Problems with circle advancement and balancing

[TheOracle]

My group has encountered a problem that makes the LP system feel a little broken for us.

The players have chosen different starting ranks for their talents. 3 players decided on a talent on rank 3, two players decided on two talents on rank 2.

This led to the situation that the characters, with the talents on rank 3 after the end of the first adventure had missed the conditions for advancement to circle 2 by 25 LP.

In the second adventure, all characters are now working towards fulfilling the conditions for advancement to circle 3. But the characters who are already on circle 2 do this at four times the speed because they get four times as many LPs.

In older editions of Earthdawn, this was somewhat offset by the LP for slaying monsters. Now it looks as if the distance between the characters is constantly increasing. All characters doing the same things it feels wrong and very counter intuitive to us, that the higher level characters are advancing faster.

How do you deal with it in your groups? Am I missing something?

[Griznah]

You give everyone the same amount of LP, problem solved.

[TheOracle]

That would bring other balancing issues by itself.

[Mataxes]

How so?

*****

If you're shooting for the most efficient advancement, the best starting array is to take 4 of your C1 Discipline talents at Rank 2. Then it only costs 300 Legend to qualify for C2, as you buy the one missing Discipline talent at Rank 1 (100), then Rank 2 (200). It then costs (5 x 300 Legend)+(1 x 600 Legend) for a total of 2100 Legend from C2 to C3. That's a total of 2400 Legend from C1 to C3.

With the setup you described, assuming the characters put one of their starting points into a C1 talent option...

Character A takes two C1 Discipline talents at Rank 2 and three at Rank 1: 600 Legend to qualify for C2 (3 x 200 Legend)
Character B takes one C1 Discipline talent at Rank 3 and four at Rank 1: 800 Legend to qualify for C2 (4 x 200 Legend)

So the former has an edge for reaching C2. But when getting to C3:

Character A:
(5 x 300) + (1 x 600) = 2100
2100 + 600 = 2700 total from C1 to C3

Character B:
(4 x 300) + (1 x 600) = 1800
1800 + 800 = 2600 total from C1 to C3

Which is to say, taking one Discipline talent at Rank 3 to start actually gives you a slight edge over taking two at Rank 2 when you're looking at qualifying for C3.

[TheOracle]

If we are only talking about legend points, then this calculation is correct. But Legend Points are just a synonym for game time. According to the table, characters on Circle 2 receive four times as many Legend Points as characters on Circle 1, so while the three characters who had the less efficient distribution of their starting points could not advance just because they lack the teacher, although they already have long enough Legend Points, the other two characters have already reached the conditions for Circle 3. Although all characters took part in all the encounters in the game and no one was favored or disadvantaged.

[Slimcreeper]

I would definitely award LP based on the average circle of the party that the adventure is suitable for. In other words, the circle of the party determines the adventures that are suitable, and the adventure determines the LP. A circle 1 character who faces off against a threat suitable for a hero with three times her experience should get an especially generous reward, and a circle 3 character who only tackles bouncers and guard dogs should advance slowly.

It's also fine to hand-wave finding a teacher, if it doesn't serve the story, as long as you give the party enough downtime.

Either way, the intent of the rules is definitely not to give one set of PCs a huge advantage over another based on an early decision about spending LP - it sounds like a strict reading of the rules is not serving your table well, so making a change is probably a good idea.

Edit for clarity: same award for everyone, based on the adventure.

[Mataxes]

If I understand correctly, you're awarding Legend to the C1 characters based on the "Circle 1" line of the table in the GM Guide, and the C2 characters based on the "Circle 2" line.

Don't do that. Give them all the same.

You say that brings in "other balancing issues." How so?

[TheOracle]

You just contradicted my undestanding of LP awards in Earthdawn based on 20 years of playing.^^

[Mataxes]

Okay. I'm a bit confused.

The table for recommended Legend Awards assumes that everybody is getting pretty much the same Legend Awards (maybe give or take a couple hundred from individual awards), which means they will advance at (roughly) the same rate. It's a campaign pacing mechanic.

...

What I probably would have done -- when the player(s) realized they were 25 points short of advancing -- is just give everybody another 25 Legend.

[TheOracle]

We always assumed, that each character receives Legend Awards based on their own circle. We played that way from the mid nineties on. I believe I've met other groups handling Legend Awards the same way we did until today.

That said: I am not the GM of the group I'm playing with now.