4th edition Birthright according to Bbeau22

[bbeau22]

4 Edition Birthright

This is a write up of my over-view of how I am going to convert Birthright into 4th edition. I will try to note reasons why I am making certain moves as I go.

Please feel free to add in your thoughts. See any glaring problems? If you have any thoughts to expand this so it might work better. I am open to any opinions.

Races – Keep all of the non-human races as they are in the player’s handbook in their powers and abilities. Of course they are described different for their unique qualities and history in Birthright but they will play the same as the handbook. Races not available in Birthright will not be allowed.

For the human races there will be small changes to represent the regional differences in humans. I am going to have them keep their choice of +2 stats for one and add in a regional +2 according to the original rules. To reduce their power instead of them having an option to choose an extra feat they will have one assigned to them.

- Anuireans - +2 Wis, Bonus skill: Diplomacy and a base +3 to it.
- Brecht - +2 Dex, Bonus +1 to AC when wielding a light weapon and light armor.
- Khinasi - +2 Int, Bonus skill: Arcana with a base +3 to it.
- Rjurik - +2 Con, Bonus +5 to defense against abilities with the cold trait.
- Vos - +2 Str, +2 to hit and damage when bloodied.

Now I am not sure how balanced they are. Might have to adjust them. The stats are taken from the 2nd edition rule book.

Classes – Classes from the original rule book will be allowed in. I tried to keep this process simple.

- Allowed old classes – Fighter, Priest, Wizard, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue
- New class allowed – Warlord
- Missing classes – Druid, Bard

For the missing classes hopefully future releases will include them. Until then druids will have to be treated as priests and Bards will have to be rogues. Much too difficult to create whole new classes for each. For Warlord some old warriors can be switched.


Skills

Skills have been switched in 4th edition and they are much harder to pick and choose with skills you work on. With that in mind, I am going to remove skills that have domain effects. Many of the same benefits will be given as feats.

- Administrate – Remove the skill. Create a feat that allows a reduction in realm maintance but make it fixed. As the character goes up in level they can save more gold. Ability check for success.
- Diplomacy – Keep the same. Add in Lead into diplomacy.
- Lead – Remove. Bonus to realm actions replaced with feats.
- Gather Information – Remove birthright extras and replace with feats.
- Warcraft – Keep in for war.

Feats

There will be feats added in to help with domain actions. Current feats will be removed or adjusted to match 4th edition.

Blood Abilities

For this conversion, I will keep blood abilities as an added layer to a character that is blooded. 4th edition is about balance and there would be ways that can be added in but a simpler process. Character will need to use a starting feat to be blooded. Then the score will determine the abilities just like before.

They will need to be switched to 4th edition rules. They will be switched to at-will, encounter, per day, or per week. This will take time but not extremely hard.

- Healing blood ability will be switched to a second wind style ability
- Detection abilities will be looked at and perhaps removed.

Domain actions

This is going to go through a change that makes it resemble 4th edition a bit more.

Each regent will now have an attack and defense stat for Guild, Law, Temple, Source and Realm/Province. The base attack is +0 at level 1 and the base defense is 10 at level 1. This keeps the ratio the same.

There will be feats and class bonuses to these different stats. Not sure of the balance but classes will have bonuses to these stats dependant on level. This is a very early thought for this and will go through some changes. I was thinking that a fighter with law will be hard for a rogue to remove.

Fighter – Law +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Priest – Temple +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Rogue – Guild +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Wizard – Source +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Paladin – Temple and Law +1 at level 11, another +1 at level 21
Ranger – Unsure. +1 to source and law maybe

There are plenty of different parts to look at and I am unsure what to do yet. Courts I will try to keep the same. Adjust all of the realm actions to 4th edition style actions. Each month is a standard action.

War

Not sure yet.

[Sorontar]

Races:

Given your preference to go with what is in the PHB,


Is the connection between elves and magic going to maintained in any way?
Is the rejection between dwarves and magic going to be maintained in any way?
Is the connection between halflings and the Shadow World going to be maintained in any way?


Sorontar

[bbeau22]

Races:

Given your preference to go with what is in the PHB,


Is the connection between elves and magic going to maintained in any way?
Is the rejection between dwarves and magic going to be maintained in any way?
Is the connection between halflings and the Shadow World going to be maintained in any way?


Sorontar

Good questions. Lets think about it.

- Elves - Other than through race description the only tanglable link elves have with true magic is that they don't need to be blooded to be true wizards.

What I was going to have happen is that you need to use your initial feat to say if you are blooded or not to be a true wizard. Elves will not have that restriction. They can be a true wizard blooded or not.

Now that might lead to balancing issues and one of their starting abilities be reduced or removed ... haven't thought about it that deeply yet.

- dwarves - you are right. I thought that the 4th edition gave them some sort of resistance but they don't, but magic doesn't work the same way in 4th edition as all classes have power and abilities that not different.

I would lean towards a racial feat that would allow dwarves to get a resistance bonus vs. arcane power sources. Since that is a powerful ability I would say a simple +1 but can be taken multiple times to increase the save bonus.

- Halflings - Yes that would be included in racial feats. Since not all halflings can travel to the shadow world this makes sense.

There can be one feat for the simple ability to travel to the shadow world with the same restriction that are on them now. I would also say this is a powerful ability and wouldn't be available until level 11 or above.

-BB

[tpdarkdraco]

bbeau22 - Have you looked at mine or dundjinmasta's conversion so far, which are very similar?

I have to ask why are you doing a conversion that is very different from the both of ours?

The races were always different in Birthright than the standard so why keep the non-human races the same as PHB 4e. The humans ones seem fine as you have pretty much done what I have done so far. I like your bonus to them. I might have a look at mine again and borrow yours.

The classes seem fine but why not just use druid and have their power source as divine.

I have also done a complete 4e conversion of all the blood abilities, so if you haven't take a look at them in the downloads section.

Finally I would just like to say that I would love to have a community agreed conversion (or at least the ones interested in 4e). I would love your input as opposed to you doing a completly new conversion that might be totally different. It would be great to have a colaberation of ideas and just trhe one conversion.

Currently I have about 78 pages of conversion. It is nowhere near finished but I have lots done. I have several new feats. I am trying to create a Magician class. I plan to covert the Cleric class to recreate the 2e BR priests with their extra powers. I have come up with regional backgrounds and I am working on doing writes ups for each region similar to a forgotten realms in their player campaign guide.

[bbeau22]

bbeau22 - Have you looked at mine or dundjinmasta's conversion so far, which are very similar?

I have to ask why are you doing a conversion that is very different from the both of ours?

This was mostly completed when I wasn't really checking out everything you have written. I will most certainly look more closely at yours. I was MIA for a few months


The races were always different in Birthright than the standard so why keep the non-human races the same as PHB 4e. The humans ones seem fine as you have pretty much done what I have done so far. I like your bonus to them. I might have a look at mine again and borrow yours.

Well according to 2nd edition Birthright rules there really wasn't much difference between Birthright races and Players Handbook from 2nd edition races. There was racial adjustments for ability scores and level limits but other than that you used all 2nd edition rules.

I figured that the races from 4th edition already already perfectly balanced and really work well. We can supplement races with racial feats to expand them and give them more of a Birthright feel.


The classes seem fine but why not just use druid and have their power source as divine.

There might have released rules for Druids already that I didn't know about. I have been using just the regular players handbook, DM guide and Monster Manual. If they did then great!


I have also done a complete 4e conversion of all the blood abilities, so if you haven't take a look at them in the downloads section.

I can't wait to look at them.


Finally I would just like to say that I would love to have a community agreed conversion (or at least the ones interested in 4e). I would love your input as opposed to you doing a completly new conversion that might be totally different. It would be great to have a colaberation of ideas and just trhe one conversion.

Currently I have about 78 pages of conversion. It is nowhere near finished but I have lots done. I have several new feats. I am trying to create a Magician class. I plan to covert the Cleric class to recreate the 2e BR priests with their extra powers. I have come up with regional backgrounds and I am working on doing writes ups for each region similar to a forgotten realms in their player campaign guide.

I will read what you have come up with so far and I can certainly give input. This list wasn't to try to supplant yours, it was simply just what I would initially invision a 4th edition system to look like.

[tpdarkdraco]

Thats cool. Thats why I thought I would let you know. I hadn't thought you had been responding to any of the earlier stuff I had posted.

If you like send me a personal message with your email and I will send you what I have done to date.

[dundjinnmasta]

Druid & Bard were released in the PHB2. Also from the PHB2 I would atleast add the Barbarian for Vos Warriors. My conversion was sidelined but that is because I am way to lazy to commit to anything *sigh*.

tpdarkdraco has done alot more conversion then me though not necessarily in the same way that I would do the conversion.

[bbeau22]

Druid & Bard were released in the PHB2. Also from the PHB2 I would atleast add the Barbarian for Vos Warriors. My conversion was sidelined but that is because I am way to lazy to commit to anything *sigh*.

tpdarkdraco has done alot more conversion then me though not necessarily in the same way that I would do the conversion.

That is good to hear. That means every class is covered now. Now we just have to look at Magician.

-BB

[Vicente]

That is good to hear. That means every class is covered now. Now we just have to look at Magician.

-BB

Arcane Power comes with an Illusionist version for the Wizard. It's not the same, but it's a good start point probably.

[irdeggman]

Well according to 2nd edition Birthright rules there really wasn't much difference between Birthright races and Players Handbook from 2nd edition races. There was racial adjustments for ability scores and level limits but other than that you used all 2nd edition rules.


Actually in 2nd ed there was a tremendous difference between the non-human races in BR and the core rules.

All halflings could travel to the shadow world in the 2nd ed rules (not so in the 3.5 ones - but that was for balance reasons). All halflings had the detection abilites.

All dwarves had resistance to blunt weapons.

Elves, except for the class level limits were mostly the same with a few significant differences.

- Weapon bonus (no bonus for weapons for elves in BR 2nd ed, the 3.5 version kept it because there didn't seem to be any real justification for removing it in the first place).
- Being immortal had more benefits in 2nd ed then it did in 3.5 though (the spells that "aged" you mostly had that effect removed in 3.5).
- Elves were forbidden from being priests in BR. A very, very significant difference and extremely important to the setting.

[bbeau22]

Actually in 2nd ed there was a tremendous difference between the non-human races in BR and the core rules.

All halflings could travel to the shadow world in the 2nd ed rules (not so in the 3.5 ones - but that was for balance reasons). All halflings had the detection abilites.

All dwarves had resistance to blunt weapons.

Elves, except for the class level limits were mostly the same with a few significant differences.

- Weapon bonus (no bonus for weapons for elves in BR 2nd ed, the 3.5 version kept it because there didn't seem to be any real justification for removing it in the first place).
- Being immortal had more benefits in 2nd ed then it did in 3.5 though (the spells that "aged" you mostly had that effect removed in 3.5).
- Elves were forbidden from being priests in BR. A very, very significant difference and extremely important to the setting.

You are right. They had some extra racial abilities I didn't notice.

- Halflings - Going to the Shadow World I knew, but didn't feel we needed to include that in a basic stat block.
- Yes I totally forgot about dwarves and blunt weapons.
- Elves and not being priests I knew. Another one that you wouldn't include in a basic combat stat block.

Either way I stand corrected.

-BB

[irdeggman]

You are right. They had some extra racial abilities I didn't notice.

- Halflings - Going to the Shadow World I knew, but didn't feel we needed to include that in a basic stat block.
- Yes I totally forgot about dwarves and blunt weapons.
- Elves and not being priests I knew. Another one that you wouldn't include in a basic combat stat block.

Either way I stand corrected.

-BB


Hmm I also forgot something - the BR non-human races had different ability modifiers than the "standard" version.

Dwarves had +2 Con -2 Dex (not Charisma)

Elves had a +1 Dex and Int and a -1 to Str and Con (IIRC the core elves only had Dex and Con modifiers)

1/2 elves had a +1 Dex -1 Con (standard had no modifiers)

Halfings had a +1 Dex and Wisdom, -2 Str (instead of only modifiers to Dex and Str)

So BR dwarves were more Charismatic and hardy but less dextrous, elves were weaker, halflings were wiser but weaker, and 1/2 elves were more dextrous but less hardy.