Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

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Lursi
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Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

Post by Lursi » Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:12 pm

Hello!

Is the way ED4 interprets Wood Skin, with the explicit wording that the damage is taken away with the end of the duration also the way it should be read in ED2?

As it is adding to your damage threshold for a certain duration, I presume one can regenerate into the increased wood skin based health rating with fireblood?

Anticipate Blow should grant its defense and attack bonus also to a wizard’s spell casting ?(giben his initiative is higher with tiger spring only and he gets over his mystic defense)

Wound Balance in ED4 is clear, in ED2 it mentions explicitly a wound, hence would not be valid when someone attacks for knockdown. I presume everyone uses it with every knock down test, except when on a mount, then sure mount is required.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Bonhumm
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Re: Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

Post by Bonhumm » Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:52 pm

see below
Last edited by Bonhumm on Sun Dec 29, 2019 11:04 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Bonhumm
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Re: Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

Post by Bonhumm » Sun Dec 29, 2019 11:03 pm

Lursi wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:12 pm
Is the way ED4 interprets Wood Skin, with the explicit wording that the damage is taken away with the end of the duration also the way it should be read in ED2?

As it is adding to your damage threshold for a certain duration, I presume one can regenerate into the increased wood skin based health rating with fireblood?
Previous editions (including second) versions of Wood Skin had the very serious downside of 'keeping' the damage applied to them, thus risking the character actually dying from them once the effect was over (a very interesting way of using Dispel Magic offensively!)

They removed that in 4th edition BUT, to balance it out, changed the duration of the effect. In previous editions the effects of Wood Skin lasted for the full day while in 4th it only last a number of hours equal to the rank of the talent; this is an extremely potent nerfing, especially at low circle.

As a GM in second edition, I would personally accept that you change Wood Skin to its 4th edition version if you wanted to, but you'd have to take both the advantages AND disadvantages from it.

As for regenerating health, you could, of course, use any normal techniques (recovery tests, fireblood (in combat only!), potions etc) to go below your death rating and that in both 2nd and 4th edition. The danger with this talent (in previous edition) was that if you had no recovery tests or potions available and were over your death threshold; you were basically dead at midnight!
Lursi wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:12 pm
Anticipate Blow should grant its defense and attack bonus also to a wizard’s spell casting ?(given his initiative is higher with tiger spring only and he gets over his mystic defense)
In Second Edition, Anticipate Blow does not give any bonus to attacks, whether physical or magical.
In Fourth edition it does give bonuses to attack; the talent itself does not specify that 'attack' do not include magical attacks HOWEVER, since there is a 'Anticipate SPELL' knack that actually gives bonuses to magical attacks, I would assume the 'basic, Anticipate Blow does NOT provide bonuses to magical attacks.
Lursi wrote:
Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:12 pm
Wound Balance in ED4 is clear, in ED2 it mentions explicitly a wound, hence would not be valid when someone attacks for knockdown. I presume everyone uses it with every knock down test, except when on a mount, then sure mount is required.
You are right that 'by the letter', second edition says ' when making a Knockdown Test after taking a Wound', but it also states at the beginning: 'The Wound Balance talent improves a character's ability to resist knockdown.' thus, I would assume that the 'after taking a wound' was a 'I forgot there was other scenarios where one might need to do a knockdown test' and I would allow its use against a 'attack to knockdown' if I was your GM.

Lursi
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Re: Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

Post by Lursi » Mon Dec 30, 2019 2:48 pm

Regarding Wood Skin;

Your interpretation of the damage remaining and a character potentially dying when wood skin expires is a very tough one. It does however close a bit the gap felt regarding 'fighting value' between a Sky raider and a Warrior. What worries me about it, are the elven and windling warriors having a wood skin talent and lets say 2 recovery tests of a d10. Increasing the rank of wood skin is hence completely futile as even on rank 1, the risk of dying when you really use that hit point buffer is very significant.

Essentially, like this the talent is broken for everyone below 4 recovery tests without strong bonus from magic, healing potions etc.
Just because of the variance in low step number tests. Hence if your interpretation is true, I would switch it with a basic talent from higher circles like missile weapons.

I also agree that both positive and negative modifications have to balance, I would even go further and remove the discipline talent status and keep the duration to make GM bookkeeping easier to not have to track rank hours but have a nerfing that is easy. (Wood skin every morning when you are out in the wild) But I would not reject taking ED4 RAW if the GM wants to track that...


Regarding Anticipate Blow:
Page 88 in the english 2.ED from LRG states:
If the test (against spell defense) is successful, the character adds his rank to both his Physical Defense Rating and to the result of the attack test.
Also ED4 adds a bonus (2 per 5 above the DN) to the first attack test.

Your reasoning with the knack is however a good one, I just cant find the knack in my ED2 material. Where can I find it?
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Bonhumm
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Re: Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

Post by Bonhumm » Mon Dec 30, 2019 3:21 pm

Lursi wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 2:48 pm
Regarding Wood Skin;
Essentially, like this the talent is broken for everyone below 4 recovery tests without strong bonus from magic, healing potions etc.
Just because of the variance in low step number tests. Hence if your interpretation is true, I would switch it with a basic talent from higher circles like missile weapons.
Not broken. Let's not forget that there is a 'middle ground' between 'alive' and 'dead' and that's the unconscious rating. Wood Skin also increase the unconscious rating thus you would remain conscious 'longer' with the Wood Skin talent. Yes, if the total goes over the (real) death rating then this is a problem but if the effect of loosing Wood Skin at midnight just makes the character goes from 'conscious' to 'unconscious' then the consequences are not that bad; he'll just have to use his Recovery Tests for that day to come back.

Also keep in mind that if the character WITH Wood Skin would ends up dead at midnight because the total damage is over his death rating, this also means that he would have died during the combat WITHOUT Wood Skin anyway. So there is no real downside in using it, just hope there is recovery tests and/or potions left after the battle.

Lursi wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 2:48 pm
Regarding Anticipate Blow:
Your reasoning with the knack is however a good one, I just cant find the knack in my ED2 material. Where can I find it?
'Anticipate Spell' is a 4th edition knack, the 2nd edition Companion has a 'Avoid Spell' knack that seems similar.

Lursi
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Re: Question about ED2 Talents wood skin and others

Post by Lursi » Mon Dec 30, 2019 4:05 pm

Bonhumm wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 3:21 pm

Not broken. Let's not forget that there is a 'middle ground' between 'alive' and 'dead' and that's the unconscious rating. Wood Skin also increase the unconscious rating thus you would remain conscious 'longer' with the Wood Skin talent. Yes, if the total goes over the (real) death rating then this is a problem but if the effect of loosing Wood Skin at midnight just makes the character goes from 'conscious' to 'unconscious' then the consequences are not that bad; he'll just have to use his Recovery Tests for that day to come back.

Also keep in mind that if the character WITH Wood Skin would ends up dead at midnight because the total damage is over his death rating, this also means that he would have died during the combat WITHOUT Wood Skin anyway. So there is no real downside in using it, just hope there is recovery tests and/or potions left after the battle.
I buy this!
Especially because in ed2, the durability for a warrior is 9/7, hence the distance between the unconciousness and the death threshold is large enough !
Thank you for taking the time to convince me.
Lursi wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2019 2:48 pm
Regarding Anticipate Blow:
Your reasoning with the knack is however a good one, I just cant find the knack in my ED2 material. Where can I find it?
'Anticipate Spell' is a 4th edition knack, the 2nd edition Companion has a 'Avoid Spell' knack that seems similar.
[/quote]

Avoid blow is clearly stating that it is intended to be used against close combat or ranged attacks. Anticipate Blow just says you need to use "other talents" to use the bonus and that it does not convey any additional attacks.

From a practical perspective, it is not the very first choice for a wizard because of the comparative initiative requirement.
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

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