How Should War Work

[kgauck]

My assumption is that the world exists as it does for reasons (rather by accident).


realms are the size they are for a reason
realms and domains are not easily toppled, many have been around a very long time
war is pretty frequent, but it doesn't much change the map


With these in mind, I outline what war looks like. There is a great deal of advantage to the defensive, so that offensive war is challenging. If the advantage lays with the defender, it makes sense that there are so many small states. All they need are the fundamentals of defense. Part of this is a good network of castles. Part is reflected in the difficulty in raising truly offensive units. Part is reflected in the way militia works.

Fortifications
Given the age of the setting and its reasonably static nature, I would imagine that there are many very strong fortresses whose capture would be long and difficult and would represent a significant event. One such example of what this might entail would be the historical siege of Calais, which lasted from the Sept 4, 1346 to Aug 3, 1347. Seven to Eight thousand citizens held off 20,000 Archers, 6600 English Infantry, 2000 Flemish Infantry, and 5300 Knights. In this example, the French never tried to lift the siege. French supplies arrived by sea, but the English tried to stop them and eventually set up an effective blockade.

Imagine the difficulty in taking Ilien if the same circumstances were in play. It would not be hard to imagine the same overall situation, after reading a description of the events surrounding Calais. Despite the fact that 34,000 man armies would be exceptional in BR (what is that - 170 units sitting around waiting for surrender?) there is no real mechanism for a siege to last that long.

What if the way Roesone, Ilien, and Medoere gained independence was that the founder-heros gained control of key fortresses by treachery, the citizens throwing open the gates, or other means? Then Diemed spent the rest of the civil war winning battles in a futile attempt to recover the lands lost, because battles won mean nothing without capturing the key fortresses in the realm.

Elite Units
Perhaps the reason realms maintain the forces that they do is that they cannot raise units of such quality when they need them, so they keep them around so they have them when they need them. As such, additional troops raised would be no better than irregulars or levies. Growing similar units would either be slow, or would require experience.

Levies
There might be levies who rise up for the defense of the province and disappear in all other circumstances. This would also significantly improve the defensive posture of realms without increasing offensive capacity. Levies could be smart, too. They might bide their time until the defender's main army entered the province, rather than rising up to get defeated by an unopposed attacker. Instead they might engage in Robin Hood type guerrilla warfare.

Another thing that would tend to maintain the staus quo is a dynastic tie to the land. Even when some new person gets invested in a province (or even a whole realm) the old tie isn't broken, and can be easily re-established as soon as you occupy the province.

[AndrewTall]

I figure that realms can temporarily change quite easly - the problem is changing cultural attitudes and over-coming geographic barriers to make the change last. Most realms in Anuire are divided by rivers, mountains, etc so naturally split along their existing borders.

So Avani conquers Diemed for example, and a generation later with son #1 in Avanil and son #2 in Diemed, son #2 sees that there is a big river between them preventing easy troop movement and therefore either son #1 recognises son #2 as an independent vassal or risks seeing him become simply independent...

I'm not sure quite how to represent different cultures and realm loyalties - a traits system would be an additional layer of complexity but even just allowing a DC modifier to realm actions and domain attitude checks 'old' and 'new' rulers would encourage the old realms to reform for a while (eventually such loyalties wear thin). I'd note however that players get very annoyed if their actions seem pointless or pre-ordained - they need to be able to 'win' and so should be able to conquer other realms.

I'd expect that Anuire has probably seen a number of short-lived 'mega realms' since the fall of the empire - they just never held together long enough to be worth mentioning in RoE (or weren't favoured by the chamberlain and were therefore censored, such as the realm of 'Greater Boeruine' which forms one basis for the current Dukes claims over Taeghas, say).


On castles you could rule that the attackers and defenders make an opposed siegecraft roll - the castle only degrades if the attacker wins the roll rather than simply degrade the castle each season. That allows a great general to keep going for longer - or say that if ships can deliver supplies that the castle doesn't degrade at all, meaning that a seige ties up both land and sea units to be effective.

Another possibility is that random events occur more often in larger realms - I hacked out some draft mechanics on the wiki to reflect such a system although I need to test it out. That would mean that regents, particularly those with weaker bloodlines would need to create vassals to govern effectively, which then encourages separatism, etc.

http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/User:AndrewTall/Random_events_mechanics

[ShadowMoon]

On castles you could rule that the attackers and defenders make an opposed siegecraft roll - the castle only degrades if the attacker wins the roll rather than simply degrade the castle each season. That allows a great general to keep going for longer - or say that if ships can deliver supplies that the castle doesn't degrade at all, meaning that a seige ties up both land and sea units to be effective.


Opposed Siegecraft rolls is great idea to represent active Siege. You can modify it by various events, army size, etc...

Anyway what kgauck's said; add to that "Muster over time" rule, and limit maximum number units that province could muster, unit experience, command groups, and traits... And You'll get Sieges that could last long, and War that it is far more interesting...

[Beruin]

You offer some nice ideas here, and I'd like to hear in more detail how you would implement them rules-wise. Some of the things mentioned I can picture, like slow musters, experience that has to be earned etc., but namely kgauck's levy-based guerilla warfare sounds like a great idea, but how would you do this in your game?

For now, I don't really have anything of my own to offer with regard to war, however:


My assumption is that the world exists as it does for reasons (rather by accident).

[list]
realms are the size they are for a reason
realms and domains are not easily toppled, many have been around a very long time


I'd expect that Anuire has probably seen a number of short-lived 'mega realms' since the fall of the empire - they just never held together long enough to be worth mentioning in RoE (or weren't favoured by the chamberlain and were therefore censored, such as the realm of 'Greater Boeruine' which forms one basis for the current Dukes claims over Taeghas, say).

Another thing to consider is, how much power the realm or domain rulers really held (or still hold) over their respective areas of influence. Andrew Tall's view seems to me to be akin to the situation after the death of Alexander the Great, when the Diadochi divided his empire and warred against each other, with differing successes and changing alliances. This is certainly a possible view, but it also implies a rather centralized state - otherwise, the Diadochi would've had greater difficulties establishing their authority, instead of 'only' having to deal with each other.

Well, I recently read about the development of territorial governance within the Holy Roman Empire and that started me thinking on BR:

Perhaps, during the Empire, the realm rulers' power over their dominion wasn't as absolute as portrayed in the BR rules and subordinate nobles (provincial counts and below) had a greater amount of independence, i.e. controlled many of the provincial law holdings, similar to the situation portrayed for some Rjurik lands. Some of these lower nobles might also have had direct contact to the Emperor, for instance due to a younger son serving in the Emperor's personal guard or by participating in a imperial campaign. The Emperor would also have a keen interest in strengthening the minor nobles to keep his major vassals in check.

After the fall of the Empire, the greater nobles first started to consolidate and increase their power in their own lands, a slow process which explains why the realms remained so static for so long, barring special circumstances, like the rise of Ghoere or the Tuornen/Alamie split. This also helps explain how realms like Medoere or Roesone could break away from a powerful realm like Diemed.

Now, i.e. with the situation as portrayed in the rulebooks, this inner consolidation is mostly finished, and the larger powers have started to look outside their realms to increase their power, and things are about to change, meaning that the PCs will live in interesting times...

As an afterthought, some of the law holdings held in other realms, let's say for example Avanil's holdings in Tuornen, are perhaps not really directly controlled by Darien Avan, but rather represent remaining local law holdings of minor nobles who have developed an affiliation with Avanil. This would be similar to what I proposed in this thread a few weeks ago:http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3601

[AndrewTall]

Now, i.e. with the situation as portrayed in the rulebooks, this inner consolidation is mostly finished, and the larger powers have started to look outside their realms to increase their power, and things are about to change, meaning that the PCs will live in interesting times...

The only times in which any PC should live :)

[Gman]

One thing that also has to be considered is that current realms also exist due to strategic alliance/treaties.

There have to be a bunch of documented treaties that have been signed by rulers re mutual defence vs aggression - although I can't particularly remember reading about any in the histories.

Diplomacy shields the smaller and weaker (militarily speaking) provinces from being grabbed.

That and the more powerful Scion's have no interest in just letting anyone else get bigger to possibly become a threat to them.

[kgauck]

Mutual defense treaties are a product of the 19th century, when the time involved in mobilization was so swift that there was no time for diplomacy before the war started. Mobilization times in early modern wars could last a full year for major states.

Mobilization requires both assembling units and recruiting new men. Recruiting requires a team of men to go from town to town hiring people who are basically unemployed or otherwise seeking to escape their current circumstances despite the risky new occupation being offered. Attempting to recruit people who are productive will deny your realm taxes, food, and things like nails. Recruiting is one of the most easily observable actions you take in your realm. Whenever anyone recruits units, all of their neighbors should know pretty specifically what they are doing.

For instance, it should be impossible for Avanil to drop 120 GB in a single action, raise 60 units and occupy Diemed in a couple of weeks. One rule of thumb to apply is that if you would not let an NPC realm do it (raise a gigantic army over night) and conquer a PC realm, I wouldn't let a PC do it to an NPC.

The situation in the rulebook does suggest that the domains are pretty unitary, but this cuts you out of half of the kinds of conflicts which a realm can experience. Its like saying nothing interesting ever happens on this half of the map. When you get away from the rulebook and read the PS's they depict domains that are pretty disunited. Most of them look like they are about to fall apart. The PS's focus much more on the internal problems within a realm.

Generally I apply the Arthurian arc to a campaign.
phase 1 before the PC(s) take over, PC's as heirs
sword in the stone moment- PC's take over
phase 2 PC's find the realm disunited, must solve internal problems
marriage to Guinevere - realm united
This phase sees the older, starting figures give way to the PC's, as they become the key nobles, officers, and regents in the realm. It can be quick, or happen over time.
phase 3 PC's turn outward and deal with problems they have merely kept at bay until now.

The PC's may deal with foreign challenges in phases 1 and 2, but most foreign challenges don't get resolved until phase 3.

[Pauper]

Hm... quite a good insight of you.

Both?

Like in crusader kings, the problem is simple. Nobles fight each other instead of allying and then they are defeated by the Shadow easily. Well, in the PC game, the boardgame is different.

To keep this short, your rules by now allow a lot and anybody worthy to be called game master or mistress should be able to make up rules on their own.

Could you define and structure both "variants" so players by attitude or whim could decide how the game is played on that? Rhetorical question.

[Gman]

Call them standing alliances if you will or informal alliances (and call me anacronistic if you will) but I would think that logically if you are bordering a large aggressive kingdom you would work something out with other smaller rulers that face the same problem and could be swallowed at a gulp. Alliance systems in BR don't have to entirely parallel our own history.

Fortresses do slow this down - instant absorbtion and allow time for diplomatic recruitment of allies.

I was suggesting this as another possible reason for the Status Quo to remain fairly stagnant. (As you yourself point out mobilisation times are pretty quick)

Small city states before the rise of large countries in Europe spring to mind.
Often marriages would cement alliances.

Ghoere for instance could invade almost any neighbour and outnumber them between 3 and 5 to one - especially with recruitment and mercs.- so without alliances to stop him and considering his aggressive reputation I can't think of anything else stopping him.:)

[kgauck]

Call them standing alliances if you will or informal alliances (and call me anacronistic if you will) but I would think that logically if you are bordering a large aggressive kingdom you would work something out with other smaller rulers that face the same problem and could be swallowed at a gulp. Alliance systems in BR don't have to entirely parallel our own history.

What I am objecting to primarily is that anyone can swallow anyone else in a gulp. Its because I find this artificial and too much like a simple game (breaking the sense that this is a world), I don't see the need to have structures like modern alliance systems to prevent it.

There should be three things that make this kind of thing impossible.
1) recruitment should take long enough that other powers can engage in diplomacy and so by the time the attack comes, no one is forced to be alone.
2) logistics prevent the formation of large armies, especially on the fly. Putting together a proper supply train often took much longer than recruiting and assembling an army.
3) I think that with Haelyn as a god of both law and war, the concept of a war waged for legitimate aims would be very important. As a result, the beginnings of wars would probably be very ritualistic, with formal declarations of the cause of a conflict, announced deadlines to settle a matter before either side lets slip the dogs of war, rather like the way a strike works today with formal grievances, and then strike deadlines. People who just throw a bunch of troops together and occupy a neighbor without going through these steps would be waging a war outside of the law, and bring in the wrath of the temples of Haelyn. I have to imagine it would be almost impossible to wage effective warfare without their cooperation.


Ghoere for instance could invade almost any neighbour and outnumber them between 3 and 5 to one - especially with recruitment and mercs.- so without alliances to stop him and considering his aggressive reputation I can't think of anything else stopping him.:)

Let us suppose a steady state of petty squabbling, in which each realm bickers with all of its neighbors. Then suddenly Ghoere starts recruiting men, mustering its veterans, and calling for mercenaries. What I imagine would happen is that realms would send envoys to Ghoere asking what they are doing. If no satisfactory explanation was offered, envoys would go out to neighboring realms and seek a consensus on what to do about Ghoere. A coalition would form and Ghoere would face the mobilization of most or all of its neighbors.

So, I think the more natural state of things would involve responsive diplomacy for most states. Allies are generally unreliable anyway. Sometimes disastrously so. They are too often pre-occupied with their own business, or when push comes to shove they are happy to see you get shoved a bit. Sometimes they have reconciled with the other party and are now in no mood to antagonize them by responding to old treaty obligations.

Smaller states can't really ally with larger states. The proper relationship for small states that need protection is vassalage.

[AndrewTall]

3) I think that with Haelyn as a god of both law and war, the concept of a war waged for legitimate aims would be very important

That´s fine for Anuire, possibly Khinasi and the Rjurik Highlands, but not for the other nations or races - I can´t see the awnsheghlien generals caring about what Haeyln´s priests say or any formalities beforehand and I wouldn´t want them to have an advantage - they are tough enough already!

Longer build times for armies (1d4 per turn per court action like any other build?) is a good start, making it a public expenditure makes subterfuge difficult, increased costs for occupying armies and hostile investiture would also reduce the gulp factor - if the enemy has to occupy for 3-4 seasons while they eat the realm one bite at a time gives the defender time to call for support.

I´ve considered some sort of realm traits system to make conquest harder (increased domain attitude DC´s for a period etc) but BR is already a pretty complex game and traits just increase the learning curve required...

[kgauck]

That´s fine for Anuire, possibly Khinasi and the Rjurik Highlands, but not for the other nations or races - I can´t see the awnsheghlien generals caring about what Haeyln´s priests say or any formalities beforehand and I wouldn´t want them to have an advantage - they are tough enough already!
Nor can I see awnsheghlein caring about what Haelyn thinks- they are already ideological enemies. Even further, they are monsters, meaing one who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, &c. They are so different as to require a whole seperate consideration.

I'm not clear on your discussion of their advantage? Are you opposing the idea that an awnsheghlien might launch a surprise attack? That would seem to be the very avatar of an awnsheghlien.

Did you mean to exclude the Brecht? For I see it that the Brecht are the most in need of Haelyn in war, for their own patron, Sera is the least warlike of all the gods (except maybe Laerme).


I´ve considered some sort of realm traits system to make conquest harder (increased domain attitude DC´s for a period etc) but BR is already a pretty complex game and traits just increase the learning curve required...
I am loathe to add rules. This kind of thing should be in the pervue of the DM and the players should know nothing first hand of the mechanics of game play. Good advisors can provide neccesary exposition about how the world works.

[AndrewTall]

I'm not clear on your discussion of their advantage? Are you opposing the idea that an awnsheghlien might launch a surprise attack? That would seem to be the very avatar of an awnsheghlien.

Did you mean to exclude the Brecht? For I see it that the Brecht are the most in need of Haelyn in war, for their own patron, Sera is the least warlike of all the gods (except maybe Laerme). .

My thought was simply that telling Anuirean regents that war takes 2-4 rounds to prepare is fine since it represents lack of communication, etc in a medieval world - but ideally the source of the delay should be due to a non-cultural specific action, otherwise the Gorgon whelms in 1 and charges which gives him, and other awnies, elves, goblins, etc a further advantage over the humans. I agree with all of them prefering sneaks attacks and so on though.

The point re: non-Anuire was that Haelyn is god of law+war - so is a very good example of the god who would require formalities before war, I wasn´t so sure with Avani, Erik, etc. Thinking more about it Avani quite possibly requires some exposition and Erik mediation between the parties to prove lack of reconciliation (if both are Rjuvik) which also causes a delay, Belinik may require ritual sacrifices and the like, but I can´t see the check on the goblins, orogs etc - and they need to have a delaying factor as well otherwise the human regent says "Í annoy the priests now to win the war, then say ´sorry´ later - victory excuses all".


I am loathe to add rules. This kind of thing should be in the pervue of the DM and the players should know nothing first hand of the mechanics of game play. Good advisors can provide neccesary exposition about how the world works.

The reason I consider adding rules is to prevent arguments later, but I´d prefer just to say ´be reasonable and don´t expect surprise invasions unless you take a LOT of care and use an existing army´ - it depends on the players though.

[kgauck]

There are three kinds of things that cause delays. Forming the army (recruitment, musters, &c), Assembling the army (provisioning, moving recruits to a common location), and the need to declare one's cause of war.

Its possible to bypass all three under certain conditions, but what you will be able to put forward,whether human or goblin, or whatever, is a raiding force. It would lack the strength to attack defended points, and would be suitable for causing a little mayhem and distracting the regent. It could not occupy a province or be sure of defeating even militia.

If you bypass two, say Markasor takes its existing standing force, and invades Mhoried, so there are no musters, and no declaration, you still have to assemble the army near Mhoried before you get to Mhoried. A large goblin force will be spotted by someone. Armies are not easy to conceal. They may be able to conceal their intentions, and even their precise location, but their existence is obvious if there is anyone to look. For instance, armies on the move create a giant dust cloud. I'm sure every shepherd of Mhoried knows what it means to see a giant dust cloud being kicked up across the border in Markasor. While you would not be have time to recruit new troops, you would only have missed a single war move and will be meeting a force already in your country. However, they would not have time to do much more than pillage. If Mhoried maintains a standing force capable of receiving the standing force of Markasor, then they are able to give battle.

There is a question, about how secretly the Gorgon could muster troops. He is surrounded mostly by vassals. Even though the Gorgon must advertise his desire for troops within his realm, he can position his musters so that word must travel through vassals or from foreign cultures. Danigau might recieve rumors that the elves of Tuarhievel report musters in the Gorgon's Crown well after those troops are laying siege to an important border fort. Because of the size of his realm, and the questions about its permiability, I could see a greater degree of secrecy for the Gorgon than for other realms. Some of this depends on what you thing life is like in the Crown itself.

I also wonder how well the elves report to humans what they know. It might well be a question of interpreting what the elves know by their own actions, rather than by their reports. Something along the lines of:

Sire, the elves move a company of their cavalry and two companies of archers from east to west, perhaps more troops move in the north. The Gorgon seems to be up to something.
As time goes on, you begin to rule out a direct attack by the Gorgon on the elves and begin to suspect the elves spotted troop musters or movements and simply went to an alert posture.

Of course Mheallie Bireon has guild holdings in Tuarhievel, and would know the most. What does she reveal and to whom?

[AndrewTall]

Sounds good - large realms get to hide stuff in their core (say a delay of the ´noise´reachiung the outside, or reduced impact of the action due to distance from nosy nieghbours). Of course the Gorgon then has the bother of shipping his troops half way across his kingdom - but they hit without much warning.

The Gorgon has the added advantage over the Raven for example, of no guild holdings - so few wandering merchants etc to spread the word. By contrast Kalien for example probably knows about troops movements across half of Anuire even if the target is too far away to hear the rumours directly...

Similarly if you maintain a large army you can act, and react very quickly - but at the substantial cost of maintaining the army. Ships become more useful as well do the speed of shipping troops as opposed to trogging.

Re: the 3 factors, you might also say that troops ´rushed in´have reduced effectivness at emulating law holdings, attacking fortifications, etc depending on how rushed the move was - and what RP ´cover´the rush gets.

[Galdred]

Indeed, warfare should rely more on raiding and less on decisive battles IMO.
I had a similar problem in an internet game I was designing, and I had thought about the following (but maybe they would not work there), to avoid the big decisive battle syndrome:

There needs to be an evasion mechanism to allow a larger one so that it is viable, and one to solve skirmishes, as raiding parties would probably be split. In most systems I have seen, the "stealth" of the raiding army would depend on the speed and size of the force, while the detection capacity of the patrolling one would depend on the forces sent into patrol. There needs to be some mechanism to restrict the moves of a patrolling army

Another way to limit warfare would be to factor the time needed for forraging:
A huge army would use too much supplies to be carted (unless ship transport is possible), thus, they'd need to depend more on foraging, and spend a longer time doing so (because their needs would rapidly exhaust the neighboring supply sourcesn forcing them to do longer foraging trips).
A larger army should be penalized by a smaller movement rate.

The last way to limit warfare, would be to factor the contraints of feodal hosts, that usually only forced vassals to supply troops for a limited amount of time (that would not apply when defending, as they would see the obvious need to come).
Increasing the upkeep cost of an unit once it has spent 3 month outside its realm (or even home province) could do the trick, but that could force too much bookkeeping.

Making siege more rewarding compared to assault would help too, as it would make campagins more expensive and longer.

[vota dc]

Indeed, warfare should rely more on raiding and less on decisive battles IMO.
I had a similar problem in an internet game I was designing, and I had thought about the following (but maybe they would not work there), to avoid the big decisive battle syndrome:



Off Topic

You are able to design a game alone?Sadly I'm able only to make mod or simply games with rpg maker,you should make a new birthright pc game!If you need help I think you will find a lot of volunteers.

[Galdred]

Off Topic

You are able to design a game alone?Sadly I'm able only to make mod or simply games with rpg maker,you should make a new birthright pc game!If you need help I think you will find a lot of volunteers.
Off topic:

It was a web multiplayer game though (no heavy coding, only Ruby on rails), and I had to stop working on it for personnal/professionnal reason shortly after having begun the coding itself, but I plan to finish it someday in the future.
It would be hard to make enough money though donations to pay for the IP if we wanted to go with a new birthright game (I am not sure WOTC would release the rights for a computer fame easily), but it should be possible to implement the concepts themselves with a different ruleset and background.

[ryancaveney]

with the situation as portrayed in the rulebooks, this inner consolidation is mostly finished, and the larger powers have started to look outside their realms to increase their power

I think the inner consolidation is closer to the beginning than the end. Even militant, proto-fascist Ghoere holds only 40 of the 96 province levels his 6 plains and 4 hills provinces allow. I think all those apparently missing people are already there, but his control over them is so incomplete that most of their effort goes into supporting his local landholders' minor competitions with each other rather than advancing his own realm-scale agenda. Medoere, at 9 province levels held out of 30 possible, is much less centralized, as one expects in a realm which has only recently won its independence from the much more centrally-controlled Diemed (23 levels out of 52). I think none of the realms of Cerilia has a king who can even dream of centralized control comparable to Louis XIV's, not even the Gorgon. I see the standard campaign setup as waiting for a PC to show up who understands that intensive administrative investment in his realm is necessary to build an economy which can support the really powerful army he needs to make large-scale conquest possible. That is, you suggest the time is ripe for Richard Coeur de Lion to venture off on crusade, but I think it's 50 years earlier, and his father, Henry FitzEmpress, has yet to make the legal and financial reforms which would later enable his son's foreign adventures. The time for war in BR is not Turn One, but only after all your provinces are at least level 4 and support both the trade routes they allow, and those guilds are controlled by a loyal vassal whose piles of cash go to pay for your stacks of knight units. The only reason not to wait for all level 7s with 3 TRs each is that your neighbors may beat you to the punch if you do.

[ryancaveney]

Perhaps the reason realms maintain the forces that they do is that they cannot raise units of such quality when they need them, so they keep them around so they have them when they need them. As such, additional troops raised would be no better than irregulars or levies. Growing similar units would either be slow, or would require experience.

I like "would be slow". A suggestion made many years ago which I quickly adopted was that units do not appear until some time after they have been bought, with more powerful units taking longer to show up. The formula I have come to like best is number of GB cost = number of domain turns delay. This means that if you purchase a unit of irregulars, they are assembled, trained, equipped and ready for battle in three months, but a unit of knights takes a year and a half. I also have them count against the number which can be mustered in that province throughout that entire time (so a level 4 province can have at most 4 knights in process at once, not 24). This greatly cuts down on the "massive army overnight" phenomenon, and forces some advertising of martial intent. The only exceptions I make are levies (which show up immediately because they are zero cost, so they're not really an exception), mercenaries (which cost twice as much as the matching regular unit precisely because there is no delay), and elven archers, dwarf guards, goblin infantry and gnoll marauders (who are the levy-equivalents of their races, even though they are not zero-cost).

[kgauck]

About the massive army overnight phenomenon. The limiting factor is how many of a certain troop exist. Using the 50 million total population figure, where Diemed would have something on the order of 100,000 people accessible to the state. 2000 people is about the total maximum of the state's army. 5000 is the absolute maximum.

Some number, about 500, are almost free to the state. Another 100 or so probably come with the Duke's court costs. So between 600 and 2000 costs of the army would be normal, and time to recruit would be normal (though as I described, more time consuming than the rules generally expect). After this limit, costs should go up for the additional native units, perhaps double. Keeping track of the upper limit of troops for me is the important part, because beyond this point everything should begin to get harder, more expensive, and take longer.

Once a realm the size of Diemed gets to 5000 men, extra men should basically be impossible.

Because I see knights as a feudal duty, knights can be raised in a few weeks, faster than most units, but there is an absolute ceiling on how many can be raised. You can't hire or recruit new knights. The only way to get more is to enfief more knights. This requires the rule action to raise the level of a province.

[Mirviriam]

Off Topic

You are able to design a game alone? Sadly I'm able only to make mod or simply games with rpg maker,you should make a new birthright pc game!If you need help I think you will find a lot of volunteers.

OFF TOPIC: I'll start thread on developing something

On Topic:

Historically (in Europe basis for our version of dnd):
-Early on wars of destruction are fought to get access to limited resources.
-Later on wars of destruction are fought for the room to breath for the larger cities needs.
-Next we see some cross over of domestication of locals and empire building
-Eventually wars are fought for profit, to prevent other nations from getting deadlocks on trade.
-When the ruler kings of nations start to fall, then we see nations developing treaties of mutual aid.

While we do not need to imitate life to play the game - as DM's or players we need to decide why regeants & rulers are going to war.

Do these nations go to war for the traditional control of the good farming lands, mines to supply metals, woods to fuel the smithies? Maybe they are even fighting to wipe out those guys who's sheep are eating all the vegetation the animals your foresters hunt for food or their national insignia.

Are they nations operating at the higher level? Seeking to remove trade blocks on river fjords, mountain passes or ocean straights?

Now we need to consider that our regents are vying for magical ley sources, blood line mojo (regency), realm spell books, extra magic treasures, or lore pointing towards old empire materials.

How far will these guys go?
How many other regeants will want a piece of the cake when the fighting starts?
How many others will attack their nearly equal power rivals when their backs are turned?
Which nations are the swing parts?
How many of the regeants correctly predict how the others will throw down the gauntlet?
What elements does the magic[al warding] add to these strategies?
Who intercedes just to maintain a buffer state between them & the monster duchies?


My assumption is that the world exists as it does for reasons (rather by accident).


realms are the size they are for a reason
realms and domains are not easily toppled, many have been around a very long time
war is pretty frequent, but it doesn't much change the map



They are there for a reason - the designs carefully placed each size to make it so the blade never fell the same way when the wars began :)

I'm always of two minds on slashing up the map - because the players will want to use the world they created later on for their next characters & I might have inevitiably destroyed the possibilities in the chaos. Which would force the players to act as subordinates of non-soveign realms. That is why I'm a big fan of the wolf pack theory on nations checking eachother not directly, but in a zone defense (basketball) sort of theory. Any changes in displacement will result in picking apart the defenses.

As to the castles holding down the territories of course it works that way - thats why you built them. Think of the greatest fortress in the world ... Constantinople - which kept a nation in power for 1100 years. You better believe the fortication is hard to destroy. Almost as hard as it was to build.

[kgauck]

Here is a simple model of how war works. A combat force seeks to destroy another combat force in order to create a safe zone for a period of time to establish government. Government is not very robust under war-time conditions, even under the best circumstances. So the first priority is to establish security for the various officials to do their work.

A defender can make this nearly impossible by fortifying the centers of government. This means that an attacker must create a space of security to besiege these fortifications, capture, and then rehabilitate them, and then and only then begin to employ them for government.

As I brought up in the thread on castles, small keeps like this one can be really effective.
http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/images/c/c2/Keep.png
Without big royal armies, taking this small keep with time, force, or equipment all take a significant amount of money.

What medieval armies tended to do was attempt to fight a battle. If someone had a decisive victory, they had the time and space to start sieges, because no one would bother them for a reasonable amount of time. Combine this with the seasonal nature of warfare, and you have a pretty clear pattern. Between planting and harvest the attacker seeks a decisive battle. If he cannot get one, because the defender evades or battle is not decisive, when harvest comes, everyone goes home except for garrisons. Rinse and repeat until someone gets a decision, or somebody runs out of money and can't field large armies this summer.

Suppose this is now the case. Someone lost a battle or ran out of money and is now only able to field a small army. During the summer, the other guy can put his large army in the field and must use part of it to keep watch on the defender's army and the other part he can use to begin sieges in places far enough from the defender's army that they can't be surprised. Consider strategic movement here. At the end of the summer, many of these sieges will be abandoned. Those which have progressed the farthest will be conducted by people who don't farm for a living, but are year-round soldiers.

This is slow progress. Even with large royal armies (like an Anuirean army), Henry V landed at Harfleur unexpectedly in 1415 and found the city poorly defended. Even so the siege was long and difficult, the army got sick and Henry eventually stormed the city. His army exhausted, he moved tom march to Calais and on to home, the capture of this one city his victory for the year. The French harrased him and pursued him and forced him to fight a battle at Agincourt, which Henry won so decisively he created a significant space with which to return the next year mostly besieging cities. Even so, it took four years before Rouen fell.

At the scale of BR, its hard to imagine any sieges, anywhere, without a battlefield victory to open the space for these kinds of activities. The exception is probably a quick storm at the beginning of major operations. Expensive in terms of manpower, and generally relying on surprise.

[AndrewTall]

What the 'gap creation' theory suggests, is that in order to start the 'contest down, create & rule up' you first need to win some decisive victory - the enemy is then seen by the local peasants to have 'lost', and is themselves in disarray from loss of commanders and impoverished by the loss of assets, called in loans, and a reluctance for further lending.

So rather than just 'I move in to a province, I now control it' you would get 'I move in, people within arm's reach of a soldier do as they are told with minimal enthusiasm' with the army only functioning as a virtual law holding after some decisive engagement has been seen, or after the province has been held for a reasonable period.

Building a castle would reduce the time for the province to 'change allegiance' as it is a very visible symbol of who is in charge, controls key trade routes, provides a secure base, etc - of course before you can build a castle you need to 'make a gap' to avoid constant harrying.

As a mechanic you could build in a DC modifier for law holdings - the local nobility are seen as 'having the right' and others are seen is interlopers. So maybe +10-20 DC to interlopers on law actions amortising 1 point every year or so barring some decisive event (I.e. if you smash their army the peasants see you as the 'natural' ruler). Similarly castle costs are increased in 'conquered' lands barring a victory. In a PBEM or other short game you could allow adventure actions and suchlike to increase the amortisation rate.

The existing pillage and occupation actions would also have to be adjusted - currently it is 1 round and the old regime is swept away, I'm leaning to extending the time required significantly. So you can loot quickly, but to destroy the infrastructure and human capital of a domain (or gods forfend a province) would take longer - say a full season for a holding and a full year for a province, with the army required to be double the holding level or eight times the province level to rule it down, with an army under half the size unable to rule it down.

[kgauck]

Another part of this process is diplomacy with the local powers. Once you've defeated the realm's ruler, people way down the feudal structure, lords and mayors, might have lost confidence in their ruler, and be liable to diplomacy. Again, this takes a while. But once its clear that the other guy isn't coming back, and your not so bad, its possible to turn local powers.

Some local power centers are replaced entirely (or most favorably, were friendly prior) and that is the part best represented by contest and rule actions. But the contested power centers don't go away, they simply don't have control of the levers of power. These leaders wait in the wings, openly, in hiding, or in exile, waiting for trouble so they can catapult to the top of the discontented throng.

[prince_dios]

What if the way Roesone, Ilien, and Medoere gained independence was that the founder-heros gained control of key fortresses by treachery, the citizens throwing open the gates, or other means? Then Diemed spent the rest of the civil war winning battles in a futile attempt to recover the lands lost, because battles won mean nothing without capturing the key fortresses in the realm.


I may have to work this into the campaign I started on Thursday, which is a semi-canon account of the founding of Medoere.

[Mirviriam]

When you get away from the rulebook and read the PS's they depict domains that are pretty disunited. Most of them look like they are about to fall apart. The PS's focus much more on the internal problems within a realm.



The players view is meant to feed the pyschology of the costumers...in example; create a need for them to fufill & give them a reason to keep playing your game.

Easiest Common Denominator (ECD).

Either it is not an issue if the DM doesn't need as a game tool or status quo makes the change so slow it basically doesn't happen in that campaign.

As to real wars - it was technology or strategic concentration for winning the wars. Consolidation was a completely different matter IF the attackers chose to do it.




A defender can make this nearly impossible by fortifying the centers of government. This means that an attacker must create a space of security to besiege these fortifications, capture, and then rehabilitate them, and then and only then begin to employ them for government.



I don't know man, if I have the castle and the smart people in it who weren't smart enough to leave...I start killing till they all do what I want. I probably brought with a bunch just for that purpose of running it all/suprvising the bean counters etc.

It seems to me that the small realms tended to have a higher magical reagent (been 2 years since I paged through domains books), with one of those next to you, he can just walk over & raze your castle assuming you're distracted enough to not contest his leyline strongly.

...once again everything comes down to the whole region getting busy & the smart reagents finding the chinks in the realms, before their neighbors drag them down for expending their forces too much...wolf pack! Attack!

[AndrewTall]

I don't know man, if I have the castle and the smart people in it who weren't smart enough to leave...I start killing till they all do what I want. I probably brought with a bunch just for that purpose of running it all/suprvising the bean counters etc.

The strategic issue is that the attacker needs a lot more soldiers - and they cost money, so the attacker has to outspend the defender to neutralise them - and spend much more to beat them. You need more than 1:1 to seal the castle since the defenders can exit whenever the besieging force least wishes it, probably also doing so from more than 1 location for at least small bands (a D&D staple of course), ideally the attacker wants 2 or 3 men to each 1 defender...

The attacker then needs enough 'spare' men to then set up the government, guard the tax inspectors, enforce their laws, etc, etc - and all the time the castle defenders can sally out whenever they like while waiting for the attacker to run out of money and go home - and meanwhile the peasants may begrudge their lord his taxes, but they really hate paying anyone else - as that means paying twice (usurper and true ruler) - so the attacker is in a hostile land where everything is expensive, small groups of men simply disappear, and they have no safe refuge in which to recover.


It seems to me that the small realms tended to have a higher magical reagent (been 2 years since I paged through domains books), with one of those next to you, he can just walk over & raze your castle assuming you're distracted enough to not contest his leyline strongly.

That's a game conceit to balance domains and realms for potential players, if looking at things from a simulationist approach, as Ken is doing, the balance is unstable - the realm/source domains will fail as soon as the mage dies and is replaced by an incompetent (as the power is that of the individual), the realm/guild domain and realm/temple are more stable but have competing internal goals that will cause ongoing issues with the medieval mindset.


...once again everything comes down to the whole region getting busy & the smart reagents finding the chinks in the realms, before their neighbors drag them down for expending their forces too much...wolf pack! Attack!

Ah, the difference of gaming approaches :D My view is that the PS's spent so long talking about internal dissent so that the domains could be 'plug and play' with any other realms - if TSR had spent all their time in PS 'A' talking about the hatred and rivalry for an external realm 'B', what would have happened when two gaming buddies pick A and B as their realms? The market would thus be reduced as the realms would be less playable...

[tpdarkdraco]

About the massive army overnight phenomenon. The limiting factor is how many of a certain troop exist. Using the 50 million total population figure, where Diemed would have something on the order of 100,000 people accessible to the state. 2000 people is about the total maximum of the state's army. 5000 is the absolute maximum.

Some number, about 500, are almost free to the state. Another 100 or so probably come with the Duke's court costs. So between 600 and 2000 costs of the army would be normal, and time to recruit would be normal (though as I described, more time consuming than the rules generally expect). After this limit, costs should go up for the additional native units, perhaps double. Keeping track of the upper limit of troops for me is the important part, because beyond this point everything should begin to get harder, more expensive, and take longer.

Once a realm the size of Diemed gets to 5000 men, extra men should basically be impossible.

Because I see knights as a feudal duty, knights can be raised in a few weeks, faster than most units, but there is an absolute ceiling on how many can be raised. You can't hire or recruit new knights. The only way to get more is to enfief more knights. This requires the rule action to raise the level of a province.

Hi kgauck,

I am not sure where you are getting your population from but that's ok.

I am currently working on 4e conversion of BR and funnily enough I have come up with similar figures. I am working off the province rating as the maximum number of troops a domain can muster. Thus Diemed could muster a total of 23 units. Using something similar to 2e muster rules you could only muster Knights or Elite Infantry (which I see as knights on foot) with province level 4 or higher. So in Diemed's case you can muster a maximum total of 6 knight units and 17 other type units. This would give you a total of 4600 men (assuming the 200 men/unit). I am actually working on 100 men for knights & elite inf.

I also agree with you that knights are a feudal duty. I am actually working on play rules for 4e on adventuring side of things that translates to domain side of the rules as well. The very basics are as follows:
*A province is made up of shires based on level of province eg. Lvl 3 province would have 3 shires.
*Each shire is overseen by a Lord.
*Each Lord has knights that owe him feudal duty.
*1-3 shires/lords - each lord has 30 knights.
*4-10 shires/lords - there after each lord has a number of knights equal to the following calc; 30 x No. of lords + 100 per province lvl / No. of Lords = Total knights that owe fealty to each lord. The initial 30 is to represent the knights that are not available to muster but are kept at home for general law keeping.
* Finally if you do not controll all the Law Holdings in a province then you would only be able to muster you Law Holding level worth of knights (those who listen to you call of muster).

eg. Take the Diemed province of Celiene (6) - Law HD (4) DA (2)

Using the calculation above the total knights would be 480, which means that each shire/lord has 80 knights. HD's lords have a total of 320 knights but 120 of those cannot be mustered. This would mean that HD could muster 2 units of knights.

With populations figures I am working on this would mean that nobility (knights, lords & blooded nobles) make up about 2% of population. Does this sound reasonable and make sense?

[kgauck]

I have also used 100 men for Elite Infantry and Knights. I have detailed two realms military forces on the wiki, Stjordvik and Dhoesone.

On the Stjordvik army page I describe the standing army, its deployment, and what additional mobilization looks like.

The Dhoesone military page also has the standing army (detailed by Andrew), and the deployment and mobilization.

I should run up a Medoere and see if my system looks like yours. I suspect they will be close enough, size of one half dozen of the other.

[Mirviriam]

The strategic issue is that the attacker needs a lot more soldiers - and they cost money, so the attacker has to outspend the defender to neutralise them - and spend much more to beat them. You need more than 1:1 to seal the castle since the defenders can exit whenever the besieging force least wishes it, probably also doing so from more than 1 location for at least small bands (a D&D staple of course), ideally the attacker wants 2 or 3 men to each 1 defender...

The attacker then needs enough 'spare' men to then set up the government, guard the tax inspectors, enforce their laws, etc, etc - and all the time the castle defenders can sally out whenever they like while waiting for the attacker to run out of money and go home - and meanwhile the peasants may begrudge their lord his taxes, but they really hate paying anyone else - as that means paying twice (usurper and true ruler) - so the attacker is in a hostile land where everything is expensive, small groups of men simply disappear, and they have no safe refuge in which to recover.


The siege point is valid - but most of the middle sized realms don't have castles in every province. That means if they want to retain their property, then they have to field an army. Strategic is in part having numbers. The thing is raw numbers is actually the least of it.

Think of it like starcraft - in the first 3 minutes of the game I've got 2 zealots, 4-5 maries, or 6 zerglings killing your workers. Why? You are going to grow slower than me. You regeant has to invest turns and is denied gold/rp from the province I just decimated. I might come back and take it later or I might repeat the same process on two or three of your non-fortified areas while you're trying to rebuild.

Perfect example .... consider the Mongolian horde - they simply moved so fast no one could move their armies to keep up. The ate up more land than arguably anyone before or after. My other idea of strategic is feint one area, the enemy concentrates there and I take 2 or 3 easy targets that can be invested in a turn. Leave level one law there - as it's easy to create.

Large scale 'strategery' is one part numbers, one part subterfuge(no time for spell check), 3 parts what & how you use your numbers.

I'm going to talk briefly about the rebuilding thing as I'm short on time...

The rules of the regeant investure for the realm, taking one full round action to setup a new hold already cover the basic costs. I believe you can only investure one province per turn (3 actions), at least thats the way Gorgons Alliance was - which is reasonable - the regeant must be present for a period of time.

I find your arguments over making person x & y do action 1 & 2 to make realm work & how hard is inane. Kill them or bribe them or use yoru own system of people. Everyone knows you're going to leave an army unit there already unless you just pillaged the zone. The book describes level 0 law as a bully in the inn basically. Level 1 might be local police force. This already reflects the costs & scope of setting up shop in new province - why would you waste time discussing it? The one province per turn rule is enough.

[Mirviriam]

Opposed Siegecraft rolls is great idea to represent active Siege. You can modify it by various events, army size, etc...

Anyway what kgauck's said; add to that "Muster over time" rule, and limit maximum number units that province could muster, unit experience, command groups, and traits... And You'll get Sieges that could last long, and War that it is far more interesting...

Opposed seige rolls is a horrible idea - unless there's a storm option or something with an oppose warcraft check to get in the door while it's still open? Then the only times it should be allowed is when the enemy tries to go up over the walls or tunnel under them.

The whole reason they are inside is because they are helpless to stop the army outside from doing whatever they want. Your siegecraft check from inside can't stop my catapults from hitting your walls and turning them into rubble (mages can, but they aren't going to be able to block it all or last all day).

In part we're all thinking advanced ideas - I've seen simple board guys that take 6 hours to play & we're not nearly finished. Prehaps there should be levels of Birthright - like battletech (Lvl one is like trainer, LVL is their tourney rules for public plays, level 3 is advanced).

[AndrewTall]

We are arguing mechanics dominating story and vice versa. I.e. is the game the rule-system, or is the rule-system an attempt to provide a framework for the game.

You see a L1 castle and think castle, I see dozens of redoubts, fortified inns and holds etc - and estimate whether to reflect it as a castle or fort, or simply abstract it as a law holding. The differing approach and style of game play leads to totally different perceptions.

So I look at the thousands of npc's in a domain and consider how they will react to player actions, and as a DM will then impute the necessary mechanic to reflect the facts - your 'pillage to L0, create a new province and then rule it up' would fail utterly as a tactic to win loyalty in my games - that sort of genocidal butchery would get every neighbour up in arms over the thousands of refugees, the church declaring the PC anathema, etc, the domain might well rise up if it was lawfully or good aligned, - that sort of thing is the difference between a board game and a role playing game for me...

As for 6 hours to play and not finished - try 6 months and just getting started - that's the sort of game I like to play...

[kgauck]

Opposed seige rolls is a horrible idea - I've seen simple board guys that take 6 hours to play & we're not nearly finished. Prehaps there should be levels of Birthright - like battletech (Lvl one is like trainer, LVL is their tourney rules for public plays, level 3 is advanced).

A siege lasts weeks, months, occasionally years. It should be a complex skill challenge. The castle, if well constructed makes it quite possible to prevent attackers from being able to act. That is quite the point of many of its innovations.

Those board games that take hours to play are a glorious style of gaming. Birthright promised to merge rpg's and wargames, and never got serious about the wargaming side. If you want to resolve major, complex military operations in the single role of a die, feel free. No one is stopping you. However, I don't see how you can criticize the alternative except from a matter of taste.

[Rowan]

I think the tension between the rules and the story, Andrew, is sometimes difficult to deal with. If you're deep in the story, at the level of detail of describing the movement of this group of soldiers through the countryside to hit that fortified township, and that assault force making an attempt at taking the eastern tower, it can seem artificial to then introduce a mechanic like a domain-level rule. I agree that in such a case, if you use any mechanic at all, a skill challenge is more appropriate.

On the other hand, there are those of us who like a faster, more birds-eye-view of play, but also disdain the fully mechanics-driven action. I'd like to approach things with a general strategy, make a relatively few high-level rolls, and quickly describe the action resulting from them. Or, getting into the detail of a pitched battle, rolls for each major attack phase, but not resulting in a 6 hour battle (unless it's truly epic).

I like rules discussions like these because I haven't yet found a good solution for my middle level of play :)


Kgauck, something Mirviriam pointed out was a valid alternative to the seasonal, years-long wars. It works primarily with national armies, though, or any with more professional soldiers or at least professional leadership (the nobility who don't get involved in planting and harvest).

Mirviriam used the Mongol example. That's a great example of the force multiplying effect of mobility, as well as a few other things. Most of the great conquerors used a different approach to warfare, though. They had a large enough army initially to defeat and cow another state into submission, then immediately incorporate its army into their own and press onward. This is how Alexander conquered his vast empire in just a few short years. His army was large enough he could go directly to sieges, only worrying about the occasional large army assembled to meet him (armies that it took a lot of time and money and geographic space to assemble).

His army was large enough (and reputation was such) that many of his victim states, even early on, would surrender rather than face up to him, and thus contribute to his campaigns through tribute, supplies, and forces. In this way, losses were replenished (even after garrisons were left behind), his army grew ever-larger, and his subject peoples largely obeyed and accepted his government.

[kgauck]

Mirviriam used the Mongol example. They had a large enough army initially to defeat and cow another state into submission, then immediately incorporate its army into their own and press onward. This is how Alexander conquered his vast empire in just a few short years.

Machiavelli addresses Alexander this way-
There are two kinds of states. The first is a state where all power is centralized in the hands of one person. In this case, like Persia, when you remove the head, the whole state falls to the conqueror. The other kind of state is where power is distributed among many people. Machiavelli identified France as an example. France is impossible to conquer, he said, because there is no one power to defeat. Because, "if you wish to hold it afterwards, you meet with infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you and from those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you are unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost whenever time brings the opportunity."

This is chapter 4 of the Prince.

I think Cerilia is entirely the second kind, with a multitude of scions each connecting their holding to the land, each difficult to dislodge. I also think that the land is full of castles, even if many of them are small, like the towers and simple shell keeps I pictured earlier in this thread. No part of Cerilia, except the Khinasi deserts (0 pop) and Rjurik tundra (0 pop) could be rapidly conquered.

[Rowan]

Machiavelli addresses Alexander this way-
There are two kinds of states. The first is a state where all power is centralized in the hands of one person. In this case, like Persia, when you remove the head, the whole state falls to the conqueror. The other kind of state is where power is distributed among many people. Machiavelli identified France as an example. France is impossible to conquer, he said, because there is no one power to defeat. Because, "if you wish to hold it afterwards, you meet with infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you and from those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you are unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost whenever time brings the opportunity."

This is chapter 4 of the Prince.

I think Cerilia is entirely the second kind, with a multitude of scions each connecting their holding to the land, each difficult to dislodge. I also think that the land is full of castles, even if many of them are small, like the towers and simple shell keeps I pictured earlier in this thread. No part of Cerilia, except the Khinasi deserts (0 pop) and Rjurik tundra (0 pop) could be rapidly conquered.

I think when Roele conquered his initial empire, it was very much like Alexander's campaigns.

You're right about the fragmentation since then. But coalitions are not impossible to form. I've considered a game setup where there are a number of major factions played at the faction level by the players, with most states and domains loosely falling into one or more factions (more if disputed, or if bridging in the case of non-landed domains): Boeruine, Avanil, Mhoried, Ghoere, Diemed, Elves, Gorgon, Chaos.

The other type of coalition is in the reforging of the Empire, if you allow it to be achieved, or in uniting against a common foe, and once that foe is dealt with, onward to a bigger goal. If half of Anuire were united (perhaps by Hapsburg-style marriages), other realms, if they didn't manage to coalesce into an opposing force, may well join their fortunes to the mighty realm, particularly with a vast army on their doorstep giving them the chance to join up or suffer the consequences.

If Anuire is more like France, with the humans generally sharing a fairly common nationality and history, such re-unions are more possible. They are less possible the more disparate are the cultures. Less possible, but not impossible.

[Mirviriam]

That's a game conceit to balance domains and realms for potential players, if looking at things from a simulationist approach, as Ken is doing, the balance is unstable - the realm/source domains will fail as soon as the mage dies and is replaced by an incompetent (as the power is that of the individual), the realm/guild domain and realm/temple are more stable but have competing internal goals that will cause ongoing issues with the medieval mindset.



I didn't think about this point of yours much - but I read the campain setting some (skimmed interesting parts) - got to where the original materials stated, outside of the elves and evil domains there are only 6 truly practicing mages.

This made me think that their has to be more mages with equal or near equal power ratings who were sharpening skills on normal spells. These guys are hiding their talents so the 6 settled mages with domain spells don't off the competition. They might lack the finese & experience that comes with practicing at will, but probably steal off the magical oddities that dot the source holdings.

It seems to me, this assumption of more hidden to be discovered is the basis of campaign settings.

[Mirviriam]

Guys this has to be the best thread I've read in 3 years - any forums...generally I lurk - but this is seriously awesome.

I'm not critizing in traditional sense - I'm looking at it from the view point of making new rules is about breathing life in to something we love.

We almost need a vision, goals, etc.

I'd love to split this thread into 4 pieces...historical explainations of realm balance, strategy used, mechanics of siege/control/consolidation, philosphy of our game designing for the handbooks/tools etc.

What I hear over & over again is that everyone adjusts their game based to their tastes (I do it too - one time I want to focus & have players actions have great impact on out come - othertimes we gloss over)...you guys didn't write the last two rule books because you wanted offical ways of playing - you wrote them because it's about keeping the Bright alive.

[Mirviriam]

A siege lasts weeks, months, occasionally years. It should be a complex skill challenge. The castle, if well constructed makes it quite possible to prevent attackers from being able to act. That is quite the point of many of its innovations.

Those board games that take hours to play are a glorious style of gaming. Birthright promised to merge rpg's and wargames, and never got serious about the wargaming side. If you want to resolve major, complex military operations in the single role of a die, feel free. No one is stopping you. However, I don't see how you can criticize the alternative except from a matter of taste.

I love battles, that's one of best parts of game - all I'm saying is how is your being good using castles able to stop rocks the size of wagons from hitting the wall - you need to get more granular with the siege checks - there's things you just can't do with siege checks. Also if you exit castle, then I can enter castle should I catch up with you :)

Thanks for fixing my quote other day too! :)

[Mirviriam]

You see a L1 castle and think castle, I see dozens of redoubts, fortified inns and holds etc - and estimate whether to reflect it as a castle or fort, or simply abstract it as a law holding. The differing approach and style of game play leads to totally different perceptions.



Actually per rules in D20 - provinces have a network of defenses with central fort/castle this is primarily for video games I think as you can't easily have 4 seiges within one province (the rules state somewhere in original materials about automatically housing 3 archer units). Then all holdings are protected upto the level of the fortification level - if the regeant so chooses. The destruction of levels on the fortification might not reflect on the castle but rather other spots around the realm....one more reasons the circumstances prevent opposed siege craft rolls :)



So I look at the thousands of npc's in a domain and consider how they will react to player actions, and as a DM will then impute the necessary mechanic to reflect the facts - your 'pillage to L0, create a new province and then rule it up' would fail utterly as a tactic to win loyalty in my games - that sort of genocidal butchery would get every neighbour up in arms over the thousands of refugees, the church declaring the PC anathema, etc, the domain might well rise up if it was lawfully or good aligned, - that sort of thing is the difference between a board game and a role playing game for me...

Sorry - I'm answering this thread on some many different levels - combining some of my seperate addresses for different issues. I'm not looking to destroy the province level, just law - the province would be useless to me if I can't raise armies from it later on. You missed the point though - I'm just trying to deny RP/GP from my chosen enemy. If I'm short money I would consider dropping provinces I've invaded to level 4.

Don't get me wrong though - I will completely wipe someone off the map...the vengeance of a woefully wronged paladin, nor the rather of Cuiraécen knows no boundries! Or if I play an evil/neutral rogue only if I have a good reason too destroy(or a good reason I made up & orchestrated). Since ultimately every action I take will serve 2 - 4 purposes (move me towards the richer parts of map, deny resources, hurt your income when you do get it back, concentrate your forces in one area - preferable near castles of mine where I can resist successfully)

Though, none of my characters would invade anything until we have complete control of realm. If the priests weren't on board before hand - then I'd be busy killing and stuffing them in to barrels as meat by product to sell to other nations as discount rate (like in Mexico & their chili) ... then I might start invasions. I wouldn't mind picking a nation with a rogue leader and you DM a single realm conflict between church and theif w/law guild holdings. For our purpose no external nations ... that mass agiatate and contest action that priests have looks like a doozie - like I said I'd never allow anyone that much control inside my realm - state religion worshiping only the lawn gnomes would be my typical choice(until the lawn gnomes rebel and then I'd have to occupy my own realm).

EDIT: Apologies was drinking tonight.

[AndrewTall]

I didn't think about this point of yours much - but I read the campain setting some (skimmed interesting parts) - got to where the original materials stated, outside of the elves and evil domains there are only 6 truly practicing mages.

This made me think that their has to be more mages with equal or near equal power ratings who were sharpening skills on normal spells. These guys are hiding their talents so the 6 settled mages with domain spells don't off the competition. They might lack the finese & experience that comes with practicing at will, but probably steal off the magical oddities that dot the source holdings.

It seems to me, this assumption of more hidden to be discovered is the basis of campaign settings.

It depends how you want to play. BR played against common-magic campaigns like Greyhawk and Athas, so few mages was one differentiator. There is of course nothing to stop mages being more common, however mages being rare adds many interesting social issues, whilst having no impact on your ability to play a mage - any player who really wants a mage is likely to get one.

With magic common, it is hard for mages to be outcasts, looked down on, or for that matter held in superstition and awe - as a result to be effective they tend to need to be higher level (the old Gandalf-is-6th-level issue) which then ratchets up the power across the board. The setting had Rjurik and Vos despising wizards, Anuireans and Brecht seeing them distantly but as useful, and the Khinasi idolising them - quite a range, but one where many secret mages could travel to the Khinasi lands to learn, then return home to set up a power base far from those with the wisdom to espy them (a few like this are noted in the Rjurik Highlands and Vosgaard books).

I like this because reining in the mage has long been a DnD problem - particularly at high level. While social drawbacks never properly counter mechanical strengths, they can go some way to doing so and I prefer a Barbara Hambley approach to mages as a result. Also, of course, it creates some great role-playing opportunities, and some interesting matter-of-justice type scenario's.

The question of domains is a bit harder, mage domains produce little if any income in most variants, in part to force the mages to be team players. This has the effect of making them horribly difficult to build - other domains have a much stronger arithmetic power effect, source domains grow, but have only 20% of the power increase for each holding level gained which slows them down significantly making it harder for other mages to pounce in.

If you assume that the domain is more than just inanimate objects and natural life, then the mage has to be something of a 'people person' to run it which while not a huge problem, will cut out some of the freakier specimens. So I'd generally assume that there are only a few mages with the personal power, skills, and cash to realistically seek to replace a domain mage.

[Mirviriam]

This has the effect of making them horribly difficult to build - other domains have a much stronger arithmetic power effect, source domains grow, but have only 20% of the power increase for each holding level gained which slows them down significantly making it harder for other mages to pounce in.

If you assume that the domain is more than just inanimate objects and natural life, then the mage has to be something of a 'people person' to run it which while not a huge problem, will cut out some of the freakier specimens. So I'd generally assume that there are only a few mages with the personal power, skills, and cash to realistically seek to replace a domain mage.

Where do I find out more about this source domain power - I've read over D20 (3rd or 3.5 edition after I printed it) & the original handbook this past 2 days & there's nothing there about.

I definitely understand what you say about the being hard to play a domain as source only...I assume that's why Caine is located next to spiderfell & holds all of Taline's source ... so he's got extra regency to turn into gold for his schemes.

Somewhere in the D20 it basically outlines that people are not apart of the source domains. Not directly, but it says that nature & wild things atune themselves to the wizard. Then all materials agree that people are the one thing that permenantly lowers the maximum level of source(the level of max source is inversely proportional to level of province(which people agree is how many ppl in province) they have a common resource # of 10 + the natural landscapes bonus to source holdings)...maybe druids/rangers are part of domain if they choose? So far as I could tell the natural area around a source was only thing that was part of a wizard's source domain (if he becomes the ruler of a province we're talking a completely different story).

[AndrewTall]

You won't find details on what's really in a source holding anywhere - it's how differing people try to interpret the mechanics and odd stray line of canon fluff.

Basically to try and reduce the 'I have no money!' problem of mages people made various fixes, the Book of Magecraft allowed high level sources to act as virtual guilds and found trade routes - but was that a handful of rare valuable items/herbs/etc, or a small network of people dedicated to the mage who was so closely tied to the land? Or did the wizard themselves wander around picking herbs and growing diamonds?

D20 variants included income as a guild 4 levels lower, 1/3 Gb per level, etc, etc. Again all imply that there is something that a) generates b) harvest and c) distributes wealth in the domain - i.e. it contains people of some sort...


Source domains being 'different' to other holding types goes right back to the start of the game, although some of it could be sloppy wording as regards contest actions, law holding influence, pillage actions, etc.

source levels were inverted, imo, because the designers wanted wizards to both need everyone else (money!) and oppose them (argh, no, don't rule up the province, I neeed that L9 source!) to create dynamic tension between regents.

So really its up to you, what do you want sources to be?

For example I make ruling provinces very difficult - so the source opposing the rule action dynamic is unnecessary. But I still want to allow undeveloped realms a chance against the big boys, so I'd want to invert the province level and source level anyway (i.e. you can have big magic, or a big army - but probably not both).

I like mebhaighl to be generated by plant life, but some people make the valid point that high population can easily indicate high amounts of plant life (those fields have extremely rapid growth, or is corn somehow the only plant that doesn't generate mebhaighl?) so the source level should go up with high population which I don't want...

If you follow the 'mebhaighl is generated deep in the planet' approach and want to invert levels you need to say that somehow the increasing organised population disrupts it - but given the value of a good source listening to the court mage when he says 'build not along the line between the mountain and the swamp, a river of magic runs through pure and strong, and its strength will guard the nation - or tear it asunder if thwarted', frankly any smart scion would invest in bridges that don't block mebhaighl any more than natural fords do, lay out streets that curved to follow the necessary line, etc - and have both high pop and high source.

[Thelandrin]

Feng Shui realm ruling? :) I might consider allowing that, but the ruler would either need to be a wizard or have a vassal wizard to help him out and the province would two or three times as much GB and RP to raise, in return for the source level not dropping by one if the realm rule succeeds.

[kgauck]

If Anuire is more like France, with the humans generally sharing a fairly common nationality and history, such re-unions are more possible. They are less possible the more disparate are the cultures. Less possible, but not impossible.

I think that presumes an awareness of a nation, which I would reject. Germany remained provincial and disunited until the mid-19th century a generation after a real and profound national consciousness emerged. I think most people think of themselves as being from their town or village and have an awareness of being from their province, but I don't think there is an Avanese consciousness less alone Anuirean. Nobles tend to be cosmopolitan.

Regarding a great Empire, I think its possible, but the conditions are tough enough that we don't find a succession of empires as we do after Alexander. The middle east has a history of one empire after another. Asyrians to Babylonians, to Medians, to Persians, to Alexander, to Seleucids, to Parthians, and so on.

I think that in the aftermath of Deismaar, scions had a group consciousness from their participation in the great battle. They acknowledged Roele as the successor to Haelyn as chief commander, and when the old powers fell to the new scions, they accepted, perhaps if resisted at home, they welcomed Roele and his support. The Empire is not an example of Alexandrian conquest, but rather of a class of people, the scions overthrowing powers at home and acknowledging that Roele was their leader. Its more like a revolutionary moment.

Over time, the forces of disintegration overwhelmed the forces of integration and the Empire fell. Those forces of localism and regionalism are still powerful and tend to prevent a repeat.

Could one of the great factions gain ascendency, defeat a major awnie, remove any meaningful opposition at home and move on to bigger goals? Sure. But I would expect that such a project would have a great deal to overcome to avoid being a Carolingian moment, where there is temporary unification followed by a division, just as Alexander was succeeded by several generals.

[kgauck]

I didn't think about this point of yours much - but I read the campain setting some (skimmed interesting parts) - got to where the original materials stated, outside of the elves and evil domains there are only 6 truly practicing mages.

There is no category of wizards, but there is a category of wizard's marks, and there are 17 of those, and I know I have really only scratched the surface. I'd estimate the total number of wizard domains as closer to 50, and they will have successors in grooming, plus the odd wizard who isn't attached to a domain, I'd estimate close to 120 as a minimum, with dilettante wizards being a much larger number still.


I love battles, that's one of best parts of game - all I'm saying is how is your being good using castles able to stop rocks the size of wagons from hitting the wall

Short answer: By knowing how an attacker would besieger your castle, you know how to sight ballistas on towers to shoot at the likely spots for siege equipment. You know how to create overlapping fields of fire and set up obstacles in the very layout of the earth (how wide is the moat, the construction of hills and slopes on the approach to a castle, so that even if a breach is formed, its hard to exploit because you have to cross a prepared field without natural cover, up a slope, under a hail of archers who have practiced putting arrows on this slope from walls and towers that give them every opportunity to kill you as you run for the breach. They have materials prepared for repairing breaches so that if they attacker moves slowly because they want to use constructed protection to approach the breech, when they arrive they have to exit and re-open that breech under the hail of arrows.

There is a reason sieges take so long. Its not just a matter of tossing a couple of rocks and killing the defenders.

But even moreso, most sieges don't involve siege equipment. Its expensive, vulnerable, and not terribly effective. Under ideal conditions it can be pretty potent, but a lot of times you can't get those and its not so impressive. Most sieges were of the starve them out variety.


You need to get more granular with the siege checks - there's things you just can't do with siege checks.

Siege checks aren't meant to be the all-purpose siege mechanic. They are especially good for NPC conducted sieges because the PC is elsewhere, or as one of many rolls for things during a siege.


Also if you exit castle, then I can enter castle should I catch up with you :)

Not really. First off, you are outside of archery range when people leave the castle. That's quite a distance to haul, under archery fire, under adverse conditions, like a slope, a trench, and so on, while the defenders have measures like weighted gates to make closing up quick and easy. Most castles have considerable defenses at their openings, so that getting into the gatehouse but failing to get past the gate puts you in a lethal cross-fire under murder-holes, and susceptible to other kinds of nastiness. Finally any structure with a main gate will have a two gate system so that only one is opened at a time.

Entering a castle isn't like bum-rushing a street vendor.


Thanks for fixing my quote other day too! :)
no problem.

[kgauck]

Actually per rules in D20 - provinces have a network of defenses with central fort/castle this is primarily for video games I think as you can't easily have 4 seiges within one province (the rules state somewhere in original materials about automatically housing 3 archer units). Then all holdings are protected upto the level of the fortification level - if the regeant so chooses. The destruction of levels on the fortification might not reflect on the castle but rather other spots around the realm....one more reasons the circumstances prevent opposed siege craft rolls :)

I don't know what you are referring to as a set of rules. I don't why you couldn't have four sieges in one province. If you defeated your enemy in a major battle and could be sure he wouldn't be raising any of your sieges, you could do it. Otherwise it would not be advisable to divide your army so.

Also I don't understand why he fact you can attack in one place means I could not use a siege test for a siege at another place or time? Can you explain why this is a problem? If its based on some notion of everything in a province being managed as a single event, please understand the purpose of this thread is to provide an alternative to the cartoonishly simple rules I have seen elsewhere.


I'm not looking to destroy the province level, just law - the province would be useless to me if I can't raise armies from it later on. You missed the point though - I'm just trying to deny RP/GP from my chosen enemy. If I'm short money I would consider dropping provinces I've invaded to level 4.

Law is generally based in the strongest places. If any holding were inside the regent's fortresses, it would be law. Often the fortresses are the law. Attacking some third person's law is one thing. It may be exposed to military operations, then again it may not.


Don't get me wrong though - I will completely wipe someone off the map...

I don't know what you mean by "wipe someone off the map," it seems you are taking about pillage, and pillage can't do that. Pillage can reduce the offensive combat power of a province to zero quite easily, but it leaves the defensive power of a province nearly untouched. The English pillaged France throughout the Hundred Years War and it didn't bring them any closer to occupying a single estate.


Though, none of my characters would invade anything until we have complete control of realm. If the priests weren't on board before hand - then I'd be busy killing and stuffing them in to barrels as meat by product to sell to other nations as discount rate ... then I might start invasions.

I can't think of anything you could do that would throw your realm into civil war faster. Attacking the priests would mean a generation of civil unrest, occasional civil war, and a longer period of simmering discontent. You'd be remembered fondly like Bloody Mary Tudor. You can try and be a Henry VIII, and change the religion by force, but you'll spend the rest of that character's life trying to that genie back in the bottle. Put thoughts of conquest out of your mind for two generations minimum.


that mass agiatate and contest action that priests have looks like a doozie - like I said I'd never allow anyone that much control inside my realm.

I don't see you every having the kind of control you're looking for, outside of small Vos realms. There are always internal disagreements; factions in courts, temples, and guilds; rivalries, and more. Ruling a realm is like herding cats. You have a core of people and income that you control pretty directly and the rest you hope doesn't distract you too much from the policies you would like to pursue. It will, but you can hope.

Control of a realm is mostly an illusion. You say jump and what you get in return looks like:
I don't jump on Tuesdays and Saturdays for religious reasons.
I won't jump unless you pay me more.
I served my 40 days this year, no jumping for me.
Why are we jumping when we should be swimming?
I would like to jump, but I injured myself in your service quite recently.
There is no jumping in my feudal contract.
My town charter specifically exempts me from jumping, or paying for others to jump.
If you make me jump, I'll make common cause with your enemies.
If you try and make me jump, I'll sue you in court.
I'll jump if you grant me a monopoly on the river traffic from Barn's Ford to Hamton Vale.
That's it! I',m running away!
I'll jump if you can make him jump.
I'll jump if the oracles look favorable.
I'll jump if I am granted a two day work exemption for every day jumping.
Remove these onerous taxes and I'll jump.
We should be jumping with them against him, not with him against them.

I think you get the picture. The only people jumping are your direct and indirect dependents.

[AndrewTall]

From a mechanic point of view, the ruler has both pro's and con's to see in a small number of strong domains in their realm, as opposed to either a large number of weak domains, or directly controlling the guilds, temples, etc themselves.

1. Know your enemies - if your domain is 'pure' it is inherently more unified as everyone has the same goals. External threats will exist, but youll know what direction the swords will be coming from, and be secure with your domain behind you when there is conflict.

2. Divide and conquer. The competition for guilds, temples etc is mostly other guilds, temples, etc. If you try to dominate, then you become the enemy of everyone with ambition, 'ture' faith, etc - if you allow separate domains then they will mostly battle each other.

3. You can't control mice. A few domains can be the subject of diplomacy, threats etc, - but threatening a hundred regents is both time consuming and impractical. Your threats are also limited - if 3 guilds compete in your realm, you can threaten one with losing a single concession, holding, etc - if you have dozens of tiny guilds then you either leave them be or crush them - the option of 'reasonable force' disappears as they are so weak.

4. You can't do everything. Every regent needs allies, people to act on their behalf, support their plans, etc - in mechanical terms even if you only get 1 action from a domain a season on something you want, that's one more action than your domain had. Add in maxed-out regency collections vs the same collection and regency from vassalage and reduced control actually boosts efficiency.

5. Tyranny begets rebellion. If your regent controls absolutely, then by default no one else has any control. Since many people have ambition, reducing their scope inevitably breeds resentment and makes your regent their enemy. That create fertile ground for intrigue, corruption, etc both initiated within your domain and provoked by your enemies.

6. Familiarity breeds contempt. Any domain consists of a number of smaller organisations, the more issues that a domain covers, the more the aims of these small organisations diverge. The sheriffs want tighter border controls, the merchants want easier trading, the result is more and more internal inefficiencies as the domain sprawls.

7. The road to ruin. To get from a position of multiple overlapping domains, to a god-king absolute control situation requires the crushing of numerous smaller domains - which will resist as best as they are able, bribe your enemies for succor, etc. If your neighbour accepts taxes and fealty they will grow while the domineering ruler bleeds themselves dry - not a wise tactical move.

8. Isolation is blindness
As a foreign ruler, I would dislike a domain beholden to another ruler in my realm. a neutral domain is fine, but one which will spy upon my realm and use my largesse to feed my rival? Never! As such is a ruler demands domination of their domains, the domains will find themselves shunned outside the ruler's domain, and as such will be far less able to advise the ruler of foreign affairs when required.


What no ruler wants, is a monolithic foreign domain within their realm, if ruler A and two faiths B and C, then B and C are constrained into loyalty, as whichever one opposes the ruler more strenuously will see the ruler choose the support the other - making both compete for favour.

So tactically the ideal is allied domains in your realm which pay their taxes, maybe a little regency in vassalage, and accept that in exchange for reasonable taxes and the odd titbit of information/support they will otherwise be left in peace.

If you move away from a mainly mechanical view of the game towards a storyteller / simulationist view then the above becomes vastly more important, as the increased dominance of npc's comes into play and rewards trying to 'win the game' with punitive roleplaying penalties.

[Mirviriam]

Nobles tend to be cosmopolitan.

One thing about the nobles in feudal systems was that influencing the right one could change a country or at least his area of control.

I think that would be a great plot or developement combined with lots of research (and a failure or two) before players of smaller realms realized their dream!

[Mirviriam]

There is no category of wizards, but there is a category of wizard's marks, and there are 17 of those, and I know I have really only scratched the surface. I'd estimate the total number of wizard domains as closer to 50, and they will have successors in grooming, plus the odd wizard who isn't attached to a domain, I'd estimate close to 120 as a minimum, with dilettante wizards being a much larger number still.


Book & page # please? I think there's a book I'm missing.

[Mirviriam]

Short answer: By knowing how an attacker would besieger your castle, you know how to sight ballistas on towers to shoot at the likely spots for siege equipment. You know how to create overlapping fields of fire and set up obstacles in the very layout of the earth

That might work once...but second time they build a bigger one with more than your equipment.

As to storming castle...if you guys get close enough to hit my guys who are out of archer range...then my calvary can run you down to the breach...archers or not (since if we're close you can't shoot at us without hitting your own shit - please dont' tell me 100 or 200yard shots are that accurate on 2 moving forces)...just not realistic :)

[Mirviriam]

I was going to answer this post but it's too long for tonight Kbowielkeig~!

I played 3 campaigns for less than 1.5 year in real life and over 70 hard victories of gorgon's alliance - so for me the game is GA. None of the PBEM's lasted beyond my taking first province or two - so there's no way to know if other players compare.

My view is on the strategic side. Your bits about church being protected are interesting but rebellions don't happen in the game mechanics that quickly unless a random event occurs. We're talking about occupying our own province - probably with high number of mercancies, gnoll if necessary - doesn't matter. Iron rule will be had...within 2 years.

Would I be infamous...you know it...would I be knocking down other realms? Probably - I can see a few fearful & well played diplomancy depending on if I'm sandwhiched between two much larger Lawful Good countries getting me.

We're talking within game mechanics - not some crazy DM fiat from someone who can't stand the game played in a way they never dreamed. I've played campaigns 5 times more complicated with two groups of 4-5 players opposing eachother (didn't start that way)...with all the weird siegecraft rules you can dream...we ended up with a DM and a referee because otherwise the players would have abandoned the DM rules which had no backing in the mechanics (reminds me of the 2 & 3 popes thing - their people didn't magically rise up & over throw the french pope did they?).

I'd really like to see an advanced Birthright formed up - a sharpening of what the elitist players from the forums would play...but not something that suspends reality (like defensive siege weapons being more powerful for entirity of seige). Maybe this belongs under a different title/thread? Why hasn't anyone addressed the meta-comments I've made to that effect before? I'm also curious if we are just arguing for the sake of arguing or creating something new?

[AndrewTall]

I thought you might be approaching the game from a GA point of view. :)

I approach the game (which to me is the table top and PBEM primarily) very much from a role-play point of view, where the mechanics may have a background impact, but 'crazy dm fiat' is the dominant factor - also known as non-player characters.

The reason why DM fiat is so important, is that if you were to write a ruleset to cover 'everything' it would be several hundred thousand pages long - as long as every science book, legal text, psychological treatise, etc that we have in RL - and then some. Practically speaking, past a few thousand pages a RPG tops out, so all the rest has to be done by the DM - 'crazy fiat' which 'ignore the rules' are a core feature of the system as most of the rules simply can't be put down on paper without killing everyone of boredom...

The other reason why DM's impute these effects, is to make the games work. Most DM's are very well aware of how quickly a blinkered mechanic-mindset can break the game, they thus use fiat to round out the gaps in the mechanics and make the world work - and the game playable over time. That's not an inability on their part to see the more advanced aspects of the game, quite the opposite.

A modern computer game could probably mimic some RPG issues - domain unrest, hundreds or thousands of tiny domains and npc's, etc, but it is always going to be a long way short of an RPG in terms of interactivity, so I'm not sure that you can get a common view on core mechanics.

In terms of rulesets I'd love to split out the system into:

*Basic - aimed at people who want a domain system in the background but don't want it taking up too much game time.
* Standard - a moderately complex system for common use
* Book of regency -then a whole smorgasboard of optional extra's for people to pick from expansions - so if you want long drawn out seiges you can bring in logistics, costs, survival rates, etc; if you want courtly intrigue you'd have interaction rules, if you want magical weather, incursions, etc to stretch the source holders you could have those, you could have great structures and grand events, paragons of art/science, etc, etc - add in all the options and it would probably get unworkable, but some extra's would be great for people who wanted to focus more on one area or another.

[Mirviriam]

GA does mimic the DM Fiat idea ... difference is it's the unrest/attitude - razing or occupying drops it significantly, then you simplely demarogue or espionage it back up.

Thus the solving of issue of occupy and destroy churches power base without having rebellion.

From a roleplay perspective ... with multiple churches any that rebel will get the stick. Or I find a greedy priest within their ranks who wants a promotion...history is more than full of those.

Even though I'm aggressive I'm not anywhere near stupid. If it's not a computer game (really the only thing left of birthright unfortunately) that might last & it was more worthwhile to establish a spy network, 3 spies to counter-spy, cover-up, and finally sway the public into a rebellion then tempt them over to my control with diplomancy - I'll do that instead. My belief is that your idea's about counter balances are completely wrong. Even if I played in a realm ran by you - I'd keep public opinion on my side via other means.

Mainly I saw that your posts all reflected taking countries apart was based on strength - which history has proven not the case time & time again. Look at the American Civil War...the South per all history books kicked the snot out 4 times their numbers...till the generals of the north declared total war & destroyed cities, food production, transportation system till the people had to give up.

Thus, I'm saying your arguments are side tracking the thread in addition to irrelevant (if roleplaying hard - I'd counter all your population arguments as needed). As for the resources to do it - I'm used to running level 10 court...so there's build up time...maybe my enemies having knowledge of my play style create level 3 or better fortifications in all of their provinces while I build up?

[The Swordgaunt]

Look at the American Civil War.

This thread is too old for me to officially jump in, but I'll just make an observation. When using examples from history, it is important to take the context into account. The American Civil War was a turning point in the history of warfare. With it came the industrial war, something that was perfected in all the wars to come, from the Boer War, the Sino-Russian War, WWI and II, and to it's most pure form in the Cold War.

I fail to see it's relevance in a medieval-esque fantasy setting.

Examples are a two-edged sword... If not used properly, they harm the argument, rather than support it.

[kgauck]

Book & page # please? I think there's a book I'm missing.

I am refering to information on the wiki. Up on the top of the screen there are links to "portal", "forums", and "wiki."


That might work once...but second time they build a bigger one with more than your equipment.

You are missing a critical understanding of castles. If you go back to the beginning of this thread you will find I start with the basic question, given that castles cost so much, why build them instead of armies? The answer is that they are useful enough that to some degree, they are better than armies.

If one side can build a bigger siege engine, the other side can too. Attackers do not have a monopoly on engineers.


As to storming castle...if you guys get close enough to hit my guys who are out of archer range...then my calvary can run you down to the breach...archers or not (since if we're close you can't shoot at us without hitting your own shit - please dont' tell me 100 or 200yard shots are that accurate on 2 moving forces)...just not realistic :)

A sortie from a castle isn't made at random, or for no reason. It is made because you can achieve local superiority to achieve some significant tactical end. The besieging force is to some degree surrounding the fortress it besieges. That spreads forces thinly. At various times the army must fodder its horses, forage for food, and collect material. This takes forces away from the defenders. The besieging captain, like all captains who risk battle, believe they can either win, or at least avoid a serious defeat. The force that sorties believes it has a chance compared to the risk, to achieve a local win.

These continued comments reflect a near total ignorance of the basics of siege warfare. If the subject interests you, a visit to the local library should provide access to books on siege warfare. It would be prudent to draw on materials other than games.

[kgauck]

not something that suspends reality (like defensive siege weapons being more powerful for entirity of seige).

You are obviously unaware that nearly every siege that was begun ended in a failure to capture the fortress. For instance, of an archaeological survey of 150 castles (which could be besieged numerous times) there are only five definitely known cases of capture. And these often involve critical mistakes being made, not simply the straightforward success of the attacker against a prepared foe.

Frankly, it is you who are trying to suspend reality by assuming a siege might be successful more than very occasionally.

However it appears you are getting your sense of reality from the game Gorgon's Alliance, which is about as reality based as Spongebob Squarepants.


GA does mimic the DM Fiat idea ... difference is it's the unrest/attitude - razing or occupying drops it significantly, then you simplely demarogue or espionage it back up. Thus the solving of issue of occupy and destroy churches power base without having rebellion.

This game makes conquest of the world ridiculously easy because the point of the game is for the player to conquer the world. The purpose of the ideas discussed in this thread up until now are not based on making it easy for a player to conquer the world by making all obstacles minor and easily overcome, but rather reflecting reality.


From a roleplay perspective ... with multiple churches any that rebel will get the stick.

Don't pretend this is roleplay. This is wish-fulfillment attempting to pass itself off as strategy.

[tpdarkdraco]

I am not sure if any one on the forum is familar with Warmaster but they have rules for mass battle and I just recently found a review of a Warmaster: Medieval which details more rules for manning and assaulting ramparts, siege weapons etc. But there are also tables covering the effect on the defenders of a prolonged siege.

I have the basic Warmaster rule book and it seems to me and easy convert of the 2ed stats that units had and easy to use. They use stuff like hero unit or leader unit which have range for giving order etc. seems to fit with BR. Have a look if you get a chance or buy one of the books.

Also on the plus side if you like working with minitures then these are great too. They have dwarves, elves, humans, orcs (which can be used for goblins, undead etc.) Great for table top battles if you get into that.

[Mirviriam]

Kguarck - You post says, "How war should work"

I'm going to keep this civil though you seem to be losing the thread or your cool (ad hominem arguements indicate lack of sleep or belief that one is losing the argument).

My comment on reality is very valid - light unarmor horses move faster than armored horse with riders in plate...why in the world would you say I'm out of touch with reality when you are arguing that fact? Say all things are equal if you are close enough to strike a base or objective then the enemy can ride back with you (triggering a siege/warcraft check to see who takes control of the gates?). When I saw we are departing reality, I am pointing out that horses essentially move at the same speed.

I believe you do the game a diservice when you take it personally.

Previously I gave an example in siege why opposed siegecraft rules would not work - you came up with one exception which I acknowledged & amended stating the first time that would work. The reason your siege check can't be used in definitely is where will you get the materials, how will you move it in to place, how will you know whats going on behind my screens? Who's to say the enemy doesn't bring their own engineer who clearly measures the distance & sets up outside your range? There's just no generic way to use opposed siege rolls with projectiles, magic serves a roll already - leave it to that if needed.

I argue against your side to try & help creating balanced rules. In this case I've countered your argument about oppposed siege checks as blanket rule. Now, I argue there are situations to use that opposed check, the sally forth attack from castle is one of the only times opposed siege checks should be used...perfect situation:


I the brutual leader who raized, pillaged & destroyed more of the known world than anyone ever has arrived at Kguard's castle. With little to no siege items, I setup some camps at various points and have my little guys collect anything interesting while keeping their eyes open on patrol.

You seeing I left some gaps & my people are mostly lazy & in disarry. You sally forth to raid one of my camps.

[Dice Rolls]Your siege check(because you're better at it than a brutual leader) versus my warcraft check (as I am a brutual leader, but know I haven't ever laid siege before or seen a building bigger than my outhouse) - you win once & hurt me or I win first time.

It turns out the roll didn't matter; my disarray & spread out camps were a trap - all of my guys are on horse, not just a few. By the time you hit the camp proper well outside the archer range - half my force is behind you & the other half was awaiting near the location of the sloppy camp. Suprise, my men don't strap on armor or spend even full minutes getting ready - we string our bows & hop on our horses in a matter of seconds. The camps spawl so that no one is far from Horsieses!
That's my argument for opposed rolls in sallying forth. You need to break down the situations, not all situations are appropriate that's my point in regards to the siege. You almost need a set of rules just for different actions in sieges, like you have for battles.

Let this (when I play rogues, though my paladin will kill everyone in vengeance as required by his god of battle!) brutual leader illuminate you on one point. Most sieges end because of starvation & disease. A fact in all of your dazzling knowledge you missed ... my playstyle is to not roleplay 2-9 years of starving out my enemy.

If you really want to chase the other argument about my tactics of spreading enemy out & how to raid - start another thread, I know there's 3 ways to do it - all of them involving non-fortified provinces (which is the only place to attack in my opinion).

As the the premise of your post - how wars should work. It will be a trading of lands that are not protected by fortifications & destruction of low level fortifications till outside interference & several others help to carve up or save the province. I doubt very much we'd see a 2 nation war. How many people get busy is another matter.

If you're still insulted after I tried to make peace - get a thicker skin, half my humor points back at me. The other half points out that brutual does not have to be stupid & it suceeds more often than you anyone here wants to acknowledge. Everyone had to go through some power consolidations. Not all brutual, maybe they used behind the scenes actions. The upfront ones didn't always get neutered though...I won't mention the H word, King Louis XIV, Julias caesar, Chinggis Khan etc ... the priesthood didn't slow any of them down once they started ... and they all killed lots of civilians, nobles, barbarians (think they were probably dealt with before hand - bribed, killed, demoted, promoted ... bet on it).

[Mirviriam]

There is no category of wizards, but there is a category of wizard's marks, and there are 17 of those, and I know I have really only scratched the surface. I'd estimate the total number of wizard domains as closer to 50, and they will have successors in grooming, plus the odd wizard who isn't attached to a domain, I'd estimate close to 120 as a minimum, with dilettante wizards being a much larger number still.


I am refering to information on the wiki. Up on the top of the screen there are links to "portal", "forums", and "wiki."

Someone want to point what which subcategory that's under - which part of the wiki rules? Anything to get me started - I'm looking through the wiki 3.5 & just not seeing it.

This is as close as I am getting - I tried to search by wizard's & wizard mark with plurals...

http://birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Rune

[Sorontar]

I believe that he is refering to [[category: Wizard Mark]] which is found at http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Category:Wizard_Mark .

[kgauck]

I'm going to keep this civil though you seem to be losing the thread or your cool (ad hominem arguements indicate lack of sleep or belief that one is losing the argument).

Or frustration that someone who quite obviously have never lifted a book, pretends to a knowledge of warfare which is in fact derived from an amusement. Nothing is more irritating that ignorance parading as understanding, and does not respond to evidence that fundamental assumptions may be mistaken except by repeating himself.

[Rowan]

Let this (when I play rogues, though my paladin will kill everyone in vengeance as required by his god of battle!) brutual leader illuminate you on one point. Most sieges end because of starvation & disease. A fact in all of your dazzling knowledge you missed ... my playstyle is to not roleplay 2-9 years of starving out my enemy.
Let me have a go :)

Kgauck's point was that only in rare instances in history can you actually manage that "2-9 years of starving out" your enemy. You have to deal with morale and disease in your own ranks (the ranks of the besiegers), which is often as much if not more of a problem for the besiegers camped in flimsy canvas exposed to the elements and muddy trenches. They are very exposed to pests and the elements. Further, they must forage farther and farther afield, spending much if not most of their time doing that, preventing plenty of opportunities for the besieged forces to sally forth and harass them, then fall back to their greater stores behind the walls. Then there are supply lines that must be maintained--and protected from harassment. And then, probably the biggest problem of all, is the fact that relatively few armies throughout history could manage a huge professional, year-round army. Pretty much throughout medieval and Renaissance Europe, wars had only the summer season between planting and harvest. Then your men at arms and even many of your nobles needed to get home to deal with agricultural and mercantile realities to keep their families from starving or protect their wealth. So you basically lose your army and can't maintain the length of siege necessary to "starve out" your target.

Then there's the problem that while you're sitting in one place, you lose the big advantage of offensive attack: concentrated forces applied to weaker defenses. You see, a defender's big problem is that they have to try to protect a large area, spreading out their forces. Fortifications act both as force multipliers and as anchors, slowing down attacking forces to allow you to rally defense to respond.

Even if you've got that nice (very expensive!) professional army encamped year round in a siege, you're only focused on one (or relatively few) target. This gives the defender all kinds of wonderful opportunity. If he's got any strength at all, he can destroy your supply lines fairly easily, now making YOUR army the one starving. He can easily scorch the earth around your besiegers, eliminating any food they can get from forage, or destroying your foraging forces with harassing cavalry or even peasant levies. And that's if the defender can't muster an army capable of challenging yours--when, in his home country, he's much more likely to be able to muster quite a considerable army with which to double encircle yours.

Or, the defender can take advantage of your tidy little siege to go gallivanting into your country and ravage your countryside, looting and pillaging, while your army is twiddling their thumbs and waiting for one little castle or town to starve.

Henry V encountered almost all of these problems in his French campaign. He had to speed up his initial siege and instead attempt to reduce the fortification because his army was dying to disease and their morale was suffering greatly, and he had intelligence that the French were busily mustering a major counterattacking force. Then he had to leave his conquered keep rather than sit in one place and become vulnerable, and soon his army was desperately marching across the countryside, essentially trying to escape, because the various French armies were all around him. Agincourt was such a remarkable victory because, by all rights, Henry should have lost his entire army and been himself captured by the superior French forces. It was primarily French arrogance, underestimation, and lack of discipline and a battle plan, put against Henry's excellent use of terrain and deployment of forces in an otherwise desperate situation, that allowed his victory. The relevant point to our discussion is that Henry's invasion and attempted sieges and so forth were extremely dangerous undertakings for him that almost ended in disaster.



If you really want to chase the other argument about my tactics of spreading enemy out & how to raid - start another thread, I know there's 3 ways to do it - all of them involving non-fortified provinces (which is the only place to attack in my opinion).
The problem with your sallying example is that a sally only works if it works by surprise. Postern gates are built into fortifications just so that they can be used for such surprise missions, sending out small harassment forces. I wouldn't think a defender would risk a sally if the distances involved to your encampments were so great that your horsemen (which presumably he knows you have) could easily cut off their escape. More likely, your encampment is 1-2000ft from the walls (wider than that and you need tons of men to encircle, and can't really threaten walls; you may have reserves or even the bulk of your army farther back, but then they become irrelevant to the sally anyway). That's a quick sprint for a man on foot--and the defender may well have horses, too. So what the defender will do is sally forth a squad of quick men at night, hit a camp--maybe only killing a few men and setting fire to a few tents--and dash back. IF your sentries spot them, they're likely on the sentries from the camp that they're hitting and might be able to get soldiers to wake up bleary-eyed before they strike; you most likely won't be able to launch a rapid counterattack from other areas, since you can't maintain that kind of readiness and communication at all times. And the defenders can dash back across that 1-2000 feet in only a couple of minutes.

Small sallies occur to harass and seriously harm the morale of the besiegers, while often increasing morale of the besieged.

Large sallies would occur only if the defender has some reason to believe he can win a pitched battle by issuing his forces from the gate. This might occur if the besieger has to send off a large force to defend a supply line; if reinforcements arrive for the defender; or if the besieger has lost a lot of men to disease and the elements and is in low morale and disarray.



As the the premise of your post - how wars should work. It will be a trading of lands that are not protected by fortifications & destruction of low level fortifications till outside interference & several others help to carve up or save the province. ...

...Everyone had to go through some power consolidations. Not all brutual, maybe they used behind the scenes actions. The upfront ones didn't always get neutered though...I won't mention the H word, King Louis XIV, Julias caesar, Chinggis Khan etc ... the priesthood didn't slow any of them down once they started ... and they all killed lots of civilians, nobles, barbarians (think they were probably dealt with before hand - bribed, killed, demoted, promoted ... bet on it).
"Claiming" lands is one thing. "Trading" them is another. Many lords or realms have competing claims. Who's collecting taxes and administering government over those lands? How can you do that if you don't have a secure hold of the land and the people's at least grudging allegiance--to say nothing of the government officials and their guards, an assessment/records of the assets to be taxed, safe places to store the taxes (often grain or livestock), etc. This requires some stability. The only other way you get income from such lands is through pillaging.

Kgauck made the case convincingly that you need some time and security to establish the government necessary to truly derive income from a land and organize its people under law. That's not easy to achieve.

As for priests, if you're talking about internecine conflict in a culture that accepts essentially the same religious authority, you better believe the priests matter. You go around slaughtering priests and you'll have massive uprisings and wars, and likely the condemnation and conquering armies of most of your neighbors bearing down on you--to say nothing of your loss of face among your peers. This is well-supported by European history, and in this regard Anuire does share some similarities with Christian Europe.

The way I understand Anuire to work, with the devotion to a family of Good gods working together, theological differences may exist, but a certain brotherhood does as well. If you go destroying a temple and slaughtering its priests just because they won't do what you want, you'll soon be fighting every temple and realm in Anuire, likely with the support of many guilds, to say nothing of the fact that your own lands and nobles will rise against you. If you don't think faith and religion are actually important to people, you have little understanding of human culture; even in modern times religion is an extremely powerful force, and in times not long past it was much more influential even than it is today.

[Birthright-L]

At 07:48 AM 7/7/2009, kgauck wrote:

>Or frustration that someone who quite obviously have never lifted a
>book, pretends to a knowledge of warfare which is in fact derived
>from an amusement. Nothing is more irritating that ignorance
>parading as understanding.

I`ve been keeping quiet about this sort of thing lately, but this is
really uncalled for. You should really consider more carefully
whether you want to respond at all in this kind of situation.

Gary

[Thelandrin]

This disagreement is starting to get a little bit acrimonious. Let's all please keep calm and civilised about this.

[AndrewTall]

GA does mimic the DM Fiat idea ... difference is it's the unrest/attitude - razing or occupying drops it significantly, then you simplely demarogue or espionage it back up.

Thus the solving of issue of occupy and destroy churches power base without having rebellion.

Not from a simulationist viewpoint - have you really exterminated x thousand people, if so why would anyone migrate to your lands and welcome your rule? If not, why would they casually change their religion or otherwise lose loyalties? GA makes a simplistic attempt to recognise this, but is a long way short of what simulationists look for.


From a roleplay perspective ... with multiple churches any that rebel will get the stick. Or I find a greedy priest within their ranks who wants a promotion...history is more than full of those.

Indeed it is, as the Raven will tell you. However a greedy priest wants power and money - not to be another regent's whipping boy - they expect the same power and perogatives as the old guy, they might settle for less initially (i.e. while they are building their strength) but will eventually seek to regain 'their true power'. And once you've given the rivals the stick you are stuck with what's left - and have just made a rival much more powerful, no regent (aside from a theocratic realm) should want a monopoly in their realm so that they always have the threat of supporting someone else...


If it's not a computer game (really the only thing left of birthright unfortunately) that might last & it was more worthwhile to establish a spy network, 3 spies to counter-spy, cover-up, and finally sway the public into a rebellion then tempt them over to my control with diplomancy - I'll do that instead.

I play the game every now and then, but spend more time PBEM'ing, and yet more time expanding the simulationist and story-teller side of the game, so to me GA is an amusing side point, not the real McCoy - good for quick comparisons of realm/army power to aid in designing mechanics, but that's mostly it.


My belief is that your idea's about counter balances are completely wrong. Even if I played in a realm ran by you - I'd keep public opinion on my side via other means.

True, but that then saps your strength in other areas - its a balancing act however you play it, take from your vassals and you are stronger, but have weaker less loyal allies, give to them and get the converse, host festival after festival and have a loving populace but empty treasury, tax harshly and see morale drop as income increases. Working within the systems rather than riding roughshod over them is a classic 'short term' play, very few managed to smash the existing system and then enjoy a long reign free from the need to pander to others.


Mainly I saw that your posts all reflected taking countries apart was based on strength...

Strength comes in many forms - numbers, technology/magic, economy, morale, skill etc all play a part. In general in any contest favours 'the stronger' contestant (although like simplistic darwinism this is a self fulfilling prophesy)


As for the resources to do it - I'm used to running level 10 court...so there's build up time...maybe my enemies having knowledge of my play style create level 3 or better fortifications in all of their provinces while I build up?

Again a trade off, high court spend vs what your enemies will do with that money. Can you keep your future conquests off guard? Sweet words cost little while forts are expensive - and built only where need is seen.


I'm going to keep this civil though you seem to be losing the thread or your cool (ad hominem arguements indicate lack of sleep or belief that one is losing the argument).

I think that's its more that you are arguing at complete cross-purposes. You are working from a computer game mechanic perspective, Ken from a historical basis (which is what the thread was specifically started to discuss) - in that situation ignoring each other's points as off-topic is standard fare since you are effectively talking different languages - but no one likes being ignored when they have made a valid point, particularly if the 'wrong' point that has been 'proven wrong' is then repeated.

A note on sieges - castles & towns were 'taken' quite often, Joan of Arc made a hobby of it for a while, but as has been pointed out, they were rarely taken by outright force - bribery backed by force is generally cheaper and quicker in any event. That border lord with the unbreakable keep could be a 3-9 year siege, or a 1 month carouse as your new vassal as your new count/baron, if someone wanted a quick victory then, at least initially, they were probably going to end up with a lot of fairly powerful vassals under them - if they could later quash those people and strengthen their rule then they are remembered as great, if not their grand realm generally riped itself apart when they died, or they were reduced to a figurehead by their feuding nobles/etc.

[Mirviriam]

Indeed it is, as the Raven will tell you. However a greedy priest wants power and money - not to be another regent's whipping boy - they expect the same power and perogatives as the old guy, they might settle for less initially (i.e. while they are building their strength) but will eventually seek to regain 'their true power'. And once you've given the rivals the stick you are stuck with what's left - and have just made a rival much more powerful, no regent (aside from a theocratic realm) should want a monopoly in their realm so that they always have the threat of supporting someone else...


Very true! We have to expect that he will be careful to use only mildly bright protege's to discourge us from promoting one of them. As for the power aspect there would have to be an agreement that his power will grow while he supports me, initially he can do level 0 temples & if he does not cross any lines, I would eventually (years later) actively oppose expansion of other temple's current holdings in non-original or powerbase provinces. Eventually I'd have to actively endorse his formation of new holdings & ruling them up.

As with most of the characters I've played, the province holder + one other holding type as his other income would power up so much faster that the priest would not make a dent should they use game mechanics to oppose.

You have to remember too, I might just be the priest & ruler of the province...thus on one hand I beat myself & demand absolute loyalty, while with the other I flick myself off.

[Mirviriam]

Kgauck - I have a printed & bound copy of the D20 rules - which appear to be the current ones...I read it three times in past 2 weeks. Iif you're looking for me to point out that stonehedge's walls were 14" thick, but 12" was regular timber & only 2" was tar treated white pine - measured in Edward the MIV's foot, not the Spanish ruler Isabelle, then you're going to have to look elsewhere. I'm looking to provide just enough vague examples that:


There's no set number of units to seige a castle - because it's the defender's choice to lock up shop.
Siege checks won't infinitely defend a castle against projectiles - access to resources is the best argument without involving tactical...thus siegecraft check can't be used to prevent loss of a level of fortification during siege resolution.
For every foot/horse action, there's a reactionary roll for someone predicting the sally & through subterfuge ambushing it (modify it if the castle guards take precautions to contain a counter by +2 or something).
The limit of the province fortification(not holdings)levels that can be supported is reached by summing the levels of all the provincal fortifications together...as it is the standard limit for all holding types(source is inverse of p.Level but same idea that each province has a power cap).

There's a critical load point where the resources to appease the population are miniumal next to the income a regeant generates. It's built into the core of the domain rules, there is no social mechanics system beyond appeasement generic population. The other thing is that basically, if the NPC's can do it (Gorgon), the PC's can do it (within their own power). I've never ran an evil campaign, we can't force everyone to play how we want or D&D would have died years ago.

I'm going let the "should/can regeants get absolute control" issue go after stating this, because it really, truly, deeply belongs in another thread. I've stated why it can be done, this is the point where we agree or don't & move on to more important issues.

Consider only the 4 points I numbered in my last point or start a new thread if you want to continue on "strategies of domain control"

[AndrewTall]

There's no set number of units to seige a castle - because it's the defender's choice to lock up shop.

However the attacker will need a sufficient number to effectively surround the fortifications, or the besiegers also have no effect beyond being camped nearby. I'd suggest opposing rolls where the number of units inside and outside impacts whether the siege has any effect - so 10 units besieging 1 would pretty much always work, the converse always fail...


Siege checks won't infinitely defend a castle against projectiles - access to resources is the best argument without involving tactical...thus siegecraft check can't be used to prevent loss of a level of fortification during siege resolution.

The 'battles' are taking days if not weeks to carry out, so you will have ongoing repairs, shoring up, etc. Major repairs (repair the breach) are very difficult, minor or moderate repairs (block the main gateway, repair the turret) are not - so I can see attackers without significant siege units actually seeing the castle get stronger as the siege progresses. The real question is just how serious the attack is, which would reflect itself in a buns/penalty to the opposed siegecheck. An attacker with makeshift artillery used by raw recruits is going to mostly hurt themselves. The defender, who will have their own artillery, with the advantage of height, cover, etc could destroy poorly placed sites etc. So I'd say definitely an opposed roll, but with, say, a cumulative bonus to the attacker (who can scavenge resources, whistle up reinforcements, etc.


For every foot/horse action, there's a reactionary roll for someone predicting the sally & through subterfuge ambushing it (modify it if the castle guards take precautions to contain a counter by +2 or something).

Again probably best reflected by an opposed roll - does the castle sally at the moment when the attacker is off-guard, or when they are about to launch a major attack? the defender has the best chance to decide when they fight - they can prepare without being seen whereas the attacker will probably be seen martialing the troops, talking them into a frenzy, etc. So opposed rolls with bonuses for number/type of troops, castle design, besieging camp design, etc.


The limit of the province fortification(not holdings)levels that can be supported is reached by summing the levels of all the provincal fortifications together...as it is the standard limit for all holding types(source is inverse of p.Level but same idea that each province has a power cap).

I disagree. Some very large fortifications have been built in fairly isolated areas - at great cost, but built nonetheless. The key issue is ongoing supply, which has far lower resource costs.


There's a critical load point where the resources to appease the population are miniumal next to the income a regeant generates. It's built into the core of the domain rules, there is no social mechanics system beyond appeasement generic population.

Which was one of the core concepts of the thread - what social mechanics should be built, how should they be designed? We can all see the failings in the existing systems, but how to expand them without creating a book-keeping nightmare is harder. 'Core' provinces which support you quickly if conquered, 'rebellious' provinces which resist any foreign ruler, 'opposed' provinces which have a particular hatred for one race, nation, etc and never accept it, etc are all obvious possibilities for expansion as are increased costs and reduced morale in unfriendly territory, etc.


The other thing is that basically, if the NPC's can do it (Gorgon), the PC's can do it (within their own power). I've never ran an evil campaign, we can't force everyone to play how we want or D&D would have died years ago.

True, but equally if the DM isn't happy running a game then it will die, so the DM's style has to be accepted by the players just as the DM needs to be happy with theirs. I ran an evil campaign (having planned for a good campaign) because the players wanted it, I hated it and it came through...


I'm going let the "should/can regeants get absolute control" issue go after stating this, because it really, truly, deeply belongs in another thread.

No it doesn't, it was again one of the starting concepts - how should war work is inseparable from the question of how control can/should be exercised, relative costs for attacker and defender, etc - the core of the thread was the design of a system to replace/enhance the existing system for those who wanted historically more accurate battles and sieges and similarly more realistic conversion and control rules. Arguments over what can/cannot be done under BRCS/etc systems is the sidetrek :)

[Rowan]

On troops required for siege...I think the standard BRCS rule of thumb that you need troops equal to Fort level + units garrisoned in order to neutralize it and move on deeper into enemy territory is a good rule of thumb. If you don't have this many, the defenders can escape and harass your supply lines. They can still try, forcing a pitched battle, but the point is that you need a certain size force to contain them.

On siege engines...If you look at the history of siege artillery vs. cannons, you'll find that the reason cannons were so revolutionary was that ballistae, catapults, and trebuchet really couldn't do much damage to a good stone wall in even a small keep. They were fairly inconsequential. You didn't even need defending artillery to oppose them. Their chief use was hurling things OVER the walls to harass the defenders. As the Engineer unit stats in BRCS nicely reflect, their primary use in sieges is to either attack unsheltered units in the courtyard or aid attackers in entering fortified spaces (via siege towers, battering rams, and mining/sapping). The main way to bring down walls before cannon was to sap, but this is extremely vulnerable to sorties and inherently dangerous otherwise (due to collapse of tunnels and such). Cannon required fortifications to adopt curved walls, lower profiles, earthen ramparts, and counter-artillery batteries because they were the first thing that could really threaten to bring down walls from a distance, without risking a long and dangerous sapping operation, battering ram attempts, or siege tower assaults (all of which still can't overcome the advantage of the defenders).

On sorties...I went into some explanation of how sorties work and really aren't as vulnerable as one might think to being countered. The defenders have the primary advantage. And they're particularly effective against would-be sappers.

On conquest and absolute control/totalitarian states...I believe the attempt was, as AndrewTall said, to overcome the artificial, gamist possibilities allowed within existing rules and attempt a more historically-realistic, simulationist approach that acknowledges the difficulty in taking and holding land and the near impossibility of establishing a totalitarian state before modern communication and firearms.

[Mirviriam]

However the attacker will need a sufficient number to effectively surround the fortifications, or the besiegers also have no effect beyond being camped nearby. I'd suggest opposing rolls where the number of units inside and outside impacts whether the siege has any effect - so 10 units besieging 1 would pretty much always work, the converse always fail...:)

That just doesn't work for a system that is a game...in two rounds any of 6 wizards in Birthright can create a castle & staff it that would require 90 units to siege. That would strain even the Gorgon's banks to staff 3 of those sieges(assuming like the rest of this thread no magic involved or negated sufficiently).

I'm doubting that many historical sieges had those ratio's too.

We'll never reach anything near conclusion until we some more things clearly laid out.

kgauck: If you have the books, then would you get us what you believe to be a level 1, level 3, level 6 fortification example ... I'm thinking the wooden roman pallisades would be level 0 go from there up?... we need to know:

-How many units it holds(I recall a unit is composed of all required support personel)
-Raw number of extra support personal (manpower, not women & children)
-Number of crafts men generally kept for each category
--stone
--wood
--engineers

Any sort of argument beyond what we've already done is pointless without these details...we're talking about a war of attrition here against level 6 or better castles from what Andrew & Rowan have said.

One thing we can agree on before we get details would be maybe not all sieges are laid to achieve the same effect? Simply keep the enemy from going anywhere fast (masking if that's what you meant by it) is different from making sure the enemy doesn't get supply wagons, which in turn is different from making sure no couriers get through? If that makes sense let me know.

Point 6 - Sieges to achieve different objectives? If just masking, significantly less soldiers would be required...we simply measure the MAJOR exits of the building only & use that as a multiplier. Then assume 2 exits on a level 1-3 fortification of significant size to get calvary out, 4 exits on a level 4-5 fortification, at level 6 or more where we probably have entire cities if varying levels of wall size etc, 6+ exits?

Once we have ratings for these castles, then maybe we decide that anything below level 3 fortification can't withstand standard rockapult.

[Mirviriam]

I disagree. Some very large fortifications have been built in fairly isolated areas - at great cost, but built nonetheless. The key issue is ongoing supply, which has far lower resource costs.

...

Which was one of the core concepts of the thread - what social mechanics should be built, how should they be designed? We can all see the failings in the existing systems, but how to expand them without creating a book-keeping nightmare is harder. 'Core' provinces which support you quickly if conquered, 'rebellious' provinces which resist any foreign ruler, 'opposed' provinces which have a particular hatred for one race, nation, etc and never accept it, etc are all obvious possibilities for expansion as are increased costs and reduced morale in unfriendly territory, etc.

I don't care where you put the castles ... there is three rock hard, unchanging (social can be subverted from round to round) limiting factors on potential power in Birthright:

RP
GP
The rule of 9 (subverted by elves & terrain modifiers to province stats)

Put the castle anywhere, but if it's level 9 - then there's no more resources to support another. If you break that rule, in order to maintain game balance we HAVE to change the province system completely to make the changes to fortifications.




True, but equally if the DM isn't happy running a game then it will die, so the DM's style has to be accepted by the players just as the DM needs to be happy with theirs. I ran an evil campaign (having planned for a good campaign) because the players wanted it, I hated it and it came through...


Not sure what you're saying - of course it's true we want the game to work for everyone, not just people who play like us...sorry you had a bad experience?

[AndrewTall]

That just doesn't work for a system that is a game...in two rounds any of 6 wizards in Birthright can create a castle & staff it that would require 90 units to siege. That would strain even the Gorgon's banks to staff 3 of those sieges(assuming like the rest of this thread no magic involved or negated sufficiently).

I'm doubting that many historical sieges had those ratio's too.

True, but those wizards are going to pay a fortune to do it - and under brcs the castles won't last long. The wizard would be far better off using the vast array of GB and RP to hire mercenaries :) As an attacker I'd smile, sit back and wait for the spells to evaporate while picking off allies, etc and generally gloating over the vast expense incurred by my foe from the mere rumour that I was going to invade - the defender has cast their bolt and all those forts will do is sit there (warding does almost the same thing at less cost)...

I'd note also that a magically created castle may have high walls, but I doubt it has deep wells - or stores of grain. Those sieges might not last long... I also have no problem with most of the 'neutralizing' units being rabble, irregulars, goblins, etc - a few solid units to respond to any sally to limit the damage but the bulk just 'feet in boots' to block supply caravans, shout warnings, etc, etc. Not cheap, but if all I want to do is bottle up, probably not too expensive either.


Any sort of argument beyond what we've already done is pointless without these details...we're talking about a war of attrition here against level 6 or better castles from what Andrew & Rowan have said.

One thing we can agree on before we get details would be maybe not all sieges are laid to achieve the same effect? Simply keep the enemy from going anywhere fast (masking if that's what you meant by it) is different from making sure the enemy doesn't get supply wagons, which in turn is different from making sure no couriers get through? If that makes sense let me know.

I quite agree - the aim may simply be to bottle up the defenders while the attacker does a slash and burn, or to allow an army to pass to less well defended areas, or to stop the defenders aiding someone else - all far easier than destroying the castle.

The existing rules suggest a minimum force equal to castle level to 'neutralise it', you could rule a lower number are needed if the aim was to simply bypass it reasonably safely, and so on.


Once we have ratings for these castles, then maybe we decide that anything below level 3 fortification can't withstand standard rockapult.

Sounds reasonable, but then it assumes that you are talking about a single structure, I'd prefer to leave it more open as to what the fort level represents. An alternative is to add the fort level to the DC of the seige attempt - who knows, those sappers might hit a weak spot, or the builder could have done a shoddy job - or the siege check could represent bribery to open the gates, etc.

[Mirviriam]

Sounds reasonable, but then it assumes that you are talking about a single structure, I'd prefer to leave it more open as to what the fort level represents. An alternative is to add the fort level to the DC of the seige attempt - who knows, those sappers might hit a weak spot, or the builder could have done a shoddy job - or the siege check could represent bribery to open the gates, etc.


From page 90...

"...Fortifications (Province): Provincee fortifications include a province-wide system of fortifications dominated by a massive seat of military power (usually a castle or walled city). ..."


What else are we talking about? I've said province level as much as I can. We are talking about a single fortification. A siege of that fortification. Or we are talking about developement of new rules to allow the splitting of the fortification in to multiple fortifications?

SO: castle normally level 1, pay 80 regency + 10gb first round. Cain's strong hold would last 36 months. At the end of 3 years, he dedicates 4 source from his network to uphold the levels leaving him more than enough source to ensure no one casts more spells in his domain. Pays 10 RP & 1 GP to extend the spell another 3 years(of course he paid the golbins 1gb per season for a total of 12 for 3years). 6 Years of siege, cost 90RP & 33GP - with no reduction of fortress level.

Cain has his original 1 unit stuff some more straw dummies & cain's engineer the best in Cerilla rolls against your DC + terrain advantage since he build the stupid thing on a mountain(multiple the number of troops required by 10). Maybe cain uses the 3 years to recruit a bunch of goblin warriors...idk or care the point is you have to pay 9 times more than I do - so you will go broke within two castings of my spell.

Per the rules posed (ratio 9:1 to seige a fort) you need 90 units minimal 90gb per season? Gorgon can, no one else can siege cain & survive - you wouldn't have an defenses anywhere. How is that worth one province?...unless maybe it's the source level 9 which all of cain's power flows from? If so cain's going to repeat the same process 3 or three provinces away & if he teleports the engineer out using Teleport without Error personal spell (free action under Bright rules) - you'll have same difficulty (assuming as he spent all the effort on the siege that he's blocking all your spells in blanket effect in each realm). So assuming you're paying the goblins to siege the goblins inside cain's castle...that's 12 x 90 ..carry the 1...a ton of gold (1080gb for first 3 years).

The idea of a ratio beyond 3 or 4 to 1 is absurd to destroy a castle much less suppress/mask - I know there were sieges in 100 years war when the French had more military people inside as the english had outside. To be quite honest, unless you're talking private collect books with worth over $2,000 rental fee with proof of authenticity I can't see anyone's claims of 9:1 being needed.

Like you said Andrew ... I'd just put 9 units not even on siege in the province & raise hell in rest of the other provinces. 1080gb to siege one castle, while the other castle owner pays less than 200RP & 150GP.

If this was realistic the gorgon would never have made it in to cerillia with me controlling the pass the elves ambushed the 2nd anuirean army at (forgive me I'm fuzzy on details at 3am :)

[Rowan]

You can't approach historicity using D&D rules (Teleport without Error, which is normally nerfed in BR anyway, and magic in general). Of course, Cain does not have a level 9 Source and should be rather hard pressed to come up with 80RP, unless it is a static world with little else that RP must be spent on.

I don't recall an insistence that 9:1 was required to mask or siege. I thought that was a suggestion that it would take such strong numbers to ensure the capture of a castle with relatively few losses. It is a strategic desire, not a requirement. Just as one of the general rules of thumb of warfare is that you prefer to attack with at least 2-3 times the numbers of your foe (on a more or less open battlefield). That very strongly weighs the battle in your favor. If the defender has fortifications, you'd better believe the general wants considerably more than 2-3 times their number to secure an easy victory. But, we go to war with the armies we have, and generals have usually had to deal with deficiencies.

[AndrewTall]

Stronghold spell
Hmm, I would have thought that a wizard would be unable to move troops into the castle to reinforce it as soon as the besiegers have a reasonable number of troops, so the defenders should just be anyone they have handy initially. If a wizard raises 'empty' castles then even if the granny and kids at the top of the tower can hold off an army by chucking chamberpots, the castle should be useless as it can't launch a sally making any siege pointless. Perhaps a limit on castle effectiveness could be considered with the numbers needed to besiege/attack/etc being based on the lower of castle level and number of units inside.

A high level caster could dispel a fortress, which might make regents reluctant to trust long term defense to it - but then if the Gorgon or a powerful elf cast the stronghold the attacking caster would have to be very strong to hope to pull off the dispel so that doesn't work well as a counter.

The brcs spell does sound perhaps excessively good - I'd thought the duration was shorter - effectively it has maintenance of 1 RP per level compared to a castle of nearly three times that (2/3 GB = 8/3 RP) and similarly costs 10 GB + 8 RP/level vs 8 GP/level - less for any significant castle and much faster to build. Leylines can get around the location problem (a L7 source is hard to come by for most), but I'd assume that they can't support the castle maintenance-wise, so powerful castles should be limited to low level provinces (i.e. low value provinces) and it is unlikely that a caster would be able to maintain multiple fortresses (although given the duration this is arguably not a significant problem). Even so the duration might be better as 1 month per level than 1 season, and you might want to either make them slower to build (they grow at 1 level per season?) or cost more.

Fort toughness
On numbers of forts my thought is that the construction is going to vary a lot. Dwarven or Orog 'forts' might be warrens of tunnels rather than actual structures, elven fortresses networks of impenetrable trees and hedges, I struggle a little with the concept of a halfling fortress but it could have ties to the shadow-world that provide the defensive bonus rather than a mass of high walls. I'd prefer a DM fiat approach subject to pleas rather than a blanket approach of up to L3 for standard artillery, L4 to prepared elite artillery, L5 for only dwarven siege engines, etc. Sieges should be rare enough for the DM to wing it fairly.

Another option is to give each fortress 'defense points' per level, which could be used to buy resources 'deep wells, aerial defences, look-out towers, sally ports, +4 DC vs artillery', etc - and then leave it to the individual player to decide if their fort is immensely tough (no catapult can scratch it!) resourceful (we will never be starved out!), can defend more troops than the norm, has multiple locations, etc.

[Mirviriam]

Defense points stemming from Province level as the amount of points somehow? (A times Province level = amount of point)

[Mirviriam]

You can't approach historicity using D&D rules

I'm hearing that alot from all 3 of you guys - but if that's true every single one of our arguments is a moot point as no one has reasonable a justification.

You can't tell me that castles are hard to take because - historical X, Y, & Z.

Then tell me that we can't use historical references from our world, because of A, B, C.

I agree the issue is complex but we need to find some way of drawing relationships to both ... or simply use one or the other ... not whenever it's convienant for whoever is arguing to turn on & off the magic argument.

[AndrewTall]

I would always start from history, and then try to extrapolate the differences that magic, classes, etc would have. Where that extrapolation moved me away from something I wanted I'd probably go back and restrict the mechanic to prevent the change.

Given the rarity of magic, I'd expect that most castles, etc are fine based on history - the main threat they face is physical. You might have some modifications to account for scrying, any permitted dimensional magics, etc, etc (sire, the rune of Vordhuine must be inscribed on each foundation stone to protect us from the spirits of the earth, and the mark of Aestril placed on the slates to similarly ward off the spirits of the air) but I wouldn't expect there to be a need for major changes - apart from anything else that would eliminate the need to maintain a court wizard to protect the court from such things...

Teleport, rock to mud, earthquake, etc, etc are castle killers, but mostly those rely on the Shadow World, or are high level, the majority of low level spells should at best let a small group sneak in to do damage, take out a single group of defenders, or get the gates open by some means.

[Birthright-L]

At 01:31 AM 7/26/2009, Mirviriam wrote:

>>You can`t approach historicity using D&D rules
>
>I`m hearing that alot from all 3 of you guys - but if that`s true
>every single one of our arguments is a moot point as no one has
>reasonable a justification.
>
>You can`t tell me that castles are hard to take because - historical
>X, Y, & Z.
>
>Then tell me that we can`t use historical references from our world,
>because of A, B, C.
>
>I agree the issue is complex but we need to find some way of drawing
>relationships to both ... or simply use one or the other ... not
>whenever it`s convienant for whoever is arguing to turn on & off the
>magic argument.

Consider what`s being suggested here in this context: The issue is
not just the use of history as a source for BR the problem is how the
game might be modeled BY history and that one should then be careful
not to take the opposite approach and assumes that the game actually
models history. This is a common error when it comes to the use of
historical information and gaming, and one that gets repeated around
here often.

Way back in the day, I used to hear people walk around and describe
themselves as one of the D&D alignments. They`d actually say, with a
straight face and no sense of irony, that they were "chaotic
good." They weren`t simply being nerdy either. They weren`t wearing
their Vulcan ears and writing their names in Elvish at the
time. They`d rationalize their descriptions with vague, obtuse
examples of their beliefs and behaviors, assuming that things like
democracy, individualism or justice are a subset of the D&D alignment
system in the real world rather than a half-assed gaming concept
badly reinterpreted from a brief period of fantasy pulp fiction. It
was, to say the least, very sad to listen to.

I mention that in this context, because the problem with historical
references in gaming is that people inevitably take them too far and
then use a history to justify what are, in truth, really just
personal choices and preferences. Henry VIII is an interesting
example for someone like an Anuirean emperor, and one could base an
NPC on his personality, but once one starts saying that there is a
particular way of going about that in the game, then one has gone too
far. The game can and should be influenced by the real world, but
that doesn`t mean one should be limited ONLY to those historical
factors. It`s arguable how useful H8 is as an example for BR
kingship and regents, but certainly it`s a mistake to then limit
people`s use of the BR rules because of some sort of reading of that
king`s historical record.

A gaming world is, in most cases, a kind of alternate history. In BR
we still premise various real world historical concepts. We
transport medieval Western culture into a world where there`s not
really much justification for it to exist. We add magical components
that are largely culled from various fantasy fiction works. We
compile these things and then see how they might mesh--or not--into a
gaming environment. History is a big component of that
integration... but it`s only one of several. The campaign world`s
geography are radically different from that of the real world. There
is a whole set of alternate metaphysics that actually work. There is
a very different fantasy historical background.

So, what we are left with is two issues: First, real world history
is one major factor in creating a campaign world, along with an
alternate history and the physical changes to that world`s sciences
and geography. It`s a big factor, because we use it as a basis for
the human cultures upon which most campaigns are based, but it`s one
of several and probably not the most significant of them if one fully
considers the ramifications of the others.

Second, we have a problem with gaming in that people actually want to
turn things around and use that certain things in the game can or
can`t be done because that then wouldn`t model how things work in the
real world--a process that, on a personal note, I always take umbrage
with because I find it rather insulting intellectually and... well,
more than a little goofy. The real world isn`t adequately portrayed
using a role-playing game. It is fun to play real world events in
RPGs, but the fun is seeing how they differ, not in using history as
a bunt instrument to stomp on other folks` enjoyment of the alternate events.

When it comes to something like castles this is a problem because
they come from real world history. The idea of a concentric,
crenelated castle is right out of the middle ages. Some people may
have an imperfect concept of how and why these things were developed
in the first place, but that aside, we`ve assumed they exist as part
of the BR setting. It`s outlandish, but so what? I like movies that
have things like a world where humans are born and raised in glowing
pink pods, constantly enamored of a computerized dreamworld so that
their bodies can be used to generate electricity to run their
overlord`s power cells. If we can put chocolate with peanut butter,
we shouldn`t quibble about putting castles in a world where giants
exist.... The existence of castles and fantasy monsters isn`t simply
a round hole/square peg issue. It`s a round hole/stick of
dynamite--and we need to figure out how to keep the stick of dynamite
from destroying the whole thing.

The point here is that when we premise a real world historical
condition in a fantasy campaign world we will have to also consider
how the fantasy elements will interact with it. It`s silly to assume
that fantasy characters, who have access to things other than the
real world historical equipment and methods used to deal with
castles, will limit themselves exclusively to those things when
attacking one. Nobody would spend weeks mining under a castle wall
if he could shapeshift into a bullette and simply bring down the
walls from underneath. Nobody would fire catapults at a castle wall
if he had access to flying mounts who could drop stones from a great
height. Nobody would storm a castle wall if he had spells to bring
them down. Birthright`s castles are modelled on real world castles
and that means they are vulnerable to things that exist in the
campaign world, but did not exist in the historical period from which
they are taken. It`s problematic, but inevitable that this conflict
will occur in a setting in which castles play such a prominent role
and the setting materials assume things like siege warfare.

It`s equally problematic to assume that because castles were such a
significant factor in the real world medieval period, they will have
a similar significance in Birthright. They won`t. They`ll still be
a factor, but not in the way they were in the real world, and that
needs to be fully explored because... well, it`s kind of the point in
putting them into a fantasy setting in the first place.

So, there are three main options with something like this. Wee can
assume that castles exist... but because they are vulnerable to
fantasy elements they will have a different effect. We can assume
that somehow the fantasy elements we`ve introduced along with the
historical ones are somehow stymied--which seems like a cop out. We
can assume that fantasy elements are incorporated into the historical
ones, but they simply manifest in more or less historical forms.

Gary

[Rowan]

I'm hearing that alot from all 3 of you guys - but if that's true every single one of our arguments is a moot point as no one has reasonable a justification.

You can't tell me that castles are hard to take because - historical X, Y, & Z.

Then tell me that we can't use historical references from our world, because of A, B, C.

I agree the issue is complex but we need to find some way of drawing relationships to both ... or simply use one or the other ... not whenever it's convienant for whoever is arguing to turn on & off the magic argument.

I think you misunderstand my point. We've been talking about the tension between historical simulation and fantasy; simulation matters to a greater degree than in most games for many players of BR, for a variety of reasons, perhaps greatest of which is the focus on a much broader domain level of play where fantastical adventuring incongruities cause more problems.

AndrewTall's approach I tend to agree with:

I would always start from history, and then try to extrapolate the differences that magic, classes, etc would have. Where that extrapolation moved me away from something I wanted I'd probably go back and restrict the mechanic to prevent the change.

As for Gary's 3 approaches, I had some trouble understanding the point.

So, there are three main options with something like this. Wee can
assume that castles exist... but because they are vulnerable to
fantasy elements they will have a different effect. We can assume
that somehow the fantasy elements we`ve introduced along with the
historical ones are somehow stymied--which seems like a cop out. We
can assume that fantasy elements are incorporated into the historical
ones, but they simply manifest in more or less historical forms.
I think these approaches are of different merit depending on what assumptions you're working with and what your goals are.

That gets to my point. I think that often there is a confusion of what assumptions we are using and what goals we're striving for.

I believe other "simulationists" and I prefer the approach of taking the flavor of a particular historical setting and introducing fantastical elements. We do not want the fantastical elements to make it extremely difficult to believe a setting where we're playing realms and domains where most people are not superheroes and earthshattering magic is not common. That's the Forgotten Realms, and I submit to you that a domain-based game in Forgotten Realms would be extremely difficult to play unless you seriously adjust adventure-level D&D rules; otherwise you'd have any of 5,000 or so 25+ level characters able to walk in and have their way with your kingdom any time they wish, and running domains would be irrelevant.

The problem I have with your approach, Mirviriam, is that you seem to take D&D rules as sacred and try to force the culture, setting, and otherwise-historical simulation to abide by D&D rules. Any attempt to first take any stat block, spell, or even equipment descriptions and costs and force the world to work and conform to these is sure to fail.

I say this because:
1. Most D&D rules were designed with adventure-level play in mind, with very little if any thought given to how they might exist coherently in any world wider than a dungeon. Even in this, play balance is horribly broken with great frequency. Attempting to make sense of such a world using D&D rules first is the problem, not the solution.

2. We know from history how various things and events influenced each other. History is a playbook that works. D&D benefits from no such proven coherency, so it can't provide a reliable base.

This comes to the crux of the matter: game rules should not be obeyed slavishly, but treated with a certain contempt. They are not sacred. When they don't work to produce a coherent game world or achieve the playing goals that you desire, they should be freely discarded.

So I say start first with the type of setting you'd like. I want one where medieval warfare makes sense, with some fantasy elements thrown in that cause some changes to strategy and tactics, but which doesn't break that overall flavor of medieval warfare. So if high level magic in 3e renders castles and armies irrelevant and nonsensical, I say chastise the high level magic, make it your bitch rather than making your world the bitch of D&D's broken magic system.

Where possible, I think it is good to make the tweaks fairly minor to bring much of the familiar rules of the game system you're working with back in line. For instance, nerfing teleportation like BR normally does, realizing that a level 10 castle made by a Stronghold spell is worthless if it doesn't have a large enough army protecting it, etc.

I suppose this is your "cop out," Gary, but I really don't see it that way. I see it as putting game rules in their place, not treating them as some sacred cow, placing remarkable blind faith in their ability to make a good and coherent game world. No, like government, I think game rules are often the problem, not the solution, and also like government, that the rules should be serving the DM and the players, not vice versa.

[Birthright-L]

At 10:18 PM 7/26/2009, Rowan wrote:

>So I say start first with the type of setting you`d like. I want
>one where medieval warfare makes sense, with some fantasy elements
>thrown in that cause some changes to strategy and tactics, but which
>doesn`t break that overall flavor of medieval warfare. So if high
>level magic in 3e renders castles and armies irrelevant and
>nonsensical, I say chastise the high level magic, make it your bitch
>rather than making your world the bitch of D&D`s broken magic system.
>
>Where possible, I think it is good to make the tweaks fairly minor
>to bring much of the familiar rules of the game system you`re
>working with back in line. For instance, nerfing teleportation like
>BR normally does, realizing that a level 10 castle made by a
>Stronghold spell is worthless if it doesn`t have a large enough army
>protecting it, etc.
>
>I suppose this is your "cop out," Gary, but I really don`t see it
>that way. I see it as putting game rules in their place, not
>treating them as some sacred cow, placing remarkable blind faith in
>their ability to make a good and coherent game world. No, like
>government, I think game rules are often the problem, not the
>solution, and also like government, that the rules should be serving
>the DM and the players, not vice versa.

The cop out I was trying to describe would be to employ historical
archetypes (like castles) and introduce fantasy elements which would
probably change the historical archetypes, but then assume that the
historical archetypes would somehow counter or be unaffected by the
fantasy elements in any objective way. That is, something like a
spellcaster is going to drastically change how well castles are able
to withstand a siege, even a relatively minor one in D&D terms. The
cop out would be ignoring that influence in order to maintain the
historical archetype. In BR terms, that means introducing castles
and then ignoring the effects all the other BR concepts (magic, giant
monsters, etc.) would have on castles and siege warfare, or reducing
those influences to make them no more effective than were mundane
methods of besieging a castle.

Gary

[Green Knight]

For a discussion like this to be relevant at all, one needs to consider the following:

Vanilla DnD does a very, very, very poor job of simulating the real world; in a million and one big and small ways...but the real breaker is that DnD characters quickly get more powerful than any human being that ever lived. And this applies very strongly indeed to things like war; be they fighting against units fighting in close formation...or when tackling fortifications. The list goes on, but the point is not to make a list, so I'm stopping there.

Sooo...either you have to change the way characters gain in power; you can do this by radically reducing the power gained by characters as they rise in level OR stick with the approach used in the original set - keep characters in very low levels indeed (and seeing as how a 3E character, especially a high-level one, is even more powerful than a 2ed character of the same level...this gets even worse now...and of course in 4E ever warrior you meet is likely a minion...need I go on).

Failing to do that you can pretty much scrap everything you think you know about medieval/early Renaissance warfare. If groups of 10th level characters exist...even if they are rare (or perhaps especially then, since there will be few who can oppose them)...then they can do whatever they want on the field of battle. Feel free to argue otherwise, but its true...

[Mirviriam]

The cop out I was trying to describe would be to employ historical
archetypes (like castles) and introduce fantasy elements which would
probably change the historical archetypes, but then assume that the
historical archetypes would somehow counter or be unaffected by the
fantasy elements in any objective way. That is, something like a
spellcaster is going to drastically change how well castles are able
to withstand a siege, even a relatively minor one in D&D terms. The
cop out would be ignoring that influence in order to maintain the
historical archetype. In BR terms, that means introducing castles
and then ignoring the effects all the other BR concepts (magic, giant
monsters, etc.) would have on castles and siege warfare, or reducing
those influences to make them no more effective than were mundane
methods of besieging a castle.

Gary

Perfect example is Shadow Block domain spell in D20 rules...inserted as limiting factor - but never fleshed out to allow partial results or such, which most if not all 2nd edition(didn't play any casters in 3rd edition - so can't speak to it) normal spells from PHB had some sort of partial or chance to fail/save situation.

EDIT: I'm referring to where he's talking about generic magic didn't influence the developement of history in sieges because it was always in provinces that were ShadowBlock.

Though on the flip side maybe there's a cross/multiclass specialization (dwarven siegecrafting anyone?) that incorporates stones/walls crafted in a way that they contain antimagic wards at their center/outter facing?

Even more interesting is a grade of antimagic ability in that - prehaps instead of casting StrongHold the wizards cast multiple elemental spells and use the elements to shape pure stone walls without imperfections which contain a thread of something rare & directs magical energies to a lightning rod for magic located somewhere else...maybe even the lightning rod takes the raw power of the spells and stores it?

magic should not automatically be negated by other magic - if I have an engineer...does that mean that anyone rolling a siegecraft check is automatically negated because I rolled my check last year (as per protection from magic domain spell by a 12th level engineer) or 3 months ago (per shadow block)?

Great point on keeping the players low level, our DM couldn't keep up with the crazy things we did at higher levels! Levitate abuse anyone? That's not counting avalanches, construction projects to reroute rivers with magic to remove unworkable threats (he had thought of everything else except teraforming :))

EDIT Again: Even better idea - with construction by this rare dwarven or arcane crafters, regents can invest amounts RP to get 1 level of permenant DC or save (the ratio would have to be 3+ per level of DC added to spell affecting those in the fort).

[Rowan]

If magic were common and threatening, then yes, it would warrant magical responses to defend.

Working under the desire to keep the setting quite low-magic and not heavily influenced by it, I'd rather limit its power or frequency than require magic-defense architects running around everywhere establishing magitech in any major structure.

[Green Knight]

If magic were common and threatening, then yes, it would warrant magical responses to defend.

Working under the desire to keep the setting quite low-magic and not heavily influenced by it, I'd rather limit its power or frequency than require magic-defense architects running around everywhere establishing magitech in any major structure.

IMO making magic rare/limited enough that warfare isn't too heavily influence by it, is very desirable.

But once again it doesn't at all fit with DnD rules. Fixes are needed - one way or the other.

[Birthright-L]

At 11:48 AM 7/28/2009, Green Knight wrote:

>IMO making magic rare/limited enough that warfare isn`t too heavily
>influence by it, is very desirable.

There`s a tough call to make: How rare would it have to be for
warfare not to be too heavily influenced by it? I highlight the
issue since it is at the heart of the matter, and it is a review of
the issues in the setting that determine how a DM might portray the
situation. In truth, one probably needs to go back a step and ask:

"How rare is magic in BR really?"

Before one can then really get to:

"How influential will that magic be on a battlefield or a siege?"

My contention when it comes to this kind of thing is that in BR magic
is rare... but only compared to other D&D rules. That doesn`t really
mean magic is all that rare when compared to something like the
medieval period of Western Europe from which we derive knights,
feudalism and castles. It`s the stretch between the real world and
the conditions of the setting that really sets how things should be
handled differently.

Gary

[Mirviriam]

At 11:48 AM 7/28/2009, Green Knight wrote:

>IMO making magic rare/limited enough that warfare isn`t too heavily
>influence by it, is very desirable.

There`s a tough call to make: How rare would it have to be for
warfare not to be too heavily influenced by it? I highlight the
issue since it is at the heart of the matter, and it is a review of
the issues in the setting that determine how a DM might portray the
situation. In truth, one probably needs to go back a step and ask:

"How rare is magic in BR really?"

Before one can then really get to:

"How influential will that magic be on a battlefield or a siege?"

My contention when it comes to this kind of thing is that in BR magic
is rare... but only compared to other D&D rules. That doesn`t really
mean magic is all that rare when compared to something like the
medieval period of Western Europe from which we derive knights,
feudalism and castles. It`s the stretch between the real world and
the conditions of the setting that really sets how things should be
handled differently.

Gary

In general: I agree with both of you - limited means easier & faster to deal with - though varient rules for more makes the game way more intresting & stand out from other settings.

Specifically:
The Brecht deal with magic a commodity.
The Kinasai have schools setup for it (pural)

From those two perspectives alone - without knowning about the wizard marks thing (someone on this thread pointed me that way), there's an easily identified source for getting your own mages. Every major siege is going to have a mage involved. Especially the longer it goes, the more tempted a regent will be to bring in the firepower.

A shorter set of rules means everyone can focus on the content and the campaigns.

I'd really like to see a better system for magic versus magic - especially in the defense section of provinces and sieges.

EDIT: I'll add more to that...

One thing I noticd about lower magic settings is they tend to limit the access to magic items and lowbie spell to a point where guy like Cain/Sword Mage becomes THE single most important part of any fight they choose to partake.

Honestly though, you can locate a regent by casting a spell to show you the disturbances in the Mebhaighl...how can you not have people sensative to this learn to use the Mebhaighl in every state/province/country?

[Green Knight]

...assuming that magic is indeed rare, though not non-existent in BR, then you have to take it into account. Every major player will have access to at least some magic, even even if you invent a lot of convincing IC reasons why mages simply don't walk around with wands of megadeath, the HAS to be some sort of internal consistence in how powerful magic is on the character level and to what extent it affects warfare.

My take is that magic cannot be so powerful as to change the medieval/renaissance dynamics of war. Cannot because I want to play in a setting where warfare is governed by (roguhly) the same principles as in the real world. That would be my overriding priority, to adjust magic to the setting, rather than the other way around.

Lastly - the least desirable of all is NOT to have internal consistency. To say that war works as it works, even if there is good reason (powerful/common magic) that it should not.

[Rowan]

Actually, there are already methods built in to control the influence of magic on strategy and tactics, if you're focused on domain-level play.

At the domain-level, magic's impact on the game is pretty well-controlled within Realm Spells, Hero Units, and Battle Magic. Realm Spells are the primary means by which magic can affect domain-level play and warfare. Wizards can contribute to Hero Units, increasing offensive and defensive power, but not handle whole armies by themselves. If you want to make magic a bigger deal, you could increase the EL contribution to a Hero Unit that wizards make, or make them into "units" of their own. Battle Magic (and the special training option for units) allows wizards of a level lower than typical for Hero Units to get involved. Done.

If you want to mix adventure level play with domain level play, well, the DnD system breaks down on many levels at that point (with even fighters able to take on hundreds of common soldiers single-handedly). Really, I tend to believe that when you leave the dungeon you should also leave DnD behind. Check your character sheets at the dungeon door. Some simpler approach to character stats in the broader world can be used, like Solmyr's character skill system.

As to just how limited magic is, the setting material has conflicting information. It does seem to indicate that true wizards of any significant level, and their destructive power, are so limited that at most each realm might have one or two Court Wizards. Everyone else would be Magicians or so low level that they don't really matter on a large scale, whether because they are multi-classed, because most characters are low level in BR, or because each spell must be individually (and expensively) researched for each individual, thus severely restricting the frequency of higher-level destructive magics.

[Urban fox]

Of course broadly Anurein units will be the same, but given the realms are very different there should be scope to mix things up a little, Alamie for example is a flat stretch of grass like the Hungarian plains. So horse archers may be an interesting and terrain suitable unit for them to use.

Longbowmen, halberdiers or urban militia (For city-states like of Endier) and more advanced late chivalric knight units would be cool too.

[Green Knight]

Actually, there are already methods built in to control the influence of magic on strategy and tactics, if you're focused on domain-level play.

At the domain-level, magic's impact on the game is pretty well-controlled within Realm Spells, Hero Units, and Battle Magic. Realm Spells are the primary means by which magic can affect domain-level play and warfare. Wizards can contribute to Hero Units, increasing offensive and defensive power, but not handle whole armies by themselves. If you want to make magic a bigger deal, you could increase the EL contribution to a Hero Unit that wizards make, or make them into "units" of their own. Battle Magic (and the special training option for units) allows wizards of a level lower than typical for Hero Units to get involved. Done.

If you want to mix adventure level play with domain level play, well, the DnD system breaks down on many levels at that point (with even fighters able to take on hundreds of common soldiers single-handedly). Really, I tend to believe that when you leave the dungeon you should also leave DnD behind. Check your character sheets at the dungeon door. Some simpler approach to character stats in the broader world can be used, like Solmyr's character skill system.

As to just how limited magic is, the setting material has conflicting information. It does seem to indicate that true wizards of any significant level, and their destructive power, are so limited that at most each realm might have one or two Court Wizards. Everyone else would be Magicians or so low level that they don't really matter on a large scale, whether because they are multi-classed, because most characters are low level in BR, or because each spell must be individually (and expensively) researched for each individual, thus severely restricting the frequency of higher-level destructive magics.

Realm magic works well enough, because its scaled. But it just doesn't make any sense when compared to what a single character can do on the personal level. There has to be some consistency here if believability is to be maintained.

[Green Knight]

Of course broadly Anurein units will be the same, but given the realms are very different there should be scope to mix things up a little, Alamie for example is a flat stretch of grass like the Hungarian plains. So horse archers may be an interesting and terrain suitable unit for them to use.

Longbowmen, halberdiers or urban militia (For city-states like of Endier) and more advanced late chivalric knight units would be cool too.

Given the tiny size of Anuire there is no reason to go overboard with this. The Khinasi are already horse-archers. And Anuireans are already longbowmen and their infantry is already equipped with heavy weapons (including polearms). And knights have started to lose their importance, faced with good infantry.

The only ting I find lacking in terms of units is aforementioned 'urban-militia'. In a post-medieval setting there will be numerous towns and cities able to supply good infantry - much better than poorly-organized and equipped peasant infantry. This was an important development in RL.

[Mirviriam]

The rules should serve the DM and the players...

The players are going to take an tools available & use them. The shapeshifting and levitate spells can be heavily abused. Siege ending in less than one turn abused. Sure we can explain away why they won't work. Not every DM will be that quick though...

So we need to ensure the tools given to the players are weak enough not to break our system? Create new lists of censured spells? Or limit those that exist?

As to the other arguments about DnD being broking in game mechanics (20th level fighters unlessed in combat & 20th level mages unleased in sieges)...are you suggesting we step away from DnD rules? Social reasons is why NPC high level characters don't roam around destroying the balance. That does not apply to players unless the social values call up NPCs to oppose them.

[Birthright-L]

At 12:47 PM 7/30/2009, Mirviriam wrote:

>The rules should serve the DM and the players...
>
>The players are going to take an tools available & use them. The shapeshifting and levitate spells can be heavily abused. Siege ending in less than one turn abused. Sure we can explain away why they won`t work. Not every DM will be that quick though...

Could you give an example of how you mean that such things might be abused? I ask because I`m curious where (and how?) folks think the line should be drawn on such things.

>So we need to ensure the tools given to the players are weak enough not to break our system? Create new lists of censured spells? Or limit those that exist?

I think there should be a list of BR approved spells and magic items. The Sword of Kas and Orcus` Wand, for example, just aren`t right for the setting. Those are, of course, extreme examples, but along the same lines I don`t think it makes sense to have things like the Apparatus of Kwalish (SP?) Keoghtam`s Ointment, or even several potions or scrolls--things that are de rigeur in standard D&D settings.

>As to the other arguments about DnD being broking in game mechanics (20th level fighters unlessed in combat & 20th level mages unleased in sieges)...are you suggesting we step away from DnD rules? Social reasons is why NPC high level characters don`t roam around destroying the balance. That does not apply to players unless the social values call up NPCs to oppose them.

Personally, I`m leaning further and further away from the D&D rules in general, though I`ll stick with a heavily homebrewed version of 3.5 for Birthright. Birthright is really the only remaining thing that keeps me at all involved in D&D at all; were it not for the setting I`d likely never look at one of the D&D texts. So far 4e hasn`t really inspired me much, so I`m not terribly interested in running/playing in a BR 4e campaign, but I remain curious about how folks see the setting being portrayed using 4e, and interested in their ideas if for no other reason than the possibility of employing some of their ideas on my own.

That said, if I were to do a rewrite of BR, I`d not use D&D to do so. It seems like there are more "realistic" or, at least, simpler systems that could do much the same in a more effective way.

Gary

[Rowan]

I agree that there are better ways to go than D&D, but since that's the standard, it can be made workable. If you're focusing on domain level play, you really don't need all the adventure-level stats, just some basic skills/abilities for your regents, some measure of how good they are at various things.

4e is actually a lot less broken from a game world perspective. Wizard spells don't annihilate whole armies and castles, and even the rituals are more controlled. There's a lot of potential in rituals, btw. One might say that the math scaling as you go up in levels makes 4e still have superheroes, but I do think it's much more controllable. There are some ways that you can make even paragon and epic tier characters not seem all that far above the norm, not to the extent that they can single-handedly lay waste to vaste hordes of opponents just because of how the math works out. The dirty little secret of 4th Edition from a DM's perspective is that, with it being so easy and encouraged to modify monster stats and create NPCs and minions of appropriate levels, even normally low-level opponents can easily be made modest challenges for PCs.

In other words, PC power gain in 4e (mathematically) is something of an illusion. The real gain is in more versatility--more powers and feats and such.

[Green Knight]

Not sure I agree completely with the above statement; even a low-level group of 4E characters could wade through a rather large group of medieval soldiers.

But 4E does indeed, to a large extent, remove the problem of spells from the equation. And that is a big step in the right direction...

[AndrewTall]

I'd definitely agree with having to cut down heavily on the spells - area effect magics being one obvious problem with scaling between adventure play and domain level.

The huge power increase is another problem, you can cut that down heavily by making magic items rare, good armour rare, using wound/vitality points, building swarm rules for anyone stupid enough to face a dozen assailants, limiting the number of spells active at any time / their duration, avoiding high levels, etc.

But as noted, some other systems are already built to do all this, yet DnD is still very popular in its various forms and its the one that we all know.

[Rowan]

Not sure I agree completely with the above statement; even a low-level group of 4E characters could wade through a rather large group of medieval soldiers.


I disagree. It just depends on how the DM defines the soldiers. Seeing as how 4e goblins can give a PC group up to level 4 a real run for their money, particularly if they outnumber the PCs, I think it's easier than ever to make common soldiers a challenge. Plus, the DMG and Open Grave have suggestions for swarm rules of even medium and large sized creatures. So the rules directly support scenarios whereby PCs cannot take on whole army units without being cut down.

[Green Knight]

Feel free to disagree; I still hold that any DnD edition is problematic when it comes to explaining how war should work. Once a single hero, or small group of heroes, are capable of feats of arms (or magic) and courage, then you've got a problem with RW military tactics.

As such DnD isn't a system that is very well suited for BR. But BR is DnD from the onset, and DnD has a very broad appeal, so anything that works to make it a little more...gritty...is a good thing IMO

[Sorontar]

Not sure how new systems work but generally if the probability of a hit is say 5% then that means one in twenty soldiers will always damage someone every round. If you presume that all soldiers are fighting someone, then even lowly soldiers can be a problem.

Sorontar

[Mirviriam]

Not sure how new systems work but generally if the probability of a hit is say 5% then that means one in twenty soldiers will always damage someone every round. If you presume that all soldiers are fighting someone, then even lowly soldiers can be a problem.

Sorontar

I thought the idea was that after level 5 or 6 (when you attracting cohorts), you're talking about like the other guy said...social implications limiting power uses and abuses - IE a king with many characters bigger and better equipped serving under him sends some champions and a few units to put the dogs down.

[Sorontar]

I just reiterating the point that with numbers (and critical rolls), even the lowest soldier could hit the Gorgon. Of course, the issue then is how much damage will be done (if any).

So heroes (incl. wizards) may be able to do great damage but they can't kill everyone straight away. There may always be some son of a peasant who might get a lucky blow in and interrupt their action or injure them. They may "wade through" the opposition, but the opposition will still have some teeth.

Sorontar

[Green Knight]

Which points towards another major flaw; morale. When you've seen those heroes wade through half your unit, then you're going to run, not fight.

Which makes me wonder if close-order formations would arise in a world of true heroes :)

[Vicente]

I just reiterating the point that with numbers (and critical rolls), even the lowest soldier could hit the Gorgon. Of course, the issue then is how much damage will be done (if any).


Zero damage, he is inmune to non-magical weapons :P

[Sorontar]

Depends on what critical system you are using.... it could be that one in a million blow.... that (according to Terry Pratchett) happen nine times out of ten.

But yes, morale is always an issue, regardless of who is doing the killing. Should it really make any difference if 20% of a combat unit is killed in one war round by heroes or by the opposition force? I doubt it.

Sorontar

[Vicente]

Depends on what critical system you are using.... it could be that one in a million blow.... that (according to Terry Pratchett) happen nine times out of ten.


If you are talking about the Gorgon zero damage, it doesn't matter the critical system, you can't harm him with normal weapons (they break, they bounce, they pass through him,...). Technically, he could take a nap in the middle of your army if he wished :p



But yes, morale is always an issue, regardless of who is doing the killing. Should it really make any difference if 20% of a combat unit is killed in one war round by heroes or by the opposition force? I doubt it.


I think that getting butchered by an enemy that seems nearly invulnerable to you, out of your reach technically and that commands magic and powers out of your knowledge is more fearsome than getting butchered by a normal unit. With the normal unit you always have some hope: hey, they are like me, we can reverse this. With the heroes you don't even have hope of reversing the situation, it seems it's totally out of your control.

[Sorontar]

Our 2ed campaign ended with Teodor and the Gorgon duelling. The Gorgon rolled a critical against himself. After rolling the type of critical, it was ruled that his magical weapon broke. Both duelists and some party members got injured from the backlash of an exploding magical weapon. Yes, this was an extraordinary event, but it was an extraordinary occasion. Stuff happens because it can under D&D rules.

As to the heroes vs units morale issue, how would a unit know about the invincibility of a group of heroes who they have never seen before? I still feel that if my unit was being wiped out by charging Knights of Avani I would be just as worried as if the same effect was being done by a small group of unknowns. Either way, we are losing badly and might need to run away.

Sorontar

[Vicente]

Our 2ed campaign ended with Teodor and the Gorgon duelling. The Gorgon rolled a critical against himself. After rolling the type of critical, it was ruled that his magical weapon broke. Both duelists and some party members got injured from the backlash of an exploding magical weapon. Yes, this was an extraordinary event, but it was an extraordinary occasion. Stuff happens because it can under D&D rules.


Anything can happen as long as the DM allows it, there's no point arguing that. There are not types of criticals on basic AD&D as far as I remember, so if you were house-ruling anything can happen.



As to the heroes vs units morale issue, how would a unit know about the invincibility of a group of heroes who they have never seen before? I still feel that if my unit was being wiped out by charging Knights of Avani I would be just as worried as if the same effect was being done by a small group of unknowns. Either way, we are losing badly and might need to run away.


Well, they are seing the carnage first hand, you can't get a better experience than that. Also, it's not the same saying:

- 200 guys with horses are butchering 200 guys.
- 5 guys are butchering 200 guys.

In the first case, even the lowest level soldiers can rationalize: let's use pikes, let's search hard terrain,... And it's clear those things have a good possibility of working. But in the second case, what can you rationalize as a soldier?

[Sorontar]

Yes, the crit table we used was a house rule, but I believe there are detailed rules in Player's Option: Combat and tactics. Regardless of this, D&D 2/3/4e all have crits which make it possible that a lowly soldier might get a mega hit on any opponent. Yes, it will be up to the DM to decide how to resolve this, but it means that anyone on the battlefield is a valid target for anyone else, regardless of how powerful they are.

Some other crits we have encountered are "left scar", "open wound", "severed limb" and crit misses include "weapon dropped", "forced back 10 feet", "hit ally/self instead". Lots of fun for all. Spell casters have it easy.

Sorontar.

[irdeggman]

Anything can happen as long as the DM allows it, there's no point arguing that. There are not types of criticals on basic AD&D as far as I remember, so if you were house-ruling anything can happen.



Basic AD&D (would have been 1st ed) was replaced by 2nd ed AD&D (no longer "basic")


2nd ed Player's Option: Combat and Tactics had a very detailed set of critical rules.

The Player's Option series came out at about the same time as did BR itself and in fact many things in the BR setting (like the special penetration rules for crossbows) were incorporated into the C&T rules.

[Vicente]

Yes, the crit table we used was a house rule, but I believe there are detailed rules in Player's Option: Combat and tactics. Regardless of this, D&D 2/3/4e all have crits which make it possible that a lowly soldier might get a mega hit on any opponent. Yes, it will be up to the DM to decide how to resolve this, but it means that anyone on the battlefield is a valid target for anyone else, regardless of how powerful they are.

Some other crits we have encountered are "left scar", "open wound", "severed limb" and crit misses include "weapon dropped", "forced back 10 feet", "hit ally/self instead". Lots of fun for all. Spell casters have it easy.

Sorontar.

Criticals on AD&D, DnD 3e or DnD 4e only allow you to do more damage than a normal hit, but not to bypass inmunities (that could be probably one reason why they added DR in 3e). If he is inmune, he is inmune, and 0 x2 continues to be 0.

[Vicente]

Basic AD&D (would have been 1st ed) was replaced by 2nd ed AD&D (no longer "basic")


2nd ed Player's Option: Combat and Tactics had a very detailed set of critical rules.

The Player's Option series came out at about the same time as did BR itself and in fact many things in the BR setting (like the special penetration rules for crossbows) were incorporated into the C&T rules.

My bad for using the wrong words, maybe a better word was "vanilla" rather than "basic": only the AD&D core books not adding the multiple Player Options books (which are that, options).

[Mirviriam]

Stick a fork in it - this thread has officially become side tracked!

... with criticals in 2nd versus 3rd Edition debates you can't ever go wrong - but they probably belong else where....