I've been working on a hack for Earthdawn, by FASA Games for a while. It's still a work in progress, as there's a lot to cover. But this version has a solid basis to get people started.

I'd appreciate any feedback.

Earthdawn Genesys

Great work!! Will take a deeper look bit it is really appreciated the time you put into this.

Hey this looks good so far. Here's some things I noticed at first glance, or questions I have.

Are you restricting Talents by Discipline?

You seem to have put the Ork, Troll, and Obsidiman at near equal wound Thresholds, is there a reason for this?

The elf seems kind of weak, yet there were requirements for strength to wield an Elven Warbow in the original material, is this intentional?

The skills list is slightly on the long side, are all of them necessary?

Ok, so that's what I have right now. I'm not disagreeing with you on anything, just asking questions. Sometimes that's the best way to solidify a concept that you had. Good Luck. I'm a big fan of Earthdawn!

I'm definitely yoinking some things from here for my own Earthdawn conversions, doubly so now that Terrinoth seems to be heading to shelves soon!

I liked stealing the Duty mechanic from AoR for Legend/Circles, that cinches up something I was having trouble wrapping my head around.

I'm with Umbraldragon on the skill list, and one of the things I was doing was that for the "Disciplines" (which are essentially Careers like you did), the fighty ones got just Melee or Ranged, but the normies have to buy Melee (Light/Heavy) & Ranged (Light/Heavy).

All in all, it looks good and I'm super excited because for the first time since I played Earthdawn back when it first came out, I feel like Genesys can capture the same kind of feel without the clunkiness of their system.

It will be interesting to see your take on threaded items. Finding out knowledges to upgrade your items/weapons was one of the favorite things about earthdawn.

Strangely enough, I can’t seem to download this.

18 hours ago, Umbraldragon said:

The elf seems kind of weak, yet there were requirements for strength to wield an Elven Warbow in the original material, is this intentional?

This is where things get a little wonky between systems. Elves in Earthdawn have no hit to their Strength, but Toughness is the lowest of all the species making them extra squishy. The only other characteristic that I could see as a candidate to drop would be Cunning, since Intellect, Willpower, and Presence are all tied to magical stuff that elves are notoriously good at. The downside to Cunning is that it's tied to Perception and Survival, which I would hate to see take a hit for general elves, and Skulduggery which would make elf Thieves more difficult to pull off.

So here's where my brain went with this issue. If Brawn handles Strength and Toughness from Earthdawn, what if we leave Brawn at 2, not drop an attribute to 1, and just add some squishiness to the elves in rest of their block? Drop Wound Threshold to 7 + Brawn so anyone who doesn't invest in Brawn has single digit WT, which creates a clear, very visible, and tangible difference between elves and anyone else, and then also drop their natural Soak by one as well? I don't have any of my notes in front of me, but that would probably still drop their starting xp to 90ish, but gives you some squishy elves that can still hit hard.

All that being said, a Durability Discipline Talent for the fighty types that would stack with Toughened could help Elf Warriors beef up so an elven melee build is not complete madness.

There was an aspect of Earthdawn's rules that I always liked that I'm wondering if they should come over. In Earthdawn, all physical attack checks were made based off of Dexterity, then damage comes from your Strength. For conversion purposes, that would just be linking Brawl and Melee to Agility, but then is that weighing Agility too heavily?

I always liked this particular side of things because my group had an elf thief with crazy Dex and low Str, and an obsidiman warrior with garbage Dex and through-the-roof Str. The elf was hitting consistently and by wide margins, but damage output was pretty low, the obsidiman, on the other hand, would only hit every third or fourth swing, but would just wreck whatever he hit when he did connect. Both ended up contributing nicely to combat, but it gave both of them two distinctly different combat styles.

Hmm, that one is kinda interesting. For the scenario you describe you're only going to end up with a difference of 2, /maybe/ 3? in the stat so without going out of your way to re-create the always misses with the hits but doesn't damage I'm not sure it is doable in the core attributes/skills of the game. However, I do think there is room to put those types of qualities on weapons and equipment. It would be more work but if you stick with light weapons they may have some built in hit bonuses but a damage penalty (takes two extra hits to up damage) while large weapons are the other way round. It will be interesting to hear what you come up with and how things go. I've still got my set of 3rd ED I've been meaning to run for years on the shelf! Have fun and keep us updated!

21 minutes ago, Darksyde said:

Hmm, that one is kinda interesting. For the scenario you describe you're only going to end up with a difference of 2, /maybe/ 3? in the stat so without going out of your way to re-create the always misses with the hits but doesn't damage I'm not sure it is doable in the core attributes/skills of the game. However, I do think there is room to put those types of qualities on weapons and equipment. It would be more work but if you stick with light weapons they may have some built in hit bonuses but a damage penalty (takes two extra hits to up damage) while large weapons are the other way round. It will be interesting to hear what you come up with and how things go. I've still got my set of 3rd ED I've been meaning to run for years on the shelf! Have fun and keep us updated!

So first lightbulb would be Talents for "fighting styles". A "Quick" version that lets you spend Advantages to give your attack Pierce that you can only take if your Agility is higher than Brawn, and then a "Heavy" version that lets you spend Advantages to gain Vicious if your Brawn is higher than your Agility...

I still liked that the accuracy/damage was intrinsic to the system and not an optional bit, but this may be a rabbit hole that I can dig into...

On 4/4/2018 at 4:24 PM, Umbraldragon said:

Hey this looks good so far. Here's some things I noticed at first glance, or questions I have.

Are you restricting Talents by Discipline?

You seem to have put the Ork, Troll, and Obsidiman at near equal wound Thresholds, is there a reason for this?

The elf seems kind of weak, yet there were requirements for strength to wield an Elven Warbow in the original material, is this intentional?

The skills list is slightly on the long side, are all of them necessary?

Ok, so that's what I have right now. I'm not disagreeing with you on anything, just asking questions. Sometimes that's the best way to solidify a concept that you had. Good Luck. I'm a big fan of Earthdawn!

My current plan is to restrict Talents by Discipline. It would be strange to me for anyone to pick up Air Dance, for example.

The attributes and thresholds are mainly based on the original stats of the races, while attempting to keep a relative XP balance among the races in Genesys. The fact that their Thresholds are similar is a by-product of those factors.

I'm not super happy with the elf either, unless you're playing an Agility focused build. They don't make some of the best casters like before. The combination of Str and Tou into Brawn made it the natural choice for being their low stat. I haven't nailed down equipment yet, but I am considering a Cumbersome rating for the Elven Warbow to reflect the str min, which may mean the Elven Archer may have to wait to get Str 3 before picking up the ultimate ranged weapon.

Skill list is 36 long, compared to Genesys and Terrinoth at 33, and Star Wars at 35. The only skill that isn't a Career skill is Alchemy. Obviously I feel they're all necessary, do you have any suggestions?

On 4/4/2018 at 4:41 PM, Foghorn said:

I'm definitely yoinking some things from here for my own Earthdawn conversions, doubly so now that Terrinoth seems to be heading to shelves soon!

I liked stealing the Duty mechanic from AoR for Legend/Circles, that cinches up something I was having trouble wrapping my head around.

I'm with Umbraldragon on the skill list, and one of the things I was doing was that for the "Disciplines" (which are essentially Careers like you did), the fighty ones got just Melee or Ranged, but the normies have to buy Melee (Light/Heavy) & Ranged (Light/Heavy).

All in all, it looks good and I'm super excited because for the first time since I played Earthdawn back when it first came out, I feel like Genesys can capture the same kind of feel without the clunkiness of their system.

I'm glad you like it enough to steal some ideas.

I vastly prefer Duty over Obligation, and it seemed like a natural fit. I like keeping the Circle system, without making Genesys into a level-based system.

Earthdawn made a distinct difference between Missile and Thrown, so I put in the break of Ranged Light and Heavy. Melee Light and Heavy is an easy way to enforce one or two handed weapons, as well as giving space for the big races to wield 2 handed weapons in one hand, or allow Agility to be the stat for rolling for Melee Light. It gives more design space.

I would recommend checking out the Fourth Edition that FASA put out a few years ago. They changed the core mechanic, and updated a lot of things. I'm basing this document on ED4E.

On 4/4/2018 at 11:21 PM, Darksyde said:

It will be interesting to see your take on threaded items. Finding out knowledges to upgrade your items/weapons was one of the favorite things about earthdawn.

I'm still working on it, but the concept is based on Attachment/Modifications where you roll Thread weaving instead of Mechanics. I'm of two minds about charging XP for them, and if number of items at a time should be limited.

On 4/5/2018 at 10:59 AM, Foghorn said:

This is where things get a little wonky between systems. Elves in Earthdawn have no hit to their Strength, but Toughness is the lowest of all the species making them extra squishy. The only other characteristic that I could see as a candidate to drop would be Cunning, since Intellect, Willpower, and Presence are all tied to magical stuff that elves are notoriously good at. The downside to Cunning is that it's tied to Perception and Survival, which I would hate to see take a hit for general elves, and Skulduggery which would make elf Thieves more difficult to pull off.

So here's where my brain went with this issue. If Brawn handles Strength and Toughness from Earthdawn, what if we leave Brawn at 2, not drop an attribute to 1, and just add some squishiness to the elves in rest of their block? Drop Wound Threshold to 7 + Brawn so anyone who doesn't invest in Brawn has single digit WT, which creates a clear, very visible, and tangible difference between elves and anyone else, and then also drop their natural Soak by one as well? I don't have any of my notes in front of me, but that would probably still drop their starting xp to 90ish, but gives you some squishy elves that can still hit hard.

All that being said, a Durability Discipline Talent for the fighty types that would stack with Toughened could help Elf Warriors beef up so an elven melee build is not complete madness.

I also wouldn't want to drop Cunning as it's 2 casting stats, and Elves are some of the better casters in the original system.

I did that math out, though I wouldn't want to bring WT below 8. This would bring them down to 90 starting XP. Thus a caster could either have four 3's or a 4 and a 3 with 20 XP left over. I'll think about it.

Using the Finesse Talent to attack with Agility should help them get their damage up with successes. Bit of a gamble, but it's something.

Durability translates well into Toughened already. Wood Skin will help beef up the WT.

On 4/4/2018 at 8:21 PM, Darksyde said:

It will be interesting to see your take on threaded items. Finding out knowledges to upgrade your items/weapons was one of the favorite things about earthdawn.

Yeah. This with the system that you had to spend your Legend Points to Thread the weapon to you made Earthdawn unique and amazing.

Combined with also needing to Spend your Legend to meet and earn the right to gain Circles instead of automatically getting the next level separates Earthdawn and puts it in a category of its own.

These options made every decision on how you spent your Legend both important and story centric.

Running a campaign of Earthdawn is one of my grail games.

52 minutes ago, Stacie_GmrGrl said:

Running a campaign of Earthdawn is one of my grail games.

Mine as well. It has been on my 'run some day' shelf since 1st edition. Over the years I've gotten 3 games started but 1 or 2 sessions in they had to stop for various reasons. Maybe someday!

I haven't looked yet but I think Earthdawn would be a great candidate for this system

Stacie_GmrGrl and Darksyde , if you're interested in playing/running Earthdawn 4E, there's a West Marches style game that might help you scratch the itch.

https://sites.google.com/view/earthdawnwestmarches/welcome

Just updated to Version 1.5. Adding new features due to the release of Realms of Terrinoth.

Just a casual glance but I do enjoy what you have done. The skill list is long but nothing wrong with the skills per se. The only skills that I remember from Earthdawn where considered hobby skills so Genesys skill system fits it better.

On 4/20/2018 at 3:58 AM, barakisbrown said:

Just a casual glance but I do enjoy what you have done. The skill list is long but nothing wrong with the skills per se. The only skills that I remember from Earthdawn where considered hobby skills so Genesys skill system fits it better.

Thanks.

Non-magic skills got a lot more robust as the editions progressed, but many of them were just duplicates of the magical versions. This is why I made the Karma Rating always on to show the difference, and to avoid bookkeeping Karma Pools.

Updated to version 1.6

I've added LOTS of new Talents to simulate abilities expected by various Disciplines.

I made a handy reference chart at the end of the Talents Chapter so you can find what Disciplines get which Talents.

Added new upgrades to Conjure to change the environment. Created some new spells as examples.

Adjusted creature stats due to playtesting.

So if a buddy of mine is going to play, there has to be blood elves. Here's the extra stuff I was looking to throw onto the blood elves to help set them apart (aside from minor tweaks to characteristics, WT, ST, etc.)

• Strained Healing: All healing checks performed on you have their difficulty upgraded by 1.
• Pain Threshold: Ignore Easy Critical Injuries and don't count them towards your total number of Critical Injuries when receiving additional Critical Injuries.
• Armor Restriction: If you wear armor other than fernweave armor, or clothing not tailored for blood elves, you suffer ◼ to all Agility and Cunning based checks for every point of Soak it gives you (min 1, max 5).
• Wood Longing: At the beginning of the session, make an Easy ( ⯁ ) Discipline check . If you succeed, increase the difficulty by 1 at the beginning of the next session. If you fail, you gain an Easy ( ⯁ ) Critical Injury that can only be healed by spending time in the Blood Wood, and the Discipline check goes back to Easy ( ⯁ ) . If you fail this check again before healing your Critical Injury, increase the severity of the Critical Injury by 1.

Not sure why the background color...probably something to do with copypasta from gmbinder.com

There should probably be something in there about Wood Longing superseding Pain Threshold , but it's still WIP

You may want to take a look at this , one of the developers for ED4 updated the Blood Elf, and took a different spin on them.

What about their resistance/immunity to Horror Marks? In EDG more than the original system, I think this could encourage them to raw cast.

I think Armor Restriction should not apply to magical armor?

I'd probably just make Pain Threshold work like Durability, -10 to Crit Rolls. Ignoring ALL Easy crits is extremely powerful.

Most Easy Crits are very temporary effects, except the fact that they add to future crit rolls. I would recommend having Wood Longing reduce their Strain Threshold, like Obligations. The call of the Blood Wood eats away at their resolve.

I'd also add Fearsome (Genesys 193) to represent their disposition to outsiders.

3 hours ago, dougansf said:

You may want to take a look at this , one of the developers for ED4 updated the Blood Elf, and took a different spin on them.

That's awesome, thank you.

3 hours ago, dougansf said:

What about their resistance/immunity to Horror Marks? In EDG  more than the original system, I think this could encourage them to raw cast.

I hadn't considered that. I'll take a second look through my stuff and see what stirs up in my brainspace.

3 hours ago, dougansf said:

I think Armor Restriction should not apply to magical armor?

Meant to include that bit, just typing too fast.

3 hours ago, dougansf said:

I'd probably just make Pain Threshold work like Durability, -10 to Crit Rolls. Ignoring ALL Easy crits is extremely powerful.

Excellent example of me trying to be clever when it should be something that's already there. I'd definitely say go with this.

3 hours ago, dougansf said:

Most Easy Crits are very temporary effects, except the fact that they add to future crit rolls. I would recommend having Wood Longing reduce their Strain Threshold, like Obligations. The call of the Blood Wood eats away at their resolve.

That's an interesting idea. I'll take a look back at Obligations again.

3 hours ago, dougansf said:

I'd also add Fearsome (Genesys 193) to represent their disposition to outsiders.

Nailed it.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see if I can't get a redraft done sometime soon