Dumb Questions

Discussion on playing Earthdawn. Experiences, stories, and questions related to being a player.
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The Undying
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by The Undying » Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:25 am

This would be a pretty common thing to import from older D&D variations: anything that perform mind control on an NPC immediately results in loss in relationship status or instant hostile, even if they are not free to act on that status until the mind control ends. It doesn't need to be obvious who the caster was, either - magic knows and can influence people in ways they don't realize (much like in the way said NPC vendor doesn't understand why they suddenly want to give you a great bargain, but s/he knows it's the right thing to do!).

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The Undying
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by The Undying » Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:32 am

For what it's worth, I just wanted to repeat a concern someone expressed earlier about having a common topic for what might originally appear as 'simple' or 'dumb' question. Individual threads per-idea is probably better.

Need an example? Go ahead and search for "thread" (as in magic) using the forum search feature. The forum is only a few months old, and "thread" is already 'too common' to receive any search feedback. That makes anthology forum threads with roaming topics like this far less useful. At least with individual forum posts, someone could scan titles to see if something applies.

Food for thought. Support this idea? Then abandon this thread, post a new topic with your 'simple' or 'dumb' question with a meaningful topic title. =)

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Kosmit
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by Kosmit » Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:16 am

Totalny agree with Undying. I can help to sort posts into new topics.

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etherial
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by etherial » Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:32 am

Tattered Rags wrote:Every movie or show ever where a character attempts to placate a beast reaches their hand out to touch the animal's head and says, "Easy, girl, easy. I'm not gonna hurt'chya." Sometimes they get bitten, sometimes not. This is Animal Bonding.

Except Crocodile Dundee. He does that thing with his hand and makes that noise.

Regarding Dominate Beast, it could be a reasonable assumption to say that a Dominated animal cannot be Bonded with as their minds are not completely their own.

Or not, it's probably not a big deal, and the rules don't day anything about it.
We always considered Dundee to be using Dominate Beast because he's hypnotizing it.

ChrisDDickey
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by ChrisDDickey » Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:55 pm

Lys wrote:The Awareness talent/skill is probably one of the best improvements that ED4 made to the game in terms of playability, precisely because it allows you to use it as a passive ability. Beforehand with Search and the various Detect X skills you had to be actively searching for stuff in order to benefit from the talent, and spend strain while you were at it as well. This would slow down the game immensely as your Scout or Thief would have to actively make a Search/Detect rolls every time she thought there might be something amiss, and it could be very frustrating to see her health would drain away with nothing to show for it. It was one of the things that greatly frustrated my group during our Kaer crawl. Now there's no need, and the GM can feel free to just call for Awareness checks when there's actually something interesting in sight. The GM can deal with the Adept not actively looking around or being distracted by just adding a penalty to the Awareness roll. It's all so much faster and more fun.
Can you always spend Karma on an awareness test, even if it is passive?
On the one hand, you are always allowed to spend karma on discipline talents. On the other hand, Awareness is sometimes passive.
My gut reaction is that if you are searching for something or specifically stated that you are keeping an eye out for certain things, you can spend a Karma. If you are just walking along in the nth hour of a hike and the GM calls for perception tests, I would think that you could use awareness, but not awareness plus Karma.
Thoughts?

Lys
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by Lys » Mon Jan 23, 2017 11:49 pm

Danger Sense is always passive, and you can still spend Karma on it. It stands to reason then that you can spend Karma on passive uses of Awareness.

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RazanMG
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Re: Dumb Questions

Post by RazanMG » Mon Jan 23, 2017 11:58 pm

There are 2 ways you can go from this point:

1. Hero way :P When GM asks to roll Perception you can use Awareness (so you can use Karma). But you need players that know (so better to explain to them first), that if they dont "see" anything (GM asks for Awareness, all roll low), they shouldnt be declairing searching. Because its players that know something was to find, not the characters.

2. GM secrets :P GM roll Awareness for players not telling them, no Karma.

I used both of them, my players have more fun with option 1. For many 2. will be better option, they just wont be able to roleplay as they dont know that shit is going to happen.

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