Shock Treatment (Preview)

Discussion on playing Earthdawn. Experiences, stories, and questions related to being a player.
Post Reply
User avatar
The Undying
Posts:696
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 11:25 pm
Shock Treatment (Preview)

Post by The Undying » Thu Feb 16, 2017 2:55 am

I'm intrigued by this Talent. I see a lot of potential here, but without the text, all I can really do is speculate as to the preview material.
  1. At least from the Discipline previews provided so far, looks like this Talent is only found on the Elementalist. That's cool, not a complaint, and I'm very much okay with it as an Option Talent (all the other curative stuff is Option, so this makes sense). I'm curious though if, since this is currently an Elementalist-only Talent, can the Talent owner donate a Recovery Test as part of the effect? That's one of the Elemenalist shticks, it'd be neat so see this repeated into a Talent - assuming it stays Elementalist-only in the core Disciplines.
  2. The preview says "Its main intent is to help awaken unconscious characters." I think this really needs to be played up lest this Talent become overly powerful. If it's an instantaneous heal with bonus equal to Rank, it's basically a Fireblood that can be used on more than oneself; that doesn't remove the usefulness of Fireblood given that the Elementalist likely needs to wander over and touch the target, but it definitely erodes some of its benefits. Even if it requires a "Shock Treatment (ST) Step vs TMD" to take effect, that is normally going to succeed by the time this Talent becomes available. What I'd really like to see is something that really highlights that focus on unconscious characters. A few ideas:
    1. On a conscious character, it's ST vs TMD to land, ST bonus is Rank (nothing for extra successes); on an unconscious character, it's ST v 6 (unconscious character's mystic defense is down), RT bonus is Rank with an additional +2 extra success.
    2. On a conscious character, it's ST vs 6 to land, RT bonus is +3 per extra success; on an unconscious character, it's ST v 6 , RT bonus is Rank with an additional +1 extra success.
    3. RT bonus is Rank, after which characters that were conscious when the Talent was administered must make a Knockdown test versus the number of recovered health (as their body convulses from the shock)

Tattered Rags
Posts:374
Joined:Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:04 am

Re: Shock Treatment (Preview)

Post by Tattered Rags » Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:37 am

Good guess on (a). The Kickstarter preview says the Talent user can donate a Recovery test, and use their step.

Regarding (b), text states that it can't be used on characters past their death rating and only once per day on conscious characters.

Obviously all this could be different by now.
Adventure I'm running:
Under the Stars

Adventure GM post-mortem:
Under the Stars Postmortem

Post Reply