I posted this on paizo and thought i'd ask here also. I ask because I have recently begun looking over the Earthdawn stuff. It's a wonder I hadn't done it before, being a Shadowrun nut. That is actually why I am, on Dumpshock there had been talk of relevancy in ED to SR. So I pick up some stuff and am looking through it and from what I can see so far the ideas look very similar. Each Discipline (class) has it's own special magic-ish abilities.

I'm not saying they are exactly the same but it just struck me, the resemblance. Can anyone else shed some light on this? Someone more knowledgeable than I am.

Are you talking about the Eberron setting ??


There's always an overlap between fantasy RPGs, so there's always things that look similar in various RPGs [not least because most people aren't too comfortable if fantasy settings aren't what they expect].

D&D 4E is more SR4 than ED Here's a link to Ancient's site for starters.
SR ED Crossovers

Have a look here for an explanation.

Everyone who wants to dive into the game, I recommend the corebooks done by RedBrick, which are available at lulu.com.

Sorry ??
Was there a reason you linked to the Earthdawn page on Wikipedia ??

Does that, in some way, indicate that AD&D4E is similar to ED ??


I was trying to find out what Swirler thinks the similarity between the 2 RPGs is.

So I'm not the only one who's looked at D&D 4E and thought that.
The static defense numbers, the way healing works, the class system, at will spells. There are certainly a lot of similarities between the two systems. The lack of steps makes me think that 4E will be a cleaner system. But from what I've seen they are more similar than they are different.

I think I will make an ED conversion once I get my hands on the 4E SRD.

here you go


They said it better than I ever could have.

Yes I found them there, I just wish I could afford to do it but can't at least not now.

He doesn't seem to know what Earthdawn is, at least that's how I understand his question.

Although I haven't looked over 4th ed D&D yet, I will say that if it doesn't include the Step system, isn't close enough in my book. If they're using static target numbers (ED - phsyical defense) then that would certainly be a similarity, but the Step system is a core component inthe Earthdawn system. Without it, they might be similar, but it's certainly not 'ED repackaged'.

A similar system could very much change D&D however. One of the sticking points in D&D has always been that at a high level, a fighter can decimate large numbers of enemies, taking hundreds of HP in damage, fall off a 200' cliff and walk away, shrug off fireballs, etc. In Earthdawn, you just can't do that. In my experience, ED's fatality frequency is pretty close to SR. One bad roll against one good roll can kill you very easily,and there's very little chacne of even being brought back. If those elements are changed in D&D, the game could change a lot.

Again though, I haven't seen D&D 4th,so I don't know how much that may relate.

When you compare a high-level fighter in D&D3.5 and a high-circle Warrior adept in Earthdawn, both can wade through mundane enemies with the same ease.

I disagree to an extent. Granted,a high level Warrior can take a lot of damage. But they're going to go down a lot sooner than a D&D fighter. But since you've got the exploding dice, there's a much greater chance of even a peon like cadaver men hitting that defense target number.The same exploding dice can deal out a lot more damage. Then there's the wounds(and depending on whether you rule as massivce damage being able to inflict more than one wound in a single hit), which I believe I heard that 4th edt D&D is doing something similar too. The exploding dice adds a level of random upping that doens't compare with D&Ds Critical hits.

The Warrior also doesn't have the ability to take out as many opponents as quickly as the D&D Fighter either (Cleave feat and multiple attacks Vs Warrior Second Attack-ish Talents).The Fighter can Cleave and mow down multiple opponents at once, whilethe adept is always limited in the number he can take, and even takes damage for multiple attack actions.

Of course, going toe-to-toe,adept to adept,Warriors arefreaking hard to take down. They get the best Durability, and they get Last Stand, which means you can just keep killing them over and over again and they just won't go down. The Warrrior is less about tearing though hordes and more about out lasting everyone else they go up against.

This is very true. We used to play Earthdawn long ago, and we had a guy play an obsidiman warrior. We joked he had blood pebble armor made out of miniature death cheats.