Earthdawn is a Post-Apocalyptic High Fantasy setting made popular by FASA in the 1990's.

Earthdawn Genesys

Played the original quite a bit.

Sweet, I was in a 2.5-year Earthdawn game where we played for 10-12 hours almost every Saturday. Got to play one of my all-time favorite characters.

35 minutes ago, hellrazoromega said:

Sweet was in a 2.5 year Earthdawn game where we played for 10-12 hours almost every Saturday. Got to play one of my all-time favorite characters.

Excellent!

Earthdawn was the game GM Phil ran for us all through college. Loved the world and magic theory. Definitely a favorite character of mine.

We've done a bit of playtesting of the rules, and are re-starting our ED4E campaign over again using Genesys soon.

Version 1.8 is now up. Including more Talents, Gear, and rules for Thread and Pattern Items.

Very cool. The one thing I would say though is that you appear to be trying to replicate the system, rather than just the setting. My personal take would be to reskin a lot of Genesys. So Karma is really just another name for Story points, Legend points are really just XP. Disciplines are just Careers, although you can of course create Discipline themed talents. I would probably do something like this:

Skills

General Skills

Air Sailing (Will)

Alchemy (Int)

Athletics (Br)

Cool (Pr)

Coordination (Ag)

Crafting (Int)

Discipline (Will)

Medicine (Int)

Perception (Cun)

Piloting (Int)

Resilience (Br)

Riding (Ag)

Sailing (Int)

Skulduggery (Ag)

Stealth (Ag)

Streetwise (Cun)

Survival (Cun)

Vigilance (Will)

Magical Skills

Elementalism (Cun) Attack, Augment, Barrier, Conjure, Utility

Illusionism (Cun) Attack, Conjure, Curse, Dispel, Utility

Nethermancy (Will) Attack, Augment, Conjure, Curse, Utility

Wizardry (Int) Attack, Barrier, Conjure, Curse, Dispel, Utility

Combat Skills

Brawl (Br)

Gunnery (Ag)

Melee (Heavy) (Br)

Melee (Light) (Br)

Ranged (Ag)

Social Skills

Charm (Pr)

Coercion (Will)

Deception (Cun)

Leadership (Pr)

Negotiation (Pr)

Knowledge Skills

Adventuring (Int) - creatures, riddles, underground navigation

Barsaive (Int) - mapmaking, navigation, cultures of Barsaive

Forbidden (Int) - scourge history, mad passions, horrors, blood magic

Legends (Int) - folklore, legends, history, magical lore, passions

Disciplines

Air Sailor (Air Sailing, Athletics, Charm, Coordination, Negotiation, Melee (Light), Perception ,Ranged)

Archer (Athletics, Cool, Discipline, Perception, Ranged, Stealth, Survival, Vigilance)

Beastmaster (Athletics, Brawl, Coercion, Discipline, Knowledge (Adventuring), Perception, Resilience, Survival)

Cavalryman (Cool, Leadership, Melee (Heavy), Melee (Light), Perception, Riding, Resilience, Survival)

57 minutes ago, Justindoodler said:

Very cool. The one thing I would say though is that you appear to be trying to replicate the system, rather than just the setting. My personal take would be to reskin a lot of Genesys. So Karma is really just another name for Story points, Legend points are really just XP. Disciplines are just Careers, although you can of course create Discipline themed talents.

Firstly, thank you for reading and giving feedback. I have not gotten a lot of it, so I appreciate the interest and the effort.

The challenge with Earthdawn is that the system and the setting are so tightly intertwined. I am reskinning a lot of Genesys material, but also creating things to suit the setting (obviously Spell Matrices aren't going to be found anywhere else). Every once in a while I do take a step back and check if I'm simulating too much of the system. I'm sure I'm closer than others are, but I don't think I've gone too far yet.

Karma Points has been something I've struggled with. I originally wanted to use the Force Die, but with them not in Genesys, that went away. Using Story Points meant that occasionally PCs or NPCs would "run out" and then be able to use them again. Also, in ED setting, Karma doesn't give you narrative control, which I have no intention of taking away from Story Points. On the dice level, a boost die is much more in line with what Karma provides in ED as opposed to an upgrade that a Story Point would provide.

Legend Points are XP. Legendary Status is something else. I love the Duty mechanic from AoR, and it feels like a great fit to measure what Commendation Rank Circle the PC's have reached.

As for your skill list (which has 36, same number as my list):

• I've never seen vehicles play such an important part that Air Sailing and Sailing really need to be separate skills. Operation covers both perfectly well, and one skill is easier to ignore if the game never puts you on a ship.
• I think splitting Ranged into two is important. Mainly to limit Archers from using all their tricks on thrown weapons.
• Barsaive: I haven't heard much use coming of adding Geography to RoT. Better to let Survival or Operation cover navigation, depending on travel method.
• Legends: Covered by Lore.
• Forbidden: Mostly covered by Astral, without a judgmental title.
• Of your 4 Knowledge skills, which would you use for Magic modifiers? What does that make magicians know about in addition to being able to cast more effective spells?

Nice work putting this all together. I like how you used the "Use this for" section for skills and in careers.

It seems Elementalism could be Presence based instead of Cunning based looking at the descriptions. The PC is negotiating with the elements to do an action and negotiation is Presence based.

7 minutes ago, Flobio said:

It seems Elementalism could be Presence based instead of Cunning based looking at the descriptions. The PC is negotiating with the elements to do an action and negotiation is Presence based.

Thank you for reading and sharing your feedback.

I considered Elementalism and Illusionism for Presence. I went with Cunning for both because of the synergy with Survival and Deception, respectively. Illusionists are arguably the masters of the social arena, so they would be my first choice for Presence-based magic.

Another factor was what races have good magic casting stats. Several species have lower Presence. None have a bonus or penalty to Cunning or Intellect. This is also why Thread Weaving is Intellect based.

Version 2.2 is now live.

Mostly this was a cosmetic update, establishing a color scheme. Some example Thread Items were included.

One big change was separating Conjure and Summon into two different magic actions.

Nice work, I really dig it.

Thanks for providing this conversion. Hope I can bring it to the table, Earthdawn was one of the settings I always wanted to explore but didn't find a group to do so

I hope you can find a group to give this a try. My group is really enjoying it.

If you do, feel free to send questions or feedback. I'm always happy to hear from playtesters.

Version 2.3 is now uploaded and ready for action.

Changes:

• Various Talents were tweaked. Including Great Leap, Astral Sight, Astral Sense, Astral Targeting, and Battle Shout.
• Crafting and Enchanting now exist (Alchemy has a purpose).
• Additional details about spellcasting dice modifiers and results.
• More Adversaries.
• Blood Pebble and Living Crystal armor have been combined into Blood Magic Armor, and are now similar to cybernetic sub-dermal "armor"

I have been very pleased to hear more people are using this document at their tables. As you can see from the credits page, I will happily add names of playtesters to the list if feedback is provided.