Blood Abilities by Derivation

[Matthew M. Colville]

That (the Bloodline Derivation chart) is a damn good idea. I had
come across exactly the same problem. The only thing that would explain
the extreme dysfunctionality of the original chart would be if the game
designers just never playtested that part, or never had to roll up
characters. It's a pain in the ass to say "roll again," look up the result
and then "Nope, you can't have that. . .roll again," 15 times per character.

- ---------------------- ---------------------------
Matthew M. Colville. Armed only with wisdom
mcolville@earthlink.net The Shintao Monks fight against the darkness...
Role-Playing and Fiction
http://www.earthlink.net/~mcolville

[Darkstar]

Matthew M. Colville wrote:
>
> That (the Bloodline Derivation chart) is a damn good idea. I had
> come across exactly the same problem. The only thing that would explain
> the extreme dysfunctionality of the original chart would be if the game
> designers just never playtested that part, or never had to roll up
> characters. It's a pain in the ass to say "roll again," look up the result
> and then "Nope, you can't have that. . .roll again," 15 times per character.

Thats what I found, damm annoying. And I had to work out a way to roll
for the abilities from the Blood Enemies book as well.

- --
Darkstar

e-Mail: hoss@box.net.au
Home Page: http://www.box.net.au/~hoss
Page Updates: http://www.box.net.au/~hoss/update.html

From the Darkness we came.
And to the Darkness we will return.

[TSRTed@aol.co]

Both slade (a former TSR designer who worked on BLOOD ENEMIES) and I have
worked up Bloodline Charts by Derivation. The one I did actually accounts for
ALL the current bloodlines published by TSR, and has the chances balanced to
account for BE as well. It's due to come out in a product (when the products
start shipping again), but I'll ask if I can make it available earlier (since
it's hardly the focus of the product).

Ed S.
BR designer

[TSRRich@aol.co]

In a message dated 97-06-22 07:32:20 EDT, you write:

> The only thing that would explain
>the extreme dysfunctionality of the original chart would be if the game
>designers just never playtested that part, or never had to roll up
>characters. It's a pain in the ass to say "roll again," look up the result
>and then "Nope, you can't have that. . .roll again," 15 times per character.
>
>

I wasn't smart enough to think of a way to present the table only once
without doing all of the unnecessary rolling. Space was at a premium in the
BR Rulebook, and we just didn't have the room to break out each derivation
onto its own chart (but I wish we'd /found/ the room, since this is a
particularly bad piece of work on my part...)

Rich Baker
Chastened Birthright Designer

[Goldngrifn@aol.co]

Thanks Ed!

The Golden Griffon

[Darkstar]

Fredrick Hilbrandt wrote:
>
> I have an Excel listing of the blood abilities by derivation, and I've
> noticed a couple of things. If you use the tables from BE an the rulebook
> as written, you get characters with mostly stuff from BE. For many of the
> derivations, the most common trait is Long Life with about 30 per cent
> across the board. While this makes raising characters from the dead rather
> moot, I'm not sure it should be that common.
>
> Has anyone else come up with these numbers?
>
> Any comments?

I'll have to check out the chart to see if this is true. If it is I'll
change the Blood Ability by Derivation chart to use percentages instead
of a 2d8 roll.

> I'm hoping to make my charts available to this list soon, if anyone's
> interested.

Please do, I for one would like to see them.

- --
Darkstar

e-Mail: hoss@box.net.au
Home Page: http://www.box.net.au/~hoss
Page Updates: http://www.box.net.au/~hoss/update.html

From the Darkness we came.
And to the Darkness we will return.

[Brenda L Santer]

>Fredrick Hilbrandt wrote:
>>
>> I have an Excel listing of the blood abilities by derivation, and I've
>> noticed a couple of things. If you use the tables from BE an the rulebook
>> as written, you get characters with mostly stuff from BE. For many of the
>> derivations, the most common trait is Long Life with about 30 per cent
>> across the board. While this makes raising characters from the dead rather
>> moot, I'm not sure it should be that common.
>>
>> Has anyone else come up with these numbers?
>>
>> Any comments?
>
>I'll have to check out the chart to see if this is true. If it is I'll
>change the Blood Ability by Derivation chart to use percentages instead
>of a 2d8 roll.
>
>> I'm hoping to make my charts available to this list soon, if anyone's
>> interested.
>
I would also like to say that I hope to see the charts as they would be
useful. About the commonality of certain traits appearing. Yes this would
be true. Any time you use two dice added together to make a roll the
central numbers are more likely to appear than the end ones. Some of you
will remember the charts showing this effect in the first edition DMG and
anyone who has taken a statistics class will have seen it proven. I don't
intend to bore anyone on this list with the mathematical proofs. Suffice
it to say that 1d8 gives different average results than 2d4 does, and that
d100 or percentile dice also gives much different results than either 10d10
or 5d20 do although the total maximum roll is the same. A single die rolled
gives an equal probability of any given result while two dice added
together give a bell curve of results.
>************************************************** *************************
>>
*************************************
Brenda Santer:

Home: (306) 955-2615
mailto:bls127@mail.usask.ca
*************************************

[HCD or SIR SPUD I]

Brenda L Santer wrote:
> Any time you use two dice added together to make a roll the
> central numbers are more likely to appear than the end ones. Some of you
> will remember the charts showing this effect in the first edition DMG and
> anyone who has taken a statistics class will have seen it proven. I don't
> intend to bore anyone on this list with the mathematical proofs. Suffice
> it to say that 1d8 gives different average results than 2d4 does, and that
> d100 or percentile dice also gives much different results than either 10d10
> or 5d20 do although the total maximum roll is the same. A single die rolled
> gives an equal probability of any given result while two dice added
> together give a bell curve of results.

I don't know where I found it but I have a 16 sided die. I don't even
know how much I paid for it. When I first bought it I figured it would
be easier to roll up stats for my character instead of rolling 3d6's. A
sixteen sided die would work perfectly for your chart.

Sir Spud I

[HCD or SIR SPUD I]

sean brown wrote:
>
> >
> >I don't know where I found it but I have a 16 sided die. I don't even
> >know how much I paid for it. When I first bought it I figured it would
> >be easier to roll up stats for my character instead of rolling 3d6's. A
> >sixteen sided die would work perfectly for your chart.
>
> Why would you want a d16 for rolling stats? Wouldn't you wanta d18? :)

Simple, add 2 to whatever was rolled! :)