Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Discussion on playing Earthdawn. Experiences, stories, and questions related to being a player.
Post Reply
ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm
Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by ChrisDDickey » Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:43 pm

In Panda's blog, where he talks about the design of the Beastmaster, he talks about the heart of the beastmaster discipline has always been the Savage Warrior, and thus the decision was made to make all the savage warrior talents discipline talents, and all the mastering of beasts talents to be talent options. I kind of feel that the discipline should have been renamed the Savage Warrior, since beasts are now optional for it.

A beastmaster who chooses to go the whole menagerie route needs to pick up Animal Bond, Animal Training, Enhance Animal Companion, etc. and uses these talents to build a menagerie to help him do stuff better. Maybe animal scouts, animal thieves, animal guards, and/or animal fighters. This is a valid and non-noteworthy build choice.

The funny thing is, all of those beast mastering talents that were considered so optional for the discipline named beastmaster, are core discipline talents for cavalrymen. The talents that allow a beastmaster to be a beastmaster are ones the cavalryman already has. However people tell me that a cavalryman would never use these talents on anything except his one chosen mount. Have a remount, oh no, a cavalryman would never bond with more than one mount at a time! train an eagle to scout or a dog to hunt! Oh no, a cavalryman would never bond with anything except his one mount, and would never waste time training anything except his one bonded mount!

Now none of this is even hinted at in the players guide or any other 4th edition book, but I went back to the Way of War which is what, a 1st ED book? and there it was. Everything is all about the one special mount.

So here is my problem. All of these talents are discipline talents. In 1st ED, you could just bring Animal Bond up to rank one or two and leave it there forever, because you were only ever going to use it 3 or 4 times in your life, and there was usually no penalty for failure, so you did not need to bring it up past rank one. Use it to bond a mount, then ignore it until your mount gets too old to ride anymore.

But now all these talents, that at high rank allow you to manage a whole menagerie, we are required to keep improving, because they are discipline talents, but this old 1st ED book seems to imply that it is almost a discipline violation to ever use them more than 3 or 4 times in your life!

Now like I said, none of this is even hinted at in any current book.
And the rules have changed a lot since the Way of War was written.

So is Way of War still valid?
What do people think of a Cavalryman using his talents to build a menagerie of loyal Animal Companions of various species. Is that unexceptional usage of the talents he is required to have? or a discipline violation? Or somewhere in between?
Last edited by ChrisDDickey on Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
etherial
Posts:964
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 11:04 pm
Location:Berlin, Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by etherial » Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:46 pm

Way of War is ED2. The books you want to be looking at are The Adept's Way and ED3PC.

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by ChrisDDickey » Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:57 pm

etherial wrote:
Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:46 pm
Way of War is ED2. The books you want to be looking at are The Adept's Way and ED3PC.
I don't think I have them. So what do they say about this topic?

User avatar
etherial
Posts:964
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 11:04 pm
Location:Berlin, Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by etherial » Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:39 pm

The quote below is from the in-character section on Cavalrymen.
Jenna Kinkeeper, on ED3PC33, wrote:no Cavalyrman can bond with more than one mount at a time.
Now, of course, that's an opinion, not an objective fact. I'm pretty sure that it's a reprint of the content from The Adept's Way, but my copy of that book is even less handy.

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by ChrisDDickey » Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:45 pm

And of course it says mount. Not Animal Companion. How about bonding with non-mounts?

I mean if you are not allowed to use it, shouldn't it be a free, limited talent, rather than the full fledged Animal Bond?
And correct me if I am wrong, but in 3rd edition, were they still giving you a choice of two talents at every circle, and you could choose ether or both, but did not need to bring them both up to high ranks forever?

Once again, It seems weird to give an Adept a talent, say he has to increase it every time he goes up a circle, and then say he is not allowed to use it due to roleplay reasons that are not mentioned in the main book. It seems weird.

User avatar
etherial
Posts:964
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 11:04 pm
Location:Berlin, Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by etherial » Sat Sep 30, 2017 10:05 pm

ChrisDDickey wrote:
Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:45 pm
And of course it says mount. Not Animal Companion. How about bonding with non-mounts?
Not a word, natch.
ChrisDDickey wrote:
Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:45 pm
And correct me if I am wrong, but in 3rd edition, were they still giving you a choice of two talents at every circle, and you could choose ether or both, but did not need to bring them both up to high ranks forever?
No, the idea that some Talents were optional and some Talents were mandatory was fully incorporated into ED3, though it did include the "Using All Talents to Advance" Optional Rule. ED3PC also says that Beastmaster/Cavalryman and Cavalryman/Beastmaster are both relatively common combinations, suggesting that Cavalrymen can collect menageries the way Beastmasters do, though it cautions strongly against taking multiple combat-relevant animal companions.
ChrisDDickey wrote:
Sat Sep 30, 2017 9:45 pm
Once again, It seems weird to give an Adept a talent, say he has to increase it every time he goes up a circle, and then say he is not allowed to use it due to roleplay reasons that are not mentioned in the main book. It seems weird.
It was even weirder in ED1 when you had to use Talents in order to raise them and if you received a Talent called "Life Check", you could only use it by either arranging your own murder or luckily surviving an encounter with a boatload of Legend to spend.

Telarus
Posts:267
Joined:Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:16 am

Re: Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?

Post by Telarus » Sat Sep 30, 2017 10:43 pm

I think the "Master of the Hunt" archetype comes out uniquely differently depending on if you start out Beastmaster or Cavalryman in 4E, so I like what they've done there.

While there is that take on it in 1e Adept's Way, in the "On Bonding More Than Once" section, I never restricted Cavalrymen to a single mount. Recently, reading up on how the Roman cavalry and post-Roman "paladin" of Charlemange's time (which replaced them) operated, I'm even more inclined to allow them to bond as they see fit.

So an ork scorcher Cavalryman Adept might have 3-4 horses, another mount type (thundra, troajin, etc), and most importantly, he has hirelings/help to take care of all of these animals and make sure they get along with each other (including the help's mounts or pack animals, which the Adept may own but not be bonded to). You don't own one mount because then you would burn them out (or only be riding about 1/3-1/2 of the time), and you own different mounts for different situations.

While at it's core, a Cavalryman pair can be powerful alone, with the correct support system and fellow cavalry with them they are downright scary.

Post Reply