More Powers

[Cinder]

I've been skimming the initial release of the d20 Birthright (which does look pretty damn good by the way) and it appears that while there have been some new bloodline powers added (possibly from sources I don't own) there still aren't enough for my tastes. I believe that variety is the key to longevity in an RPG and as such I was wondering if there were any plans to expand the bloodline powers list? If not, would you consider doing so? The new D&D is all about the options right? Am I alone in this line of thinking?

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Cinder@Aug 13 2003, 03:07 AM
I've been skimming the initial release of the d20 Birthright (which does look pretty damn good by the way) and it appears that while there have been some new bloodline powers added (possibly from sources I don't own) there still aren't enough for my tastes. I believe that variety is the key to longevity in an RPG and as such I was wondering if there were any plans to expand the bloodline powers list? If not, would you consider doing so? The new D&D is all about the options right? Am I alone in this line of thinking?
Actually there were no new blood abilities added. The list was from the Book of Regency (free download from wizards) and some of the original descriptions were in Blood Enemies as well.

There seemed to have been an error in the fact that endurance was added when it shouldn't have been since it wasn't one of the abilities listed.

The answer is no there are no plans to add any additional abilites to the "core" BRCS book. There are presently some guidelines for how a DM can create new ones if he wishes, but generally this is not a good idea, and if done there should be some sort of history as to why the "new" ability was discovered. A blood ability is not like a spell that can be researched it was something passed on from the deceased gods. That is why the words were written the way they were in the BRCS-playtest to discourage people from treating blood abilities like spells in this manner.

[geeman]

blem with adding new blood abilities under the right

conditions. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when doing so,

though, that should probably be mentioned.



First, what is the role of the new blood ability? Where does it fit into

the portfolio/sphere/emphasis of the god whose derivation it will be

associated? What aspect of the god (or of general godly powers) does it

convey?



Second, (and this one is probably more important) what will the actual game

mechanical effects of the power be? In 3e+ we have a lot more actual rules

for effects. Damage reduction is much more articulated, the ability scores

have broader effects, skills outlined, etc. What will the actual game

mechanical effects of the power be? Having spent a lot of time writing up

the Bloodline Point document a while back it felt like I had just about

exhausted every possible permutation of the rules to reflect the

differences and scales of various blood abilities. I didn`t, of

course. It just felt like it after the somewhat brain wringing exercise of

writing up that system. However, it is possible to get to write up a blood

ability that doesn`t vary much from existing ones, and that`s not

particularly worthwhile. (Plug: A system of BP handles such things much

better since it allows for changes and additions to the existing blood

abilities, making them of practically endless variation.)



Third, one should try to make an attempt to balance the powers` effects

against existing ones. This is one of the things the original rules didn`t

do very well, I`m afraid. Many of the powers at various strengths (minor,

major, great) were more than a little questionable as far as being balanced

against one another is concerned.



Last, one should dedicate some sort of thought to the issue of whether the

blood ability should be available to players. If it is, then it`s the kind

of thing that one wouldn`t want to introduce after character generation has

been done. Players might feel ripped off by running into characters who

have powers that should be available to them, but that they missed out on

due to the tardiness of the DM.



Did you have any particular blood abilities in mind?



Gary

[kgauck]

offers bloodline feats for sorcerers. Many of them

could easily be blood abilities.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[Mark_Aurel]

The answer is no there are no plans to add any additional abilites to the "core" BRCS book. There are presently some guidelines for how a DM can create new ones if he wishes, but generally this is not a good idea, and if done there should be some sort of history as to why the "new" ability was discovered. A blood ability is not like a spell that can be researched it was something passed on from the deceased gods. That is why the words were written the way they were in the BRCS-playtest to discourage people from treating blood abilities like spells in this manner.

I tend to think of blood abilities as the inherited traits of the old gods - in essence, "mini-salient divine abilities." I think each blood ability should represent some definitive aspect of the old god from which it is derived - and I'm not convinced the breakdown of abilities found in the 2e products represents the absolutely final sum of all such aspects which scions may have inherited; I certainly can't recall such being stated anywhere, and I would guess that, given the line's continuation, the total number of such abilities would've kept piling up as designers would probably occasionally add new ones, at least in rules-oriented products. That said, I think that if any new blood abilities were to be added, there should be a strong reason in terms of the character of the old god for its addition. That said, I also think that bloodlines should be somewhat malleable over time - as bloodlines intermingle and intermarry, the original "flavor" might get somewhat lost, resulting in new abilities or combinations, or in that individuals of great personal power might affect somewhat what abilities their heirs inherit, resulting in certain blood abilities, even unique blood abilities, running down certain lines - this was sort of hinted at in Blood Enemies, for instance, and while that book wasn't exactly among the best of the BR products, I don't recall any indications elsewhere that contradicted this - even the adventure Sword & Crown, written by one of the setting's original designers, showed how specific permutations of blood abilities run down certain lines - which, again, is also completely in line with what amounts to much of the inspiration behind bloodlines in the first place - the characteristics of European noble families, both legendary and real. All that said, you are, of course, completely right that characters can't research or invent blood abilities - that doesn't mean they should be completely beyond the player's ability to customize somewhat, however.

[Cinder]

Well let's see,


There are presently some guidelines for how a DM can create new ones if he wishes, but generally this is not a good idea, and if done there should be some sort of history as to why the "new" ability was discovered.


Ok, why would you need a history for a (new) power that is included with primary rules? None of the current powers have histories. If some new powers were added (before the "official" release of the setting) they would be part of the basic set. I agree that it would be somewhat disruptive to "suddenly" have powers added as an after effect (like they did with the accessory supplements in 2nd ed.), but I thought that the Birthright project was still in development, and thus still subject to change. Am I mistaken?


There seemed to have been an error in the fact that endurance was added when it shouldn't have been since it wasn't one of the abilities listed.

This is what I'm referring to. Endurance seems like a good addition to me. When I looked it over I didn't realize that it wasn't a stock ability. I don't believe its unbalancing. Does it hurt the game to have it in there?


A blood ability is not like a spell that can be researched it was something passed on from the deceased gods. That is why the words were written the way they were in the BRCS-playtest to discourage people from treating blood abilities like spells in this manner.

I agree totally. A blood ability is not researchable in the way spells are and as such should not be introduced as such. What I'm suggesting is an expansion of the blood powers in the MAIN rules set, thereby making them the STANDARD just as the other powers are. The idea is to add variety and options to add to the longevity of this aspect of the game.


First, what is the role of the new blood ability? Where does it fit into the portfolio/sphere/emphasis of the god whose derivation it will be associated? What aspect of the god (or of general godly powers) does it convey?

I agree that a new power should fit whatever god(s) it's associated with. Any type of power (offensive, defensive, or utility) can be adjusted and flavored to fit. I'm not suggesting arbitrary additions, on the contrary, I think any new additions should be carefully reviewed. See my example at the bottom.


Second, (and this one is probably more important) what will the actual game mechanical effects of the power be? In 3e+ we have a lot more actual rules for effects. Damage reduction is much more articulated, the ability scores have broader effects, skills outlined, etc.

From what I've seen 3e+ characterizes effects as follows (I might miss one or two); Feat-like, spell-like, extraordinary, supernatural, skill bonus, template, and racial/natural. Considering the variety that each of these types of effects can offer, I think there is plenty of room for more powers. Just look at the hundreds of feats out there. I could see many minor powers functioning just like a feat does (NOTE: a power may function like a feat, but it ISN'T actually a feat and can't be taken like one). Many powers could work like a spell-like ability (just as the Protection from Evil power does). As far as how the game mechanics would work, you can simply use the provided guidelines/examples in the MM and DMG as well as compare them against existing bloodline powers.


Third, one should try to make an attempt to balance the powers` effects against existing ones. This is one of the things the original rules didn`t
do very well, I`m afraid. Many of the powers at various strengths (minor,
major, great) were more than a little questionable as far as being balanced
against one another is concerned.

Naturally, there needs to be balance. That's already being done with the existing powers (some powers are being roped in, others expanded).


Last, one should dedicate some sort of thought to the issue of whether the blood ability should be available to players. If it is, then it`s the kind of thing that one wouldn`t want to introduce after character generation has been done. Players might feel ripped off by running into characters who
have powers that should be available to them, but that they missed out on
due to the tardiness of the DM.

Again I agree with this thinking. Are there any existing powers that are/should be restricted from the PCs? If the power would cause too much disruption then it should be disqualified or changed. This is an old play-balance issue and isn't unique to new bloodline powers. Whenever a new feat, spell, race, or piece of equipment is added it should be carefully considered. I was never advocating the "blind" addition of new blood abilities. Geeman, the last sentence of the quote above is one of my points. Put the new powers in the MAIN rules set before you "officially" release it prevents DM tardiness. As far as current Birthright games are concerned, this project is still in development and things are subject to change (please tell me if I'm wrong). Sure it may be disruptive, but the kinks are being ironed out (the setting is in DEVELOPMENT afterall, again tell me if I'm wrong).


Did you have any particular blood abilities in mind?

Actually I do. In my current Birthright game I'm running I have an assassin working against the crown (i.e. the PCs). He has a particular ability I call Shadow Jaunt. It functions as the spell Dimension Door with a few modifications. The spell only "doors" between places shrouded in shadows and has a range of short (25ft + 5ft/2 levels). The power can only be used once per day. I consider this a major power. This is a power only associated with Azrai derivations. It's minorly associated with the shadow realm and it isn't as potent as the travel abilities. I think it's a nice inbetween power that's functional without being too good. Any thoughts or comments? As for other powers, just look at the powers archived on this website. Granted some of these might not be appropriate, but some are pretty dang good ideas (Summon Woodland Animal, Augmented Magic). They need some tweeking, and that's ok, everything does. The powers included in the game (and its supplements) are far from all-inclusive. Why not add variety, especially when its one of the special aspects of the setting? Thanks for reading!

:)

[geeman]

3 +0200, Cinder wrote:



>
Last, one should dedicate some sort of thought to the issue of

>whether the blood ability should be available to players. If it is, then

>it`s the kind of thing that one wouldn`t want to introduce after character

>generation has been done. Players might feel ripped off by running into

>characters who

>have powers that should be available to them, but that they missed out on

>due to the tardiness of the DM.

>

>Again I agree with this thinking. Are there any existing powers that

>are/should be restricted from the PCs?



There are a few that might not be particularly appropriate. Most notably,

the powers of awnsheghlien if given to players would pretty dramatically

determine the nature of the campaign, as could several of the powers of

Azrai, for that matter. Ersheghlien are slightly less trouble, but still

heavily influence the campaign in a way that the DM may want to avoid.



>
Did you have any particular blood abilities in mind?

>

> Actually I do. In my current Birthright game I`m running I have an

> assassin working against the crown (i.e. the PCs). He has a particular

> ability I call Shadow Jaunt. It functions as the spell Dimension Door

> with a few modifications. The spell only "doors" between

> places shrouded in shadows and has a range of short (25ft + 5ft/2

> levels). The power can only be used once per day. I consider this a

> major power. This is a power only associated with Azrai

> derivations. It`s minorly associated with the shadow realm and it isn`t

> as potent as the travel abilities. I think it`s a nice inbetween power

> that`s functional without being too good. Any thoughts or comments?



You might want to consider attaching it to Azrai`s version of the Travel

blood ability as a major version of that power. One of the things that`s

always annoyed me about the blood abilities is that many of them are only

available at high or low strengths, making the process of character

generation a bit of a pain in the backside. Expanding the blood abilities

into versions for all three levels of power would help eliminate that

issue. Making it part of the Travel blood ability will also let it fit

into existing abilities in a way that will avoid some of the "new ability"

issues.



I generally like tying blood ability effects to the strength of the

bloodline (tainted, minor, major, great, true) or blood ability itself

(minor, major, great) rather than character level since I see the two

aspects of character class as interacting, but fundamentally different and

divorced from one another, so I`d make the range 25 feet + 5 feet/bloodline

strength category rather than character level.



A great version of the ability (if you want to keep is separate from the

Travel blood ability) might allow for greater range and/or more uses per

day. A minor version of the power (whether attached to Travel or not)

might give the character a dodge bonus to AC while in shadows and hide

checks while in shadows.



>As for other powers, just look at the powers archived on this

>website. Granted some of these might not be appropriate, but some are

>pretty dang good ideas (Summon Woodland Animal, Augmented Magic). They

>need some tweeking, and that`s ok, everything does. The powers included

>in the game (and its supplements) are far from all-inclusive. Why not add

>variety, especially when its one of the special aspects of the

>setting? Thanks for reading!



I don`t object to adding new blood abilities. There are a few things to

keep in mind when adding them, but if those are taken into consideration

new blood abilities are fine.



In fact, I think the whole bloodline system should be expanded to include

things like skills, feats and prestige classes none of which really existed

before 3e/D20. Such things can be used to reflect several aspects of the

bloodline system and should IMO be incorporated into any update of the

setting. When it comes to blood abilities themselves, I prefer an entirely

different system of handling blood abilities using a point system, and

several customization effects for the abilities rather than the somewhat

inflexible original system or the updated version.



Gary

[Mark_Aurel]

There are a few that might not be particularly appropriate. Most notably,
the powers of awnsheghlien if given to players would pretty dramatically
determine the nature of the campaign, as could several of the powers of
Azrai, for that matter. Ersheghlien are slightly less trouble, but still
heavily influence the campaign in a way that the DM may want to avoid.

Which is part of the reason why the abilities that awnsheghlien and ehrsheghlien develop are considered monster abilities, not blood abilities. They're still available to PCs, only that it requires PCs to take monster levels in order to develop them, which should be balanced overall, if done right.

[geeman]

3 +0200, Mark_Aurel wrote:



>
There are a few that might not be particularly appropriate. Most

> notably,

> the powers of awnsheghlien if given to players would pretty dramatically

> determine the nature of the campaign, as could several of the powers of

> Azrai, for that matter. Ersheghlien are slightly less trouble, but still

> heavily influence the campaign in a way that the DM may want to

> avoid.

>

> Which is part of the reason why the abilities that awnsheghlien and

> ehrsheghlien develop are considered monster abilities, not blood

> abilities. They`re still available to PCs, only that it requires PCs to

> take monster levels in order to develop them, which should be balanced

> overall, if done right.



It wasn`t balance I was addressing, but the appropriateness of such

abilities for PCs. Things can be balanced game mechanically (and should be

if one is going to maintain the EL, ECL and CR system of 3e) but a campaign

that contains PC awnsheighlien is likely going to go a particular direction

which the DM may not want to deal with. It`s a bit more difficult to find

or develop adventures for such PCs, so the DM should take that into

consideration before allowing players to have access to those powers.



Gary

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by geeman@Aug 14 2003, 08:16 AM
It wasn`t balance I was addressing, but the appropriateness of such

abilities for PCs. Things can be balanced game mechanically (and should be

if one is going to maintain the EL, ECL and CR system of 3e) but a campaign

that contains PC awnsheighlien is likely going to go a particular direction

which the DM may not want to deal with. It`s a bit more difficult to find

or develop adventures for such PCs, so the DM should take that into

consideration before allowing players to have access to those powers.



Gary


Whic is precisely why the DM controls all applications of awn/ersh transformation. It shouldn't be allowed if the DM can't "control" it in a manner that he wishes.

Again, both of those are options that DM can invoke or not, same as monster levels.

Just because a method is presented in the BRCS doesn't mean that a DM has to allow his players access to it, just like prestige classes it is totally up to the DM. Now once a DM allows it then the mechanics (e.g., advancement and abilities chosen, etc. fall more under the player's control)

[Trithemius]

It wasn`t balance I was addressing, but the appropriateness of such

> abilities for PCs. Things can be balanced game mechanically (and should be

> if one is going to maintain the EL, ECL and CR system of 3e) but a campaign

> that contains PC awnsheighlien is likely going to go a particular direction

> which the DM may not want to deal with. It`s a bit more difficult to find

> or develop adventures for such PCs, so the DM should take that into

> consideration before allowing players to have access to those powers.



Personally, I have had a player awnsheghlien in one of my large

"conventional" (i.e. non-PBeM) games before. The player was trustworthy

and I feel that the character was a great asset to the game. However, I

am by no means certain that such a thing should be granted to just any

player.



It should certianly not occur if the GM is trying to preserve a parity

in ECL (or whatever) amongst the PCs. I was not striving to do this in

that particular game (indeed "higher level" was one of the options that

I had listed in my own homebrewed "realm creation options" system).



--

John Machin

(between clients, so no sig)

[Cinder]

Is there going to be consideration for adding new powers? Who needs to give the idea the official ok? Perhaps a poll would help. What do you guys think?

I think it would be interesting to have people submit proposed ideas (on the forum so everybody can see and give feedback). That way the developers can get more imput and add what they think will work the best.

Geeman, thanks for the imput on my Shadow Jaunt ability. I will consider your suggestion on attaching it to bloodline strength instead of level. But let me ask you this, what did you think of the actual power? Did it fit the setting? Was the effect appropriate?

Thanks for reading.

[RaspK_FOG]

Well, I liked it for one!

Gary, your advancement idea is really cool! And the propositions for the other levels of the power are also great.

Truly, I would like it if we could run a poll on this.

[geeman]

3 +0200, RaspK_FOG wrote:



>Gary, your advancement idea is really cool! And the

>propositions for the other levels of the power are also great.

>

> Truly, I would like it if we could run a poll on this.



A poll would be interesting. I am curious what the community thinks about

this sort of thing.



Should all blood abilities have minor, major and great levels of

power? For instance, many blood abilities have only minor but no major or

great powers, while others have only great but no minor or major

powers. Should there be new versions of the blood abilities written up so

that they all have all three categories of blood ability power?

A. Yes.

B. No.



En example in the post that introduces the poll might be apt. One doesn`t

really need a "Keep things the way they are answer there, since that`s what

a no answer means.



Essentially the whole Bloodline Point system was an extension of that basic

premise; that blood abilities should scale all the way up and and the way

down. In fiddling around with such things I found the minor, major and

great categories to be too broad a grouping in order to reflect the

permutations possible.



Even if one does only fill out the three categories of blood abilities it

does represent an awful lot of effort. The BP system had at least nine

levels for each power and that took a lot of time to put together. A

shorthand way of doing it might to take a look at the powers granted by the

BP system and just assign the first three BP of powers to a minor version

of the power, the next three to a major, etc. At the very least one gets a

point based method of developing blood abilities to help deal with issues

of balance.



Gary

[Birthright-L]

bilities have minor, major and great levels of

> power? For instance, many blood abilities have only minor but no major or

> great powers, while others have only great but no minor or major

> powers. Should there be new versions of the blood abilities written up so

> that they all have all three categories of blood ability power?

> A. Yes.

> B. No.





No. Not all. I might say that MOST should probably be expanded but don`t

expand stuff simply for the sake of expanding them. I don`t know if my

games really need a GREAT version of a hightened-percpetion power. Minor

versions of Travel would just be a little bit silly in that typical

D&D-esque fashion. (Though I can`t find any rational argument for excluding

The Incredible Blinking Scion from the game...)



-Lord Rahvin

[Nightmare]

Ooh, inspiration coming up.

One of the things I like in the Bloodline Proposals is the BP system in option C. I began thinking about and came up with the following outline:

Option A: Add a new skill called: Use Blood Ability (or something to that effect). Each blood ability has a rank, which can be increased by spending points. Some blood abilities are considered automatic and does not require a check. Depending on the rank of the ability and the result of the check, the abilities result may vary greatly.

Option B: Consider the blood abilities to function like skills. You buy ranks in your blood abilities (those that are not considered automatic) and each time you wish to invoke a blood ability, you make a blood ability check. This check would something like 1D20 + Blood ability rank + bloodline score modifier.
The result depends on what the check is.

This would serve to emulate the work needed to learn how to properly use blood abilities. I recall the Birthrigth Novel "War" where the young half-elf "Gannd uses a lot of time trying to learn how to use his blood abilities. Some of them, like Divine Wrath, catches him more or less unaware, but others he have to work with. (Divine Wrath are an example of an automatic blood ability).

As mentioned this is only outlines, they need alot of work, but I personally think that it would be worth considering. Combining it with the Scion class of Option D in the proposals, and the BP system in Option C, I think the blood ability system would become extremely flexible and do away with the minor/major/great classification, which always has bothered me quite a bit.

What do you think?

[geeman]

3 +0200, Cinder wrote:



>Geeman, thanks for the imput on my Shadow Jaunt ability. I will consider

>your suggestion on attaching it to bloodline strength instead of

>level. But let me ask you this, what did you think of the actual

>power? Did it fit the setting? Was the effect appropriate?



I think it works. I even like the title. In effect, it`s similar to the

ability of the Shadow Dancer prestige class, which is a class that on the

whole probably should not be included in BR, but the power itself is

apt. Here`s a version I just wrote up using BP:



Shadow Jaunt (SJnt) - Az, Br

With this ability you are able to manipulate shadows, even taking on the

characteristics of shadows yourself.

Base Power: You gain the following powers and abilities for each BP spent

on Shadow Form:



BP Power

1 Add your Bld to all Hide checks made while in shadows.

2 You gain low-light vision and a +1 dodge bonus to your AC while in

shadows.

3 Once per day you may add your Bld as a dodge bonus to your AC while

in heavy shadows. This bonus remains in effect for 1 minute/Bld.

4 You may use the equivalent of Dimension Door (PHB 195) with a range

of 50 feet + 10 feet per Bld. This ability is useable 1/day. Such

movement requires concentration and is a full round action.



Enhancements: For each additional BP spent you may increase the number of

times you can use the Dimension Dorr ability by 1/day.

BP may also increase the range of your Dimension door ability. Each BP

spent doubles it`s effective range. That is, 1 BP increases the range to

100 feet + 20 feet per Bld, 2 BP doubles it again to 200 feet and 40 feet

per Bld, etc.

A BP may also be spent to make the ability to Dimension Door a standard

action.



Gary

[geeman]

3 -0600, Lord Rahvin wrote:



>>Should all blood abilities have minor, major and great levels of

>>power?

>

>No. Not all. I might say that MOST should probably be expanded but don`t

>expand stuff simply for the sake of expanding them. I don`t know if my

>games really need a GREAT version of a hightened-percpetion power. Minor

>versions of Travel would just be a little bit silly in that typical

>D&D-esque fashion. (Though I can`t find any rational argument for excluding

>The Incredible Blinking Scion from the game...)



Well, that would be a silly addition, but that`s not the way it need

go. Minor versions of the Travel ability could improve movement rate,

improve constitution checks made to avoid the tiring effects of making a

forced march, improvements to ones ability to jump, climb, swim, run, etc.

before getting to the ability to actually travel instantaneously. Several

of the blood abilities work this way. I wrote up advanced versions of

enhanced sense for all the bloodline derivations (except Azrai) and it

works just fine.



Gary

[Mark_Aurel]

4 You may use the equivalent of Dimension Door (PHB 195) with a range
of 50 feet + 10 feet per Bld. This ability is useable 1/day. Such
movement requires concentration and is a full round action.

Enhancements: For each additional BP spent you may increase the number of
times you can use the Dimension Dorr ability by 1/day.
BP may also increase the range of your Dimension door ability. Each BP
spent doubles it`s effective range. That is, 1 BP increases the range to
100 feet + 20 feet per Bld, 2 BP doubles it again to 200 feet and 40 feet
per Bld, etc.
A BP may also be spent to make the ability to Dimension Door a standard
action.

You mean 100 ft +20 ft/bld, then 150 ft + 30 ft/bld, then 200 ft, then 250 ft, etc, right? I don't see a good reason for not using the normal doubling rule here, if for no other reason than to avoid confusion. I think a slightly higher range for the base ability might be apt as well - some characters can practically jump that far (and that is without invoking any of the psionic feats for jumping far, which don't belong in Birthright at all, unless you want a Matrixy feel to it).

[Mark_Aurel]

Is there going to be consideration for adding new powers? Who needs to give the idea the official ok? Perhaps a poll would help. What do you guys think?

I think it would be interesting to have people submit proposed ideas (on the forum so everybody can see and give feedback). That way the developers can get more imput and add what they think will work the best.

Feel free to run a poll if you like - that's what the ability to do so is there for, after all - just try not to put any bias in the basic poll questions. :) Of course, no poll is binding, but any feedback does get listened to, considered, carefully examined and analyzed, and deliberated upon.

[Mark_Aurel]

Essentially the whole Bloodline Point system was an extension of that basic
premise; that blood abilities should scale all the way up and and the way
down. In fiddling around with such things I found the minor, major and
great categories to be too broad a grouping in order to reflect the
permutations possible.

The way you made blood abilities customizable and scaling was the thing that I liked the most about your proposal. While I tend to agree with Rahvin that it isn't entirely apt to have all blood abilities scale equally in all directions, you nevertheless articulated one of the essential ideas and improvements made in 3e over previous editions - that of choice and customizability.

[geeman]

3 +0200, Mark_Aural wrote:



> You mean 100 ft +20 ft/bld, then 150 ft + 30 ft/bld, then 200 ft, then

> 250 ft, etc, right? I don`t see a good reason for not using the normal

> doubling rule here, if for no other reason than to avoid confusion.



I used the doubling effect ( 50 to 100 then 200 (then 400)) because it gets

one closer to the range of the standard Dimension Door spell is 400 ft + 40

ft per level sooner. Using 50 ft increments would require spending 7BP to

reach the power of the 4th level spell--too expensive comparted to other

enhancements.



>I think a slightly higher range for the base ability might be apt as well

>- some characters can practically jump that far (and that is without

>invoking any of the psionic feats for jumping far, which don`t belong in

>Birthright at all, unless you want a Matrixy feel to it).



Yeah, one could start it off at 100, or the power could kick in at the 3rd

BP spent on the base power. Or both. That would make sense since the 4th

level spell does have a "conditional use" based on access to shadows and a

more limited range, so it would balance pretty well, and could eliminate

the somewhat redundant AC dodge bonuses at the current 2nd and 3rd BP of

the base power.



> The way you made blood abilities customizable and scaling was the thing

> that I liked the most about your proposal. While I tend to agree with

> Rahvin that it isn`t entirely apt to have all blood abilities scale

> equally in all directions, you nevertheless articulated one of the

> essential ideas and improvements made in 3e over previous editions - that

> of choice and customizability.



Thanks. That was one of the overall goals. Nice to hear it worked out

that way.



Gary

[Ariadne]

Originally posted by Nightmare@Aug 15 2003, 08:33 AM
Option A: Add a new skill called: Use Blood Ability (or something to that effect). Each blood ability has a rank, which can be increased by spending points. Some blood abilities are considered automatic and does not require a check. Depending on the rank of the ability and the result of the check, the abilities result may vary greatly.

Option B: Consider the blood abilities to function like skills. You buy ranks in your blood abilities (those that are not considered automatic) and each time you wish to invoke a blood ability, you make a blood ability check. This check would something like 1D20 + Blood ability rank + bloodline score modifier.
The result depends on what the check is.
In the 3.5 Edition they want to "focus" on fewer, but more general skills. Wotc has killed several skills, like innuendo, read lips and intuite direction. Creating new skills for bloodlines (and even for evry blood ability its own) is in contrary to this. Further a rogue will be always better in his blood abilities than a "standard" fighter (with int 10 or less). IMO a bit unfair...

[Birthright-L]

blood abilities customizable and scaling was the thing that I liked the most about your proposal. While I tend to agree with Rahvin that it isn`t entirely apt to have all blood abilities scale equally in all directions, you nevertheless articulated one of the essential ideas and improvements made in 3e over previous editions - that of choice and customizability.





I want to note here that my objection was more to the objection to the

nature of taking such a poll rather than to the actual system proposed. My

vote`s for the BP system all the way, and I definitely think we should all

feel free to collaberate on new blood abilities, enhancements, and effects

rather than just being limited to what`s in the original rulebooks.



But I still hold my two particular examples; I don`t think we need a "great"

version of heightened perception (though the option of just continually

adding more enhancements seems desireable). Likewise, I don`t like the idea

of a minor version of Travel. Gary suggested this would be treated as

improved marching ability, increased movement rate, and so on, and these

just sound like two entirely different powers to me.



-Lord Rahvin

[Osprey]

But I still hold my two particular examples; I don`t think we need a "great"
version of heightened perception (though the option of just continually
adding more enhancements seems desireable). Likewise, I don`t like the idea
of a minor version of Travel. Gary suggested this would be treated as
improved marching ability, increased movement rate, and so on, and these
just sound like two entirely different powers to me.


I'd have to agree with this one. Anyone who's used monks in detailed tactical comabat knows how potent increased movement can be - hardly a minor effect, IMO.

Travel was always meant to be a form of long-distance Teleport under specific conditions dictated by one's Bloodline Derivation. Trying to make weaker versions of this (like Dimension Door) under those same conditions would render the power near-useless.

Using the above example, I think it's clear that there are some powers that are worked out pretty well as they now stand. Not everything needs endless variations and scales of power. The only variable in Travel was how many times per week it could be used based on character level. Spending BP's for extra uses seems fine, but I think the conditional limiters (like bodies of water for Masela, roads for Brenna, etc.) should remain. I've always thought that was a distinctly neat aspect of that power.

In general, however, I do agree that many of the powers could be scaled to various levels for most scions, and I do like the idea of a system that's opened up for larger variety and customization. I agree that this is in keeping with the 3e changes and modular approach (and the improvements in 3e were the reason I got back into D&D, in all honesty).

Personally, I have no problems with Heightened Senses gaining more range, accuity (adding to Spot / Listen checks, for example), etc. as BP are spent (or as a Great version of the power, depending on the final system adopted). I always thought that classifying the power as a Major ability was a bit harsh, considering that nonhumans get things like Darkvision or acute senses without an ECL adjustment (in addition to other racial abilites).

-Osprey

[geeman]

3 +0200, Osprey wrote:



>Travel was always meant to be a form of long-distance Teleport under

>specific conditions dictated by one`s Bloodline Derivation.



It was but I think that`s mostly because there was no minor or major

aspects of the blood ability. I`m not 100% happy with my BP write up for

that particular blood ability, but in general I like the idea that "Travel"

is more of a theme of the blood ability having to do with that term in its

more general definition rather than the specific ability to teleport under

particular conditions. In order to reflect that kind of thing it needs to

scale down to more mundane things like movement rate or whatever.



Very few of the blood abilities scale up and down, but there`s nothing

particularly exclusive about any of them. Scaling some of them all the way

up and down was a bit brain-bruising in a couple of cases, but it turned

out they were all doable.



Thematically, there`s also an issue with the more delineated nature of BP

in that giving a character who would normally have a minor and a major

blood ability could mean giving them as many as 9 BP. That is, such a

scion would have 9 BP dolled out to him rather than Power A and Power

B. Without scaling the powers up there`s the possibility of a scion having

as many as 9 blood abilities. I don`t think it`d really be a problem for

such a character to exist, but it was demonstrably different from the

original text, so scaled blood abilities means a limitation can be set on

the number of blood abilities a scion might have without having him "waste"

BP because his maximum number of them has been reached. A carefully

designed system could deal with this issue, but I found the scaling up

easier to deal with than making sure the table from which BP were assigned

was exact.



>Trying to make weaker versions of this (like Dimension Door) under those

>same conditions would render the power near-useless.



I`d use the example of the Animal Affinity blood ability (one of the more

interesting ones IMO) in which the power of the ability scales up in two

regards; locating/communicating with the target animal, and gaining their

aid. The powers scale up to the point that he can see through their eyes

and speak with them directly, even change into the shape of the totem

animal eventually.



> Using the above example, I think it`s clear that there are some powers

> that are worked out pretty well as they now stand. Not everything needs

> endless variations and scales of power. The only variable in Travel was

> how many times per week it could be used based on character

> level. Spending BP`s for extra uses seems fine, but I think the

> conditional limiters (like bodies of water for Masela, roads for Brenna,

> etc.) should remain. I`ve always thought that was a distinctly neat

> aspect of that power.



I`d definitely agree with that. Those conditions were as much

characterizations as limitations, and as such doubly cool. Gotta keep the

limitations.



>Personally, I have no problems with Heightened Senses gaining more range,

>accuity (adding to Spot / Listen checks, for example), etc. as BP are

>spent (or as a Great version of the power, depending on the final system

>adopted). I always thought that classifying the power as a Major ability

>was a bit harsh, considering that nonhumans get things like Darkvision or

>acute senses without an ECL adjustment (in addition to other racial abilites).



I think that`s an accurate assessment. I found that in several cases I had

to add more "active" powers to that blood ability in order to scale it

up. That is, a character who got low-light vision eventually got a bonus

to dex or something, making the power quite different from the original

version. However, I don`t think it was very different than the scale of

the Animal Affinity blood ability what goes from sensing and empathizing

with animals to shapeshifting into them.



Gary

[RaspK_FOG]

TO Gary: Really cool! ;) Very nice proposals overall.

Say, people, do you think we should start such a poll? I am in!

[Cinder]

Hey Gary, those are pretty slick ideas. The BP system would definitely offer the joy of selection to the players, allowing them to further customize (options are good!). To your "potential" issue of a character having too many powers....


Thematically, there`s also an issue with the more delineated nature of BP in that giving a character who would normally have a minor and a major blood ability could mean giving them as many as 9 BP. That is, such a scion would have 9 BP dolled out to him rather than Power A and Power B. Without scaling the powers up there`s the possibility of a scion having as many as 9 blood abilities. I don`t think it`d really be a problem for such a character to exist, but it was demonstrably different from the original text, so scaled blood abilities means a limitation can be set on the number of blood abilities a scion might have without having him "waste" BP because his maximum number of them has been reached. A carefully designed system could deal with this issue, but I found the scaling up easier to deal with than making sure the table from which BP were assigned was exact.

I think this issue can be solved by simply adding an initial cost. The gain the power an initial points value must be paid, for example, to gain the first step in the Shadow Jaunt ability the character must pay 3 points, not just one. Subsiquent increments are only 1 point making it more likely that players will increase the potency of a few powers rather than purchase a whole bunch. This eliminates the necessity of placing arbitrary limits on the numbers of powers. More potent powers could have a higher initial cost making them less of an "automatic" consideration (If you REALLY want this good power you must pay more for it). Likewise, less potent powers could have lower initial costs making them (possibly) more common. Another variable could be adjusting the cost of each power increment. These steps could help regulate the powers and add depth as well, though they will add some complexity to the system. Though I don't believe adding an initial cost would complicate things really at all..... What do you guys think? Geeman?

I definitely think a poll is in order.... I will start it (if I'm capable...)

[Cinder]

Well I started the poll, it's real basic and doesn't cover Geeman's suggestions. I thought we should see where we stand with the basic ideas first before pushing into voting on the mechanics. Well, what are you waiting for? VOTE!

[Cinder]

Hey GEEMAN, what do you think of my suggestion (2 posts up)? What about the rest of you?

[geeman]

At 11:07 AM 8/18/2003 +0200, Cinder wrote:



>Hey GEEMAN, what do you think of my suggestion (2 posts up)? What about

>the rest of you?



The first draft of the BP system had blood abilities in which some of the

base powers or enhancements cost 2 or even 3BP. I found, however, that

making the base powers, enhancements or reductions to the blood abilities

cost more than 1BP wound up making the system a bit hard to implement. In

particular, the issue of raising one`s blood abilities as one`s bloodline

increased became somewhat unwieldy, as did the problem with players wanting

to save a point during character generation in anticipation of gaining more

later. I found it problematic in two senses. First, from a DMing

standpoint, it throws off assigning an ECL for bloodline a bit by giving a

character the _ability_ to have an ability (if you will) but because he`s

not spent the point yet he doesn`t actually have that ability, so the ECL

that he has doesn`t actually manifest. Second, (and this one sounds a bit

silly but I found it to be true) the simple idea of saving a BP is somewhat

odd in implementation. For the same reasons one wants players to fill

their feat slots and spend their skill points when they level up one also

wants them to spend their BP. It just cuts down on the amount of

accounting and retroactive character design that goes on. Since one`s

bloodline only increases very slowly it`s easy to forget one is storing a

BP in the first place, so when bloodline does increase the player forgets

about the point held in reserve.



Other folks might have more success implementing 2+ BP powers and

enhancements than I did, but for the purpose of a basic system I think

going with a 1 point increment is more practical.



Gary

[Cinder]

Ahhh, I see what you're saying. It would fit the system better to have the players spend there BPs right away. For simplicity, I can agree with that. For discussion's sake I will play the Devil's Advocate.

I don't think saving points is a terrible problem, however. The player should be keeping track of the numbers of BPs anyway, noting unspent points isn't that hard (a BR specific character sheet could have a specific spot for it). The BP system is already outside of the skills/feats system as it is not level/class dependent. I think functionality is more important than making it match any particular system. Do note that I haven't actually playtested any of this, and this is all just intellectual speculation. So take it for what it's worth.

As far as potential ECLs are concerned, the players make their own decisions. They will know what they're giving up and what they have to gain. Saving points isn't necessarily going to wreck the ECL approach, hell the ECL system is based on "use your best judgement." The potential will eventually materialize, and if it doesn't, so what? The player decided to take a chance at a specific/better power. They take a chance everytime they pick a feat, increase a skill, and place ability attributes. Now don't get me wrong, I do believe in making things as balanced as they can be. But how exactly equal are the various blood powers? It all depends on the campaign being run and the DM's and players' tastes in particular.

With all that said, I do think that simplicity is the key. One for one is nicely simple and I like that. So, what I would suggest to curb the "taking a ton of low end powers" is to either make the first step of a power really weak or place a cap on numbers of powers a scion can know (which would be based on bloodline strength) similar to a sorcerer's "number of spells known." Thanks for reading and what do you think?

[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> Without scaling the powers up there`s the possibility of a scion

> having as many as 9 blood abilities. I don`t think it`d really be a

> problem for such a character to exist, but it was demonstrably

> different from the original text,



The interesting thing is that while it is certainly different from the

rules, it is fairly consistent with the published NPCs, many of whom have

a large number of quite minor blood abilities. If greater flexibility

means more small effects of bloodline rather than fewer larger ones, that

sound fine to me. That said, I also really like the finer scaling you`ve

introduced.



> I found that in several cases I had to add more "active" powers to

> that blood ability in order to scale it up. That is, a character who

> got low-light vision eventually got a bonus to dex or something,

> making the power quite different from the original version. However,

> I don`t think it was very different than the scale of the Animal

> Affinity blood ability what goes from sensing and empathizing with

> animals to shapeshifting into them.



I think it`s definitely consistent, and a very good idea as well.





Ryan Caveney

[geeman]

At 07:02 PM 8/27/2003 -0400, Ryan Caveney wrote:



> > Without scaling the powers up there`s the possibility of a scion

> > having as many as 9 blood abilities. I don`t think it`d really be a

> > problem for such a character to exist, but it was demonstrably

> > different from the original text,

>

>The interesting thing is that while it is certainly different from the

>rules, it is fairly consistent with the published NPCs, many of whom have

>a large number of quite minor blood abilities.



This is definitely an interesting thing about how they actually wrote up

certain NPCs. For the most part, however, I found it was the awnsheghlien

who had more blood abilities than their bloodline would allow even if they

had rolled perfectly on Table 12. Most notable is possibly the White Witch

who has five blood abilities (1 great, 3 major, 1 minor) with a bloodline

score of minor, 20. That`s pretty much the justification for the

awnsheghlien "prestige class" granting additional BP.



Other than awnsheghlien are there particular NPCs that you`re thinking of here?



Gary

[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> Other than awnsheghlien are there particular NPCs that you`re thinking

> of here?



OK, I stand corrected. I`ve gone through all my BR books, and found 124

NPCs who have their blood abilities listed and aren`t awnsheghlien. None

of them have too many blood abilities for their bloodline score. Many are

maxed out, and the average seems distinctly higher than randomly rolling

on the table would give, but certainly not impossible. I suppose I just

hadn`t grasped how many blood abilities you can have even with a fairly

low bloodline score; for example, with just a 36, you can have a minor,

two majors and two greats (but only one such scion in 200,000 will roll

so well).



However, of the 29 awnsheghlien with listed blood abilities, 21 (72%) have

too many blood abilities. Several of them with minor or major bloodlines

also have Major Resistance to Magic, which is supposed to be restricted

only to those of great or true bloodline strength.



The White Witch at 20 with 2/2/1 would need a 36 to qualify for her blood

abilities, but she is not the worst offender. That honor goes to the Hag,

with a bloodline score of 39, and eight blood abilities, five of them

great. Looking at table 12 on page 22, we see that there is *no*

bloodline score which allows you to have more than seven blood abilities,

at most four of them great. Runners-up are the Minotaur (36, 3/3/2), the

Serpent (77, 1/2/5) and the Magian (44, 1/1/5). Now, the Gorgon has eight

blood abilities, six of them great, but if you imagine extrapolating the

table up to a bloodline score of 200 or so, I don`t really see a problem

with that. So yes, there does seem to be ample evidence for allowing

awnsheghlien to have more blood abilities than normal scions of their

bloodline score could. It`s not just the fault of the authors of Blood

Enemies, since Tara the Black Princess (from PS Tuarhievel) and the Spider

and Gorgon (from the original boxed set) are among the offenders. The

Leviathan and the Seadrake are both given many fewer than they seem to

deserve, however -- is there some bias against sea monsters?





Ryan Caveney

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>

Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 2:44 PM





> but only one such scion in 200,000 will roll so well).



Certainly true if characters are generated at random (as some PC`s are), but

I prefer to imagine that what has happened is that as scions dilute their

bloodlines, they tend to retain their ancestoral blood abilities until their

blood strength cannot sustain them. So I would expect that the families

portrayed are old declining families, not new rising families. This makes

sense politically.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> I prefer to imagine that what has happened is that as scions dilute

> their bloodlines, they tend to retain their ancestoral blood abilities

> until their blood strength cannot sustain them. So I would expect

> that the families portrayed are old declining families, not new rising

> families. This makes sense politically.



Yes, that would make a great deal of sense. In fact, on that

recommendation I`d have no trouble going back through the list and giving

more to those who seem to have lost out. Rjurik scions in particular seem

to be quite short of blood abilities -- most harshly done by is poor Sketa

of Aandvjor, a candidate for queen with a major bloodline, but no blood

abilites at all! I am quite happy to adopt this idea IMG.



Even if one were to generate all scions randomly (which I don`t think

should be done, but even so), it still wouldn`t follow that the hundred

scions given detailed profiles in the books out of the tens or hundreds of

thousands of total scions who inhabit Cerilia ought to be a representative

sample -- in fact, I`d argue that having more blood abilities than average

would tend to make a scion more likely to rise to the kind of prominence

necessary to be mentioned in one of the books.





Ryan Caveney

[geeman]

At 08:10 PM 8/30/2003 -0500, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> > but only one such scion in 200,000 will roll so well).

>

>Certainly true if characters are generated at random (as some PC`s are), but

>I prefer to imagine that what has happened is that as scions dilute their

>bloodlines, they tend to retain their ancestoral blood abilities until their

>blood strength cannot sustain them. So I would expect that the families

>portrayed are old declining families, not new rising families. This makes

>sense politically.



Just for the sake of nonesuch numerical nonsense: If there are four

generations per century and there have been an average of 5,000 scions per

generation then since Deismaar there have been 4x15x5,000=300,000

scions. Give or take a few tens of thousands, of course.



Anyway, in general, I don`t tend to favor random bloodline

generation. It`s too... well, random--which makes little sense in the

context of the survival of the fittest after sixty odd generations, the

mingling of godly powers over that time, and any suppositions one might

make (as I do) regarding bloodlines being a tool of some unknown/unrealized

power that guides the fate of Cerilian politics be it called the Land`s

Choice, Gaia or the DM. More intent in character development and design is

IMO a better way to go. Provided that a "responsible min/maxing" approach

is employed, that is. Random tables may make character generation more

exciting, but they don`t necessarily lend themselves to good character design.



In dealing with the declination of bloodlines through the generations, one

could certainly view the "weakening" as being something that is a product

of weakening bloodline strength values rather than bad rolls on the Blood

Ability table. It`s easier, I think, to describe that using the BP system

since the blood abilities are more articulated in those descriptions....



Gary

[QuestingMage]

ryancaveney wrote:
-- is there some bias against sea monsters?

Help&#33; Help&#33; Ahm bein&#39; o&#39;ppresed&#33;
<glug glug glug>
LOL&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol:

[ryancaveney]

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> there have been an average of 5,000 scions per generation



Where does this come from? You`re one of very few people I can think of

who are as obsessed with accurate large-scale Cerilian demographics as I

am, so I would very much like to hear the reasoning that went into this

number. My personal inclination would be to make the number much higher,

by a factor of ten at least.



> Anyway, in general, I don`t tend to favor random bloodline generation.

> It`s too... well, random--which makes little sense in the context of

> the survival of the fittest after sixty odd generations,



I quite agree. The only reason I`m interested in the random generation

table is that it`s the only guide we have to the statistical population

distribution of blood abilities. Of all the scions of Anduiras on the

continent, how many of them have Battlewise? That`s the kind of question

which leads me to study the random table. I certainly don`t think they

actually happen randomly from generation to generation within a family.

I just want global relative frequency data.



> Random tables may make character generation more exciting, but they

> don`t necessarily lend themselves to good character design.



I definitely think random character generation is bad. The probabilites

from the tables I no longer use directly are still interesting, though. =)





Ryan Caveney

[kgauck]

Gary wrote:

> > Anyway, in general, I don`t tend to favor random bloodline generation.

> > It`s too... well, random--which makes little sense in the context of

> > the survival of the fittest after sixty odd generations,



Ryan replied:

> I quite agree. The only reason I`m interested in the random generation

> table is that it`s the only guide we have to the statistical population

> distribution of blood abilities.



Unfortunatly my method for demograpgic analysis produces a significant

variation from the tables. Its possible to save appearances (one of my

favorite phrases from the history of science) by imagining that there are

lost of unattached scions running around with no connection to the land, but

I am not so sure.



My method was genological. I populate the game world with existing nobles

(most of my website consists of this) then I begin to trace their

geneologies, because familial relationships (inter and intra, cordial and

rival) add another layer to politics. My main observation is this, based on

many hundred of individual choices each attempting to maximize the

bloodlines of their offspring, you can with great effort maintain the blood

strength of your first several children, but large families almost always

mean diluting the blood. Further, historcial accidents work against the

continuity of blood strength (to say nothing of derivation). Anything that

will tend to create the conditions which inhibit another family from

desiring an alliance with yours puts you in bloodline jeopardy. In a world

in which your rivals for offices, titles, incomes, privledges, and

opportunity are also the same people you must ally with to advance your

bloodline, there is a tension between cooperation and competition, and

disequalibrium tends much more to produce diluted bloodlines than anything

else. This is of course because the only source for greater blood power is

heroic adventure, while there remains a huge pool of unblooded people, who

might offer advantages to a family (especially if married to younger

children) who will cut the bloodline of the offspring in half in the next

generation. Without commoners and heros, total bloodstrength is a zero sum

game. Circumstances must dictate that there are many more marriages to

commoners (wealthy ones) than there are heros who raise the bloodlines by

great deeds.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[geeman]

At 12:54 AM 9/7/2003 -0400, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:



> > there have been an average of 5,000 scions per generation

>

>Where does this come from? You`re one of very few people I can think of

>who are as obsessed with accurate large-scale Cerilian demographics as I

>am, so I would very much like to hear the reasoning that went into this

>number. My personal inclination would be to make the number much higher,

>by a factor of ten at least.



It`s not based on anything particularly solid. I just rounded the

"average" of 6-8,000 down to a number that would make for easier

math.... Depending on which numbers one uses the population represented by

province levels comes out to something like 6 or 8 million people. The

number of scions that I find the easiest use is that they represent 1 in

1,000 of the overall population. I rounded the number down to 5,000

because I generally assume that the population has been on the increase in

the past 1,500 years, which would make the total number of scions per

generation lower than the 6-8k number of "modern" Cerilia bringing down the

"average" for the purpose of that little anecdotal bit.



A region with the size and technology of Cerilia should probably have a

population more in the range of 20 to 30 million, but c`est la vie.



>The only reason I`m interested in the random generation

>table is that it`s the only guide we have to the statistical population

>distribution of blood abilities. Of all the scions of Anduiras on the

>continent, how many of them have Battlewise? That`s the kind of question

>which leads me to study the random table. I certainly don`t think they

>actually happen randomly from generation to generation within a family.

>I just want global relative frequency data.



That`s an interesting point. The distribution of the blood abilities is

something that makes those tables part of an overall demographic. It begs

two questions; "which are the more `typical` blood abilities?" and "how

much more likely are they?"



Gary

[ryancaveney]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> Unfortunatly my method for demograpgic analysis produces a significant

> variation from the tables.



I like your way better -- I suspect you`ve put a good deal more thought

into your approach than did whoever made up the numbers in the existing

tables. If you have a better guideline than the rulebook, I`m all for it.



> I begin to trace their geneologies, because familial relationships

> (inter and intra, cordial and rival) add another layer to politics.



Very much so! This should definitely be a bigger part of Birthright.

There is a lot of good detail on building and running a strong domain, but

there is far too little information on "building and running" a strong

family to inherit it from you.



> My main observation is this, based on many hundred of individual

> choices each attempting to maximize the bloodlines of their offspring,

> you can with great effort maintain the blood strength of your first

> several children, but large families almost always mean diluting the

> blood.



I don`t see why this should be so. If one parent`s bloodline is much

higher than the other`s, bloodline investiture could make the one most

favored child maintain the bloodline -- but I don`t see why there`s a

difference between two kids and twenty. In fact, I would think it could

mean the reverse of diluting the blood -- an Avan (70) and a Dosiere (64)

would have children with a bloodline of 67. Having lots of these and

marrying them off into every realm in Anuire would substantially increase

everyone else`s bloodlines, and thus the overall average. It would also

turn every realm ruler in the next generation into a scion of Anduiras,

which I`m sure Haelyn`s temples would like. Though it would increase the

power of the other realms and thus diminish Avan`s advantage over them, it

would also provide a much stronger pool of marriage candidates for the

next generation, and would put everyone else in his debt.



> Further, historcial accidents work against the continuity of blood

> strength (to say nothing of derivation).



Do you mean that families die out over time? That random events can cause

blood score loss? Something else? I`d like a bit more detail here.



> Anything that will tend to create the conditions which inhibit another

> family from desiring an alliance with yours puts you in bloodline

> jeopardy.



One of the great questions of Anuirean family politics is how the Avans

and Boeruines maintain bloodlines distinctly higher than anyone else`s

without having to marry each other exclusively! Who else is out there

with bloodlines of 60-70, (Caliedhe Dosiere) or is it all done with

bloodline investiture? If so, loss of the one 70 in a family of 50s

(looking at the other rulers of Anuire, marriage with a 30 seems pretty

likely, with up to mid 40s possible) could set the family back a huge pile

of RP. However, many of the NPCs in the books don`t seem to follow the

rule. The children of Hierl Diem, Daeric Mhoried and Darien Avan are all

listed (2 in RoE, the last in Sword and Crown) as having exactly the same

bloodline score as their fathers. How can this be? Are these families

following pharaonic practice and engaging routinely in incestous marriage?

Or did someone just forget how the rule works?



> Without commoners and heros, total bloodstrength is a zero sum game.



This is not precisely true. Most importantly, you can generate bloodline

strength points out of thin air merely by having lots of children. If

Avan has 20 illegitimate children by commoners, that creates twenty new

Anduiras, great, 35 bloodlines in Avanil`s next generation! With this

kind of thing possible, I actually find it difficult to see why, sixty

generations of philandering noblemen after Deismaar, it isn`t the case

that *most* people in Cerilia are blooded! Yes, blooded scions need to

worry about additional selection pressures (being hunted for bloodtheft

or hunted as potential rebels or pretenders to the throne), but the blood

abilities they gain are often very useful in day-to-day life. I would

suspect that unless there is some aspect of magical biology which

specifically limits scion fertility, the tendency would be for blooded

people to survive better than their unblooded neighbors, and thus

gradually increase as a proportion of the population over time.



To be sure, in a closed system of scions interacting only by marriage, no

one will ever end up higher than the initial high score or lower than the

initial low one (indeed, each generation must remain within the bounds set

by the previous one; this is why having a zero in the mix would indeed

seem likely to drag everything down), but depending on which families have

more children, and whether some families are unable to find marriage

partners for their children, the average blood score of the group can tend

to any point within the initial range. As an illustration, extend the

"everyone marries an Avan" example above. The top score drops from 70 to

67 (barring incest, which by this calculation does seem to make good sense

for the most powerful Cerilian families; bloodline investiture helps a

little -- it`s slow, but can actually draw everyone up to the maximum over

time), but the bottom one rises from 17 to 43, or more if the lowest few

families cannot find mates and thus die off. The average bloodline score

of the regents would rise from 39 to 53. The average bloodline score of

all blooded scions in the group would depend on exactly which families had

more children than others; this could be substantially different from the

regent average in either direction. Also, note that the spread is so

large that commoners may not be such a problem: 9 of Anuire`s 22 regents

of human realms have lower bloodlines than would the child of Avan and a

commoner.



> Circumstances must dictate that there are many more marriages to

> commoners (wealthy ones) than there are heros who raise the bloodlines

> by great deeds.



Agreed. But as this continues to happen over a long enough time, it is

distinctly possible (I think quite likely) that you also end up with the

middle class composed mostly of people with (minor) bloodlines themselves.



Also, I think the single most interesting sentence in the rulebook (in

terms of unrealized implications) is this one, from page 29:



Similarly, if a blooded mother becomes the Great High Queen

after her daughter`s birth, the mother`s increase in bloodline

does not increase the daughter`s strength.



Note the word "increase". It seems to treat such an upward change of

status as directly causing a significant positive change to the bloodline.

As a source of possible rules implementations of this, I like to look at

the rules for Regency losses on page 48. If failure to respond to events

causes a bloodline loss, why should gaining a resounding success in

dealing with one not be worth a few extra bonus bloodline points? More

mechanically, since every holding lost loses you a blood point and every

province lost loses you 1d3 (I prefer a flat 3), why should the side

gaining those provinces by investiture not gain 1 to 3 bloodline points

for each new holding or province?



The one part of this it`s a bit unclear on how to manage is children:

should the same family continue to have its bloodline score go up upon

every investiture of a child with same the holdings its parent had at its

birth? I tend to say no, for the same reason that I prefer the Gorgon not

to be able to gain thousands of bloodline strength points just by sitting

at home and harvesting his own children with his tighmaevril weapons.

The idea here is that to increase one`s patrimony (the highest goal of any

medieval nobleman) is the clearest way to demonstrate one`s divine right

to rule, and as such should be reflected in the power of one`s blood tie

to the land.





Ryan Caveney

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>

Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 2:01 PM





I wrote:

> > My main observation is this, based on many hundred of individual

> > choices each attempting to maximize the bloodlines of their offspring,

> > you can with great effort maintain the blood strength of your first

> > several children, but large families almost always mean diluting the

> > blood.



Ryan replied:

> I don`t see why this should be so. If one parent`s bloodline is much

> higher than the other`s, bloodline investiture could make the one most

> favored child maintain the bloodline



I don`t consider investiture, because I am only looking at bloodline by

decent. Investiture only effects one person, not the family, and it isn`t

neccesarily applied to the family. Land`s Choice is a whole other ball of

wax that might have any effect you want it to, so I don`t consider it. If

you want the land to throw up six dozen new Great bloodlines, who is to say

no?



> -- but I don`t see why there`s a difference between two kids and

> twenty. In fact, I would think it could mean the reverse of diluting

> the blood -- an Avan (70) and a Dosiere (64) would have children

> with a bloodline of 67. Having lots of these and marrying them off

> into every realm in Anuire would substantially increase

> everyone else`s bloodlines, and thus the overall average.



It doesn`t change the average, its zero sum. Twenty scions of Avan started

with twenty (70) bloolines. They marry a random selection of other blooded

nobles.

You could call this the convection of bloodline strength. The law of

conservation still applies, no new bloodstrength was created, it just moved

around. From the point of view of the lucky families marrying Avans this is

a good thing, from the point of view of the Avan`s its dilution. Its why I

describe all inter-blooded marriage as zero-sum.



> It would also turn every realm ruler in the next generation into a scion

of

> Anduiras, which I`m sure Haelyn`s temples would like.



I think if you use the two derivation system, the old bloodlines will begin

to re-assert themselves in subsequent generations. But this is why I didn`t

address derivation, only strength.



> > Further, historcial accidents work against the continuity of blood

> > strength (to say nothing of derivation).

>

> Do you mean that families die out over time? That random events can cause

> blood score loss? Something else? I`d like a bit more detail here.



Take a relatively small pool of scions, a far number of them can`t find

marriagable partners in the group. Some of these scions can be matched to

other pools (assuming that one pool`s surplus of a male can be matched to

another pool`s surplus of a female). This is why sometimes in my

geneologies I just throw in someone from far, far away. It strains

credibility to assume that all surpluses can be matched that way, so the

alternative is marrying commoners. Not the same as perpetuating the

bloodline, as I will show later.



Yes, families can die out. Branches die out all the time, when an

individual dies before having children. One of the things I do when

creating geneologies is allow for some shift of family leadership. I

generate the numbers of offspring and gender by die. A family can have few

children, too many of those children can die an early death, go childless,

be unable to marry, or a family can have all girls.



There are two different issues here regarding the loss of families. One is

loss of blood potency, and the other is that the family name becomes an

artifact, though its blood lives on. I am really only interested here in

the loss of blood potency through early death, failure to marry, marrying a

commoner, or many generations of few children.



> One of the great questions of Anuirean family politics is how the Avans

> and Boeruines maintain bloodlines distinctly higher than anyone else`s

> without having to marry each other exclusively! Who else is out there

> with bloodlines of 60-70, (Caliedhe Dosiere) or is it all done with

> bloodline investiture?



We discussed this in November of 1998, and July 2001. We were scheduled to

bring this topic up again in March of 2003, what took you so long?



> The children of Hierl Diem, Daeric Mhoried and Darien Avan are all

> listed (2 in RoE, the last in Sword and Crown) as having exactly the same

> bloodline score as their fathers. How can this be? Are these families

> following pharaonic practice and engaging routinely in incestous marriage?

> Or did someone just forget how the rule works?



I don`t stick absolutly too closely to this. The people who made the books

took almost account of family into their system and so families are more

Ptomkin constructs than they are functioning dynasties. When I encounter

this, I tend to figure I must find a wife for those rulers with as close a

bloodscore as possible, and that either there is a slight difference between

the character and their listing, or they aquired some bloodscore on their

own in heroic fashion.



> > Without commoners and heros, total bloodstrength is a zero sum game.

>

> This is not precisely true. Most importantly, you can generate bloodline

> strength points out of thin air merely by having lots of children. If

> Avan has 20 illegitimate children by commoners, that creates twenty new

> Anduiras, great, 35 bloodlines in Avanil`s next generation!



But I said "without commoners". This example uses commoners. Ultimately

examples like this fit into the same catagory as Land`s Choice. A DM

decides how much of this goes on.



> I would suspect that unless there is some aspect of magical biology

> which specifically limits scion fertility, the tendency would be for

> blooded people to survive better than their unblooded neighbors,

> and thus gradually increase as a proportion of the population over time.



The reason I take the reverse view is that low bloodlines (the low end of

tainted) are very vulnerable to bloodstrength loss. Given a population of

blacksmiths who are walking around with 4 bloodlines, how many step up to

respond to dangers threatening their community? If they shirk, that`s one

less point of blood strength. I suspect most shirk. They are blacksmiths,

not champions.



> To be sure, in a closed system of scions interacting only by marriage, no

> one will ever end up higher than the initial high score or lower than the

> initial low one, but depending on which families have more children, and

> whether some families are unable to find marriage partners for their

> children, the average blood score of the group can tend to any point

> within the initial range.



Though given a random process of selection for number of children, gender,

and age at death, given a sufficiently large population, and and multiple

generations, the tendency will be to the average.



> Agreed. But as this continues to happen over a long enough time, it is

> distinctly possible (I think quite likely) that you also end up with the

> middle class composed mostly of people with (minor) bloodlines themselves.



Tainted more than minor, and most of those I think would be lost by the

absence of action in the interest of the community.



> As a source of possible rules implementations of this, I like to look at

> the rules for Regency losses on page 48. If failure to respond to events

> causes a bloodline loss, why should gaining a resounding success in

> dealing with one not be worth a few extra bonus bloodline points? More

> mechanically, since every holding lost loses you a blood point and every

> province lost loses you 1d3 (I prefer a flat 3), why should the side

> gaining those provinces by investiture not gain 1 to 3 bloodline points

> for each new holding or province?



Agreed. I`ve long taken that possition. I also apply it to all scions

(though the stakes are not provicnes).



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[ryancaveney]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Gary wrote:



> Depending on which numbers one uses the population represented by

> province levels comes out to something like 6 or 8 million people.



That is astonishingly low. Cerilia is about a million square miles: even

having it be 60 to 80 million people total is rather low for medieval tech!



According to the system of province population I personally prefer (i.e.,

*max* level, not current level, determines the number), I make Anuire

alone about 16 million (including elves, dwarves and goblins) in 270,000

square miles for a reasonable density of 94.5 per square mile, still not

up to the France analog normally made for Anuire.



> The number of scions that I find the easiest use is that they

> represent 1 in 1,000 of the overall population.



Ah, the PS Muden figure. Why do you prefer that to the rulebook`s 1 in 100?



Putting this together with the population figures I like makes my total

scion population about a hundred times yours. Since the rulebook suggests

your population figure with my scion fraction, the number it would predict

is 10 times yours and 1/10th mine. Mind you, I`ve not worked out the

precise implications of any of these overall numbers. Shall we? =)



> I rounded the number down to 5,000 because I generally assume that the

> population has been on the increase in the past 1,500 years, which

> would make the total number of scions per generation lower than the

> 6-8k number of "modern" Cerilia bringing down the "average" for the

> purpose of that little anecdotal bit.



OK, so you`re assuming no change in the blooded fraction over the

years. Certainly the simplest, though I could see it a variety of ways.

In my model, with nearly a million blooded scions in Cerilia by 1500 HC,

and probably no more than a few thousand survivors of Deismaar, I think in

my Cerilia the fraction who are blooded has likely increased over time.



> A region with the size and technology of Cerilia should probably have a

> population more in the range of 20 to 30 million, but c`est la vie.



I`d put a pretty firm lower limit of 40 million, and a total of over 100

million would not be at all unreasonable.



> That`s an interesting point. The distribution of the blood abilities

> is something that makes those tables part of an overall demographic.

> It begs two questions; "which are the more `typical` blood abilities?"

> and "how much more likely are they?"



Well, I think "beg" is a little strong. True, going from random

generation tables to overall population distribution is an assumption, but

nonetheless taking that table at face value is the only possibility of a

canon answer to those two questions, oh "published word geek". ;)



Has anyone got a better idea?





Ryan Caveney

[ConjurerDragon]

Ryan B. Caveney schrieb:



>On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

>

...



>and Boeruines maintain bloodlines distinctly higher than anyone else`s

>without having to marry each other exclusively! Who else is out there

>with bloodlines of 60-70, (Caliedhe Dosiere) or is it all done with

>bloodline investiture? If so, loss of the one 70 in a family of 50s

>(looking at the other rulers of Anuire, marriage with a 30 seems pretty

>likely, with up to mid 40s possible) could set the family back a huge pile

>of RP. However, many of the NPCs in the books don`t seem to follow the

>rule. The children of Hierl Diem, Daeric Mhoried and Darien Avan are all

>listed (2 in RoE, the last in Sword and Crown) as having exactly the same

>bloodline score as their fathers. How can this be? Are these families

>following pharaonic practice and engaging routinely in incestous marriage?

>Or did someone just forget how the rule works?

>

>

If we assume that the listed childrens scores are correct, then we have

several ways how it could have worked.

1) The mother was much higher in bloodline score than the father making

the average of the child as high as the father.

2) The child was the child which got the full score of the mother by

bloodline investiture - perhaps it´s a custom that one of the parents

sometimes gives up his bloodline to one of the childs? The mothers of

the children are nowwhere listed in the books, right?

3) The child started with the average score and did some really heroic

things raising the score - or commited bloodtheft like mad. ;-)

bye

Michael

[ryancaveney]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> I don`t consider investiture, because I am only looking at bloodline

> by decent. Investiture only effects one person, not the family, and

> it isn`t neccesarily applied to the family.



Yes, I agree. I was just having trouble figuring out any other way for

bloodlines of the children within a family to get weaker as their number

grew. I have belately realized that what you actually mean is that too

large a family in one generation means not that its immediate members have

lowered bloodline scores, but rather that the *next* generation does: the

more kids you have, the harder it is to get well-blooded mates for them,

and thus the lower your *grandchildren*`s average bloodline score. Now

that I perceive this argument, I agree it is rather compelling. Still,

see below for how it could help, instead.



> It doesn`t change the average, its zero sum. Twenty scions of Avan

> started with twenty (70) bloolines. They marry a random selection of

> other blooded nobles.



Ah, but this is the key. If families are of varying size, the average of

the next generation can be adjusted. If the marriage selection is indeed

random, then Avan`s best plan for finding good mates is to encourage the

Mhor to have many more children than Rogr Aglondier: this is because the

overall average depends not only on each family`s score, but also on the

number of people in each family. The average bloodline score of all

blooded scions would change even without marriage just by varying the

number of children born to each family: if Boeruine has lots of children,

that will increase the average bloodline of the members of the ruling

families of Anuire. If Arron Vaumel has lots of children, that will

decrease it.



> You could call this the convection of bloodline strength. The law of

> conservation still applies, no new bloodstrength was created, it just

> moved around.



Except that this isn`t precisely true. In a closed system of bloodlines,

depending on which families are more fertile and who marries whom, it is

possible to arrange things so that after a finite number of generations

(15 should suffice for Anuire), every noble has exactly the same blood

strength, which can be any number between the lowest and the highest of

the starting range of bloodline scores! If all families are equally

fertile and marry completely randomly, then after some number of

generations everyone will have exactly the original average bloodline

score. Given random marriage but unequal fertility, the degree to which

fertility is correlated with bloodline score will determine how far and in

what direction the final average is different from the initial average.

If marriage is not random, almost anything can happen.



> From the point of view of the lucky families marrying Avans this is a

> good thing, from the point of view of the Avan`s its dilution. Its

> why I describe all inter-blooded marriage as zero-sum.



The degree of dilution depends on the pool of available partners. In the

long view, since your great-grandchildren will be marrying each other,

putting more Avans into the pool in this generation significantly improves

the marriage prospects of later generations further down the road. I

don`t know if any of the regents of Cerilia actually think this way, but

it is a plan well supported by the mathematics of bloodlines.



> I think if you use the two derivation system, the old bloodlines will

> begin to re-assert themselves in subsequent generations. But this is

> why I didn`t address derivation, only strength.



Two derivation system? Certainly, it would be a shame for all regents to

be so homogenized. That said, Anduiras and Brenna together already

account for 87% of the human realm rulers in Anuire.



> I generate the numbers of offspring and gender by die.



Would you share your table(s)?



> I am really only interested here in the loss of blood potency through

> early death, failure to marry, marrying a commoner, or many

> generations of few children.



I thought you said it was too many children which imperiled blood potency.



> We discussed this in November of 1998, and July 2001. We were scheduled

> to bring this topic up again in March of 2003, what took you so long?



*grin* But July `01 - Nov `98 is 2 years 8 months, which means the next

scheduled discussion is not until 2 years 8 months after July `01, which

is March 2004, yes? =) Mark your calendars for November 2006. ;)



> I don`t stick absolutly too closely to this. The people who made the

> books took almost account of family into their system and so families

> are more Ptomkin constructs than they are functioning dynasties.



That`s "took almost no account", yes? Sadly, I must agree.



> When I encounter this, I tend to figure I must find a wife for those

> rulers with as close a bloodscore as possible, and that either there

> is a slight difference between the character and their listing, or

> they aquired some bloodscore on their own in heroic fashion.



One question is, what do you figure the options are like for marrying

families who are blooded but are not listed in the books as regents?

What is the bloodline distribution of lower-level provincial nobles (for

example, the people who would be jarls in Anuire if they used the Rjurik

system, or even families which have sunk from realm rulership in the past

to be mere knights of a few manors) in your view? If there are really

thousands of blooded families in Anuire instead of just a few score, then

finding a mate of the same bloodline score seems more likely.



> > This is not precisely true. Most importantly, you can generate bloodline

> > strength points out of thin air merely by having lots of children. If

> > Avan has 20 illegitimate children by commoners, that creates twenty new

> > Anduiras, great, 35 bloodlines in Avanil`s next generation!

>

> But I said "without commoners". This example uses commoners.

> Ultimately examples like this fit into the same catagory as Land`s

> Choice. A DM decides how much of this goes on.



Alright, but it`s still true that the average blood score of the next

generation of all Anuirean blooded folks is strongly affected by how many

of them have Avan or Boeruine for a parent as opposed to Aglondier or

Roesone, even without any information about the blood score of the other

parent. Differential fertility can cause major shifts in averages.



> The reason I take the reverse view is that low bloodlines (the low end

> of tainted) are very vulnerable to bloodstrength loss. Given a

> population of blacksmiths who are walking around with 4 bloodlines,

> how many step up to respond to dangers threatening their community?

> If they shirk, that`s one less point of blood strength. I suspect

> most shirk. They are blacksmiths, not champions.



Aha! I had not thought of this, but it makes a great deal of sense.

This finally satisfies me as to why everyone is not blooded. Thank you!



> Though given a random process of selection for number of children,

> gender, and age at death, given a sufficiently large population, and

> and multiple generations, the tendency will be to the average.



Yes, if everything is completely random. However, I don`t think it is.

The higher the bloodline, the more money and power the family is likely to

have, and thus the more children it can afford to support and the more

likely those children will be healthy enough to breed themselves. Also,

the more powerful the family, the more likely they will be able to find

mates of good quality. Therefore I think there will be a natural upward

drift within the existing nobility which can compensate for the gradual

introduction of moderate numbers of commoners and the loss of tainted lines.



> Tainted more than minor, and most of those I think would be lost by

> the absence of action in the interest of the community.



Applying this to non-regents is certainly a very interesting proposition!





Ryan Caveney

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>

Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 10:46 AM





> Except that this isn`t precisely true. Given random marriage but

> unequal fertility, the degree to which fertility is correlated with

> bloodline score will determine how far and in what direction the

> final average is different from the initial average.



My own assumption of conservation obscured this point. You are correct:

differential fertility rates would skew the trend line in favor of the more

fertile. I just see no reason why there would be differentail fertility

rates for either high or low bloodlines (or any other group with the

possible exception of blooded as compared to unblooded, but I doubt that

too).



> If marriage is not random, almost anything can happen.



Marriage isn`t random, but I think the same self interest governs all the

parties. Everyone want to perpetuate their bloodline, extend the influence

of their dynasty, and climb the ladder of bloodline, title, and/or wealth.

But all the nobles (blooded indivdiuals) have access to sufficient networks

to marry at their level if such marriages are available.



> Two derivation system?



Keeping track of the dominant and secondary blood score, rather just the

leading score.



> Would you share your table(s)?



I use two sets. One for living generations, which are more complex, and one

for past generations, in which I fold, say number of children and chance of

death, determining only surviving children. Gender is a high-low die roll.

Surviving children is 2d6. Then I fill in the gaps to make the geneologies

look more like geneologies. I look at real ones as idea pools for things to

do.



In living generations, gender is still high-low. Their is a 40% chance for

some number of births every 5 years. Success on this roll guarantees one

birth, and leads to a (70-age) percent changce of a subsequent birth, and a

(50-age) percent chance for all subsequent births up to a maximum of four

births every five years. The chance for a child surviving to age 10 is 75%,

and the survival rate is 90% for each decade until I get to their present

age (age if alive today).



> I thought you said it was too many children which imperiled blood potency.



Too many children mean you may find some of your children unmarriagable.

Too few children means that even one early death is a serious blow.



> *grin* But July `01 - Nov `98 is 2 years 8 months, which means the next

> scheduled discussion is not until 2 years 8 months after July `01, which

> is March 2004, yes? =) Mark your calendars for November 2006. ;)



You got the joke and corrected my math. Well done.



> One question is, what do you figure the options are like for marrying

> families who are blooded but are not listed in the books as regents?

> What is the bloodline distribution of lower-level provincial nobles (for

> example, the people who would be jarls in Anuire if they used the Rjurik

> system, or even families which have sunk from realm rulership in the past

> to be mere knights of a few manors) in your view? If there are really

> thousands of blooded families in Anuire instead of just a few score, then

> finding a mate of the same bloodline score seems more likely.



I figure there are four blooded, nuclear families per province level, plus

the count/earl/graf of the province, plus any rulers who control

multi-province realms. I will end up adding a few blooded characters over

the course of a campaign.



I figure that rulers at the count/earl/graf are in the high teens or

twenties in blood strength, and they have minor bloodlines. Exceptions need

some explanation. At the lord level (there are as many lords as their are

province levels, and you can find abbots or guilders who also are at this

level in their organizations) bloodlines are tainted or minor and are in the

low teens or single digits. There are more exceptions at this level as

counts might well fill a vacancy among the lords (or if a province is ruled

up, fill a new possition) with a second son.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com