2nd/3rd edition

[NaMaN]

Is everyone here converting to 3rd edition? What about finishing everything that lacks in birthright in good old second edition, instead of starting all over? before you are finishing all the 3rd edition projects, I`m shure 4th edition is already on the market... ;)

[RaspK_FOG]

Nah... 4e will take a looot of time before hitting the market, if it does come out, that is; a nice joke, but it got a bit stale after all this comments I've heard from some insolent youths regarding 3.5e (official name, by the way, is Revised 3rd Edition), but if I go down that road it will take me a while before I cool off...

In any case, the site here is the "Official Birthright Fansite" beacuse some people (you know who you are, but I would be gald to mention your names if you so asked ;) ) wrote up a revision booklet for converting 2e Birthright to 3e. I think it is important that we finish this revision as soon as possible, so that more people will be attracted to the wonder that is Birthright.

[Ariadne]

The 4th edition will come in about two years, I think, so I’m sure we will be ready earlier ;) . If I’m right there is nearly nobody wh still plays 2nd Edition here. We normally use the rules of the BRCS as long they are fitting in the opinion of each individual DM. The rest (including conversions to 3.5 version) is made by house rules, since several things are posted twice or trice (or not at all). Other parts are ready and not accepted by every member, so everyone uses his own botched-up job of BRCS, PHB, several WotC books, mongoose and, and, and. This works fine for us...

To be honest: Getting a ready 3,5 BR rulebook made by WotC or others with no connection to BR wouldn’t make me this happy. I must say it’s cool to go for it as long as someone thinks, it fits and otherwise make his own house rules, because there isn’t still a ready “official” rulebook on the market.

[Kappenkriaucheran]

Originally posted by Ariadne@Apr 1 2004, 10:58 AM
If I’m right there is nearly nobody wh still plays 2nd Edition here.
Well, Ariadne is referring to me, I think, although I modified the system, so you could call it AD&D 2.5. ;)

[NaMaN]

Just wondering... iwhen its converted to 3rd edition, are the realm rules being remade too? Are they making more players secrets of new realms, and if they are will they be using the same type of rules conserning province taxtation, guilds, temples etc. ??

[irdeggman]

Let’s see in the BRCS-playtest there was a 1st attempt at revising the domain rules. It will be updated/revised for 3.5 – no ETA yet.

link for download (unless you check the downloads section of the Birthright.net)

http://www.birthright.net/download/brcs-playtest.zip

Here is the link to the revised Chap 2 (santioned):

http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php...e=post&id=25154 (http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=25154)

Here is the link to the revised Chap 1 (out for comment currently):

http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php...e=post&id=24889 (http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=24889)


Here is the link for the notice on the d20 Atlas project:

http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2264

You can get some more information by checking out the pinned section on the BRCS discussion site.

Hope that helps.

[Lysander]

Originally posted by Kappenkriaucheran+Apr 1 2004, 08:52 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Kappenkriaucheran &#064; Apr 1 2004, 08:52 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Ariadne@Apr 1 2004, 10:58 AM
If I’m right there is nearly nobody wh still plays 2nd Edition here.
Well, Ariadne is referring to me, I think, although I modified the system, so you could call it AD&D 2.5. ;)[/b][/quote]
:lol:

I, too, use 2E as the "core" of what I play, and call all my house-rulings and reverse-engineering accretions 2.5E ;)

Kappenkriaucheran, where do you play? My gaming group fell apart about a year to 18 months ago - I&#39;m suffering withdrawl symptoms&#33;

Lysander

[Ariadne]

Originally posted by Lysander@Apr 2 2004, 02:00 AM
Kappenkriaucheran, where do you play? My gaming group fell apart about a year to 18 months ago - I&#39;m suffering withdrawl symptoms&#33;

Lysander
I fear on the other side of the world :D

Same country as mine: Germany ;)

[Lysander]

Originally posted by Ariadne@Apr 2 2004, 06:46 AM
I fear on the other side of the world :D

Same country as mine: Germany ;)
Ah, bugger :lol:

I&#39;ve been known to travel for a game, but a trans-Atlantic flight is just a bit excessive - even if it is for a 2E game&#33; ;)

What keeps me the most grounded in 2E, though, is "Skills and Powers" - especially when I have a character concept in mind. I&#39;ve been told that 3E can do "more" than S&P for customizing, but always seems that would be possible on a 20-level progression path, not for the 1st to 5th level character (where IMHO is where the character really "comes to life")

Lysander

[Kappenkriaucheran]

Originally posted by Lysander+Apr 2 2004, 01:50 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Lysander &#064; Apr 2 2004, 01:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Ariadne@Apr 2 2004, 06:46 AM
I fear on the other side of the world* :D

Same country as mine: Germany* ;)
Ah, bugger :lol:

I&#39;ve been known to travel for a game, but a trans-Atlantic flight is just a bit excessive - even if it is for a 2E game&#33; ;)

What keeps me the most grounded in 2E, though, is "Skills and Powers" - especially when I have a character concept in mind.[/b][/quote]
Yes, I´m a native speaker of Brecht... erm, I mean German :D . But my campaign is on hold for the moment, so it wouldn´t be worth the trip to "Old Europe" ;) .

I actually based my house rules on Skills&Powers, the main difference being that characters can spend CP to learn certain new class and race abilities after 1st level, similar to 3E granting feats at different levels. For example, a halfling thief with Defense Bonus (5 CP, +1 AC) could spend 5 CP to increase his Defense Bonus to +2 AC. However, this causes players to complain that they should get more than 4 CP per level because it´s sooo expensive :lol: .

[Lysander]

Originally posted by Kappenkriaucheran@Apr 2 2004, 11:01 AM
I actually based my house rules on Skills&Powers, the main difference being that characters can spend CP to learn certain new class and race abilities after 1st level, similar to 3E granting feats at different levels. For example, a halfling thief with Defense Bonus (5 CP, +1 AC) could spend 5 CP to increase his Defense Bonus to +2 AC. However, this causes players to complain that they should get more than 4 CP per level because it´s sooo expensive :lol: .
:D

Sounds like parallel development&#33; I mostly allow character/class traits to be picked up when they fall into the "Do I really want to spend the CP now when it&#39;s not useful yet" category - such as followers.

I&#39;d be interesting to compare rules sometime. - who knows, maybe we could publish a 2.5E player&#39;s guide and slow the tide to 3E :lol: especially for players that have been at it for . . . decades (&#33;?&#33; :o )

Lysander

[Kappenkriaucheran]

Originally posted by Lysander@Apr 2 2004, 04:43 PM
I&#39;d be interesting to compare rules sometime. - who knows, maybe we could publish a 2.5E player&#39;s guide and slow the tide to 3E :lol: especially for players that have been at it for . . . decades (&#33;?&#33; :o )

Lysander

:D And while we´re at it, we could resurrect TSR and save the RPGers from wotc´s evil clutches :lol: .

Btw, my house rules have ~160 pages and are written in German, so you´d probably have to learn the language to read them, or maybe you know someone who speaks German? I doubt that Babelfish can accurately translate RPG rulebooks ;) . But if you´re interested I could email them to you, they´re ~1.2 MB in .pdf format :) .

[geeman]

At 12:04 PM 4/3/2004 +0200, Kappenkriaucheran wrote:



> Btw, my house rules have ~160 pages and are written in German, so you´d

> probably have to learn the language to read them, or maybe you know

> someone who speaks German? I doubt that Babelfish can accurately

> translate RPG rulebooks ;) .



There are a few folks who speak German (or similar languages) in the BR

community. I`m afraid, my German is quite rusty, though I can usually get

the gist of a text in German. I haven`t done much conjugating lately, so

any response is going to be auf Englisch. Man, just that gave me

flashbacks... die, der, der, die....



>But if you´re interested I could email them to you, they´re ~1.2 MB in

>.pdf format :) .



Something about BR just seems to attract the game rule tweakers.... Nice

to know that tendency transcends the language. Perhaps you could post to a

web page or break it up into smaller chunks? (At least those with BR

relevance, that is.)



Gary

[Lysander]

Originally posted by Kappenkriaucheran@Apr 3 2004, 05:04 AM
:D And while we´re at it, we could resurrect TSR and save the RPGers from wotc´s evil clutches :lol: .

Btw, my house rules have ~160 pages and are written in German, so you´d probably have to learn the language to read them, or maybe you know someone who speaks German? I doubt that Babelfish can accurately translate RPG rulebooks ;) . But if you´re interested I could email them to you, they´re ~1.2 MB in .pdf format :) .
Save &#39;em from the wizards? Absolutely&#33;

160 pages? :blink: I&#39;m not sure how much mine cover; a number are scribbled notes (including the one I&#39;m still trying to decipher: it&#39;s a postit note that I assume ended up on the wrong page of S&P - it has an arrow, and the words "No, 120" beside it&#33;), a few are email discussions with my old group (we all DM&#39;ed - One did Greyhawk, one did F.R. and Mystara, one did Ravenloft, I did BR and F.R. - you knew which world you were in by who was sitting behing the screen, grinning evilly :ph34r: ) and some, unfortunately scattered to the four winds when my folks decided to clean out the storage area some 10 years ago ( :blink: ) between my university days and when I was in Australia.

Mein Deutsch is nicht so gut. ;) I haven&#39;t studied it in almost 10 years, but when I was in Australia, they had a foreign language channel - by the time the German movies were over, I was no longer reading the subtitles. Of course, within 10 minutes after that my German was still horrible&#33; (Why was I watching that channel? Well, no offense to the Aussies, but it was better than what was on some of the other channels&#33; :lol: )

Lysander

[AngriestAngel]

Hehe, German TV better than other TV? cannot believe it, but cannot compare it too ;-) atm i have no TV and have to admit, that I dont miss my old friend&#33; nice that some Germans are on this page- nobody of you lives near Mannheim hm? I have no group but in my last we played with 2e rules + some modifications. Now I have no motivation to learn 3e rules (and maybe i`m a little bit oldfashioned :-))

[Kappenkriaucheran]

I think I´ve never met a DM who didn´t use some sort of house rules :lol: .

I´ll upload the document in the next few days, then I´ll post the link here.
IMO it´s a rather complex text, but I´ll wish you good luck and a good dictionary in case you´re out of practice. Btw my English is a bit rusty, too :rolleyes: .

Just in case you wondered about those 160 pages ;) , my house rules are more like a translation of the BR rules, plus my modifications which are found throughout the text. The document has a format similar to Skills&Powers; it has 14 chapters plus an appendix (spell lists with german and english spell names, abbreviations) and bookmarks for a quick overview. (On a side note, the document doesn´t include my DM-only house rules on poisons, level draining, NPC priesthoods etc. I haven´t completed them yet and they´re still in .doc format. Maybe I´ll upload them later as .pdf).

Hmmm no, German TV is just as bad as any other TV :P . Mannheim isn´t too far away from me <-- Zweibrücken, Pfalz B) ... "nur" 120 km, hehe.

[RaspK_FOG]

I have never seen Skills & Powers; since I am seriously going to design a new system at some point that will use skills for almost everything (with checks being made on a d6 [1d6 - 1 + Skill Proficiency gives a range of Skill Proficiency to Skill Proficiency + 5, which I find tantalising as an idea&#33; :) ), I would like some comments and or ideas. However, I would prefer it that you send me such information (if you actually do :lol: ) via email:

My email is: RaspK_FOG@Yahoo.gr

[Lysander]

Originally posted by RaspK_FOG@Apr 3 2004, 07:42 PM
I have never seen Skills & Powers; since I am seriously going to design a new system at some point that will use skills for almost everything (with checks being made on a d6 [1d6 - 1 + Skill Proficiency gives a range of Skill Proficiency to Skill Proficiency + 5, which I find tantalising as an idea&#33; :) ), I would like some comments and or ideas. However, I would prefer it that you send me such information (if you actually do :lol: ) via email:

My email is: RaspK_FOG@Yahoo.gr
RaspK_FOG -

I haven&#39;t read all the pages of this site to see if it&#39;s identical to the published book, as opposed to house-rule modifications. I&#39;d start by checking this out: Skills and Powers on the Web (http://pjotr.kgb.cz/knihy/skills/). While I like having electronic versions (they make editing easy for house-rules :D ) nothing beats having the book in hand IMHO. Ebay sells quite a bit of them, and there are sellers that ship worldwide. (Some don&#39;t, but I&#39;m near Washington, DC, and have bought from various places in the UK on eBay. I think the only thing I don&#39;t have of Birthright is the Conspectus - and it&#39;s all purchased through eBay.)

On a quick eBay search, I searched for AD&D Skills (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2 F&krd=1&from=R8&MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=AD%26D+Skills) - the first Item when I did the search had the "Buy it now" active for &#036;7.95 (USD), 17 hours remaining from *now* (being 1am Eastern Standard Time in the US - Daylight savings time starts in 1 hour) and ships worldwide - and no, I&#39;m not the seller. :lol:

Somewhere on backup CD I have a PDF of S&P, which I can try to find.

One of the best examples of S&P with a character that I&#39;ve done was a Ravenloft campaign, where the core of the party (the initial 3 characters) were "russian gypsies" (yes, I know that&#39;s not exactly right ;) ), and the fighter in the party was none too bright, but could juggle better than the theif in the party, who if memory serves almost could have been a bard for the number of character points spent on I think the lute (wasn&#39;t my character, so I don&#39;t know offhand) and the priest I ran also told fortunes and brewed *excellent* beer :lol: We could fight decently too, but the "secondary skills" were the most important. To this I added a ranger (and this is the actual example I was thinking of - but wanted to give the party make-up) who couldn&#39;t use two weapons, and was a menace to himself with his sword as much as to others - but was passable on the mandolin, deadly accurate with the longbow, excellent tracking, and had as many animal handling skill 2E as I could put in, specialized for canines of all types. As far as I&#39;m aware, the trade-offs I made under S&P to make this character would be very difficult, if not impossible, under 3E without creating a separate "Ranger Variant #n" which would have to be approved by the DM.

So, have fun, and let me know if you want me to try to dig out that PDF :)

Lysander

[irdeggman]

Dragon #150 (I think that was the number it was the last issue on the CD Rom) had a Birthright Skills and Powers conversion article by Ed Bonney.

[Kappenkriaucheran]

Alright, my house rules are online now:

http://coldcut.org/Regelwerk.pdf

DISCLAIMER: I hope I don´t violate any copyrights here :unsure: . Some of the material included was taken from several web sources, including the old br.net. Feel free to post your comments and questions.

PS. Ed Bonney´s DRAGON article has been included (and modified), too.
PPS. Just noticed some minor mistakes in the priest spell lists, no big deal though.

[Benjamin]

Originally posted by Lysander@Apr 2 2004, 11:43 AM
especially for players that have been at it for . . . decades (&#33;?&#33; :o )

Lysander
Oh come on... we haven&#39;t been doing BR for deca.... oh, damn. We have&#33; Woo hooo&#33; How time flies when you are having fun&#33;

[Ariadne]

Originally posted by AngriestAngel@Apr 3 2004, 10:08 PM
Hehe, German TV better than other TV? cannot believe it, but cannot compare it too ;-) atm i have no TV and have to admit, that I dont miss my old friend&#33; nice that some Germans are on this page- nobody of you lives near Mannheim hm? I have no group but in my last we played with 2e rules + some modifications. Now I have no motivation to learn 3e rules (and maybe i`m a little bit oldfashioned :-))
No, Mannheim is a bit far :D

Try Frankfurt ;)

[Lord Nycon]

Originally posted by NaMaN+Mar 31 2004, 04:43 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (NaMaN &#064; Mar 31 2004, 04:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Is everyone here converting to 3rd edition? What about finishing everything that lacks in birthright in good old second edition, instead of starting all over? before you are finishing all the 3rd edition projects, I`m shure 4th edition is already on the market... ;)
[/b]
I am currently converting Birthright to Hero Systems. It is a bit like GURPS but more detailed. I like how stun and endurance works. To me it is a bit more realistic. A higher level character in D&D could take a punch from a giant and shrug it off. Hero System might throw the character back and knock them out. I will use the Paladium alignments because they are more detailed and give a little guideline to each. So if 4th Ed comes out, it won&#39;t affect me. :)

<!--QuoteBegin-AngriestAngel @ Apr 3 2004@ 10:08 PM
Hehe, German TV better than other TV? cannot believe it, but cannot compare it too ;-) atm i have no TV and have to admit, that I dont miss my old friend&#33; nice that some Germans are on this page- nobody of you lives near Mannheim hm? I have no group but in my last we played with 2e rules + some modifications. Now I have no motivation to learn 3e rules (and maybe i`m a little bit oldfashioned :-)) [/quote]

I wouldn&#39;t say that one is better than the other. I did miss American commercials though. It is funny to watch the American Simpsons and then see German Simpsons. Homer&#39;s laugh sounded more like Jaba the Hut from Star Wars. I used to live in Schweinfurt but now I am back in the US (Ohio to be more precise).

[sumodawg]

2nd edition is not dead! Long live THACO!! Skills and Powers is the only power tools anybody needs. If you need computer game power, play a computer game.
Ohhh, how simple.

[Vicente]

OMG, Skills and Powers, it's hard to remember a more power-gamer-style book :p (but it was fun to see the weird things you could create with it :)

[Thelandrin]

Locked for a stunning display of thread necromancy.