House Rules

Character Creation

Follow standard character creation rules from Earthdawn Second Edition, with the restrictions below. 

Races.  All of the Name-giver races are available except Blood Elves, though only one Obsidiman and one Windling character will be allowed (since there are so rare), and there is a maximum of two representatives of any one race allowed in the party. 

Disciplines.  All Disciplines are available except those specific to Blood Elves (for example Warder and Exolasher).

Combat Manoeuvres

Blindside Attack

In order to qualify for the Blindside bonus, a Windling needs to meet two conditions:

1. S/he has to use the rules for Swooping Attacks
2. S/he has to win initiative over the person s/he is trying to attack.

Provisional Rules on Bola

Average Success:

the target is considered Harried

Good Success:

the target is considered Knocked Down (this is what you need to knock a Windling from the sky).

Extrordinary Success:

the target is considered Harried AND Knocked Down.

Modifiers from being Harried and Knocked Down apply to all rolls EXCEPT the roll to break free, which (as indicated by the rules) is a straight STR test against a difficulty of 9.

If this makes bolas too wimpy we will revisit them later.

Attack to Stun

(Coming soon.)

Wilderness Survival

Travel Rate

Namegivers on foot typically travel around 25 miles in 8 hours over reasonably easy terrain.  Travel distance through difficult terrain such as mountains may reduce this rate dramatically.  Travelling overland for more than 8 hours can incur fatigue (see below).  If people need to stop in order to hunt, fish, and /or forage then travel rate is halved.

Hunting and Foraging

Hunting and foraging allow individuals to gather food while in the wilderness.  Difficulty numbers depend on the terrain.  Those without the appropriate skill may still make attempts using their Perception (for Foraging) or Dexterity (for Hunting) but with a +2 to the DN.  Average success provides food for 1 person for one day.  Good success provides food for 2 persons for one day (or one person for two days).  Excellent success provides food for 5 persons for one day, and Extraordinary success provides food for 10 persons for one day.  Beastmasters, incidentally, can add their Tracking talent score to their Hunting skill.

Fishing acts as a substitute for hunting if there is a sufficiently large body of water present.

Water

So long as the party stays relatively close to a river, it should be reasonably safe as long as everyone boils their water (or uses the level 1 Elementalist spell Purify Water).  Away from obvious water sources, the Wilderness Survival skill is needed to locate sufficient clean water.  The difficulty is typically 7, but can rise as high as 12 in the heart of the Badlands.  Average success provides water for one person for one day.  Each success level above that finds one additional person's worth of water.  Each day a character does not get sufficient water he or she takes 3 points of damage due to dehydration.  The character also accrues one level of fatigue that can only be cured with sufficient water.

Shelter

Individuals who do not carry tents, tarps, or other shelter-related gear with them must fashion or locate appropriate shelter on their own.  This is done using the Wilderness Survival skill.  Base difficulty is 6, though this may be modified for terrain and weather conditions.  Each level of success above average locates sufficient shelter for one additional person.  Perception may be used in place of Wilderness Survival, but with a +2 to the DN.  Those who do not have adequate shelter during the night accrue one level of fatigue, which can be recovered normally.

Every two hours (or portion thereof) that a character travels beyond 8, the character must make a Fatigue test using his or her Toughness dice against a DN equal to his or her Toughness step number.  If the test succeeds, the character suffers no ill effects.  If the test fails, the character accrues one level of fatigue.  For each level of fatigue, the character suffers a cumulative 1 step penalty to all actions.

To recover from fatigue a character must rest for four hours (in addition to the normal 8 hours per day), during which the character cannot take any strenuous action.