Zhan Shi

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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utsukushi
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Zhan Shi

Post by utsukushi » Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:13 pm

I did a quick Search and it's not looking like we've talked much about them at all, so... I wanted to check with some more experienced GMs.

I'm running an older-edition game (really, first-through-third. They were all pretty compatible until you guys went and did some deep thinking about hows and whys.) I have a player asking to run a Zhan Shi from the Way of War book, which I think was 2nd Edition. They've always looked kind of neat, but I can't help noticing that they sort of popped up and disappeared fairly quickly, and that some of their abilities (particularly Body Control, which I think was originally made for the Purifier) likewise vanished in 3rd Edition and haven't been seen again. I don't believe 3e even included them when they did their Cathay book, going with Monks instead who had all kinds of crazy tweaks to the mechanics that leave me wondering if there's an important reason they thought that was better.

(OK, so moving Durability up to 1st Circle doesn't seem so crazy now. But at the time, it was pretty cuckoo and just felt weird and forced.)

So basically what I'm asking is, are there, like, pitfalls there that I need to worry about? Were they unbalanced and unbalancable, or were they just... Cathayan, and that didn't really fit?

Thanks!!

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Mataxes
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by Mataxes » Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:54 am

I don't really know much about how they play, or potential balance issues, or anything like that.

I suspect (though I don't know) the main reason they showed up and then vanished as they did is because they were from Second Edition, and the somewhat convoluted early 21st century history of Earthdawn. Mainly, that you had two development 'spurs' and they didn't borrow from each other at all.

In brief: LRG's ED2 was in production and doing their own story development (Barsaive at War, etc) at the time RedBrick started ED Classic, originally intended to collate the mostly out of print ED1 material in large, print-on-demand tomes. It was chronologically set at the end of the FASA line, shortly before the Second Theran War, and not incorporating any of the LRG material.

The scope of ED Classic shifted as time went on, and it led to the development of ED3. (ED2 was, at that point, shuttered.) The tradition of not incorporating the events or material from LRG continued -- when Hank Woon did Cathay, he did his own thing with it. I don't have any idea whether he looked at Zhan Shi (or even knew it existed).

History lesson done...

I grabbed The Way of War and took a look at the write-up there. It's... okay. Durability is available at Second Circle (not first), and there are some talent selections that are... questionable. For example, Given so much focus on Unarmed Combat, the addition of Melee Weapons is... odd. I was going to say it was weird that they got all three active defense talents (Avoid Blow, Steel Thought, and Resist Taunt) before I remembered this was still using the old Steel Thought that replaced Mystic Armor.

A couple of their new talents are strange. Snap Kick is basically Swift Kick, but for some reason adds talent rank to Initiative as the Attack test. There's a True Shot-like dodge talent (basically Avoid Blow that allows the adept to spend multiple Karma).

I mean...I can kind of see what they were going for. It doesn't seem overpowered, but... *shrug*.
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Geekabilly
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by Geekabilly » Sat Jul 28, 2018 8:31 pm

utsukushi wrote:
Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:13 pm
I did a quick Search and it's not looking like we've talked much about them at all, so... I wanted to check with some more experienced GMs.

I'm running an older-edition game (really, first-through-third. They were all pretty compatible until you guys went and did some deep thinking about hows and whys.) I have a player asking to run a Zhan Shi from the Way of War book, which I think was 2nd Edition. They've always looked kind of neat, but I can't help noticing that they sort of popped up and disappeared fairly quickly, and that some of their abilities (particularly Body Control, which I think was originally made for the Purifier) likewise vanished in 3rd Edition and haven't been seen again. I don't believe 3e even included them when they did their Cathay book, going with Monks instead who had all kinds of crazy tweaks to the mechanics that leave me wondering if there's an important reason they thought that was better.

(OK, so moving Durability up to 1st Circle doesn't seem so crazy now. But at the time, it was pretty cuckoo and just felt weird and forced.)

So basically what I'm asking is, are there, like, pitfalls there that I need to worry about? Were they unbalanced and unbalancable, or were they just... Cathayan, and that didn't really fit?

Thanks!!
I played a Zhan Shi a while back, pretty much around the time Way of War came out, and as far as I can remember we didn't have any balance problems with the Discipline. The Zhan Shi was alright to play as, a bit bland, but as I say it wasn't unbalanced.

Lars Gottlieb
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by Lars Gottlieb » Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:42 am

1ED had the Mystic Warrior, which is quite similar to the Zhan Shi; it's in one of Andrew's Journals.

And all have the Beastmaster, who do pretty much the same things in combat, And has all the little friends besides ..

utsukushi
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by utsukushi » Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:24 pm

Just wanted to say thank you all so much! That helped a lot.

merrick
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by merrick » Sun Aug 19, 2018 8:08 pm

Yeah, thanks!
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Geekabilly
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by Geekabilly » Tue Aug 21, 2018 2:41 pm

utsukushi wrote:
Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:24 pm
Just wanted to say thank you all so much! That helped a lot.
So did your player choose to play as a Zhan Shi then? Let us know how it goes :)

utsukushi
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Re: Zhan Shi

Post by utsukushi » Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:08 pm

In this case it was more that I chose to approve him playing as a Zhan Shi - it was definitely his preference.

Unfortunately, it's an online game, and it's kind of been on hold all month because my computer's in the shop. *sigh* And even when I get that back, at Play-by-Post speeds it may really be a few years before I have any real sense of how it all worked out, I'm afraid.

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