Updates for Savage Eberron

Inspiration struck, and I decided to revisit some of the previously written material for Races and Edges. I also created a new section regarding magic that covers adds Druidism (with Eberron's druid sects) and a presentation of Weird Science specifically tailored Arcane Backgrounds.

In general, I'm learning quite a bit about designing for Savage Worlds' game mechanics. Believe it or not, there is an art to it, the skill for which only develops by reading and understanding the design decisions behind certain rules. Working with Reality Blurs, and in particular Sean Preston, has given me a lot of insight into some of those things.

As such, I decided to revisit some of this Savage Eberron stuff that I had done before, flexing those design muscles a bit, pulling the bits apart, and rebuilding things based on what I've assessed from the core rules and other supplements.

Shifters and Shifter Edges

I cleaned up the Shifters a bit. I'm still feeling uncertain about the idea of the shifting duration and frequency and extending it with Shifter Edges. I feel like it works, but it's trying too hard to mimic the D&D v3.5 rules. Savage Worlds doesn't typically deal with per-day abilities. An alternative is to base it on Power Points, a model which I might tackle in the near future. Other than that, I think I did a decent job of balancing the effects of the shifting abilities (renamed from shifter traits to avoid confusion with Savage Worlds Traits). You might find some a little more powerful than others, but I tried to balance that against the likelihood of opportunities to use that ability.

Warforged and Warforged Background Edges

I completely revamped warforged. I had a lot of difficulty with warforged since I started this project. When I started, I was trying very hard to keep with D&D v3.5's definition of a "living construct" be creating a new Monstrous Ability and designing it based on the concepts in the v3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting.

As ridiculous as this might sound, it wasn't until recently that I realized living constructs in Eberron aren't regarded as such because they can be partially healed with healing magic or because they don't have all of the characteristics of constructs. Those are just concepts supporting game balance in D&D v3.5. Instead, it's the idea that warforged are sentient, conscious, and emotional constructs. They can think freely. They feel emotions. Those are concepts that come out in story and play, not in game mechanics. As such, I completely removed the Living Construct Monstrous Ability and simply made warforged constructs, plain and simple.

Other Edges

While looking at the edges, you might also notice that I added some Wild Card Edges based on the Action Boost and Action Surge feats from the v3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting. These aren't direct translations as much as they are reinterpretations for Savage Worlds. I'm still unsure how I feel about Wild Card Edges in general, but they are presented as options nonetheless.

You'll also notice two Professional Edges: a revised Gadgeteer Edge, which was tailored for artificers, and the Ascetic Psion Edge, which is based on the Fantasy Companion's Adept Edge but tailored for Kalashtar characters.

Magic

As mentioned above, here you will see two Arcane Backgrounds presented: Druidism and Weird Science. Inspired mechanically by Hellfrost's interpretation of Druidism, it also includes unique spells for the different druidic sects. I'm a little uncertain about the Greensingers' list, but I'll revisit that some other time.

Weird Science isn't changed much from the core rules except that I worded it to suit Eberron specifically, noting that practitioners of Weird Science are known as Artificers. I'm still working on a predefined list of powers for artificers, but that shouldn't be too hard to come up with.

I also added a revised version of Schemas to the document. The original version was missing some details and had some funky stuff going on with the Gadgeteer Edge that I stripped out in this new version. The details added include cost and time for creating schemas and effects of a failed Weird Science roll.

There are probably some other hidden updates here and there.