High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

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Mataxes
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High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Mataxes » Fri Dec 23, 2016 1:57 pm

Check out the latest high Circle preview here, and then post your comments or questions!
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etherial
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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by etherial » Fri Dec 23, 2016 2:34 pm

FASA Games wrote:Burning Vigor adds a pool of Recovery tests that can be used to fuel powers like Fireblood
Wowsers. Nearly-Endless Fireblood!?
FASA GAmes wrote:In the Master tier, Thunderstruck is a knockdown area-attack.
Metal.

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Mataxes
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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Mataxes » Fri Dec 23, 2016 3:56 pm

etherial wrote:Wowsers. Nearly-Endless Fireblood!?
The talent gives additional Recovery tests per day = Rank, but those tests can only be used to power talents that require a Recovery test. So Fireblood/Blood of Death's Sea, Vital Strike, Vital Ward on the Sky Raider list.

The talent also provides a +Rank bonus to Strength tests (not Damage) -- so, breaking down a door, lifting a boulder, etc.
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Lys
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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Lys » Fri Dec 23, 2016 8:14 pm

The Sky Raider is appropriately metal as all hell. One criticism about Stormcall though: "Each day during their Karma Ritual, the adept may designate allies up to their rank in Sky Weaving. Those named are not affected by this ability until dawn the next day." That part seems unnecessary, it's just another fiddly thing to keep track of that frankly adds nothing to the game. If you're going to let the Raider exempt her allies from the lightning strike, then just let her do it on the fly. It's also more consistent with most other area of effect attacks in the game. The cumulative wounds also seem a bit silly given that the 10 minute rest already limits it to once per fight, and it goes against the Skyraider thematics (thanks to Fireblood and Fire Heal) of being able to keep going through multiple fights at full power without wearing themselves out.

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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Tattered Rags » Fri Dec 23, 2016 11:40 pm

With unflinching fortitude and the fact that stormcall ignores armor, it looks like stormcall is a massive damage dealer, though more of an opener in combat or during a clinch moment than something you throw off all over the place.
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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Kosmit » Sat Dec 24, 2016 5:01 am

In my opinion allies shouldn't be excluded from damage. It is so awesome trick that should destroy everything in range :D

Or just let it to exclude on the fly up to Sky Weaving Rank Allies. Like somebody said (damn, miss that quick reply button so I can scroll up while typing) 10 minute rest is enough to put a cap on it without stacking wounds.

I wonder if bonus recovery test are cumulative? Or is it the same as with defense bonuses? The wording is inconsistient here ("Gains 2/3 additional tests" or "bonus is now +4").

I like it so much!

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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Mataxes » Sat Dec 24, 2016 2:11 pm

Kosmit wrote:I wonder if bonus recovery test are cumulative? Or is it the same as with defense bonuses? The wording is inconsistient here ("Gains 2/3 additional tests" or "bonus is now +4").
The bonus Recovery tests work like Defense bonuses.

C7: The adept gains an additional Recovery test.
C12: The adept gains 2 additional Recovery tests per day. (+1 to their previous bonus, for a total of 2)
C15: The adept gains 3 additional Recovery tests per day. (Another +1 for a total of 3.)

Yeah, the wording is inconsistent between the Player's Guide and Companion... most likely because there aren't any Disciplines that get more than one bonus Recovery test from C1-C8. But it still works the same way -- only the highest bonus applies.
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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by The Undying » Tue Dec 27, 2016 12:07 am

First, let me say, I absolutely LOVE the fact that Disciplines other than magicians have more use for the Threadweaving Talent. Yes, this is a core talent as it allows Adepts to weave Threads to items and such, but really, other than magicians, there seems to be very little incentive to bumping Threadweaving beyond current Circle requirements (unless you really need more Threads). I think abilities like this are outstanding, I would love to see more uses for Threadweaving across the board.
Lys wrote:One criticism about Stormcall though: "Each day during their Karma Ritual, the adept may designate allies up to their rank in Sky Weaving. Those named are not affected by this ability until dawn the next day." That part seems unnecessary, it's just another fiddly thing to keep track of that frankly adds nothing to the game. If you're going to let the Raider exempt her allies from the lightning strike, then just let her do it on the fly.
I can see both sides, but I think I see where the design comes in. Sky Raiders are usually going to be aboard an airship, right, so tight-ish quarters, with a limited number of known occupants, some/many of whom would only come to the deck for combat if things became dire. This ability fits well there - the exemption pool is enough to exclude pretty much all the deck hands of a small airship but requires some weird trade-offs with larger airships. HOWEVER, the penalty aspect really shines once the Sky Raiders are out of their elements, like in a large city. Call down the lightening in the middle of a crowd? There's going to be a lot of unintended casualties.

Maybe this is just my perspective, but I've always seen Sky Raider as core to the universe but very ill-fit to player characters. Have people actually had PCs run this Discipline? If not, I think this ability is fine for hand-waiving if the Discipline as a whole is NPC: small airship, all the NPC's allies get a pass; large airship, maybe just roll a pool of d6 for all allies in the radius and for each 1, that ally wasn't in the exemption pool. More than anything, I think this is interesting from a point of view of the players: if they're hitching a ride on an airship, good chances any Sky Raiders aboard wouldn't think/both to include the PCs in their daily exemption, and if the air ship gets attacked, the PCs might get fried once because the Sky Raider isn't thinking. =)

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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by Lys » Tue Dec 27, 2016 1:38 am

It's true that Sky Raiders do not seem to be a very popular Discipline, probably because they are so tightly bound to the culture of the Crystal Raider clans, but people do play them. They're usually Trolls, but sometimes people go for something more unique, like Elves or Tskrang. As far as my own game goes, i'm pretty sure both the Human Swordmaster and the Troll Warrior could have been Sky Raiders and nobody would notice the difference. The Swordmaster is gleefully bloodthirsty and charges boldy into combat while giggling like a maniac. While the Warrior is such an engine of ruin and devastation we've speculated his clan forced him to become a Warrior in an effort to rein in his destructive tendencies (this may have backfired). Also we briefly had an Obsidiman Warrior who really should have been an Obsidiman Skyraider because his main combat tactic was Great Leap + Down Strike. So you see, while we have not so much as encountered an actual Sky Raider in that game, the Discipline has certainly been with us in spirit.

Also i absolutely loathe the idea of powers or abilities geared toward NPCs. It's something i dislike in general, but i think it's even worse in a game like Earthdawn. Part of the appeal of Earthdawn is the high level of system and setting integration, and this integration is damaged by putting up a wall between PCs and NPCs when no such distinction exists in universe. Adept powers should be written with the expectation that player characters will want to use them and are going to use them. In the case of the lightning strike power, it's an extremely cool power and easily my favourite thing about the High Circle Sky Raider, but i feel that having to keep track of who i exempted from it this morning is not cool, fun, or flavourful. It's just a boring chore to mark down on an already cluttered character sheet.

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Re: High Circle Preview: Sky Raider

Post by The Undying » Tue Dec 27, 2016 2:07 am

I think there's definite value in limiting use of this ability, but I can also see other ways to do it, officially or unofficially. I think allowing per-use removal of RANK targets is too much - Adepts don't get this until Circle 13, so at that point, the entire thing becomes moot, 13 is more than enough unless you're just exploding in the middle of a crowd. Maybe a pool of exemptions, with RANK/day or RANK/combat if /day sounds too aggressive. There is a LITTLE bit of book keeping, moreso with the /day than with the /combat, but this can be done with a die or tokens. It sacrifices quantity for simplicity: if you're burning 3 exemption tokens per round on the same allies, you'll exhaust your resource pool quickly, BUT you don't have to worry about not being able to exclude Namegiver X because you didn't even know they existed this morning.

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