Old Earthdawn GM jumping from 1st to 4th edition

[Yternal Watcher]

Good afternoon forum, you're looking well.

Long about 20 years ago I GM'ed first edition Earthdawn in one of the most successful campaigns I've ever run. We ran every module that came out and explored all the corners of Barsaive. My PCs went from 1st to 8th circle by the end. Then, life got in the way, parts of the group broke up, and Earthdawn was put to rest for the moment.

Flash forward to now and my FLGS had a sale on the 4th edition Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide, so in a burst of nostalgia I snagged them both. Interesting choice for book size, I have to say, make them physically shorter but a lot thicker! I've been doing some skimming through, and it looks like there have been a bunch of changes since 1st edition. No worries, every game evolves as time goes on. I don't suppose that anyone has a list o' changes from 1 to 4 to make it easy on old fellers like me? I plan to give these books a proper thorough read as well, but I don't want to miss anything that's been updated. I'd rather try the new Earthdawn chassis in and of itself going up and down the highway a few times, before I go bolting on a custom exhaust, rewiring the engine, and overinflating the spare tire.

It also seems like the campaign start date has shambled forward a fair piece. My original group never got to the Theran War (though I do have Prelude To War, and the two Living Room Games supplements Barsaive At War and Barsaive In Chaos) and it looks like 4th edition starts after the war is complete. I may have to dial that back a ways since I'd like my new group to be part o' something like that, especially the couple old timers who were with me the first time around.

So obviously I missed a lot of Earthdawn here! I knew about Living Room Games taking ED to 2nd, but past that I lost track. I see that there was something called a "classic" edition, then 3rd edition, then revised edition? And finally 4th now. Whew! I have a line on someone looking to get rid of some 2/c/3 Earthdawn books, so my next question is - how compatible are previous editions? Is it a lot of work to make them work or can it just be eyeballed? I'm not talking about location fluff, more like how the adventures would run. Also, are there any adventures or books from previous editions people would recommend as being really good?

Thanks a whole bunch for letting me ramble on a spell!

YW

[Mataxes]

First of all, welcome back! I've heard from a lot of people who are getting back into the game with the new edition. And honestly, it's a great time to do it.

it looks like there have been a bunch of changes since 1st edition. No worries, every game evolves as time goes on. I don't suppose that anyone has a list o' changes from 1 to 4 to make it easy on old fellers like me?

Hoo boy. Coming from ED1... here are the big ones:

* Some of the step dice have been tweaked to smooth out some of the funkier probability curves in the mechanics. The d20 doesn't show up until later, and you get 3 dice sooner.
* Result levels have been simplified. Instead of looking things up on a chart, every 5 points over the target scores an extra success. These have been integrated into a bunch of places in the various systems.
* Rather than having fixed choices at each Circle, each Discipline has "talent options" that allow for more customization and personalization. At Circle 1, it's 5 Disicipline talents (these are the fixed ones), and one option. At each subsequent Circle, it's one Discipline talent and one option.
* Available talents have been changed around, with many talents changing name, purpose, or other such things.
* Armor Defeating Hits have changed. Now, instead of "all or nothing" extra successes on basic attacks do extra damage, helping to overcome armor.
* Shields modify Physical Defense, not armor.
* Characters get some stuff that used to be talents for free, no longer needing to spend points on them. Durability is the big one. "Specialist" Disciplines get a free, flavorful ability that suits them (example: Troubadours get "Entertainer" for free). Magicians get 2 free basic matrices, one of which upgrades to an Enhanced matrix at Circle 5.
* Karma is no longer solely based on race. A character's Karma pool is Racial Mod x Circle. Karma can be spent on any talent, but is always a d6.
* Magicians now have an option to weave "additional threads" to the base level spell in order to enhance things like range, effect, number of targets, etc. The intent is for lower-Circle spells to have a bit more utility during a character's career.

I think that covers the big stuff? At least that I can think of offhand.

I'll have to cover your other questions later (I need to eat dinner and attend our online company meeting). But maybe somebody else will chime in with their thoughts.

Edit to add:
Another couple of Karma things: You no longer buy Karma Points with Legend. Once per day when you perform your Karma Ritual, your entire pool of Karma is refreshed. (Karma has actually seen a few changes since ED1.)

[Telarus]

Welcome to the forums! I think Mataxes has covered the core of the changes. Once you are used to the +1 extra success for every 5 over the base difficulty number change, the rest will be very easy to understand.

As for core material, if you have the 1e stuff, you are good to go. You may need to re-stat adepts (just use their attribute steps and the skills/equipment can be eyeballed, it's the talents and choosing optional talents that will differ). If you need setting material, I would recommend the Serpent River, and Throal the Dwarf Kingdom books to start.

[RazanMG]

Welcome back to Barsaive.

As for Adventures our group had a great time playing:
- Blades (as I remember, happening all around Barsaive)
- Burning Desires (takes place in one of Throal cities)

[etherial]

You will probably find that some NPCs/creatures are broken in one way or the other if you tried to run them up against ED4 characters, and some magic powers specifically revolved around things that no longer exist like Armor Defeating hits, but the various editions are fundamentally compatible.

[Dougansf]

Old modules can be used pretty well. Though I recommend looking over the monster stats, and comparing them to the 4E stats.

One perk of 4E is that creatures were spread out more in challenge rating, filling more of the 5-8 Circle area which was always a little empty. However, this means if you see, for example, a couple of Shadowmants challenging Circle 1 or 2 PC's, you might not want to use the CR5 stats from 4E.

I recommend using the 4E stat block for the powers and 4E mechanics, and adjusting the numbers to suit your party.

Good luck!

[Slimcreeper]

I noticed that some of the classic monsters are targeted towards different difficulty levels.

As far as the other editions, just pretend they didn't happen. 1st and 4th are the only editions.

[The Undying]

My table is currently running the meta-plot from ED1 start up (so, pre-Prelude and then through all the war stuff). I'm not the GM, but the feeling I get from the GM the boon is having pre-generated adventures - you have to tailor things to your table anyways, sometimes heavily past a certain Circle, so I guess it's just one more degree of work on prep. If you were to go this route, be sure to keep your players from reading the Barsaive information in ED4 Player's Guide.

The piece of general advice I'd give you is to read the Talent text thoroughly. While some names have changed, the overall names and feels of the Talents may lull you into assuming not much has changed there. In truth, there are a variety of changes.

The bullet-point changes I'd add that immediately come to mind:

• Forging of weapons and armor is now unbounded. Used to be, IIRC, forge up to half the damage or combined armor values. Now, as long as you can find someone with a Forge Talent high enough, you can keep going.
• Shields cannot be forged. Goes along with their change from Armor to Defense.
• Thread Item weapons/armor can be forged. Self explanatory.
• Some old Thread Items will require manual updates. In older editions, Thread Items couldn't be forged, so it was pretty common for the first rank to be "gains all bonuses as though fully forged." That is no longer valid and creates a significant power spike.
• Thread Items power level / ranks guidance has changed. Self explanatory. However, you can also hop over to Panda's Gaming Grover where Morgan has a LOOONG list of items he's reviewed, both in terms of power level as they existed in 3ED and how they changed from 1ED.
• Combat maneuvers are a thing. Explained in GMG - basically, a way to do interesting things with extra successes on Close/Ranged attacks. I could be mistaken, but I believe spell maneuvers are an aspiration for the future Magic-focused expansion.

[etherial]

The piece of general advice I'd give you is to read the Talent text thoroughly. While some names have changed, the overall names and feels of the Talents may lull you into assuming not much has changed there. In truth, there are a variety of changes.

This is very good advice and I would add: When you think the rules are one way and the players think it's the other way, there's actually a good chance the player is right. Note the disagreement, make a temporary ruling, and move on. Then look it up between sessions and email the final ruling.

The bullet-point changes I'd add that immediately come to mind:

• Forging of weapons and armor is now unbounded. Used to be, IIRC, forge up to half the damage or combined armor values. Now, as long as you can find someone with a Forge Talent high enough, you can keep going.
• Thread Items can be forged. Self explanatory.
• Some old Thread Items will require manual updates. In older editions, Thread Items couldn't be forged, so it was pretty common for the first rank to be "gains all bonuses as though fully forged." That is no longer valid and creates a significant power spike.

These are all undoing changes that were made in between ED1 and ED4.