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Airgedok
04-20-2003, 12:01 PM
I'm new to the boards and new to birthright because I stopped playing D&D well before 2nd edition and second edition didnt change the things I hated about D&D enough to return to it. 3e has made some major advancements to the system enough so that I have happily returned. One thing that has been a problem with D&D is how it chooses to balance things. A PC races stats all banance to zero and humans are all most always given no stat bonuses. This makes them sterile, bland no flavour to them but a simple change of making all PC races stats balance to +1 means that you have a vast amount of playing room to make Balanced characters with unique feel to them.

A balanced 0 character is a character that balances to 0 when all its racial stat scores are added (ie elf +2 dex, + cha, -2 str, -2con = 0 )

A balanced +1 character is a character that balances to +1 when all its racial stat scores are added (ie elf +2 dex +2 cha +1 int, -2 str -2 con)

The key is to determine which races get which stat at +1 some are easy like

dwarves---+1 str
halflings---+1 con
elves-------+1 int
humans----???? +1 str or perhaps +1 wis or whatever

but these can be determined any way to fit what best fits a campaign world.

D&D takes the balance to zero method to almost everything and this limits their ability to deal with balance issues. When you try to balance all aspects of a character to zero then it becomes difficult or rather imposible. THe key isnt to try to make all characters equal in "combat power" using feats(including class abilities) & hit ponts with the three primary methods of combat abilities - skills (rogue) attacks via weapons (fights) or spells (wizards or clerics). This leads to frustration and limits the roles that these characters play in fantasy literature as game mechanics are used to limit other areas of the character so that the character cant use these aspects to increase combat ability. The key is not make them balanced overall. One character loses combat ability for gains in non combat areas.

The most striking example is the wizard. In MOST fantasy literature wizards are the "brains" of the group the ones with the most knowledge about things they often know a little of everything. But in D&D they only have 2 skill points and those 2 points are needed in concentration and spellscraft. Scry and arcane knowledge are also very important and you already have eaten up 2 bonus skill points from Int bonus. This doesnt allow you to create the "brain" character. So why is this done??? Well its done to help balance the rogue class with its 8 skill points. Along with feats (including class abilities) the rogue uses its skills to gain its advantage in combat. A rogue with bluff and a good cha can get a decent chance to sneak attack every combat turn. The stealth skills let it gain tactical advantage. Search and disarm skills allow it to defeat inanimate combat threats like traps. So its skills are what balance its combat abilities compared to the other classes. Now the rogue has the ability to give up its combat balance for other skills that are not a help in combat like forgery and it has the skill points to afford cross class skills. So the rogue has veratility in its character design.

The fighter, cleric and wizard have so few skill points and so few class skills that its hard to provide variety to the characters that is not combat orientated.

So what does this all have to do with scions and balance??? Because the balance sytem in D&D is primarily geared to combat when you add a new element to the mix you find that you cant quiet get it to fit. Birthright is a game that has two levels other campaign worlds do not. Most deal with the adventure level and that it. Birthright deals also with the regent level as well and so we now have a two areas that a scion character has to fit into and be balanced all the while being added to a class sytem that is almost wholely balanced for combat.

I feel that the system of trying to make a scion charater equal to a non-scion character is a hopeless. You cant. The scion will be either far more powerful or far to penalised.

So perhaps the way to handle the situation is not to try.

When using the point buy system this is very easy. IF a character takes a scion that isnt minor, as minor scions are close enought to balanced with the point buy system. Then the non scion gets the advantage on not having to put points into his blood score.

If a player chooses a major blood strength as the highest blood strenght type of the party then

all other non or minor blooded characters get to add +2 to one stat and +1 to two other stats (excluding blood)

Great blood type

minor and non - +4 to one stat, & +2 to two other stats (excluding blood)
major - +2 to one stat and +1 to two others (excluding blood)

Great heritage

any non great heritage charater - +4 to one stat, & +2 to two other stats (excluding blood)

This goes a long way to balance out the differences in blood strength. Yes it add large stat bonuses BUT this isnt a problem because birthright is a high powered campaign setting. This doesnt lead to munchionism that would happen in the standard setting as the birthright setting is such that you meet on average more powerful foes. Thus over all campaign balance it still acheived. What you get is non blooded characters with higher stats but bloods with weaker stats but blood abilities to compansate.

This method doesnt try to make the balance perfect nor does it try to nerf blooded characters or limit their powers which seem to be independant of experience but can be increased through events in life. This apprears to be the idea behind the scenes.



Let us also not forget that as a DM I could give all my characters +4 skill points a level, with +2 to every stat and bonus feats without one step towards munchinism and unbalance. How you ask?? It is all on what the players encounter. If I shift my challenges to take into account that the players have more skills and highter stats and more feats then they are not more powerful they only appear more powerful. What they are is more powerful when compared to generic characters not when compared with the challenges of my campaign. This is why birthright isnt a joke. I may have far more powerful characters in BR when compared to generic D&D but not when I compare it to the challenges of the BR campaign setting.

Airgedok
04-20-2003, 01:06 PM
Also there should be a new set of skills & skill points that are geared towards the regent level actions so that ftrs, wizards and clerics are not hampered in running their holdings compared to rogues.

Rogues can obtain the 100% regency gained in 7 levels (5 as a rogue and 1 as a cleric and 1 as a mage.) For all regency sources. assuming a +2 int bonus which isnt unreasonable.

Dip. 7 and lead 7 make up for the short fall in war and religion 3 each.

Also the rogue will have a admin of 10 as well a vital regent level skill.

It will take the ftr and Cleric and wizard over twice that to do the same also assuming that they take 1 level min each of cleric and wizard to gain access to source and temple regency points. This gives the rogue a huge advantage, as the rogue get 60% at 2 level for guilds and 20% for provinces, 20% for law at 2nd level (or 100% guild and 20% province at 2nd level) by 3rd level this jumps up to 100% guild, 80% province and 60% law or vis versa. You can see just how quickly the rogue can gain regency point and that translates to power -- as with regency points you can use them to contest holdings and gain more gold bars and regency and you will also have the ability to raise you blood stat far more quickly which inturn leads to a greater amount of regency that can be used and gained.

It is this advantage that makes the rogue regent a hugely unbalanced regent. However if there where bonus skills given to the other classes that allowed them to be used only for speific skills this would close the balance.

Religion
nature
warcraft
Lead
admin
craft
profession
diplomacy

Are all examples of skills that regents could spend their bonus points towards and not upset game balance in any great way with none regent characters.

This would go a long way to making all regents regardless of class more balanced in the regent role.

ConjurerDragon
04-20-2003, 03:20 PM
Airgedok wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1589
>Airgedok wrote:
> Also there should be a new set of skills & skill points that are geared towards the regent level actions so that ftrs, wizards and clerics are not hampered in running their holdings compared to rogues.
>Rogues can obtain the 100% regency gained in 7 levels (5 as a rogue and 1 as a cleric and 1 as a mage.) For all regency sources. assuming a +2 int bonus which isnt unreasonable.
>Dip. 7 and lead 7 make up for the short fall in war and religion 3 each.
>Also the rogue will have a admin of 10 as well a vital regent level skill.
>It will take the ftr and Cleric and wizard over twice that to do the same also assuming that they take 1 level min each of cleric and wizard to gain access to source and temple regency points. This gives the rogue a huge advantage, as the rogue get 60% at 2 level for guilds and 20% for provinces, 20% for law at 2nd level (or 100% guild and 20% province at 2nd level) by 3rd level this jumps up to 100% guild, 80% province and 60% law or vis versa. You can see just how quickly the rogue can gain regency point and that translates to power -- as with regency points you can use them to contest holdings and gain more gold bars and regency and you will also have the ability to raise you blood stat far more quickly which inturn leads to a greater amount of regency that can be used and gained.
>It is this advantage that makes the rogue regent a hugely unbalanced regent. However if there where bonus skills given to the other classes that allowed them to be used only for speific skills this would close the balance.
>Religion
>nature
>warcraft
>Lead
>admin
>craft
>profession
>diplomacy
>Are all examples of skills that regents could spend their bonus points towards and not upset game balance in any great way with none regent characters.
>This would go a long way to making all regents regardless of class more balanced in the regent role.
>
This sounded severe at first reading, with rogues gaining 100% RP from
everywhere. However even a rogue with lots of skills is still limited by
his bloodlinescore.
The skills only mean that he collects a higher percentage of his
maximum. As soon as he reaches 100% his limit is the bloodline, as for
any other blooded regent.
bye
Michael Romes

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Airgedok
04-20-2003, 06:48 PM
Originally posted by ConjurerDragon





Airgedok wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1589
>Airgedok wrote:
> Also there should be a new set of skills & skill points that are geared towards the regent level actions so that ftrs, wizards and clerics are not hampered in running their holdings compared to rogues.
>Rogues can obtain the 100% regency gained in 7 levels (5 as a rogue and 1 as a cleric and 1 as a mage.) For all regency sources. assuming a +2 int bonus which isnt unreasonable.
>Dip. 7 and lead 7 make up for the short fall in war and religion 3 each.
>Also the rogue will have a admin of 10 as well a vital regent level skill.
>It will take the ftr and Cleric and wizard over twice that to do the same also assuming that they take 1 level min each of cleric and wizard to gain access to source and temple regency points. This gives the rogue a huge advantage, as the rogue get 60% at 2 level for guilds and 20% for provinces, 20% for law at 2nd level (or 100% guild and 20% province at 2nd level) by 3rd level this jumps up to 100% guild, 80% province and 60% law or vis versa. You can see just how quickly the rogue can gain regency point and that translates to power -- as with regency points you can use them to contest holdings and gain more gold bars and regency and you will also have the ability to raise you blood stat far more quickly which inturn leads to a greater amount of regency that can be used and gained.
>It is this advantage that makes the rogue regent a hugely unbalanced regent. However if there where bonus skills given to the other classes that allowed them to be used only for speific skills this would close the balance.
>Religion
>nature
>warcraft
>Lead
>admin
>craft
>profession
>diplomacy
>Are all examples of skills that regents could spend their bonus points towards and not upset game balance in any great way with none regent characters.
>This would go a long way to making all regents regardless of class more balanced in the regent role.
>
This sounded severe at first reading, with rogues gaining 100% RP from
everywhere. However even a rogue with lots of skills is still limited by
his bloodlinescore.
The skills only mean that he collects a higher percentage of his
maximum. As soon as he reaches 100% his limit is the bloodline, as for
any other blooded regent.
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
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You are correct but a rogue will have the same blood score as anyone else. Being a rogue does not limit blood score as you said BUT he will be able to raise his blood score faster and he will be able to contest more holdings easier as he will have more regecy points. A rogue will be able to, in a few short levels, dominate the regency level play. Regency can be invested in many ways it can boost you blood score, used to gain +/- to various regency actions. A rogue could have the regency points to "burn" to cause a cleric's holding to rebel against him or a province to rebel against the fighter. Then use these regency points to contest and "capture" holdings in an area of the rebelion while the other characters are spending their regency to stablise the rebelion. This in turn isnt a burden as the rogue has the skills to manage all the holdings very early and provides even more gold bars with each new holding level that he contests from other regents. There are limits as you pointed out. Contest doesnt allow out right capture but if you contest a few holding and for a few turns you have robbed the "enemy" of both regency and gb and this can open up many courses of action because you will have the regency to spend on the contesting and causing rebelion you will soon "starve" your enemy of both gb and regency. All this will allow you to move in your forces far faster than he thought possible. All you need to contest a holding is a similar type of holding and all you need is a 0 level holding.

The numbers are very clear. A rogue regent will have more regency per turn than any other class. Assuming all things are equal. (which is what testing is design to do)

The fact that its very easy for a rogue to reach their max regency a turn (2x blood stat) enables them to use their influence to the fullest faster than other classes. They can also diversify easier.

ConjurerDragon
04-20-2003, 08:34 PM
Airgedok wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1589
>Airgedok wrote:
>
Originally posted by ConjurerDragon
>
>This sounded severe at first reading, with rogues gaining 100% RP from
>everywhere. However even a rogue with lots of skills is still limited by
>his bloodlinescore.
>The skills only mean that he collects a higher percentage of his
>maximum. As soon as he reaches 100% his limit is the bloodline, as for
>any other blooded regent.
>************************************************** **************************
>
>You are correct but a rogue will have the same blood score as anyone else.
>
Only, if the starting players started with the same bloodline. If they
start by using characters from the Ruins of Empire for example, then
most Rogues will have lower bloodlines than the other regents, as in
Anuire Rogues tend not to be as prominent compared to the others, e.g.
from the 2E Ruins of Empire: The Mhor Anduiras 47 as compared to the
guilder Moerele Lannamann Brenna, 29. Even worse in Boeruine where Aeric
Boeruine has 60 and the guilder only 14.

While this is not balanced it is as it should be in traditional Anuire.

>Being a rogue does not limit blood score as you said BUT he will be able to raise his blood score faster and he will be able to contest more holdings easier as he will have more regecy points. A rogue will be able to, in a few short levels, dominate the regency level play. Regency can be invested in many ways it can boost you blood score,
>
You have to spend in 2E your bloodline +1 in RP to raise your bloodline
by only 1 point. In 3E draft 0.0 where the bloodline score is twice as
valuable (you gain 2 RP for 1 bloodline point) you have to spend FOUR
times your bloodline score.

If the players started with 0 RP or similar low amounts, then they would
need at least 2 domain turns (seasons) full income to raise their
bloodline. Spending this amount of RP is an investion that pays off only
if the game runs a long time, espeacially if you plan to do it more than
once or twice. And you CAN do it only twice a year, even if you have the
RP (p. 37 draft 0.0).

Especially in most PBEMS which last only 10 or maybe 20 turns raising
the bloodline score doesn´t pay off, as the player who spends his RP on
actions against you will get an advantage while you have to wait until
your huge investion comes back slowly at a meager +2 RP (+1 in 2E) per
season.
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
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Airgedok
04-21-2003, 05:38 AM
Originally posted by ConjurerDragon





Airgedok wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1589
>Airgedok wrote:
>
Originally posted by ConjurerDragon
>
>This sounded severe at first reading, with rogues gaining 100% RP from
>everywhere. However even a rogue with lots of skills is still limited by
>his bloodlinescore.
>The skills only mean that he collects a higher percentage of his
>maximum. As soon as he reaches 100% his limit is the bloodline, as for
>any other blooded regent.
>************************************************** **************************
>
>You are correct but a rogue will have the same blood score as anyone else.
>
Only, if the starting players started with the same bloodline. If they
start by using characters from the Ruins of Empire for example, then
most Rogues will have lower bloodlines than the other regents, as in
Anuire Rogues tend not to be as prominent compared to the others, e.g.
from the 2E Ruins of Empire: The Mhor Anduiras 47 as compared to the
guilder Moerele Lannamann Brenna, 29. Even worse in Boeruine where Aeric
Boeruine has 60 and the guilder only 14.

While this is not balanced it is as it should be in traditional Anuire.

>Being a rogue does not limit blood score as you said BUT he will be able to raise his blood score faster and he will be able to contest more holdings easier as he will have more regecy points. A rogue will be able to, in a few short levels, dominate the regency level play. Regency can be invested in many ways it can boost you blood score,
>
You have to spend in 2E your bloodline +1 in RP to raise your bloodline
by only 1 point. In 3E draft 0.0 where the bloodline score is twice as
valuable (you gain 2 RP for 1 bloodline point) you have to spend FOUR
times your bloodline score.

If the players started with 0 RP or similar low amounts, then they would
need at least 2 domain turns (seasons) full income to raise their
bloodline. Spending this amount of RP is an investion that pays off only
if the game runs a long time, espeacially if you plan to do it more than
once or twice. And you CAN do it only twice a year, even if you have the
RP (p. 37 draft 0.0).

Especially in most PBEMS which last only 10 or maybe 20 turns raising
the bloodline score doesn´t pay off, as the player who spends his RP on
actions against you will get an advantage while you have to wait until
your huge investion comes back slowly at a meager +2 RP (+1 in 2E) per
season.
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
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Only if you have the same blood value!?!? Thats what it means "all things being equal." The point of the comparision is to compair the roque class to different classes and the balance issue. You cant do this if you change multiple varibles for each class.

As for the fact that PBem is only for a short time isnt a reason not to address the issue. As for the idea of using the characters in ruins of empire thats fine. But again thats not what I'm showing. I'm showing that there is a huge advantage for rogues in regency revenue. Sure this advantage is limited if the character only has 1/2 or 1/4 the blood value as other characters but this is only going to be the case in one type of campaign. (ie where you use "historical" characters) Most players that I know prefer to use their own characters. Therefore these concerns are real. Also Rogues are not not theives in 3e they are so much more. While they can be theives they can also be spies or diplomates or scouts. This means that the rogue character class has been expanded from the old 2e modle of the theif character class. So the roles that a rogue may take in the "pld" birthright rules are not going to be the same in the "new" rules. OR rather it is better to say that the role of the rogue has expanded far beyond theifs role.

It seems to me that with multi-classes and the more flexability that each class now has that the various domains are now open to all classes with the skill to weild the power of each domain. Granted that temples and sourse domains have extra conditions but with the 3e multi-classing rules thats not a hinderance.