Classes

[aluman]

Warlock should be out. I don't think we need to replace him with another striker for arcane. As honestly, the Ranger and Rogue are both strikers with different flavor, and BR should be low Magic/Arcane.

Magician - I don't know what to do, I would like to seem him come back, but its going to be hard to have a low level magic user be balanced in 4e against the wizard. Maybe rogue/wizard multiclasses can be known as magicians?

Bard - Needs to come back, but I think taking the Warlord abilities and giving them an Arcane feel would probably work.

[Raesene Andu]

I've only just picked up the 4th Edition books today, but looking through them I could see a place for Warlocks in Cerilia and beyond.

[aluman]

I don't know if I truly can see warlocks in Cerillia as written in 2e. Demons seemed to play less of a role (infernal) and the real gods were dead (star). I suppose I could see Fey Pact warlocks, either humans or elves or half elves.

We could actually retool the Warlock I suppose to fit into the setting better, change the pact names and how the pact boon worked, but I don't know.

I must say though, the Warlord gave me tingly feeling reading.

[Raesene Andu]

Not all the pact type seem applicable to Cerilia that is true... but there would be a place for Warlocks with a Shadow Pact in place of one of the current ones.

[aluman]

I hadn't thought about that. Merge the Infernal Pact and Star Pact in some ways, Make two diffrent Shadow Pacts maybe. Maybe certain powerful Awsh's could grant pacts too, but that seems dangerous. Come to think of it, there is no reason for Star Pact not to exisit, in fact in some ways its more plausible for young gods to loan out power like that.

[Thelandrin]

Well, I always thought that Warlocks were logical if they had the bloodlines of Vorynn (pure magic) or Azrai (elder evil). Anything else doesn't really fit the whole "I throw evil/chaotic magic around all day".

[aluman]

3E warlocks that would be the case.
In 4E you have three kinds of pacts
Infernal (easily replaced with Shadow/Azari tainted)
Fey - I could see Elves/Half Elves not needing blood at all for this.
and Star.

Star pacts are kind of like getting powers directly from 'holy' being, a god or demigod.

[kgauck]

Shadow pacts make sense, there is a long tradition of players allowing spellcasters to get dark powers (witches and warlocks) from Shadow World pacts. I've seen discussion of it more than once and there are always a few "me toos" thrown in.

Fey pacts are cool, I used them for druids and rangers who had fey encounters in the world of fairie. But lets remember such a pact is really another Shadow World pact with entities that are less common and less powerful that the forces of Shadow. The Seelie Court is not the common encounter when one crosses the evanescence. A twilight world of dread is.

If both require appropriate encounters in the SW to form said pacts, I think it all makes sense.

Star pacts make the most sense as Sun pacts, limited to Khinasi (the only magic favoring nation) requiring the five oaths, and all the rest.

[aluman]

As a side note:
Infernal Pact Powers - Firey Type, curse affect is temporary HP
Fey Pact Powers - Movement/Harassment, curse affect is movement (teleportation)
Star Pact - Debuffing (-X to saves, must reroll and take worst result), curse affect is +1 to next skill/attack/et cetra roll (cumulative but limited to one roll, if you kill three guys who yuo have cursed from turn 1 to turn 2, on turn 2 you get +3 on one roll).

To me, Infernal should become Sun Pact, as Avani would administer it, and it would infact make sense for her to give fire powers (not so much with shadow pact). However I like the +1 for kill for a pact coming from (essentially) a godess.

Fey Pact is probably ok as is.

Star Pact powers beomce the Shadow pact in my mind.

[Thelandrin]

When you state the effects, theming the pacts by renaming them does seem to be the best choice.

[aluman]

It wasn't until KG reminded me that the Khinasi have a kind pact like deal with Avani, that it dawned on me we could do that way, and the Star Pact powers just felt like Shadow better, although some of the Fey powers (movement really) could as well.

[bbeau22]

4th Edition Classes

The classes in the 4th edition players handbook are ...

Cleric - Allowed
Fighter - Allowed
Paladin - Allowed
Ranger - Allowed
Rogue - Allowed
Warlock - Not allowed (not in core rules but fine addition)
Warlord - Replaces noble
Wizard - Allowed



Cleric - Should be a fairly easy transition. We would have to add at least one extra feat power for each seperate god. That's it.

Fighter - As is

Paladin - We should treat paladins of different gods in the same way we treat clerics of different gods. Create seperate power feats for different gods.

Ranger - As is

Rogue - As is

Warlord - This class will replace the Noble class. It fits quite well.

Wizard - As is


Now this leaves us with just really one class we would have to create from scratch ... and that is the Magician class. This will take a serious amount of work.

Classes that aren't in the rulebook, Bards, Druids, Monk, Sorcerer. We can live without all of these classes. The two we will miss and would have to add at some point are druids and bards. You know 4th edition will add them with the next players handbook.

-BB

[Wilenburg]

I must disagree with the bard and druid not being essential as they are major for the rjurik who use druids to guide their jarls and bards are lore keepers throughout cerilia except in vosgaard.

[bbeau22]

I agree they are important ... but they aren't in the book and really would be silly to create new classes for them to have them replaced next year.

I say keep a holding pattern on those classes until Wizards does the work for us.

-BB

[Wilenburg]

but with us creating them then we can make them unique to Birthright and then at a later time if we need we can vote/or incorporate elements from the official version. so as for a waste of time I do not think it is but if would be a good idea to rely on wizards for druids and bards because it could take them a year or 2 for them to come out with the appropraite classes for them to come out.

[kgauck]

Warlord - This class will replace the Noble class. It fits quite well.


Franky, it does no such thing. I can't reproduce anything like the nobles I know of. The Warlord is a fighter variant perfectly suited to BR in so much as large military actions are a commonplace, but nobles are about ruling domains. Same with the Guilder (notably absent).

These two classes are much more about interactions. There are currently (and let's face it there is a lot coming down the road) only two solutions that I can see. Either a class that has these interactive skills, but would make totally no sense in the kinds of combats these classes were designed for, or as talent trees allowing any normal class to have a little noble or guilder flavor on the side.

Both of these strike me we woefully inadequate. Now, in the 3rd edition conversion I didn't buy the PHB right away, and I didn't buy the DMG or MM until I found them used. And by then I was finding noble classes being presented by 2003 in their first forms. Later as settings with proper nobles were being presented (Wheel of Time, Star Wars, Lof5R) it was possible to think seriously about a noble class.

What I wonder about is whether 4e supports characters whose main job isn't to fight, but to provide all those roles so important to narrative and politics, like exposition and interaction without devolving those roles onto NPC's like the 2nd edition sage.

Of course we don't even have a bard. I don't blame them for leaving the bard out. The bard had a mixed reputation among players as it was, and his role in this tactical combat game would either require giving him the warlord abilities or making him useless.

The bard is a half step towards a character whose role is interaction and exposition. Until, however, we devise or discover good classes that focus on economic (crafting and commerce) and social (interaction and exposition) skills, we are not updating BR, only the parts of BR that have a place in 4e.

[irdeggman]

It wasn't until KG reminded me that the Khinasi have a kind pact like deal with Avani, that it dawned on me we could do that way, and the Star Pact powers just felt like Shadow better, although some of the Fey powers (movement really) could as well.


Actually it is a pact with Rournil and not Avani.

[AndrewTall]

What I wonder about is whether 4e supports characters whose main job isn't to fight, but to provide all those roles so important to narrative and politics, like exposition and interaction without devolving those roles onto NPC's like the 2nd edition sage.

I'm wondering really if we need to make classes, if the class choice only impacts combat, then any class is fine for noble & guilder as those would then be what you do when your sword is sheathed rather than how you do things when it isn't.

So a noble would be someone with non-combat expertise in rulership, etiquette, good knowledge, etc. A guilder is someone with business interests and a commercial eye, etc.

4e lacks the typical system back stuff like social class etc, puffing out someone as 'peasant, craftsman, savage, noble, priest, etc' and giving each benefits and penalties to reflect their social area should be easy enough once we are happy with systems for skills and social inter-actions outside combat.

[Vicente]

Of course we don't even have a bard. I don't blame them for leaving the bard out. The bard had a mixed reputation among players as it was, and his role in this tactical combat game would either require giving him the warlord abilities or making him useless.


The Bard is going to be an Arcane Leader, so yes, his role in combat will be the same of the Warlord and the Cleric but he will draw from a different source.

[ThatSeanGuy]

I think 'noble' was a bad class anyway. It makes one class better at being an aristocrat than the others, when the idea is that the whole party are nobility.

On the Warlock: Can we not do the monk thing again? The idea of getting power by making deals with spirits is as old as the idea of 'magic', and I just think it's a really negative way to start the conversion: "Oh, by the way, these core classes are out.".

[kgauck]

I think 'noble' was a bad class anyway. It makes one class better at being an aristocrat than the others, when the idea is that the whole party are nobility.

Just because the whole party are nobles doesn't mean that they are all equally good at being leaders of domains. So that was rather the point.

Second, the beauty of the free multi-classing of 3x was that you could decide just how much a character departed from being such a leader and specialized in something else.


On the Warlock: Can we not do the monk thing again? The idea of getting power by making deals with spirits is as old as the idea of 'magic', and I just think it's a really negative way to start the conversion: "Oh, by the way, these core classes are out.".

Not every thing belongs in every setting. But as far as the Warlock goes, I haven't seen any opposition and plenty of support for it on the several threads where it has been discussed. I think there is plenty of support for Shadow pacts, Fey pacts, and for the Khinasi, somethink aproximating the Star pact, but connected with sun or moon instead.

[AndrewTall]

The question to me is 'how do we keep BR magic powerful but rare' with the existing spellcasting classes. I can read skill, courage and luck into most powers for the various fighter types, but splitting the spellcasters into 'true magic' and 'magicians' is looking tough.

PC's can always be exceptional, but some mechanic is needed for the hedgemage type that has enough magic to be burned at the stake but can't tap the real McCoy.

The easy restriction is 'no ability which causes damage' for the magicians - but I don't know if enough powers are left to give magicians a power progression...

People who play epic campaigns (I think from recollection that BR players split evenly between gritty and epic campaigners) should be fine without the magician, but I certainly want someone to make my spellcaster look good, provide potions and simple witchcraft, etc.

[kgauck]

The easy restriction is 'no ability which causes damage' for the magicians - but I don't know if enough powers are left to give magicians a power progression...

Indeed, the magic I have always found most appropriate for BR is divination, illusion, and enchantment. No damage in any of those (necessarily).

[ThatSeanGuy]

Why not have Warlocks serve as magicians?

If you want magic without the proper blood, you have to make a pact with a spirit that could screw you. It makes "real" magic something difficult to achieve, while giving folks more options.

The problem with the Magician, IMO, is that divination has largely become a ritual thing, and illusion and enchantment have moved into the psychic power set. That, and the wizard class is a heck of a lot more balanced these days-having a class that's specifically "Weaker than wizard." is kind of weird, mechanically.

[kgauck]

That, and the wizard class is a heck of a lot more balanced these days-having a class that's specifically "Weaker than wizard." is kind of weird, mechanically.

Sure its weird from a perspective that looks at the adventure level and thinks about combat classes being balanced. But, Its perfectly reasonable from a world-design perspective that includes both great wizards and hedge mages, and doesn't want to simply say that the old lady that makes love philters and healing tonics out by the old bridge isn't simply a lower level version of the High Mage Alies, but something different.

Given that I could do three things in a BR campaign, design a world that satisfies a sense of coherence, tell a cool story, and balance characters for adventures, I would prefer to achieve them in that order, and if I never quite got around to the third, I'd still feel OK.

[ConjurerDragon]

ThatSeanGuy wrote:
Why not have Warlocks serve as magicians?

If you want magic without the proper blood, you have to make a pact with a spirit that could screw you. It makes "real" magic something difficult to achieve, while giving folks more options.

The problem with the Magician, IMO, is that divination has largely become a ritual thing, and illusion and enchantment have moved into the psychic power set. That, and the wizard class is a heck of a lot more balanced these days-having a class that`s specifically "Weaker than wizard." is kind of weird, mechanically.

The Magician was never only a "weaker Wizard". It was a double specialized Wizard in Illusion and Divination who got some additional abilities of a Thief. Something like a sneaky Eldritch Knight already in 2E ;-)

And the whole class of magician underlines the importance and rareness of "true" wizards in Birthright.

[AndrewTall]

I haven't seen any psychic stuff, but if it could be reverse engineered into the magician I'd be happy with it - power set is pure flavour anyway so switching the power source from psychic to sorcery should be simple enough.

[bbeau22]

We have a couple of way to deal with magicians.

1. Turn them into a strict NPC class and make seperate rules for them.

2. Create a new class and just make up attack powers that are far weaker than the wizards. They can still have something, but half as powerful or more.

3. Take the wizard class and adjust. Make any At-will attack power for a wizard an encounter attack power for a magician. Make any encounter power from a wizard a daily power for magician. Any daily power make it weekly or remove completely and replace with another use of a utility power.

On the idea of nobles, I am still against it myself. The original 2nd edition had no need for them and every ruler was an adventuring class character. I agree that having character class that excels at domain control would unbalance the other folks (every NPC leader.)

Lets just have an extensive list of feats and powers available to blooded or noble born characters. As they level, if they are spending almost all of their feats and powers on domain actions and boosts, they are going to be terrible at their class because they have ignored it over the years. There is no need to create a possible unbalancing class, not to mention if we do create a new class then we would still have to follow the leveling path (1-30 powers) in the 4th edition players handbook that gives at-will combat powers and encounter combat powers specificly .... which means we would have to create an entire new leveling mechanic that I am strongly against.

[Wilenburg]

I agree with the noble class should be begoned, but the druid magician and bard should still continue even if we create our own versions of the druid and bard then they can be unique to BR. Magician are always an intriguing class.

With the new classes we need to come up with paragon classes for each of the classes that do exist.

[geeman]

At 11:45 AM 6/21/2008, Wilenburg wrote:

>I agree with the noble class should be begoned, but the druid
>magician and bard should still continue even if we create our own
>versions of the druid and bard then they can be unique to
>BR. Magician are always an intriguing class.
>
>With the new classes we need to come up with paragon classes for
>each of the classes that do exist.

It looks like 4e druids and bards are going to appear in "future
Player`s Handbook volumes" so it might be prudent to wait until those
come out before writing up a BR version....

Gary

[kgauck]

Its not entirely necessarily to take all of the worst elements of video games along with the good ideas. It may however prove to difficult not to just get in the spirit of the thing and create something that will make Blizzard blush.

[AndrewTall]

There is no need to create a possible unbalancing class, not to mention if we do create a new class then we would still have to follow the leveling path (1-30 powers) in the 4th edition players handbook that gives at-will combat powers and encounter combat powers specificly .... which means we would have to create an entire new leveling mechanic that I am strongly against.

I'm not sure if you are responding to a noble adventurer class, or the ruler 'class' mechanic for domain rulership only that I suggested.

I'm not too bothered about an adventurer class beyond magician, so I can't comment on a noble class - if splitting out adventure and game play it becomes unnecessary in my view anyway.

The point of the 'ruler' type class I suggested is to prevent unbalancing - the domain stuff happens outside adventures, so making PC's use their abilities and feats on domain stuff weakens them compared to other characters. That means that we need an alternative mechanic - just like we do for various other non-combat areas of the game that used to be non-combat proficiencies, etc.

The leveling path is purely a mechanic to reflect skills and feats - but if you wanted powers we should be able to come up with some (just swapping powers from at will / encounter / daily to at will / per season / per year).

[Vicente]

Its not entirely necessarily to take all of the worst elements of video games along with the good ideas. It may however prove to difficult not to just get in the spirit of the thing and create something that will make Blizzard blush.

Totally unrelated, but Blizzard is not a very original company. They are extremely good at polishing other people design ideas and they have tons of money and talented people to do that.

Related to classes, there has been a Druid version posted on ENWorld that has a very 4e feel to be honest. Not sure if it will fit Cerilia, but it fits DnD 4e for sure. Wizards has also posted some examples of Illusion powers on its site, although they fell pretty rushed :(

[bbeau22]

I'm not sure if you are responding to a noble adventurer class, or the ruler 'class' mechanic for domain rulership only that I suggested.

I'm not too bothered about an adventurer class beyond magician, so I can't comment on a noble class - if splitting out adventure and game play it becomes unnecessary in my view anyway.

The point of the 'ruler' type class I suggested is to prevent unbalancing - the domain stuff happens outside adventures, so making PC's use their abilities and feats on domain stuff weakens them compared to other characters. That means that we need an alternative mechanic - just like we do for various other non-combat areas of the game that used to be non-combat proficiencies, etc.

The leveling path is purely a mechanic to reflect skills and feats - but if you wanted powers we should be able to come up with some (just swapping powers from at will / encounter / daily to at will / per season / per year).

Ok I see what you are saying. Some sort of additional skills that every regent has available to them no matter if they are heavy into adventuring or just into ruling. I am not totally against that but certainly we have to look at every angle.

If we seperate ruling powers/feats/abilities whatever we want to call them, how would we balance them into the characters. Would it be off of their adventuring level, bloodline score or some other mechanic. Would they get a bunch choose from just being a noble at character creation or could they gain them as they level.

On the flip side if a character was brought up a noble and really had no adventuring life at all .... what class would they choose? If we left it the same and creating a seperate noble non-weapon then they would be able to level their powerful class taking all of the most powerful abilities even though they haven't spent a day fighting. Seems just as unbalanced the other way. This isn't a problem with an online campaign but certain messes up tabletop games.

Here are some solutions ...

1. Create a list of traits that a character can choose from at creation. Lets call it background. The character has a choice of Noble, Artisen, Merchant, Commoner. We can create more.

2. Each Background will give a list of starting abilites they get on top of their class level.

Noble - Starting skill bonus to diplomacy and other ruling skills.
Artisen - Not sure. Something about creation.
Merchant - Starts with extra money, bonus diplomacy.
Commoner - Bonus to gather information, or whatever they call it in 4th edition ... streetsmart or bonus

All could get bonuses to reactions of the like type. Commoners get along with other commoners ... Nobles with nobles.

3. Then we can come up with feats and powers with pre-req for each background. As they level up in addition to their regular powers lets say every three levels they can choose one of these extra abilities that will assist them in domain rulership. Commoners to start might have some unique feats that a noble leader might not have.

Feats could be ...

Commoner feat - Leader gets bonus to loyalty rolls if he spent time in that province.
Merchant feat - Guild actions from that the ruler controls gets a +2 bonus.
Merchant feat - Ruler get a 20% bonus money from all trade routes contolled.
Noble feat - Anytime law challenges another holding it ignores the -2 for challenging a different type of holding. (not even a rule but people were talking about it.

Just a couple of quick ideas. From the above their is an instant benifit to being of a certain background and even more benifit as they level.

-BB

[Vicente]

There's now a homemade bard in ENWorld too. Link here:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=231413

And the druid is here:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=230397

[kgauck]

I read the druid at the enworld link, and suspect that the wizards druid will be much of the same. According to the Rjurik Highlands, the druids are, "priests, judges, arbitrators, sages, and teachers all in one." I missed the powers and abilities to make one these things and saw quite a bit of powers and abilities which did not describe the druid very much at all. Namely shape shifting. A 2e druid started shapechanging at 7th level, a 3e druid could wild shape at 5th, and could only wild shape large animals at 8th level. These are mid-level abilities and given the low level distribution of characters in BR, one didn't expect to see much druidical shape changing, even if one associated with druids.

If 4e wasn't D&D, and it didn't use the same names, would anyone seriously be thinking about converting BR to this system? Birthright took standard D&D of the second edition and ramped the day-to-day power down substantially, with both limits on who could wield it, and by the way it described the world, with so many low level characters in important places.

4e has taken standard D&D and ramped up the power substantially. So representing what was already an underpowered setting using an overpowered game system can't help but cause problems.

4e is hardly unredeemable. The additional powers make every level something to look forward too. But even though the power per feat is lower (at the Heroic Tier, Weapon Focus does +1 damage instead of +2. Power Attack has a maximum of +3 damage for the two-handed weapons fighter) the simple abundance of powers and feats makes characters much more potent than they used to be.


I think you can work over those problems Kenneth. First, on 4e that character should pick Skill Training and Skill Focus feats (for a +8 for that skill). With a high score in the relevant attribute your NPC will have around +10 to +12 to Administration at level 1. That's more than the Administration skill from Brulan Broweleit (4th level) in the wiki. And probably more than most PCs.

It is more Administration than 4th level Brulan had, but any 1st level character can be expected to have +10 to +12 on their skills if they want, and the lower potency of combat feats makes selecting skill based feats all the more attractive. Because the 4e view is to make the PC much more potent and then just match him up against a tougher 4e opponent with his own bag of tricks.

The solution to use the 4e mechanics and maintain the BR feel may be to start from the ground up and ramp the powers down to achieve the authentic BR feel. However, this will require some adjustment for 4e players. Now many of us regard this adjustment as the essential thing that makes BR worth while. But there is no denying that its a barrier.

[AndrewTall]

If we seperate ruling powers/feats/abilities whatever we want to call them, how would we balance them into the characters. Would it be off of their adventuring level, bloodline score or some other mechanic. Would they get a bunch choose from just being a noble at character creation or could they gain them as they level.

I see three methods:
1. Base it off their class level - the draw back being 'why should a good ruler be a good fighter?' - the two power ranks really measure something totally different - but this one is easy.

2. Create a totally separate class purely for the book-keeping, so everyone knows that a L5 ruler is better than a L2 ruler and by how much. There is the slight problem that a L20 ruler with no 'adventure' class then gets stomped in one blow, but frankly they should have minions for that sort of thing - and the princess is supposed to be vulnerable to the assassin, that's why she hires the PC's.

3. Ignore a level based mechanic totally, give skill points / feats for achievement and usage and track them on an ad hoc basis. The book-keeping for this is possibly anethema for 4e.

I'd see bloodline score as one of the measures of how well you are doing, with a bloodline ability bonus to skills maybe.


On the flip side if a character was brought up a noble and really had no adventuring life at all .... what class would they choose? If we left it the same and creating a seperate noble non-weapon then they would be able to level their powerful class taking all of the most powerful abilities even though they haven't spent a day fighting. Seems just as unbalanced the other way. This isn't a problem with an online campaign but certain messes up tabletop games.

You could either use a darksun character tree approach and say you can level up an adventure class for every 2 or 3 domain class level's, or track two separate experience pools. Slightly more complex either way, but if you just have each class, domain and adventure, shadow each other then as you say someone without any experience with one still gets very good at it - which is a bit odd as you say. The class choice would be fairly irrelevant in the extreme case so I'd pick whatever suited their rulership style.


Here are some solutions ...

1. Create a list of traits that a character can choose from at creation. Lets call it background. The character has a choice of Noble, Artisen, Merchant, Commoner. We can create more.

High, middle, lower class - several systems have ideas we can steal.


2. Each Background will give a list of starting abilites they get on top of their class level.

Noble - Starting skill bonus to diplomacy and other ruling skills.
Artisen - Not sure. Something about creation.
Merchant - Starts with extra money, bonus diplomacy.
Commoner - Bonus to gather information, or whatever they call it in 4th edition ... streetsmart or bonus

All could get bonuses to reactions of the like type. Commoners get along with other commoners ... Nobles with nobles.

Nobles would get etiquette and the like, commoners craft skills - they are both effective but only in their social setting. Pity the city boy lost in the wilds - and the barbarian in the big city.


3. Then we can come up with feats and powers with pre-req for each background. As they level up in addition to their regular powers lets say every three levels they can choose one of these extra abilities that will assist them in domain rulership. Commoners to start might have some unique feats that a noble leader might not have.

As they level up the original social strata changes if they rule a domain, if we want to balance rulers with non-rulers then it gets a bit trickier.


Feats could be ...

Commoner feat - Leader gets bonus to loyalty rolls if he spent time in that province.
Merchant feat - Guild actions from that the ruler controls gets a +2 bonus.
Merchant feat - Ruler get a 20% bonus money from all trade routes contolled.
Noble feat - Anytime law challenges another holding it ignores the -2 for challenging a different type of holding. (not even a rule but people were talking about it.

Just a couple of quick ideas. From the above their is an instant benifit to being of a certain background and even more benifit as they level.

-BB

We need to make various 'non weapon skills' (now their is an old 2e hand talking!) and similar feats, then describe the advancement mechanic. Ther big decision is probably do we have 'ruler', 'craftsman', 'peasant' classes to reflect non-ruler characters, and if so what sort of role do we see each position fulfilling.

[Vicente]

I read the druid at the enworld link, and suspect that the wizards druid will be much of the same. According to the Rjurik Highlands, the druids are, "priests, judges, arbitrators, sages, and teachers all in one." I missed the powers and abilities to make one these things and saw quite a bit of powers and abilities which did not describe the druid very much at all. Namely shape shifting. A 2e druid started shapechanging at 7th level, a 3e druid could wild shape at 5th, and could only wild shape large animals at 8th level. These are mid-level abilities and given the low level distribution of characters in BR, one didn't expect to see much druidical shape changing, even if one associated with druids.


Is really a problem for the setting to see shape changing as a more usual thing? Does it break something? What skills did a 2e druid have to fit that judge, sage, ... role you are speaking? Because reading the 2e class they have 0 skills related to that, and if you are talking about spells probably the druid can fit the same role with rituals.



If 4e wasn't D&D, and it didn't use the same names, would anyone seriously be thinking about converting BR to this system? Birthright took standard D&D of the second edition and ramped the day-to-day power down substantially, with both limits on who could wield it, and by the way it described the world, with so many low level characters in important places.


Scions could get out of hand if the player had some lucky rolls when creating the character. Very out of hand.



4e has taken standard D&D and ramped up the power substantially. So representing what was already an underpowered setting using an overpowered game system can't help but cause problems.

4e is hardly unredeemable. The additional powers make every level something to look forward too. But even though the power per feat is lower (at the Heroic Tier, Weapon Focus does +1 damage instead of +2. Power Attack has a maximum of +3 damage for the two-handed weapons fighter) the simple abundance of powers and feats makes characters much more potent than they used to be.


Any multiclass 2e character or any spellcaster in 2e/3e character is more powerful that its 4e counterpart. Only martial characters seem more powerful in 4e than in previous editions and it's because they were a failure in 2e/3e compared to spellcasters. Is not a new fact that in all 3e power-gamer polls clerics and wizards were always the first classes by a large margin.

[Rey]

I see three methods:
1. Base it off their class level - the draw back being 'why should a good ruler be a good fighter?' - the two power ranks really measure something totally different - but this one is easy.
He need not be, of course. But...


2. Create a totally separate class purely for the book-keeping, so everyone knows that a L5 ruler is better than a L2 ruler and by how much. There is the slight problem that a L20 ruler with no 'adventure' class then gets stomped in one blow, but frankly they should have minions for that sort of thing - and the princess is supposed to be vulnerable to the assassin, that's why she hires the PC's.
Throughout history there have been people who didn't adventure, but their fencing skill was not so dull. Although the ruler might not see an adventuring life, he can still be good with a sword. His court weapon masters/lieutenants/trainers will see to that as a part of his raising as a noble. He'd still probably be a low hp character, but you may award his training with skill that gives him a bonus to AC and maybe to hit. Damage he produces would be minor, but at least it would give him opportunity to score some hits and evade couple of attacks from an experienced enemy and not to be a sitting duck.
That would be the difference between him and battle/adventure hardened fighter.

Two nobles fighting would be an interesting duel with fewer hits and it would last several rounds until someone scores a hit after much parrying. Couple of well placed hits and opponent goes down.

[irdeggman]

Is really a problem for the setting to see shape changing as a more usual thing? Does it break something? What skills did a 2e druid have to fit that judge, sage, ... role you are speaking? Because reading the 2e class they have 0 skills related to that, and if you are talking about spells probably the druid can fit the same role with rituals.

Have you read a lot of the Rjurik Highlands?

They emphasize the role of druids (I do not remember if Rjurik druids got any special benfits or not - but Rjurik Bards specifically did as well as a requirement to "lawful")

The Rjurik also had "Special Dooms" and they marked individuals in a generally considered "bad or forboding manner".

Now also remember that in 2nd ed BR there were no "druids" and that priests of Erik were druids. They got the special powers listed in the BRRB but were still "priests" and not "druids per se".

[Vicente]

Have you read a lot of the Rjurik Highlands?

They emphasize the role of druids (I do not remember if Rjurik druids got any special benfits or not - but Rjurik Bards specifically did as well as a requirement to "lawful")

The Rjurik also had "Special Dooms" and they marked individuals in a generally considered "bad or forboding manner".

Now also remember that in 2nd ed BR there were no "druids" and that priests of Erik were druids. They got the special powers listed in the BRRB but were still "priests" and not "druids per se".

If this is true I'm totally lost. If there aren't druids but clerics use the 4e cleric. If they are druids, then they could shapeshift and the question remains: making shapeshift more usual breaks the setting feeling?

[kgauck]

1. Create a list of traits that a character can choose from at creation. Lets call it background. The character has a choice of Noble, Artisen, Merchant, Commoner. We can create more.

2. Each Background will give a list of starting abilites they get on top of their class level.

Noble - Starting skill bonus to diplomacy and other ruling skills.
Artisen - Not sure. Something about creation.
Merchant - Starts with extra money, bonus diplomacy.
Commoner - Bonus to gather information, or whatever they call it in 4th edition ... streetsmart or bonus

There is a page on the wiki called Social class which identifies four rural social classes, and five urban social classes. There would be some duplication of what was available to each social rank.

Using 4e mechanics, social rank should be a talent tree. If you select a social rank feat at 1st level, you unlock a talent tree of feats and powers. As Andrew mentioned, there are plenty of systems that modeled this kind of thing.


If we left it the same and creating a seperate noble non-weapon then they would be able to level their powerful class taking all of the most powerful abilities even though they haven't spent a day fighting. Seems just as unbalanced the other way.

Based on this argument, my players don’t level either. Good thing I don’t limit experience to combat, and give experience for overcoming challenges. Presumably the non-adventuring noble spends their time facing skill challenges. One merely has to know how often a given noble faces the kind of skill challenge with real consequences from his throne room.

[kgauck]

If this is true I'm totally lost. If there aren't druids but clerics use the 4e cleric. If they are druids, then they could shapeshift and the question remains: making shapeshift more usual breaks the setting feeling?

In 2nd edition, the priest was very modular and specialty priests could have all kinds of variations in hit die, and what powers they took. You could build a druid using the faith construction stuff in the priest guide. So there wasn't a druid class per se, because you could make whatever you wanted with priests.

So if you're not familiar with 2e, then they were effectively druids, but as far as 2e was concerned they were specialty priests. If you built the standard druid specialty priest then its a meaningless difference.

[kgauck]

Is really a problem for the setting to see shape changing as a more usual thing? Does it break something?

A fantastic power was very rare before, now, its not only common, but potent, the very raison d'etre of a class. Does it break something? Uh, the setting? You may not care a whit about the setting, but the power level of the setting is totally inconsistent with Fourth Edition. If you want to claim that the setting is something you value you could at least avoid asking why this is a problem.


What skills did a 2e druid have to fit that judge, sage, ... role you are speaking? Because reading the 2e class they have 0 skills related to that, and if you are talking about spells probably the druid can fit the same role with rituals.

There were no skills in 2e, so its a trick question. It was, however, possible to fiddle with the proficiency system to make it into a skill system. I had a 4th level Priestess of Zohra (which would be a druid in 3e, but as noted there were no druids in 2e) her proficiencies included Forestry, Agriculture, Religion, Herbalism, Local History, and Weather Sense. It was a dwarf of Baruk-Azhik, rather than a Rjurik, but I think I've made my point.


Scions could get out of hand if the player had some lucky rolls when creating the character. Very out of hand.
First, 2nd edition wasn't really interested in balance. Some of the builds that were possible were just outrageous. Second, for those of us who take the issue of "lucky rolls" seriously, we were using the standard array for character creation in 3e, used average hp per level for leveling characters in 3e, and we're glad to see 4e catching up. Finally if you're still rolling a d20, you're behind the curve on this issue, the bell curve. 3d6 produces a range and distribution much less likely to produce frequent examples of extraordinary good and bad luck. Third, we who use a game system are not committed to the features we like the least about that system, hence the abundance of house rules and official variants. So if you want to look about for some eccentricities about 2nd edition, go right ahead, trying to ascertain how many people used the rules as written is another matter entirely.


Any multiclass 2e character or any spellcaster in 2e/3e character is more powerful that its 4e counterpart. Only martial characters seem more powerful in 4e than in previous editions and it's because they were a failure in 2e/3e compared to spellcasters. Is not a new fact that in all 3e power-gamer polls clerics and wizards were always the first classes by a large margin.

Even the wizards designers admit that the power level is 1 to 2 levels higher than previous editions, but so are the adversaries. This is why there is no conversion from 3 to 4.

This forum spent quite a lot of bandwidth on the problem of high level casters, even though they are few (limited both by bloodline and the tone of the setting) everyone admitted they were disruptive to certain assumptions of the setting. I think nearly everyone had one or another fix to bring their power into line with these assumptions.

For my money, spellcasters were so easy to deal with in 3rd edition. Require multiclassing up to 50% of all levels. My builds for a 9th level Priest of Avani don't end up as Scholar 5/Cleric 4 by accident.

Also, in these polls, did the power-gamers list Birthright as one of the settings they prefered? I've seen the occasional power gamer grace our forums. They are generally Forgotten Realms enthusiasts who see Cerilia as fresh territory to be conquered. They generally move on, because turning Cerilia into a forgettable realm is not something we're keen on.

[irdeggman]

If this is true I'm totally lost. If there aren't druids but clerics use the 4e cleric. If they are druids, then they could shapeshift and the question remains: making shapeshift more usual breaks the setting feeling?

I have to ask for a frame of reference so that some of us don't come off as condescending and can place our references in the proper perspective,

Please describe you BR gaming experience.

What rule sets you used, what books were used, what 2nd ed BR books you are familiar with, 2nd ed versus 3.x, etc?

This is really important so that during discussion we don't make assumptions that are inaccurate.

[irdeggman]

Any multiclass 2e character or any spellcaster in 2e/3e character is more powerful that its 4e counterpart. Only martial characters seem more powerful in 4e than in previous editions and it's because they were a failure in 2e/3e compared to spellcasters. Is not a new fact that in all 3e power-gamer polls clerics and wizards were always the first classes by a large margin.


I believe you are incorrect.

First off in 2nd ed the restrictions on dual-classing were overwhelming. Only humans, you had to have a 17 in the applicable ability score of the "new" class, ou had to advance beyond your previous class levels in order to freely be able to use the class abilities of the previous class.

The restrictions on multi-classing were:

Only demi-humans.

Level restrictions.

All class restrictions applied all of the time (for example an elf figher/wizard could not cast spells while wearing armor).

The other huge factor to consider was that the 2nd ed xp tables were not balanced and every class had it's own progression.

Thieves progressed much quicker than any other class, wizard progressed slower at low levels, quicker at mid levels and slower at high levels.

If the "optional" class based xp awards were used - thieves flat out blew everyone out of the water.

So you are comparing systems that really don't comapre well.

When you factor in the at-will/per encounter/per day powers of 4th ed and compare them to the spells per day limit of previous editions, I believe you will discover that the at-will powers and per encounter poers flat out blow the others out of the water (for an adventure-based game, not a factor for a domain-level based one).

[Vicente]

In 2nd edition, the priest was very modular and specialty priests could have all kinds of variations in hit die, and what powers they took. You could build a druid using the faith construction stuff in the priest guide. So there wasn't a druid class per se, because you could make whatever you wanted with priests.

So if you're not familiar with 2e, then they were effectively druids, but as far as 2e was concerned they were specialty priests. If you built the standard druid specialty priest then its a meaningless difference.

Yep, I just checked the BRCS 2e, you are right on this one (fumble from my part).


A fantastic power was very rare before, now, its not only common, but potent, the very raison d'etre of a class. Does it break something? Uh, the setting? You may not care a whit about the setting, but the power level of the setting is totally inconsistent with Fourth Edition. If you want to claim that the setting is something you value you could at least avoid asking why this is a problem.

If this homemade Druid is in balance with all the rest of 4e classes it doesn't break anything at all regarding power-balance. And I do care about the setting, but probably in a different way than you. But don't worry, you can house rule things also in 4e as it seems you had to do to maintain the power level of the setting in 2e and 3e...


There were no skills in 2e, so its a trick question. It was, however, possible to fiddle with the proficiency system to make it into a skill system. I had a 4th level Priestess of Zohra (which would be a druid in 3e, but as noted there were no druids in 2e) her proficiencies included Forestry, Agriculture, Religion, Herbalism, Local History, and Weather Sense. It was a dwarf of Baruk-Azhik, rather than a Rjurik, but I think I've made my point.

Nature, heal, religion, knowledge,... All of those are skill in 4e. And you can fiddle with it also to add new skills if you don't like the skill consolidation done in 4e (one guy at ENWorld has posted a quite nice Craft skill for example).


First, 2nd edition wasn't really interested in balance. Some of the builds that were possible were just outrageous.

You acknowledge this but you are worried about the 4e power level, that is supposed to be a balanced system within itself??? Amazing.


Second, for those of us who take the issue of "lucky rolls" seriously, we were using the standard array for character creation in 3e, used average hp per level for leveling characters in 3e, and we're glad to see 4e catching up. Finally if you're still rolling a d20, you're behind the curve on this issue, the bell curve. 3d6 produces a range and distribution much less likely to produce frequent examples of extraordinary good and bad luck.

Yes, I know statistics and no, I don't worry about the distribution of 1d20 vs 3d6, 2d10, 5d4 or any other combination. If you want to house rule it, good for you, I find it a very poor idea (and involving a lot of pretty useless work), but it's your game.


Third, we who use a game system are not committed to the features we like the least about that system, hence the abundance of house rules and official variants. So if you want to look about for some eccentricities about 2nd edition, go right ahead, trying to ascertain how many people used the rules as written is another matter entirely.

I talk about how the rules are written because I can't argue about "Kenneth Rules" vs "Vicente Rules". And the bloodline rules aren't balanced, that's a fact. I find quite surprising that you are arguing so hard about the power level of 4e but justify the power level of 2e and 3e house ruling the earth and the moon.


Even the wizards designers admit that the power level is 1 to 2 levels higher than previous editions, but so are the adversaries. This is why there is no conversion from 3 to 4.

I would like to see that quote, it will be a pretty interesting read. And if that is it, then just make 4e characters 1-2 levels lower than the 3e characters for the conversion and problem solved.


This forum spent quite a lot of bandwidth on the problem of high level casters, even though they are few (limited both by bloodline and the tone of the setting) everyone admitted they were disruptive to certain assumptions of the setting. I think nearly everyone had one or another fix to bring their power into line with these assumptions.

For my money, spellcasters were so easy to deal with in 3rd edition. Require multiclassing up to 50% of all levels. My builds for a 9th level Priest of Avani don't end up as Scholar 5/Cleric 4 by accident.

Again, a house rule to fix a mess that doesn't exist in 4e.


Also, in these polls, did the power-gamers list Birthright as one of the settings they prefered? I've seen the occasional power gamer grace our forums. They are generally Forgotten Realms enthusiasts who see Cerilia as fresh territory to be conquered. They generally move on, because turning Cerilia into a forgettable realm is not something we're keen on.

The poll was about classes, not settings. Don't mix apples and oranges.

Also, power gamers can power game in Birthright as they can in FR, that's up to them.



I have to ask for a frame of reference so that some of us don't come off as condescending and can place our references in the proper perspective,

Please describe you BR gaming experience.

What rule sets you used, what books were used, what 2nd ed BR books you are familiar with, 2nd ed versus 3.x, etc?

This is really important so that during discussion we don't make assumptions that are inaccurate.

I have most of the BRCS books (I miss most of the Player Secrets ones) but I have only used seriously the BRCS and Heavens of the Great Bay (the first ones I got, and heavy house-ruled as most people around here). As I posted somewhere else, my games have been always at the domain level, very heavy on politics. I have played 2e, I switched to 3e when it got out, I didn't use 3.5 and I'm jumping to 4e now. The exact list of books is too big, so assume I have looots of books around.

Too much talking here has made playing in BR an interesting experiment, so I've prepared a 4e adventuring campaign in BR for a new group of players. For the shake of easiness (they don't know the setting and I don't have time to convert many things just now) they will start with non-regent and non-blooded characters.



I believe you are incorrect.

First off in 2nd ed the restrictions on dual-classing were overwhelming. Only humans, you had to have a 17 in the applicable ability score of the "new" class, ou had to advance beyond your previous class levels in order to freely be able to use the class abilities of the previous class.


That's why I said multi-classing.



The restrictions on multi-classing were:

Only demi-humans.

Level restrictions.

All class restrictions applied all of the time (for example an elf figher/wizard could not cast spells while wearing armor).


* Demi-humans is a very weak restriction unless you also limit the races your players can play.

* Level restrictions are around or over level 10, more than enough for the low-level examples we are talking here.

* Class restrictions were not a major problem for a spellcaster (specially wizards).



When you factor in the at-will/per encounter/per day powers of 4th ed and compare them to the spells per day limit of previous editions, I believe you will discover that the at-will powers and per encounter poers flat out blow the others out of the water (for an adventure-based game, not a factor for a domain-level based one).


I can agree to that at level 1 or 2. Although weapons made the same work more or less in 3e. An at-will magic missile is more or less carrying a light-crossbow in 3e. Ofc you can't steal the magic missile or it won't run out of ammo, but damage wise it doesn't blow anyone.

But maybe your experience playing 4e game has been different from mine (as you ask my 2e-3e exp, I suppose you have 4e exp too).

[irdeggman]

I can agree to that at level 1 or 2. Although weapons made the same work more or less in 3e. An at-will magic missile is more or less carrying a light-crossbow in 3e. Ofc you can't steal the magic missile or it won't run out of ammo, but damage wise it doesn't blow anyone.


Compared to 2nd ed?

Wizards were not proficient with crossbows and magic missiles never missed.


Are you talking about "magic weapons" or "mundane" ones in your comparison? BR was written to be a low-magic item setting when compared to the "standard" world and definitely much lower when compared to magic-rich worlds like the Realms.


But maybe your experience playing 4e game has been different from mine (as you ask my 2e-3e exp, I suppose you have 4e exp too).

I didn't question your exp to be insulting, but as I said I was trying to get a reference for discussion.

You had mentioned that you had not really played using the Book of Magecraft and likewise "dismissed" the Book of Regency as an official source.

You then "discovered" that Kenneth (and I) were correct in the fact about BR priests and druids in BR.

So there are several examples of for questioning knowledge basis. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but when an comment comes off as "authoritarian" then the knowledge basis must be looked at.

Personnally I find 4th ed rules very well balanced and conceived. But as Kenneth points out it is designed for higher power playing games. The very fact and concept of "second wind" and the greater hit points (for starting characters) only emphasizes that.


None of these are "bad" concepts, only different than the olden sacred cows.

[kgauck]

But don't worry, you can house rule things also in 4e as it seems you had to do to maintain the power level of the setting in 2e and 3e...

I like 4e a lot, but I think that its such a poor fit for BR that to home brew it into the setting would require rebuilding classes from the ground up.


Nature, heal, religion, knowledge,... All of those are skill in 4e. And you can fiddle with it also to add new skills if you don't like the skill consolidation done in 4e (one guy at ENWorld has posted a quite nice Craft skill for example).

But, where once the core abilities of a character was in skills and a few colorful abilities, like passing through thorns, not leaving a trail, now those kinds of abilities get pushed to the side in favor of the ability to become a lion (a large combat animal) or something similar, given that this druid is not from Wizards.


You acknowledge this but you are worried about the 4e power level, that is supposed to be a balanced system within itself??? Amazing.

I'm not concerned about 4e balance. Its great, robust system, far more robust than 3e, which required nearly a perfect match between the party level and the CR. This flexibility is great. Its the power level I'm concerned with. The power level if 2e was generally pretty good. They would put out stuff that was fine in context, but without a strong DM to impose the role playing restrictions that were supposed to balance the granted powers, you could get a doozie. 3e wisely did away (for the most part) with balancing mechanics with role play restrictions.

Role play restrictions make sense, but not as a balance for a granted power.

In 2e the problem was balance, in 4e the problem is base line power.


Yes, I know statistics and no, I don't worry about the distribution of 1d20 vs 3d6, 2d10, 5d4 or any other combination. If you want to house rule it, good for you, I find it a very poor idea (and involving a lot of pretty useless work), but it's your game.
It doesn't require any extra work.


I talk about how the rules are written because I can't argue about "Kenneth Rules" vs "Vicente Rules". And the bloodline rules aren't balanced, that's a fact. I find quite surprising that you are arguing so hard about the power level of 4e but justify the power level of 2e and 3e house ruling the earth and the moon.

When one reads the boards over a period of time, one gets a sense of what the community is doing. We can discuss the rules as written as a baseline when we don't know what the community is doing, but often, there is no point in going to the rules because you know that this or that has been houseruled pretty heavily and that two or three basic approaches have been taken by a large number of people.

Again, 4e is nicely balanced, but way over-powered.


I would like to see that quote, it will be a pretty interesting read. And if that is it, then just make 4e characters 1-2 levels lower than the 3e characters for the conversion and problem solved.
Its from the D&D podcast Episode 21 (March 2008), at time period 29:45 to 32:00. Its David Noonan and Mike Mearls.


Again, a house rule to fix a mess that doesn't exist in 4e.

Doesn't exist? In older versions of the game, one had to wonder why people would raise armies if they could be so easily destroyed by a fireball? 3rd level spell, 5th level caster. The 4e wizard is a controller, who specializes in mass damage scenarios. It would seem to me that they've made the problem worse, not corrected it. They may have removed the sudden jump in power that we all know from a Wizard 4 to Wizard 5 (or maybe they haven't), but I still see all the old offenders on the wizard's spell list. Starting with Fireball: Daily burst 3 with 20 squares effect vs Reflex doing 3d6 plus Int plus Implement, save for half damage. Yikes! Potentially 49 guys get toasted. Are they Fighter 1? Minions? Farmers?

The spells are less crazy. The wizard by himself isn't an army. But it will require both playing out several battles at different power levels and seeing what the world of wizards (players who will post combinations of powers on the boards) before we really know to what extent wizards remain a thing that make armies obsolete.

The jury is still out.

That said, I really prefer how magic works in 4e over previous editions. No fan of Vancian magic am I.


The poll was about classes, not settings. Don't mix apples and oranges.

Also, power gamers can power game in Birthright as they can in FR, that's up to them.

Let's not be coy. Its not as if we don't know that settings and gaming style don't correlate.


[Demi-humans is a very weak restriction unless you also limit the races your players can play.

Well this limit is a natural part of BR. The Dwarves are insular, the elves hate humans, and the halflings are diminishingly rare. Multi-racial parties don't seem to be the norm.

[bbeau22]

There is a page on the wiki called Social class which identifies four rural social classes, and five urban social classes. There would be some duplication of what was available to each social rank.

Using 4e mechanics, social rank should be a talent tree. If you select a social rank feat at 1st level, you unlock a talent tree of feats and powers. As Andrew mentioned, there are plenty of systems that modeled this kind of thing.



Based on this argument, my players don’t level either. Good thing I don’t limit experience to combat, and give experience for overcoming challenges. Presumably the non-adventuring noble spends their time facing skill challenges. One merely has to know how often a given noble faces the kind of skill challenge with real consequences from his throne room.


I like the idea of social rank and I think you are understand what I was saying. Take a social rank at level 1 and then have the feats and powers available. Maybe even create a paragon path so once someone reaches level 11 they might have more options to really specialize in ruling their holdings.

-BB

[Vicente]

Compared to 2nd ed?

Wizards were not proficient with crossbows and magic missiles never missed.

Are you talking about "magic weapons" or "mundane" ones in your comparison? BR was written to be a low-magic item setting when compared to the "standard" world and definitely much lower when compared to magic-rich worlds like the Realms.


In 2e the Wizard would carry a sling with sling projectiles (pretty cheap). It's less damage than the 4e magic missile (although 4e enemies have more HP), they both can miss,... Do not think about the 4e Magic Missile as any other edition Magic Missile, it's just a flavor change to allow the Wizard attack every turn like a warrior or a fighter without using a weapon (like the crossbow/sling thing).



I didn't question your exp to be insulting, but as I said I was trying to get a reference for discussion.

You had mentioned that you had not really played using the Book of Magecraft and likewise "dismissed" the Book of Regency as an official source.

You then "discovered" that Kenneth (and I) were correct in the fact about BR priests and druids in BR.

So there are several examples of for questioning knowledge basis. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but when an comment comes off as "authoritarian" then the knowledge basis must be looked at.


Either was my comment, and sorry if it seemed so, but I feel that to be able to really point things accurately about a system you have to try it. As the druid showed to me, but that's why I asked.


Personnally I find 4th ed rules very well balanced and conceived. But as Kenneth points out it is designed for higher power playing games. The very fact and concept of "second wind" and the greater hit points (for starting characters) only emphasizes that.

None of these are "bad" concepts, only different than the olden sacred cows.

Hit points were moved up in 3e and now in 4e, it's only a drastic change in very low levels (as you don't add your constitution modifier when you level up) and it was made to solve the mortality problem of low level chars. I don't see it so related to power gaming as to avoid a bad roll killing your level 1 character. Even using another dice distribution it's too easy to take a level 1 player out.

Second wind is a much complex affair. First is related to what a HP is and as it's explained, HP are not only physical injuries (they are also morale and other things). Second, the cleric changed as other classes and couldn't be the walking hospital he used to be. Third, playing as a walking hospital wasn't so fun many times, and if they prefered not playing the walking hospital (to use the more varied spells and powers the cleric has at hand), then the rest of the party was pretty screwed. Second wind tries to solve all those things allowing people to survive a little longer before the cleric or warlord has to enter the scene.

I agree they are different than the sacred crows, but I don't feel that those things break the setting to be honest.



I like 4e a lot, but I think that its such a poor fit for BR that to home brew it into the setting would require rebuilding classes from the ground up.


Yep, that's probably the core of the disagreement.



But, where once the core abilities of a character was in skills and a few colorful abilities, like passing through thorns, not leaving a trail, now those kinds of abilities get pushed to the side in favor of the ability to become a lion (a large combat animal) or something similar, given that this druid is not from Wizards.


Those things fit pretty well as utility powers.



I'm not concerned about 4e balance. Its great, robust system, far more robust than 3e, which required nearly a perfect match between the party level and the CR. This flexibility is great. Its the power level I'm concerned with. The power level if 2e was generally pretty good. They would put out stuff that was fine in context, but without a strong DM to impose the role playing restrictions that were supposed to balance the granted powers, you could get a doozie. 3e wisely did away (for the most part) with balancing mechanics with role play restrictions.

Role play restrictions make sense, but not as a balance for a granted power.

In 2e the problem was balance, in 4e the problem is base line power.


I can agree with this more or less (I don't see the base line power as such a great deal, but I can see it's a bigger deal for level 1-2 chars).



It doesn't require any extra work.


Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I want to believe designers designed the game for the distribution of 1d20. While 3d6 have the same average as 1d20, those are all their similarities as their distribution curve is different as you said. If a DC means that in average players of level X should succeed around 25% of the times, that number is different using 1d20 and 3d6.

There are examples in 4e that there's math behind the numbers, even if it's highly flawed math (like in the Skill Challenges). I suppose that math exists in 3e too.



Its from the D&D podcast Episode 21 (March 2008), at time period 29:45 to 32:00. Its David Noonan and Mike Mearls.


Thanks, I'll search for it.



Doesn't exist? In older versions of the game, one had to wonder why people would raise armies if they could be so easily destroyed by a fireball? 3rd level spell, 5th level caster. The 4e wizard is a controller, who specializes in mass damage scenarios. It would seem to me that they've made the problem worse, not corrected it. They may have removed the sudden jump in power that we all know from a Wizard 4 to Wizard 5 (or maybe they haven't), but I still see all the old offenders on the wizard's spell list. Starting with Fireball: Daily burst 3 with 20 squares effect vs Reflex doing 3d6 plus Int plus Implement, save for half damage. Yikes! Potentially 49 guys get toasted. Are they Fighter 1? Minions? Farmers?

The spells are less crazy. The wizard by himself isn't an army. But it will require both playing out several battles at different power levels and seeing what the world of wizards (players who will post combinations of powers on the boards) before we really know to what extent wizards remain a thing that make armies obsolete.


The multiclass mess doesn't exist. Bye bye to cleric/wizards and other aberrations. Other messes may exists, I never negated that.

About the FB: as you say it exists in all the DnD editions and it works more or less the same. Except that the FB in 2e and 3e would be a 5d6 damage thing when the wizard gets to cast it, compared to the 3d6 + int + implement. On average at level 5 they are probably the same, but as soon as the wizard gets 1-2 more levels, the 2e-3e FB is more powerful. And 4e FB area is a little bigger than 2e and a little smaller than 3e (I have the 2e PHB in Spanish, so I'm not sure how the measures were translated).

So far in ENWorld the general consensus is that munchkin playing is much harder in 4e than in 3e (except for clearly broken things like Blade Cascade).



Let's not be coy. Its not as if we don't know that settings and gaming style don't correlate.


Everyone plays the game as he likes. If power gamers want to rock BR, kill the Gorgon and sack the SW, it's their call. As you say they won't appear on this forum much, but that's it.



Well this limit is a natural part of BR. The Dwarves are insular, the elves hate humans, and the halflings are diminishingly rare. Multi-racial parties don't seem to be the norm.


Adventurers aren't the norm too, but you have a group of them instead of a group of 0-level farmers. So the demi-human thing is not such a big problem.

[Vicente]

I forgot one thing related to the fireball: minions never take damage on a miss. So the 4e fireball is probably the more underpowered fireball we have ever had. It won't kill most times a group of level 1 fighters as the damage doesn't scale with the level and it has possibilities of not killing a group of minions.

[manetherin]

After reading and re-reading the new PHB, something occurred to me.

Mechanics and bloodlines aside, the new system of ritual casting strikes me as being very similar in flavor to realm magic. Where the powers seem to be drawn from within and commanded personally, ritual casting functions in a way that suggests that the ritual gathers ambient power for the magic and guides it to the desired result.

So effectively, ritual casting is realm magic, but on an almost microscopic scale compared to the amount of power drawn for full-on realm casting. Fluff wise, I would explain it as exactly that. Ritual casting is identical to realm spell casting, except that it is on such a small and local scale that it does not require access to a Source or have any ability to impact a Source holding (directly, at least, ritual casting to scry a source's location could lead to negative end, etc).

Fluffing out ritual casting in that way, and because the majority of the out-of-combat (read: most of what a Magician specialized in) casting has fallen under the ritual casting umbrella, and Since the wizard powers have more the feel of innate power being directed by sheer force of will rather than careful ritual, I suggest the following.

Being a wizard, as they stand in the book, requires being of blooded and/or elvish descent, like it always has.

But 'magician' I suggest we redefine slightly.
I wouldn't make the magician a class at all, and let it be more of a term applied to any non-wizard who takes the Ritual Casting feat.

So a rogue who masters the personal discipline to take Ritual Casting for personal utility is no less a 'Magician' than a city dwelling noble who picks it up out of a sense of adventure or delving into forgotten lore.

[Thelandrin]

That's a nice idea, Manetherin, but I would assume that learning Ritual Casting would take a little more than just a feat or what-have-you. As magicians are common throughout Cerilia, it makes sense for it to be a separate career, even if it isn't a separate class.

[Autarkis]

I would prefer to divorce class and their level impact on domain level play. In 2e, class level had very little impact on the ruling of the domain and impacted only the adventuring side. Heck, the warcard "Adventurers" had the same bonus regardless of the level composition of the group. Blood Score, to me, tied to 'domain level' while Class Level tied to 'adventure level.' If you ruled well, your tie to the land went up.

BRCS 3/ 3.5 changed that slightly, tieing class level to the ability of an individual to rule their domain. Skills were tied to Regency gain versus having 'just' a blood score. Below are the skills for 2e, their actual impact on ruling was slight and not near the all encompassing they needed to be in 3.0/3.5 BRCS.

For instance, here are the skills:
TABLE 6: NEW NONWEAPON PROFICIENCIES

Proficiency Group Slots Check
Administration General 1 Int–2
Diplomacy Priest 1 Wis–1
Intrigue Rogue 1 Wis
Law General 2 Int–1
Leadership General 1 Cha–1
Siegecraft Warrior 2 Int
Strategy Warrior 1 Int–2

Most gave small bonuses to domain actions after a successful check (Law gave a +1 to Create Holding, Decree, Rule, or Espionage.) Even Administration, when review incorrectly seemed imbalanced if you over extended what was considered 'maintenance' but not if you only included items on Table 19.

So the short to the purpose of my post and seeming off track is that classes, to me, are more for the adventuring side and I would like to see a return to another mechanic that separated class level from the ability to rule. Concentrating more on Blood Score as the level of how good a ruler (or past rulers in a multi-generational game) the character is.

[manetherin]

That's a nice idea, Manetherin, but I would assume that learning Ritual Casting would take a little more than just a feat or what-have-you. As magicians are common throughout Cerilia, it makes sense for it to be a separate career, even if it isn't a separate class.

Mechanically, all that is required to take the ritual casting feat is being trained in either Arcana or Religion. No specific class or stat requirements or anything like that.

Of the eight classes in the PHB, four either get one of those skills automatically or have one included in their available class skill list (depending on whether the Warlock is accepted in the BR setting)

Those who dont have access to either skill can pick one or the other up through a different feat that does not require the new skill be on your class skill list.

Beyond that, a large number of individual rituals use various other skills such as Heal and Nature, etc, that are scattered through all the classes.

To me, learning the assorted skills and taking the time to learn the feat (ie not taking the abstract "it just showed up on my character sheet and i woke up knowing how to do it" view of gaining feats) represents a great deal of time and study devoted to understanding magic and learning how to manipulate it in the more complex way required when one doesn't have the innate tie to the land and personal power granted by being blooded or elvish.

So it would definitely take a serious investment to become a magician, but if becoming a magician doesn't require tying yourself to a specific class your character still has the freedom to learn other ways to accomplish their goals. That makes sense to me, as even as a class the Magician was never a 100% spellcasting character, they had to learn other skills because their available spells were not quite the gigantic multi-tool that full Wizards got.

[bbeau22]

I would prefer to divorce class and their level impact on domain level play. In 2e, class level had very little impact on the ruling of the domain and impacted only the adventuring side. Heck, the warcard "Adventurers" had the same bonus regardless of the level composition of the group. Blood Score, to me, tied to 'domain level' while Class Level tied to 'adventure level.' If you ruled well, your tie to the land went up.

BRCS 3/ 3.5 changed that slightly, tieing class level to the ability of an individual to rule their domain. Skills were tied to Regency gain versus having 'just' a blood score. Below are the skills for 2e, their actual impact on ruling was slight and not near the all encompassing they needed to be in 3.0/3.5 BRCS...

I don't mind mostly devorcing the two some what , but I like the idea of class level having some impact on how well you can rule. Here is my example. Lets say an older level 20 wizard has controlled source for the last 40 years of his life. He has a minor bloodline. You have an upstart strongly blooded wizard comes along that is level 1 and never controlled any of his own source. Now explain to me how this seasoned, extremely powerful wizard will not be more effective at controlling his source than a level 1 wizard with no experience but strong bloodline.

Experience matters. If you only tie in the ability to rule with bloodline then you are negating experience. Now I am up for saying that the young wizard certain will be a nice challenge for the powerful wizard because his bloodline is so much stonger, but experience should match that somewhat.

As the rules stand now having a strong bloodline already gives a large advantage to that character, as it should. But by tying some feats and powers to levels then an experienced character who has been around the block or two might be able to hold is own vs. a superior blooded scion.

-BB

[Autarkis]

I don't mind mostly devorcing the two some what , but I like the idea of class level having some impact on how well you can rule. Here is my example. Lets say an older level 20 wizard has controlled source for the last 40 years of his life. He has a minor bloodline. You have an upstart strongly blooded wizard comes along that is level 1 and never controlled any of his own source. Now explain to me how this seasoned, extremely powerful wizard will not be more effective at controlling his source than a level 1 wizard with no experience but strong bloodline.

It is because the stronger bloodline is more tied to the land. The level 20 wizard would indeed wipe the floor if they met on the open field in a pure display of wizardly skill, however I feel that the underlying strength of the bloodline and the 'divine right to rule' would give the level 1 wizard an edge. Think King Arthur, he was a young kid level 0-squire who brought a kingdom under his banner.


Experience matters. If you only tie in the ability to rule with bloodline then you are negating experience. Now I am up for saying that the young wizard certain will be a nice challenge for the powerful wizard because his bloodline is so much stonger, but experience should match that somewhat.

As the rules stand now having a strong bloodline already gives a large advantage to that character, as it should. But by tying some feats and powers to levels then an experienced character who has been around the block or two might be able to hold is own vs. a superior blooded scion.
-BB

Well I do agree that experience should be a factor, however experience tied to ruling not class development. If I didn't think it would be to complicated (though it would make life simpler as D&D changes versions) is to actually create some type of mechanism to provide bonuses to people who spend time ruling versus adventuring. A 'ruling class' (had to use the pun) that gained experience, and was totally divorced, from the actual class. Had its own attributes and gained experience independently.

I remember playing a PBEM called "Game of Thrones" where the DM used five traits to garner how well a ruler the individual was: Politics, Intrigue, Magic, Finance, and Warcraft. Every time you did something that fell under one of the areas (cast Realm Magic, declare War, make treaty) you got points for that skill. Those components would be where the bonuses to ruling would fall under.

If we extrapolate from that, the Baron of Roesone could be a level 20 fighter but be considered new to the rule of a land and have low scores while someone who was a level 2 fighter but spent more than twenty years ruling would have high scores in ruling his land.

[kgauck]

Think King Arthur, he was a young kid level 0-squire who brought a kingdom under his banner.

After a long (four year) civil war which ended with Arthur very much a man (though 18), tested after several major battles, and with the marriage to Guinevere. Its not like his bloodline just ousted the other guy. There was no high king immediately before Arthur, England having fallen into disunion after the death of Uther. If a tyrant had possession of England as high king when Arthur drew the sword from the stone, based on how hard it was for him to unify England as was, I doubt he would have been victorious.

[AndrewTall]

I remember playing a PBEM called "Game of Thrones" where the DM used five traits to garner how well a ruler the individual was: Politics, Intrigue, Magic, Finance, and Warcraft. Every time you did something that fell under one of the areas (cast Realm Magic, declare War, make treaty) you got points for that skill. Those components would be where the bonuses to ruling would fall under.

We could use this system for 'non-adventuring' stuff in general - spend time hammering iron - get a skill point in blacksmith/ etc, that way regent PC's would pick up skill points, feats, etc in ruling their domain and gaining RP, other PC's would gain skills in crafts, trades, etc. This may be preferable to having to track a separate xp pool for a non-adventuring class - but uses a 3e skill mechanic not 4e level/2.

As for the L20 wizard vs L1 wizard point the key thing to remember is let the wookie win. A L20 mage who has spent the last 5 years adventuring and now wants to settle down as court mage and rule some of these things called sources they've heard about will get slaughtered at domain level by the L1 wizard court mage who spent the last 30 years studying mebaighl flows, leylines and source manifestations and avoiding combat with anything more dangerous than a well-cooked chicken drumstick - but when it comes to the crunch the L1 wizard should be very careful about winning too many of those domain level battles or get a brief unfortunate lesson in adventuring magic.

[bbeau22]

So it comes down to how to we measure experience and how much of a factor does it come it.

With the level 20 wizard example the level 20 wizard has controlled source for a very long time, just happened to be born with a minor bloodline limiting his power at birth. So the level 1 that shows up is not only less experienced with source but also with adventuring magic ... just simply has a more powerful bloodline.

How does D&D measure experience? Well through classes. We certainly can't and shouldn't create two difference experience tables for a class and their ability to rule, we need to find a way to tie them together.

I still think they should be tied to level, it is the closest thing D&D has to general experience as a character. We will have to take assumptions that some of the experience is geared towards domain play between adventures. And if we use the paragon path method to give additional domain powers it means they have mostly gone away from their original adventuring side of their class and starting to be more domain. They may be still gaining levels in their chosen class, but many of their powers and feats will be tied into ruling their domains.

First we would have feats and some lower level powers available to assist with realm ruling. They can take these throughout their leveling but would be geared for 1-10 for improving domain rulership while leveling up in your chosen adventuring class. The thing to remember here is if you are taking these powers and feats your ability to actually adventure will be greatly reduced ... which makes sense because you really haven't been adventuring.

Paragon paths starts at level 11. We can have them available to blooded characters and they would look something like Guilder path, Source path, Temple path, Ruler path. So instead of getting powerful paragon powers that adventures would certain take, they would be getting paragon powers that assist with realm ruling, again making them weak adventuring but strong rulers.

Back to the example of the wizards. If a level 20 wizard never held source in his life and a weak bloodline then he will not have any powers or feats to assist him in ruling them. He certainly is extremely powerful but wouldn't stand a chance against someone experience or someone with a powerful bloodline. Even a low level wizard that has focused on ruling source will be more effective than the level 20.

Sorry for the wall of text. Takes me a while to explain things.

[kgauck]

There are three areas of contrast in this example. First there is the question of adventure level. Second there is the question of bloodline, who has the greater claim on rulership in a general sense. And third, there is possession. This third example has been overlooked in discussions so far, but in the classic case, it is possession that has been more important. The 20th level wizard with a low bloodline who is collecting regency and slowly building a reserve is traditionally the one with the advantage.

If one imagines that the 1st level Great Bloodline truely has an advantage, how does he overcome the adversary who has 10 RP per turn plus another 10 in reserve? The Wizard in place has the benefit of his own sources as a modifier in his favor. What does the new guy get? He must come into the province and place a zero level holding to even begin contesting the established wizard. Even if the established wizard anticipates a long duel, and keeps his RP in his back pocket, he still has a huge advantage, the modifier of his own source. If the interloper is contested, he's got to start again, but if the existing wizard is contested, its likely he holds on to some of his source.

However, a long term contest battle costs a GB per attempt. Where is this young wizard getting gold to play the odds? If he has but a mere GB, and the established wizard presumes shallow pockets enough just to spend half of this season's RP on the attempt, he's established a DC of 10-source-RP for the new wizard.

How does one presume that the new wizard has an advantage to overcome all of that?

Now let's consider skills, even if the Wizard 20 can't use is Knowledge Arcana in the Contest action (and I saw no clear indication in my cursory review of the BRCS) he still gets to use it when calculating RP generation. Since Knowledge Arcana is one of the things a Wizard really uses, its not implausible to suppose that he's got more ranks in this than the young wizard has years of abstract reasoning to rely on.

So how does one assume that the young wizard with the high bloodline wins? I presume he has access to blooded abilities that the experienced wizard doesn't, but do they overcome the advantages of source modifiers, RP generation and reserve, and a very high Knowledge Arcana?

[bbeau22]

Ok so we are looking at three parts. Experience (level), Talent (Bloodscore) and possession. I agree possession has been largely ignored and it does have an impact although I think it is a relatively small impact.

Experience

A character that has leveled up controlling and ruling holdings their whole life should have some advantages to that. People have offered up solutions by seperating domain level skills from adventuring level skills, but I feel we can keep them linked by simply give character the abilities to replace adventuring feats/powers and skills with domain type feats/powers/skills. They will become very weak adventures because they are using up power combat skills for domain skills. Of course they are still tied to that class for hp, saves etc.

How much should experience help and what type of help should they get. Gaining an additional court action makes sense. Make one domain action a court action makes sense. For the wizard example I could see.

1. Forge Leyline as a free action once per turn.
2. Automatic know when another wizard leyline passes through a province you control source in. It includes the start or end of leyline.
3. One realm spell per year can be cast only paying one half the regency that would normally be due (high level.)

In the above examples they tie in with experience in my mind and not a strong bloodline. The wizard can Forge a leyline as a free action because he has done it enough time before and is familier with leylines to complete the task more quickly. Or the reduced realm spell cost because he has learned how to tap his source and draw more power from the source instead of using his own regency.

You also included skill levels with knowledge arcana. Because 4th edition removes the varying levels of skill by making them set numbers, I thought that we would have to change that for a 4th edition conversion. I offered up the 2nd edition method of gaining regency because character classes are more similer to 2nd edition than 3rd. If you want to muliclass there are feats you can take ... but your primary class will always be the one you choose at character creation.


Talent

On an example of level 1 great bloodline vs. level 20 minor bloodline wizards. Assuming that the experienced wizard had the foresight to see the challenge coming months in advance (which is rare,) the amount of regency he can have stored up is still small because we have a top amount. If he had a 10 bloodscore you are talking about a max regency held of what? 20? Now lets say the great bloodline young wizard has a score of 40. If he canablizes his bloodline to gain regency just once he will have twice the regency that the experienced wizard. And if the low level powerful bloodscore wizard had just a little backing from someone who would give them some regency, the battle was over long before it ever started. A more prudent powerful wizard who could see the challenge coming month in advance is better off leaving and finding source somewhere else. Mind you I am also giving the experienced wizard the best senario situation. In a real situation he would probably only have 10 regency because of spending on other actions.

I think the raw talent of a powerful bloodline is power enough. They are going to possess some blood powers that will give them an advantage at a domain level and an adventuring level. Charming everyone around them, giving courage to his troops, teleporting around the contenant.

Now I totally agree that a great bloodline character should have many advantages and the above is totally acceptable. I would just hate to tie in extra domain powers with bloodline like other have suggested because not only would the above example happen but the more power bloodline will have all of the advantages listed in experience.

Possession

The reason why I dismiss this is because the number is set in stone and can't really be changed on a province bases. If you control a source 2 in a province that can only support a level 2 source, the number isn't going to get better. In the end you are talking about a +2 advantage over a challenge where regency can be spent to influence the number. If someone is spending 20-40 regency in a hostile take over the +2 is fairly minor. It helps for sure, but lets not over-state its place here.

If a wizard controls a level 9 source then the advantage is al ot greater, but can still be overcome. Controlling a source of this power is fairly minor I think I can count on my fingers how many level 9 source there are in all of Cerilia.

With two wizard of equal bloodline and source controlled, possession of a strong source level is certainly an advantage. It breaks the tie so to say.

Conclusion

Not sure how we got this crazy with it. I just wanted to state we need to give some domain powers tied to level to represent experience. I used the example of a weak and power wizard to show that a powerful wizard should have at least some extra tools to help run his domain because he has so much experience tapping into source.

I offered standard levels for experience really everything is already in place to make that successful, we would just have to create a series of feats and powers that will replace ones typically adventures will take. I offer this than creating a seperate experience table for domain, as I would rather use core rules and create around them than create a new system to add in.


And wow. Another wall of text.

[kgauck]

Wall of text = good. I actually feel guilty if I'm expressing very little but agreement or disagreement. Its a discussion forum, not an aphorism forum.

Its funny, when I look at the problems of fitting both character and domain powers into a character, I want more slots for power and abilities (in 3x). 4e then looks so attractive, but all the powers and abilities are all at the adventure level, and taking domain powers and abilities might get you killed (at least early on).

Very few characters are really full time adventurers. We just abstract away skills that we don't bother playing. We used to do that with ruling. You got to name level, boom, you get a stronghold and followers. It just happens. Now we have a system to track how a character goes from adventurer to regent and what a character does as a regent. However, while I certainly believe there are opportunity costs involved in deciding to be more adventurer or more ruler, I don't think that these are the only two options, just because we don't have a game system that handles the rest of life.

So while characters should have to make choices (represented by the feat system, or in 4e picking abilities too) that serve either adventuring or domain ends, there should also be parts of the character that are added only for the domain side. This might the the role of blood abilities. Because we bother to simulate running domains, and don't bother figuring out what adventurers do with the rest of their time (and I simply don't believe they adventure 24-7, that's an abstraction in which we don't examine what happens during down time).

[fbaker4]

4th Edition Classes

The classes in the 4th edition players handbook are ...

Rogue - Allowed

Rogue - As is

-BB

Ok - one of the key rogue weapons is shruiken. We all know that shruiken don't fit; they're low penetration weapons that don't apply in a eurpoean-based culture system, a place where weather alone requires wearing the clothes and having the houses that would make shruiken virtually useless.

But there it is nonetheless; rogues and shruiken go together like ice cream & apple pie in 4e.

So: what to do?

[kgauck]

Darts and throwing knives would make sense, and could be such that they do the same damage as the discarded weapon.

[Arentak]

I don't think level should be a direct indicator of success in domain actions, nor should bloodline. Its all about how effectively you use what you have.

A 20th level wizard would adventure to gain a bonus on his domain action contest source. If you had a Heroic=+2, paragon=+4, Epic =+6 as a general rule for adventure reward, then the 20th level wizard's advantage is that he gets more oomph then the low level guy's adventure.

Bloodline's too can be mismanaged, which is why Regency is the key. Good Regency management lets you expand your Bloodline and always win contests. Poor regency management (always raising your bloodline, wasting rp's taking non-important things) should be punished. A major bloodline duke playing well shouldn't auto-lose to an equal level great bloodline duke.

If we are going to insist on bloodlines giving a benefit, how about tainted = -1, minor = 0, major =+1, Great=+2, True=+3

I wouldn't mind seeing level as a soft indicator, i.e. Bloodline score+level = max rp collection, or even follow the example above, heroic = -1, paragon = 0, epic = +1.

That way there is some benefit from level, but its not overwhelming. Or even 0/2/4 wouldn't be too much.

Also, each holding could have a favored class which gets a bonus in actions creating/ruling/contesting based on adventure tier, +1/2/3, or 2/4/6 maybe.
(so level 25 rogue =+a lot to guild actions)

I have some ideas about feats/powers management, but I'll hold off on that til we get to that thread.

[AndrewTall]

I don't think level should be a direct indicator of success in domain actions, nor should bloodline. Its all about how effectively you use what you have.

Sorry, implicit assuption that bloodline score is similar to bloodline strength - so tainted stop at under 20, minor at 40 major at 60, great at 80 (simplifying) - I agree that score is the determinant in RP collection although long run score and strength should lockstep - but probably won't due to dominating local issues.



A 20th level wizard would adventure to gain a bonus on his domain action contest source. If you had a Heroic=+2, paragon=+4, Epic =+6 as a general rule for adventure reward, then the 20th level wizard's advantage is that he gets more oomph then the low level guy's adventure.

Interesting point - but at some point the high level character runds out of challenges - milord, a griffon is raiding our caravans ruining the trade route' - adventure action for any trade ruler, but a mornings romp for the epic guy as opposed to a months long slog for the heroic chap.


Also, each holding could have a favored class which gets a bonus in actions creating/ruling/contesting based on adventure tier, +1/2/3, or 2/4/6 maybe. (so level 25 rogue =+a lot to guild actions)

the issue is whether you move back to a class RP style system (2e) or stay with a skill based RP collection system (3.5e), alternatively you could do a feat system...