The easy races; representing Earthdawn Orks and Humans in Dungeons and Dragons 4e

Earthdawn Orks and Humans are real easy to map onto D&D races. We already have Humans and Half-Orcs have a long history in the game, so really this is just a case of ensuring that the flavor is right.

For Humans, 4e already riffs on Earthdawn's Human versatility, though I would like to add feats to take it up a notch. Versatile Talent, Dilettante and Journeyman's Viewpoint run with this giving Human characters access to extra multiclass feats, as well as to that other aspects of 4e versatility: Half elven dilettante, as well as related feats that enhance half elven versatility.

Versatile Talent

Prerequisite: Human
Benefit: You gain the multiclass versatility bard class feature.

Dilettante

Prerequisite: Human
Benefit: You gain the Dilettante half-elf race feature. Chose a level 1 at will attack power from a class different from yours. You can use that power as an encounter power.

Journeyman's Viewpoint

Prerequisite: Human
Benefit: You can take feats that have half-elf as a prerequisite, and gain a +2 feat bonus to Insight.

For Orks, Half Orc is a great fit. In Earthdawn Orks have Strength and Toughness bonuses, whereas that D&D 4e Half Orc has Strength and Dexterity, but on the whole they are fairly similar. I have added a Gahad racial trait, and associated feats. One final feat for Orks included here, is Ork Weapon Training, which is similar in power and scope to the the other weapon training feats, and grants bonuses to weapons that fit the Ork Scorcher theme. Other than this feat, I will delay exploring the Ork affinity for the Cavalryman discipline and the cultural expectation that Orks ride, and ride well until I get to the Cavalryman discipline.

Gahad: Your ork gahad is triggered by a stimulus of your choice. Once gahad is triggered, until the source of your gahad is removed, if you are not acting to remove the source of your gahad, or you take an action that targets creatures or objects without targeting the source of your gahad you immediatly become dazed (save ends), aftereffect: you grant combat advantage until you reach your next milestone. While your gahad is triggered and the source of your gahad remains present you gain a +1 racial bonus to all attack rolls and ability checks and skill checks for actions that target the source of your gahad. You and your dungeon master must agree on the specific stimulus for your gahad.

Additional Gahad

Prerequisite: Ork
Benefit: You gain an additional gahad stimulus.
Special: You may take this feat any number of times.

Vicious Gahad

Prerequisite: Ork
Benefit: The bonus granted by your gahad increases to +2, and also applies to damage rolls. The effect of ignoring your gahad is to become stunned (save ends), aftereffect: you grand combat advantage until you reach two milestones..

Ork Weapon Training

Prerequisite: Ork
Benefit: You gain proiciency and a +2 feat bonus to damage rolls with simple and military spears as well as scimitars and double scimitars. This bonus increases to +3 at 11th level and +4 at 21st level.

Servant's of the Raven Queen

"As you step off of the stairs, you realize you are being followed. Worse, you see movement on both bridges exiting the chamber. Ahead of you, standing on a large metal slap, a humanoid in black robes rubs runs his hands along the blade of his scimitar while he eyes you warily" 


This encounter is set in the towers of the city of Moil as described in the Tomb of Horrors super module, and is specifically designed to experiment with the Endless Hordes mechanic introduced by the Save Versus Death blog.

Encounter		3500 XP
Level 12
Opponents		7
Dark Stalker		x2
Dark Stalker Minion		x4
Shadar-Kai Blacksoul
Traps / Hazards		1
Dark Stalker Minion Endless Horde

At the moment the characters are level 9 and have been stretched. They are short on healing surges, and have expended a bunch of daily powers. Since this is +3 levels, my hope is that this challenges them appropriately, though it should be noted that they synergize well with each other, and tend to make good tactical choices.

I've gone with Dark Stalkers and Shadar-Kai Blacksouls as well as a minion version of Dark Stalkers, who are the meat of the Endless Horde. I've modified the core mechanic of the Endless Horde for two reasons. First, I don't want this to devolve into a scenario where the players are set up to each kill off a minion a round with the 5th player as there to mop up if an attack misses, and we have an infinite stand off.  Second, I don't want to end up having to deal with too many opponents, especially as the encounter area is not too large.

Setup: The characters start at the bottom of the stairs, in the blue shaded area. The Dark Stalker Minions start on the stairs. The Shadar-Kai Blacksoul starts out of sight on the other side of the stairs. One Dark Stalker starts on the stairs behind the characters, the other atop the iron bulkhead.

Illumination: Dim. The inside of the tower is dark with the only light coming from the dim sky outside. Characters who have normal vision can’t see well in dim light: Creatures in the area have concealment. Characters who have low-light vision or darkvision see normally. The tower is in the shadowfell, so light sources only shed half the light they normally would.

Stairs: The stair squares block line of sight, count as difficult terrain for anyone going up them, and can only be entered from the upper left corner.

Iron Bulkhead: The iron bulkhead provides cover to small creatures and prone creatures in adjacent squares. The ladder in the bulkhead leads down to a lower level of the tower.

Dark Stalker Minion Endless Horde Level 10 Elite Warder (L) hazard		1000 XP
Standard Action
Effect: Four Dark Stalker Minions appear. One on the stairs, one on top of the iron bulkhead, and one on each bridge. If no Dark Stalkers and no Dark Stalker Minions remain, the Endless Horde produces a Shadar-Kai Blacksoul, rather than four Dark Stalker Minions. If eight or more Dark Stalker Minions remain the Endless Horde produces two Dark Stalkers, rather than four Dark Stalker Minions. In either case, on its next turn the Endless Horde will always produce four Dark Stalker Minions.
Countermeasures
The only countermeasure is to negotiate with the Dark Stalkers or the Shadar-Kai, by convincing them that the characters quest aligns with the goals of the Raven Queen.

Outcome: As it happened, the players took up my hints to negotiate (despite virtually never doing so) and so the encounter didn't get to play out as I planned. 

The Wormskull

One of the more iconic Earthdawn horrors, (at least amongst the Earthdawn players whom I know) is the Wormskull, a level 11 solo version of which I have included here. The legend (experience) award for a Wormskull is a group award, which implies solo monster, and 8th circle, which would equate to 16th level in D&D. I've gone a 1/2 tier lower, as at the moment in the campaign I'm running I need a monster in the 9th-11th level range.

In the world of Earthdawn the horrors are strange, unknowable evil creatures from another realm, which in D&D parlance makes them aberrant, and since they fill the same role in Earthdawn as undead do in D&D, I have applied that keyword as well.

Monster Manual 3 introduced new design elements to solo monsters, often providing some kind of daze/stun lock defense, so for Horrific Secrets I borrowed and renamed Arcane Secret from the Dark Sun Brohg Renegage (and added protection against dominate). The Horrific Action power also gives the Wormskull defense against being locked down by letting it clear effects on it when it spends an action point.

My implementation of Animate Dead borrows from a number of sources, including the Spawn Wraith power, the Skull Lord's minion reviving powers, and the Deathlock Wight's Reanimate power

Skin shift and the Nethermancer spell Bone Shatter introduced a new problem, as both make use of Earthdawn's wound mechanic, roughly each wound beyond the first gives you a -1 to all die rolls, and wounds are harder to heal the normal damage. I struggled with how to best implement this, as D&D combat does not typically include death spiral effects, and eventually settled on healing surge damage in addition to hit points damage, to represent the loss of combat resources, without dealing large amounts of immediate damage. Skin Shift deals slightly less than the expected amount of raw damage, and the Wormskull lacks a multi-attack action to make up for the additional "damage" that healing surge losses represent, and also to balance the high damage output that Bone Shatter produces.

Horror Mark and Dominate represent the key method by which the more subtle horrors of Earthdawn wreak their havoc amongst the namegivers of the world, and in toe-to-toe combat with a horror with these powers, players are going to be looking for ways to deal with horror marks to avoid the world of hurt they would otherwise face.

The Terror power is significantly toned down from it's implementation in Earthdawn, which is very similar to the Frightful Presence power possessed by many dragons printed in the early rounds of D&D monsters. As written though, these powers just are not much fun - they leave players unable to act, and so unable to express themselves at the table. Rather then incapacitate the characters, I've tried to capture the idea of the characters being terrified. For a lone Wormskull the power is not that useful, but if should provide synergy with the many monsters - especially skirmishers and lurkers that gain damage dice from combat advantage.

The Wormskull has low hit points for a level 11 solo monster, but does have the Shield Mist power (and the action denial inherent in dominating player characters) to help compensate, and when healing surge loss from Skin Shift and Bone Shatter are counted as damage, it can deal an enormous amount of damage.

Next up, a Wormskull encounter.

Earthdawn Obsidimen in Dungeons and Dragons 4e

First up, Obsidimen. Obsidimen are large stone like people, born of their liferocks. They are strong and tough, slow moving, and deliberate. Obsidimen sometimes have trouble understanding the hasty nature of other namegivers. Obsidimen honor nature and the natural world and abhor the taint of the horrors at a level not comprehended by the other namegiver races.

For Obsidimen, the 4e Goliath seems to be almost a perfect fit, so I will start there. In Earthsawn, the Obsidimen's stone like skin gives him or her fantastically tough natural armor - mechanically, they have the near equivalent of resist 3 weapon damage, which doesn't seem quite right for 4e. Related to the Obsidimen's natural armor is the downside of playing an Obsidimen. For cultural reasons, Obsidimen refuse to wear any non-living armor.

The Goliath's Stone's Endurance power is definitely on the right track here, and I will explore Obsidimen feats to enhance and extend the duration of Stone's Endurance, but I also will change the Obsidimen's racial defense bonus from the Goliath's +1 Will defense, to +1 Armor Class and +1 Fortitude defense. Both defenses are ones that Obsidimen should excel at, and the strict power gain of +1 Armor Class when compared to the Goliath, can be mitigated by requiring that the Obsidimen be wearing living or no armor in order for the bonuses to apply.

The 4e Goliath has an athletics bonus to jumping and climbing which does not seem normal for an Obsidimen, so that will get cut, and I will borrow a page from the Dwarf, and give Obsidimen a walking speed of 5 rather than 6 and the Encumbered Speed Dwarf racial trait.

Obsidimen

True as the Liferock from which they are born.

RACIAL TRAITS
Average Height: 7' - 7' 6"
Average Weight: 800lbs - 1000lbs

Ability scores: +2 Constitution, +2 Strength
Size: Medium
Speed: 5 squares.
Vision: Normal

Languages: Common, Dwarven
Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Nature.
Encumbered Speed: You move at your normal speed even when it would be reduced by armor or a heavy load. Other effects that limit speed (such as difficult terrain or magic) affect you normally.
Stone-like Skin: You have a +1 racial bonus to AC and Fortitude when you are wearing no armor or living armor.
Stone's Endurance: You have the stone’s endurance power.
Liferock Heritage: You can take feats that have goliath as a prerequisite (as well as those specifically for obsidimen), as long as you meet any other requirements.

Stone's EnduranceObsidimen Racial Power

Your foes' attacks bounce off your stony hide.

Obsidimen connect with their fellows by returning to and merging with their liferocks where they share consciousness with their elders, in what they call, the dreaming. For the dreaming, I think the Deva Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes power is a neat way of representing access to the collected wisdom of the Obsidimen brotherhood. A paragon tier feat granting the power, and allowing access to other Deva feats allows a higher level Obsidimen the option to pursue that connection with the past lives of all their brothers who came before them.

The Toughness of Living Stone feat makes Stone's Endurance into a exceptionally strong power, but at the same time continues to push the Obsidimen to wear living armors.

The final two feats in this post, Improved Stone-like Skin and Strength of Stone continue to emphasize an Obsidimen's natural strength and toughness

Liferock Threads

Paragon Teir
Prerequisite: Obsidimen.
Benefit: You gain the Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes racial power, and you can take feats that have deva as a prerequisite.

Memory of a Thousand LifetimesObsidimen Racial Power

The dreamlike memories of your brothers lend insight to aid you.

Toughness of Living Stone

Prerequisite: Obsidimen, stone's endurance racial power.
Benefit: When you are wearing a no armor or living armor, your Stone's Endurance power gains the Sustain - Minor property, but each time the power is sustained the resistance drops by 1 (2 at level 11 and 3 at level 21).

Improved Stone-like Skin

Prerequisite: Obsidimen, stone-like skin racial trait.
Benefit: Your Stone-like skin bonus is increased to +2, to +3 at level 11 and to +4 at level 21.

Strength of Stone

Prerequisite: Obsidimen
Benefit: While you are wielding a versatile weapon, you gain a +1 bonus to damage. (So when wielding in two hands you gain a +2 bonus to damage).

Porting Earthdawn to Dungeons and Dragons 4e

I started gaming when I was in elementary school back in the 1980's, playing AD&D. Since then I've played, and enjoyed Rolemaster, Toon, Palladium's games, and many others, but the one game that really captured my attention was Earthdawn.

I loved the world of Earthdaw. I loved the way FASA took D&D, looked at what we all took on faith, and tried to make it all make sense.

They world FASA created was tremendous.

And then along comes D&D 4e, and the took what was wrong with most every other RPG I've played in, and they fixed it.

So with that in mind, I'm going to spend some time porting the mechanical elements of Earthdawn into Dungeons and Dragons 4e, and I want to try to deviate as little as I can from cannon 4e without losing what I loved about Earthdawn.

Now, I don't want to invent new mechanics, or new rules systems. For the most part I don't want to have to create new races or disciplines (though in some cases - Windlings, I'm looking at you - I think I'll have to), but rather would prefer to re-skin and tweak existing races and classes and then augment them with new feats and new powers.

Essentially my goal here is to make create something thematically familiar to Earthdawn players, at the same time as being mechanically familiar to 4e players.

I'll start with the Races. As I go I'll be providing race specific feats that I feel are integral to the placing the race in it's Earthdawn context. After races, in no particular order, I'll write up the disciplines - converting talents and talent knacks into new powers and new feats, present rules for magic items that can grow as the adepts grow, and possibly new paragon paths and epic destinies appropriate for the world of Earthdawn.