Has Earthdawn 4th edition finally killed off Earthdawn?

SubversionArts · Post by **SubversionArts** » Mon Mar 09, 2015 4:33 pm

When I look at http://earthdawn.fasagames.com/, I get confused. No mention of 4th edition, and a hot mess of a list of prior editions.

First Edition (ED1) is the original game created and published by FASA Corporation in 1993.
Second Edition (ED2) was published by Living Room Games (licensed from FASA Corporation) in 2001.
Classic Edition (EDC) was published by RedBrick Limited (licensed from FASA Corporation) in 2005.
Third Edition (ED3) was published by RedBrick LLC and Mongoose Publishing (licensed from FASA Corporation) in 2009.
Revised Edition (EDR) is the current edition of Earthdawn, published by FASA Games, Inc. (licensed from FASA Corporation) in 2012.

And since apparently many of the editions are supposedly compatible with each other, product is still being sold from everything since EDC through today.

The ED4 kickstarter has finally released a (by all reports) lackluster player's guide (pdf only, so far). I'm not even going to go much into the hot mess that the kickstarter was. Several months went by with silence from "FASA Games", with the occasional post about how layout was complete except for some missing pieces of art.

There is still no downloadable character sheet on "FASA Games" website.

I sorta wanted to make a post soliciting opinions on what edition you might recommend to someone completely new to Earthdawn, or who owned nothing from any of the editions. I have ED1 material myself, and had kept some low expectations that ED4 might be something that could bring me back in. But now, with the kind of support that "FASA Games" seems to be interested in providing, I sorta don't care. I'm not afraid of using dead systems, but missing an opportunity to really bring in a new pool of players seems like the death-knell of an otherwise interesting setting.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:34 am

The dev blog had some good changes to the game presented as going to be in 4th edition, particularly that there's no more karma ritual or durability, they just scale with your circle.

But it's been "almost ready" since like mid 2014.

SubversionArts · Post by **SubversionArts** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:30 am

Lokathor wrote:The dev blog had some good changes to the game presented as going to be in 4th edition, particularly that there's no more karma ritual or durability, they just scale with your circle.

But it's been "almost ready" since like mid 2014.

Yep, and something about thread weaving being available to everyone at First Circle too.

But yes, hearing these opinions of people who have been in it a while are what I'm looking for.

Concise Locket · Post by **Concise Locket** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 5:35 pm

I was a 4E Kickstarter backer and got my Player's Guide PDF a couple of weeks ago. Several of the interior spot illustrations are good but the color art is so generic fantasy that it would be unrecognizable without the setting specific races. The layout is dull but serviceable if you want to use a tablet.

4E is a bunch of rules tweaks but no major systems changes.

1. Some useless talents like Temperature are gone, others have been redefined or amalgamated (Patterncraft)
2. Some of the Disciplines have been redesigned. Beastmasters can be tamers of beasts or savage brawlers, Weaponsmiths are leaders/fixers, and all spellcasters get Willforce as a talent.
3. Spells are standardized and there are more 0 thread required spells.
4. Extra threads can be woven into spells to tweak them.
5. Changes to the Animal Companion talent actually make having an animal useful.
6. Thief talents are consolidated, they get a free Danger Sense talent, and some extra social talents.
7. Armor defeating hits have been retired as a term but extra successes add extra damage.
8. The Thief and Illusionist disciplines are probably the best attempt to emulate these archetypes in a fantasy game that I've seen.

SubversionArts · Post by **SubversionArts** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:06 pm

Concise Locket wrote:I was a 4E Kickstarter backer and got my Player's Guide PDF a couple of weeks ago. Several of the interior spot illustrations are good but the color art is so generic fantasy that it would be unrecognizable without the setting specific races. The layout is dull but serviceable if you want to use a tablet.

4E is a bunch of rules tweaks but no major systems changes.

1. Some useless talents like Temperature are gone, others have been redefined or amalgamated (Patterncraft)
2. Some of the Disciplines have been redesigned. Beastmasters can be tamers of beasts or savage brawlers, Weaponsmiths are leaders/fixers, and all spellcasters get Willforce as a talent.
3. Spells are standardized and there are more 0 thread required spells.
4. Extra threads can be woven into spells to tweak them.
5. Changes to the Animal Companion talent actually make having an animal useful.
6. Thief talents are consolidated, they get a free Danger Sense talent, and some extra social talents.
7. Armor defeating hits have been retired as a term but extra successes add extra damage.
8. The Thief and Illusionist disciplines are probably the best attempt to emulate these archetypes in a fantasy game that I've seen.

Thanks! That's pretty cool about #8. And good insight about tablet use. I generally prefer larger format game books, and physical copies, but it's nice to know that the smaller format is going to work better in tablet form. Until full-page tablets become cheap and common, it would be neat to see publishers providing a smaller format pdf version alongside the full sized version.

Concise Locket · Post by **Concise Locket** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:18 pm

FASA conducted a survey among the Kickstarter backers and the digest format won. So the physical copy will also be in that format, just like 3E Revised and the Pathfinder port.

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other, though I do appreciate that digest books are easier to carry, easier to handle and take up less space on a table.