, your talents and skills have a rank and an associated attribute. You add the associated attribute's step value (its bonus) to the rank, and you get a combined step value (bonus) and check to see what you roll. If this sounds exactly like 3rd edition D&D's skill system where stats have a bonus and you add the skill ranks to get the combined bonus... yeah. It really does sound exactly like that. The system in 3rd edition D&D is much cleaner, but it also came out 7 years later and I would bet real money that Earthdawn was inspirational on some level for the system that WotC ended up launching.

But what this means is that the Earthdawn people seriously expected you to write this on your character sheet:

Dominate Beast (1): 9/D8 + D6

What that means is that the character has 1 rank in Dominate Beast, which is Charisma associated (not that this is actually listed on the same sheet), and the character in question has a high Charisma which nets them a base 8 steps, and you add them and get 9, then you go back to the big die step chart and find out what your action dice actually are. Ugh. But you can totally see how people who played this and were frustrated by it but saw what was good in it might create a new edition of D&D, where a character had the following on their character sheet:

Animal Empathy / CHA / 4 / +2 / 6

Pretty much exactly the same thing, but dramatically easier to use.

AncientH:

Frank doesn't want to go into each individual Discipline, so I'll do a quick overview:

Archer: Uses magic to do things better with ranged weapons, primarily the good old-fashioned bow-and-arrow. (No Obsidimen)

Beastmaster: As the movie, but are also survivalists and can grow claws and otherwise take on a few animal attributes. (No Obsidimen or T'skrang)



Cavalryman: Specialist at mounted combat. Does not have to be a horse, but the horse is default. If you want to go tame a two-horned rhino thing or a war mammoth, go for it. (No Obsidimen)

Elementalist: One of the four major spellcasting Disciplines. These guys focus on the five elements: earth, air, fire, water, and wood.

Illusionist: Second of the four major spellcasting Disciplines. These guys focus on illusions and, to a degree, magic-assisted show magicianship. Sawing someone in half is part of their Karma ritual.

Nethermancer: Major spellcaster #3; deals in necromancy, horrors, astral space. Will saw someone in half for fun and profit. (No Windlings.)

Sky Raider: Cross between a Viking and an Airborne Ranger; willing to jump out of a perfectly good skyship and rain death on his foes. Knows how to sail an airship. (No elves, obsidimen, or windlings)

Swordmaster: Expert with swords. (No obsidimen.)

Thief: Steals shit. Sneaky. At 7th circle can "Evaluate Metals" to see what kind of metal it is and it's approximate value. (No obsidiemn or trolls).

Wait, did he just steal someone's testicles?

Bard Troubadour: "Troubadours serve as entertainers, storytellers, actors, and songsmiths." These guys are mainly Faces and casual buffers; at 7th Circle they get an ability called "The Kiss" which gives them a bonus for macking with someone of the opposite sex.

Warrior: Combat generalist. Will get out-shot by an Archer and out-stabbed by a Swordmaster, but has more Damage than both of them and can beat either to death with a stick, or a rock, or their bare hands if it comes to it.

Weaponsmith: Quasi-mystical forger and repairer of weapons, also handy with weapons and at higher circles able to buff weapons and armor. At much higher circles (like, beyond this book) they get some Elementalist magic and can make orichalcum using blood magic.

Wizard: Last-but-not-least of the major spellcasters, studious and scholarly, able to absorb entire books and they get some of the better magic-related Talents a bit earlier.

FrankT:

Disciplines in Earthdawn have defense progressions. Much like a 3rd edition D&D character class. However, unlike 3rd edition D&D, there isn't a master chart and there's basically no rhyme or reason to this shit. Each level Circle of a class Discipline tells you what you get, and sometimes it includes bonuses to your defenses or initiative or whatever. It doesn't even give you a running total. So the Elementalist gains a +1 bonus to their Spell Defense at 4th and 6th Circle. But it just says “Spell Defense: Increase the Elementalist's Spell Defense by 1.” both times. I assume it stacks, but it doesn't seem to say either way.
[AH note: It stacks, I think this was clarified in the errata]

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[/img]
Some classes get better defenses than others.

AncientH:

The Talent progression in these disciplines usually means that a lot of characters in the same Discipline at the same Circle will have approximately the same Talents, if not always in the same number of ranks. Comparison between Disciplines gets a little interesting though - you'll notice that the major spellcasters, it looks like pretty much all they can do is cast spells, because their First Circle Talent list looks like this:

Karma Ritual
Read and Write Language
Read and Write Magic
Spellcasting
Spell Matrix
Spell Matrix
Thread Weaving (Nethermancy)

However, this disguises a few things. First off, none of the other Disciplines get Thread Weaving until 4th circle, and Thread Weaving isn't just about casting spells (as we'll get to) - it's about weaving threads to thread items. So basically, spellcasters have three-circles-up on the other disciplines as far as "How soon can I bond with that magic sword/amulet/etc.?"

Likewise, this is where Versatility comes in to play - the only real difference between the four spellcaster disciplines at 1st Circle is the Thread Weaving discipline, so a Human Wizard (or whatever) could potentially also learn Elementalism or Nethermancy or Illusion and quickly increase the number of spells they can cast. This was nerfed somewhat in later editions where the different Disciplines no-longer used a generic Spell Matrix talent but used Discipline-specific spell matrix talents, but if you had a spell matrix object you could still swing it.

FrankT:

Earthdawn sort of has a handle on the whole “Fighters Don't Get Nice Things” deal. And that's pretty much by having the game only go up to 8th level. As a Nethermancer or an Illusionist you could plausibly rise in power and prestige until you were able to warp the landscape and turn deserts into forests (or vice versa) or sunder the gates of helheim and bring forth a legion of the dead or something, and a Cavalryman or an Archer is simply not going to ever be able to do anything remotely that world affecting or cool.



Basically, Earthdawn just truncates the game so that it's relatively unlikely that your Swordmaster character is ever going to be completely shat upon by the spellcasters. But by the time the Magician classes (Elementalist, Illusionist, Nethermancer, and Wizard) get their conjuration abilities online (generally about circle 7 or 8), the writing is pretty much on the wall.

The only real drawback of being a Magician is that the only artisan skill you start with is “Robe Embroidery” (I am not making that up), while non-casters get to pick from such exciting artisan skills as “Wood Carving,” “Poetry,” and “Sculpture.” I know how fucking heartbroken you are that as a character who specializes in mastery of living flame that you have to do embroidery instead of something manly like pottery.


It is at least, allowed to be manly embroidery.

AncientH:

Spellcasters are required to take Robe Embroidery, for setting reasons. For other characters, the artisan skills are just suggestions, though.

FrankT:

Actually explaining what these classes do is going to take have to wait for a few more chapters. Because the considerable majority of what a Discipline does is to unlock Talents (and for Magicians: also Spells). You know things aren't balanced or sane because you can clearly see that a Sky Raider unlocks the Throwing Weapons Talent at Circle 4 and the Missile Weapons Talent at Circle 7, while the Thief unlocks Missile Weapons at Circle 6 and Throwing Weapons at Circle 7; and of course the Archer gets Missile Weapons at Circle 1 and Throwing Weapons at Circle 2. So blatantly you have things that are supposedly level appropriate for one character near end game that are simply available to other characters at game start. But what any of this shit actually does is another chapter entirely.

AncientH:

And that's the chapter, basically. Short, sweet, to the point. FASA had never done anything with character classes before, so they were sort of feeling their way here obviously. Later books got into the complexities of having more than one discipline, half-magic, buying talents out of sequence, and all that stuff, but that's beyond the scope of this book.

You'll also note in the Discipline racial restrictions that Obsidimen are pretty strongly restricted in their initial disciplines, followed by trolls and windlings. Don't feel too bad for them, the bastards get race-specific disciplines in other books.

Talents
What is it that makes me such a great performer? Well, you might say that it's practice, or luck, or even magic. In fact, it's all those, and more.
-Millat, Elven Troubadour


Elves. Better than you.

FrankT:

Talents are like your class features. And like D&D class features in the 70s and 80s, there is no pretense whatsoever that any of them are balanced. Not with each other, and not with other things that exist in the game. As was mentioned in the Discipline writeups, a single Talent might literally come online at 1st Circle for one Discipline and 7th Circle for another. But that's just the tip of the iceberg:

Because of the magical nature of talents, learning and improving talents is much easier than learning and improving mundane skills

Yeeeah. So basically you have two sets of skills, and one of those sets is better and that is why it is easier to learn. Just let that sink in. Then have a good cry or something.

AncientH:

Skills are next chapter, but the long and the short of it is that this meant that while you could be a Wizard that uses a sword (using the Melee Weapons skill) it would cost more and cap earlier than if you were a Warrior, Swordmaster, or Skyraider...but for the purposes of this book, that doesn't matter much. Hell, you can buy Spellcasting as a skill in this edition! You can't weave any spell threads without the appropriate Talent, but you could use zero-thread spells and cast at will if you wanted to.

The thing about Talents is that they're an easy way to generate "classes" with modular features, and it's obviously FASA trying to come to terms with the idea of what to do with class features a couple decades before anyone else really engaged with the concept. Put is this way: your character does not have to buy every talent on their list to advance. If you think Great Leap or Throwing Weapons is crap, you can simply not buy it and put your points into advancing the talents you do want. Try doing something like that in D&D.

FrankT:

Talents are basically the same thing as skills. You have a rank, and you add it to your attribute's die step to get your effective die step and then look up the chart to see what you roll. They are distinct game mechanically because you buy them with a different pool of points at chargen and buy them differently with your Legend Points (XPs). Thematically, they are different because they are quasi-magical skills. But a lucky few aren't so quasi-magical that you can't use them untrained. And when that happens, you roll your attribute's action dice as-is. But remember: starting characters only have their talent ranks go up to 3, but the difference between a very high stat and a bullshit stat is eight steps, so it's extremely plausible for a character to be as good or better than a nominally highly trained character in a mystical martial arts method or airship piloting technique whose name they can't even spell.

Now which Talents can be used untrained is something of a piece of contention. I honestly have no idea which Talents can and cannot be used untrained. There is no tag to indicate this on the Talents themselves, leaving it up to a chart in the chapter prolog. But... literally the first Talent that appears in the “default attribute table” says the following in its description: “Any character who wishes to join a crew must have at least Rank 1 Air Sailing Talent.” So um... what?


As starting characters, this guy might be your best sky sailor.
Or maybe not... I have no idea.

Now, we haven't gone over the fuckery that is actually raising your attributes in this game, and we won't get there for about 125 more pages, but I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to give away the fact that while the range of Talent ranks for starting characters is only 0-3, that the range for advanced characters becomes much larger, and that potentially in a game where people have spent a lot of legend points the difference in ranks can indeed grow to be the dominant variable. But that's for later. For right now, there are talents that having the first rank in them allows you to use them at all, and other than that every rank of every talent is just like having a slightly higher stat when making tests relevant to that talent. At the range of starting characters, that's not a lot. You can see why 3e D&D let 1st level characters go to 4 ranks instead.

AncientH:

Earthdawn really did run into a lot of the D&D3 problems long before D&D3 did, and it's part of the reason I wish that the FASA crew had done a second edition - to see if and how they might have addressed some of that.

Some of the talents require you to spend Karma to use them (in which case you also get the Karma dice), and some of the talents require you to take Strain (i.e. damage) to use them. A couple might even require both, though that's rare.

As an example for "all our abilities are unequal," let's talk about Astral Sight for a second. Now, in Shadowrun Astral Perception is Astral Perception is Astral Perception. But in Earthdawn, it comes in three flavors: Windling Astral-Sensitive Sight, the Astral Sight Talent, and the 1st-Circle Wizard spell Astral Sense. These three things are not the same thing, and each comes with completely different mechanics, ranges, and costs. Hell, the qualitative difference between these three effects is actually a key part in the first story of the Talisman anthology.



On the one hand, I applaud that the magic system is robust enough that you can argue the benefits and drawbacks of the different options entirely in character. On the other claw, it does seem to be a bit of a waste of space to have to write out the same basic effect three times with different mechanics.

FrankT:

Combat rounds are 10 seconds in Earthdawn. As opposed to the 3 seconds in Shadowrun. That means that just for starters even a one-action spell in Earthdawn is taking the place of a Shadowrun character making nearly twenty attack rolls. This may seem like a really weird time to talk about this fact, but due to a fundamental organizational error, Earthdawn explains about combat rounds in the middle of the fucking Talents chapter overview. Because some Talents have durations, and the book hasn't covered time keeping yet, so we end up with information totally out of place.


This picture is related. Consider it a riddle.

This particular fuckup was neatly sidestepped by 2nd edition AD&D and by 3rd edition D&D by simply having the combat chapter (and thus the game time explanations) come in before the spell list. 4th edition “solved” the problem by simply not giving a fuck if anything made any sense to anyone – although of course the 4e PHB does have all the abilities in chapter 4 and the explanation of what those action costs and durations actually mean in chapter 9. But I regard this organizational in Earthdawn fuckup to be comparable.

Anyway, the action nomenclature is as fucked as it is in D&D Next playtest materials. You get “one action per round,” but some things can be done in addition to your action, and still other things use an action and you can't do the other things. Which sounds a whole lot like Standard Actions, Minor Actions, and Full Round Actions, but the nomenclature is extremely fucked instead. A Talent that takes a Full Round Action says “Action: Yes” and then later on notes that it is exclusive in the description somewhere. There are also Talents that take a long period of time (like conjuring and crafting and shit), and those ones still just say “Action: Yes” because the nomenclature in this book is fucked.

AncientH:

I think part of the issue here is that everybody writing this was used to Shadowrun's action system, and they were deliberately trying not to make the games compatible.

FrankT:

The actual Talents are simply listed in alphabetical order, with no attempt to group them according to level or discipline. Which is probably all you can do, what with the fact that as previously noted Talents are all over the place in terms of who is supposed to have them and when they are supposed to get them. Each Talent will tell you which Disciplines get it as a “Discipline Talent” (meaning that a character can spend Karma to boost the Talent's use). But note that's “Discipline Talent” and not “a Talent your Discipline gets.” Disciplines give you access to lots of Talents that aren't “Discipline Talents.” Also, some Talents are considered core enough to your concept to be a Discipline Talent for your Discipline, but not actually given out for a long time. The Sky Raider gets Battle Bellow as a Discipline Talent, but they also don't get Battle Bellow until 5th Circle.



What would really help this of course, is to have a line in each talent description to tell you what Disciplines got each Talent and what Circle they got it at. You know, exactly like how the 3rd edition D&D spell list looks. Interestingly, the 3e D&D PHB is organized exactly like you'd make something if you were reading the Earthdawn book and got pissed off at the places where it forced you to flip back and forth to different sections when it could just give you the information instead of the page citation. If you were reading the 2nd edition AD&D PHB and getting pissed off at the poor organization there, you'd probably make something like 4e D&D, where each class' list was separate and organized by level so you just linked it to the relevant class description rather than in a big jumble at the end of the book.

AncientH:

It's been mentioned before that when D&D3 came out, a lot of people claimed it was ripping off Earthdawn. Although instead of feats, ED introduced something called "Knacks" which you could take for your Talents that expanded their use - but that's in another book.


Because FASA wants your money. Also, those coins are octagonal because the Throalic coins in ED are octagonal.

FrankT:

Earthdawn really runs on three currencies: Karma (which costs XPs to refresh), Strain (which does damage to you and has to be healed normally lest it add up to critical existence failure), and Actions (which refresh next turn for free). All three of these are extremely in-character currencies. The character definitely knows in world that they have spent Karma or suffered strain to activate a power. And this is a deliberate design decision and one that is actually pretty impressive. It's very much the opposite direction to what 4th edition D&D ended up doing where a Rogue's martial tricks were tied to usage schedules that had no in-world explanation at all.

But in some cases, I don't think it's necessarily better like this. Yes, we all agree that it's extremely stupid that a Rogue in 4e D&D can only stab someone in the leg once before the next time he rests for five minutes. But in Earthdawn if an Archer wants to shoot his arrow in a cool looking and intimidating fashion, he literally bleeds. I mean, I understand that it's an “associated mechanic” or whatever the kids are calling it these days, but it's dumb. While Robin Hood knockoffs should probably spend a limited amount of time shooting arrows into show-off locations to make people go “Oooooh..,” they absolutely shouldn't be coughing up blood every time they do it.


Seriously. No explanation at all is better than an explanation that's just really dumb.

AncientH:

A word on Durability: this is the talent that gives you extra hit points. The exact number of extra hit points you get depends on which Discipline the talent belongs to (and is part of the reason multi-disciplining is a headache). So for example, magicians have the lowest with 4/3 and Warriors have the highest with 9/7 (the number to the left of the slash adds to the Death rating, the number to the right of the slash adds to the Unconsciousness rating). I don't think it's by any means perfect, but it is nice that the game allows you to just go ahead and buy extra hit points as you need them instead of rolling randomly.

FrankT:

We should probably talk a bit about the relative power of different Talents. But well, the official explanation of the authors is that things which are better in world are supposed to be better in game. A total lack of game balance is design intent. It's not really interesting to talk about.

Instead I think it best to talk about something a bit more subtle: Talent Ranks for new Talents. Simply put, your rank in each talent goes into the action die calculation. For a high circle character, it's likely the dominant term in calculating the die step. This means that when you get to a new Circle and unlock some new Talents, you are faced with the option of buying them up starting at 1, which means that your new maneuvers can just go ahead and be “wicked awesome” and still never get used, because your basic attacks have so many more ranks in them that they are just massively more likely to work.

This also creates a “buyer's remorse” thing, where any legend points you sunk into ranking talents that have gone obsolete with your new shiny higher level crap. So for example: a Swordmaster gets “Melee Weapon” at 1st Circle and “Second Weapon” at 5th Circle. Second Weapon is just better than “Melee Weapon.” You attack twice instead of not doing that. So every single Legend Point you dumped into Melee Weapon is wasted once you start buying up Second Weapon. But there's also a sunk cost deal, where it actually costs a lot of Legend Points to get your Second Weapon talent up to speed, and until you do that it's probably better to actually hit with one attack than it is to miss with two. So if the game is going to end shortly after you get to 5th Circle, then fuck it.

AncientH:

On the other hand, if you never want to buy those other Talents, you don't have to - there's no need to "level up" when you hit the minimum combination of Talent ratings that allow you to do so, nor is this like D&D where you hit a certain XP level and auto-level. You could stay a 1st circle Warrior forever and max out all your talents and still be a badass - it's actually cheaper to do that in some respects, because higher-circle Talents cost more. And, as mentioned, later books allow you the option to buy higher-circle Talents at lower circle (for more LP), and there are variants on the Disciplines with slightly different Talent lists.

If that sounds convoluted, then think about it this way: the manner that the Disciplines are presented here, Earthdawn can't just introduce new talents willy-nilly, because the Discipline talent lists are static. If you want to give PCs new options for existing characters, you pretty much have to get creative and allow them to buy stuff out-of-sequence, shuffle the talents around, or introduce Knacks...or new Disciplines. In its short run, Earthdawn did all of those.

A word on Versatility, which we've mentioned here and there: this is a human-only talent that lets them buy talents that aren't on their Discipline list. There are some restrictions on it - Talents purchased with Versatility don't count toward increasing your Circle, and you can't buy a Talent you get in your own discipline (which keeps 1st-circle Wizards from buying, say, Enhanced Matrix) - but other than that, it's pretty open. There's also an insane and maybe broken human racial discipline called Journeyman which is basically "build your own discipline with the Talents you choose," but that's in another book.

A word on spell matrices - we'll get to this in greater detail in the magic chapter, but here's the dilly-o. Earthdawn uses a moderately complicated spellsystem that doesn't resemble Shadowrun spellcasting but does look a bit like Vancian spellcasting. The safe way to cast spells is to put a spell into a spell matrix, weave some spell threads to it, and then cast it. So every spellcasting class has X number of Spell Matrix talents which you can load with a spell to have it "at the ready" - or in Vancian terms, "in memory." In this main book, there are two types of Matrix talents: Spell Matrix, and Enhanced Matrix (the number of each you get depends on your Discipline and circle, but every spellcaster starts out with 2 Spell Matrix talents and generally can get up to 4). Enhanced Matrices can "hold" a spell thread, so that they can fire off bigger spells faster. Later books introduced the Armored Matrix and Split Matrix talents, but that'll do you for now.


Troll illusionist.

Next up: Skills

[Fucks]

This also creates a “buyer's remorse” thing, where any legend points you sunk into ranking talents that have gone obsolete with your new shiny higher level crap. So for example: a Swordmaster gets “Melee Weapon” at 1st Circle and “Second Weapon” at 5th Circle. Second Weapon is just better than “Melee Weapon.” You attack twice instead of not doing that. So every single Legend Point you dumped into Melee Weapon is wasted once you start buying up Second Weapon. But there's also a sunk cost deal, where it actually costs a lot of Legend Points to get your Second Weapon talent up to speed, and until you do that it's probably better to actually hit with one attack than it is to miss with two. So if the game is going to end shortly after you get to 5th Circle, then fuck it.

Iirc the Swordmaster does his first attack with Melee Weapons and the second with Second Weapon, so he still needs both talents.


Apart from that, it's really interesting that Frank knows about ED's origin as one of the writer's homebrew AD&D campaign: I've never heard of that before. Take that with a grain of salt. Same for his idea that trolls had been added to the core rulebook late in the writing process.

[Username17]

Iirc the Swordmaster does his first attack with Melee Weapons and the second with Second Weapon, so he still needs both talents.

Due to the extremely obvious unfairness of those two talents when you put them side by side, I have no doubt that someone somewhere issued such a ruling, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that you played under a GM that ruled that way. That is, however, absolutely not what the talent itself says.

The Second Weapon talent allows a character to attack with two different weapons in the same round. To use this talent, the character holds one weapon in each hand. The Second Weapon must be at least one size smaller than the character's primary weapon (see the Goods and Services Table, p. 263). The character must be able to wield either weapon with only one hand. When attacking using the Second Weapon talent, the character uses the Second Weapon step number for the Attack Test but determines damage normally.

Now, I happen to be wrong, but not in the way you claim to remember. Using Second Weapon has a strain cost (only 1, but it's there). So there is a reason why you might want to forgo your extra attack and use a basic melee weapons attack. Not a very good reason, but it exists. A character who only had Second Weapon and not Melee Weapon talent would spend some HP every single attack. And that would be the obviously correct thing to do in just about every Earthdawn combat, but I could imagine circumstances where it would be bad.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

I think it was errata'd at some point.

[Lokathor]

Half-Adepts (Farmers and crap): They're still "in the game" in 3e, in that they got a mention. Still no stats for them though, because there's not much point to stating up commoners.

3e got rid of discipline restrictions on the races for all the major disciplines, though there are still race-exclusive disciplines in the extra books.

Also, 3e switched Spell Matrix back to being a generic talent, so go nuts. There's fluff text about how "a wizard would never teach their threadweaving to a nethermancer! (unless they totally love you cause you did a quest, maybe)" and stuff, but no formal restriction on it.

Note that, for as much as they stress about how Artisan skills are important and they let you show that you're not horror-marked... horror marks don't actually prevent you from using your artisan skill. That's just a superstition that people came up with. A select few horror-marks will prevent your artisan skill, but by default they don't. So, most of the time you can be horror-marked and show off your artisan skill to prove you're not and get into the village, and then kill everyone anyway. Fun!

Later books got into the complexities of having more than one discipline, half-magic, buying talents out of sequence, and all that stuff, but that's beyond the scope of this book.

Not entirely true, Learning New Disciplines is explained in the Building Your Legend chapter (p226).

Skills, and defaulting on skills, were explained a little better in 3e. All the Talents can't be used untrained. If it also exists as a skill, each skill says if you can use it untrained or not.

Windlings don't get their own Astral Sight, they just get the Astral Sight talent at Rank 0 for free, and can buy it up from there.

Cross discipline Durability hasn't been fixed in 3e, though 4e (out later this year i guess?) promises to take some talents such as Durability and Karma Ritual out, and just make them features of your discipline that scale up automatically.

And yeah, Second Weapon got altered a bit in 3e, you now explicitly use your Second Weapon test for your offhand only, and you main weapon uses Melee Weapon like normal.