Shield and Forge Armor, why not?

[The Undying]

Updates to the enchanting section? Give to Zimmmm!!!

Thanks for all the great info, panda. I know that there was lots of Deep Thought that went into the changes for ED4. While I personally just love hearing it, I also think it helps community folks make informed decisions on changes or custom equipment they are thinking about. This whole topic is a great example - "Craft Armor used to work on shields. I don't see why it was removed. I'll just add it back it." "Actually, about that..." "oh that makes total sense! I'll leave it as intended."

[Panda]

If there is some topic anyone would like me to drop in regarding, just let me know via some means, as happened in this instance. Email, G+, PM, whatever. Otherwise, I'm not around that often and more hands off in general nowadays. Something about the siren call of the Companion. Whispering, "knacks, enchanting, knacks, masks, creatures, knacks..." as I drift to sleep.

Something like that.

Regardless, I'm happy to hear this kind of commentary is constructive, rather than restrictive.

Best regards,

Morgan

[The Undying]

I feel like I've just learned some kind of forbidden arcana - how to summon panda...

[PiXeL01]

Thank you for the deeper insight into this. Appreciate it

[Reciprocity]

My apologies for bring up an older topic. But I'm looking for clarification about something Panda said:

"Early in the design process, we decided Forge Armor and Forge Weapon should be useful for all their ranks. Which means having significantly higher potential bonuses than 3E provided."

I am playing 4E and never played the earlier versions. In fact our entire group is new to Earthdawn. The GM has played many years and I am fairly sure helped play test some... no names.

Anyway he is house limiting forge armor and forge weapon to 5. He is use to 3E where - I'm told forge weapon was limited to weapon size. (the reason everyone used two handed swords..?) Again I never played 3E. There appears to be NO limitation like that in 4E. I do understand not forging shields - that makes perfect sense to me. Defense and vrs armor... GM's main argument is game balance. Which I am still very new to.

I have lots of DM experience in D&D and Shadowrun. So I understand protecting thread items form excessive player manipulation through forging.

So what is considered "Significantly higher potential bonuses -per Panda"? A dagger forged to step 15? What is suppose to keep this from being game breaking? Is it - having to make extra successes to get that high? Duration of the forging attempt (slaving over forge for months to get group weapons improved)? With just a couple karma dice and even rank 15 - It will be EXTREMELY hard to get 15 extra successes.... unless I'm missing something (very probable).

Also forging armor - if you were at forge armor rank 15... could you put 15 ranks into physical? Mix and match to a total of 15 with physical and mystic? All mystic? Again looking at 4E campaign experienced GM's type answers. Yes - the standard answer is depends on the threat. Looking for general play recommendations.

And yes I am the weaponsmith of our group. I have no argument that seems logical to me - other than I feel a bit slighted as a discipline with my imo primary focus being "limited". But I won't play that card, game is suppose to be fun (and I'm having fun). I'll just switch disciplines at circle 5 if I still feel "limited". Current circle 4. I have been forge weaponing the entire groups weapons - so we are saving lots of silver anyway...

GM says I will need extra ranks to help in making thread items later... so there is some reason to pursue the discipline. Which is why I have decided to ask for additional opinions.

Forge armor isn't as important because GM has house ruled armor defeating hits still happen. But has toned down the +2 step per extra success to +1.

That has helped the group defeat opponents quickly but bit us hard in last nights game.. at least no one died.

So why get rid or armor defeating hits in 4E? I have not seen that explained anywhere. Unless high forging allows you to eventually defeat things with extremely high armor...and then not needing armor defeating.

Any help/clarification would be appreciated.

[The Undying]

LOTTTS of questions there. Note that I assume you're playing 4ED here ... which isn't clear in your message.

Why did Armor Defeating hits go away? Because they sucked. Not sure there's much more to say there. I'm not sure there was anyone that was super fond of them as a game mechanic...

You can mix and match Forge Armor bonuses. You just combine both of the bonuses in order to determine the Forging amount. E.g., +3 Physical, +2 Mystic means +5 Forging, means that the difficult is +5 (whatever the base is, 5 or 6 or 8 or something), and you can only get additional forgings if the Talent Rank being used is 6+.

So what is considered "Significantly higher potential bonuses -per Panda"? A dagger forged to step 15? What is suppose to keep this from being game breaking? Is it - having to make extra successes to get that high? Duration of the forging attempt (slaving over forge for months to get group weapons improved)? With just a couple karma dice and even rank 15 - It will be EXTREMELY hard to get 15 extra successes.... unless I'm missing something (very probable).

Not really sure what you're going for here as it seems like you answered your question yourself elsewhere in the message. In prior editions, you could only forge weapons to something like size or original damage. So, you're talking a max forging of 3-8, depending. Now, the limit is only Talent Rank. Assuming there is some Circle 15 Weaponsmith that is happy sitting around Forging things for people, with some Thread Items giving him +Rank, then it'd be possible to get craziness like ~18 Forgings. Sooo, 18 is significantly higher than 3-8.

Realistically, though, the GM can curtail access to Forging pretty easily. Likely, Weaponsmiths get harder to come by starting, say, Circle/Rank 6/7. So, if you're just trying to roll into town and buy Forgings, max you could get in that case would be 6/7. Gaining memberships to some closed circles (major Merchant Houses, Royal Houses, elite Guilds, etc) could likely give you access to Circle/Rank 8-9, but you have to gain and maintain that membership. Getting 10+ likely requires some no-kidding questing and assigned favors, if you can even find someone willing to do it. There's a lot of good room to limit it in a particular universe.

Lastly, I'd have a serious sit down with your GM, privately, and ask him/her to reconsider the limits for Forging. Without Weaponsmith players, then it seems like an okay change to the world to limit bonuses. However, with Weaponsmith players, it seems like an unfair artificial limitation. That house limit on a player character is like saying "Well, yeah, you have to keep paying to raise Spellcasting, but I'm only going to allow you to count it as max Rank 5 in Spellcasting tests" or "Well, yeah, you have to keep paying to raise Melee Weapon, but I'm only going to allow you to count it as max Rank 5 in attack tests."

[Calamrin]

Experienced GMs usually house rule things from past experiences of seeing things that seem to break game balance.

Our GM whos also very experienced has made forged armour and weapons very difficult to get hold of... which is fine, but saying that we dont have a weaponsmith in the group....so i can see you being annoyed that hes capped the bonuses.

So im kind of saying if two experienced GMs are house ruling it, there must be some kind of balance issue with it....and game balance is so important....there are so many flawed systems out there....and eathdawn is definitely one of the better ones.

Im also sure our GM would put a basic material cost on forging weapons and armour, so if yours is letting you do it for free for the group you aint doing bad)

Im glad they took out armour defeating hits....if you combine highly forged armour, and armour defeating hits, you end up with a situation where you are just waiting for someone to make a monster roll to turn the tide of a battle, and it makes things a lot more randomly lethal.

I would say weaponsmiths are a lot more than just forging weapons and armour...they have a lot of good talents.

[The Undying]

My opinion on Forging is as follows. Take it or leave it, just my opinion.

I'd have to say the potential is a bit too high. If the GM doesn't tamp down how easily accessible Forging is, then it's quite possible for the Forging bonus to match or overtake the native Strength + Weapon Damage Step. That just doesn't sit well with me, which is why my recommended solution is to tamp it down, either as a market thing, by keeping money access low, or REASONABLE artificial limitations (e.g., no Forging level above your Circle). It also serves to allow close/ranged combat to further outpace spell combat, but that's just a personal pet peeve.

However, I personally would do nothing to try to tamp down the effectiveness of a player character's Forge Talents. That just doesn't sit right with me. As I already side, you wouldn't gimp someone's attack Talents (whatever it is) or their other utility Talents ("Wood Skin is too good!!!" or some such), so why take something away from this one particular player? Beside, the chance that the player character's Forge Rank ever really approaches what the team could easily get via vendors is VERY slim - game has to go on A LONG TIME if you start at Circle 1, or you have to start at Higher Circle, at which case you're already talking epic power levels.

Of course, it all comes down to balance. Players want to Forge their things to levels not known since the Scourge before last, you can always just let them go for it. That doesn't mean that all of their encounters stay stagnant. Encounters should ALWAYS be challenging. Partly, that likely means that, since Forging seems to grow on trees, all the Namegiver opponents likely have it out the whazoo too. Otherwise, you likely have to find the sweet spot in rebalancing encounters - good chance the player team counts as one circle higher for stubbing out encounters.

[Calamrin]

i agree undying...you cant gimp a classes talents.

It takes a lot of time and effort to make them...if you add in a base material cost to attempt it...its not going to be a gimme....and will take a lot of time....especially if you consider putting up skills and stats....plus it lasts a year and a day, and on weapons bonuses cant be extended beyond the forgers rank.

As we dont have a weaponsmith our GM has justt made it harder to get them, as it does skew the numbers a bit if everyone can just buy them off the shelf.

[Calamrin]

i would say +8 dagger costing 400sp to buy/attampt to make, or +8 armour for the same price does require some GM monitoring in terms of availablity.... i know it not guarenteed by any means... but things like +3 items with a good smith if you go by the book cost peanuts and do mess with the numbers a lot balance wise if readily available.