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Rykros1
11-15-2009, 01:58 AM
I'm giving credit where credit is due. I've used tpdarkdraco's work as a template and revised the function of blood abilities to fit 4e containers and terminology (e.g.: at-will, encounter, daily, end of your next turn, end of encounter, etc.) as close as possible.

I've attempted to take the essence of what these abilities were meant to do in 2nd Edition and discovered that many actually had similar effects here in the form of class powers, rituals, skills, feats, built-in mechanics such as difficult terrain, etc.

One of the primary goals here was to balance any bonuses that resulted from a blood ability. So as a starting point, I took a Minor ability like Alertness and deduced that a skill bonus from a Minor ability would be +2 (+4 Major/+6 Great) because a Minor ability never just gives a single skill bonus (as in the case of Alertness, there was an additional anti-surprise mechanics).

So going forward from that, I took the +2/+4/+6 and lowered it depending on how many other benefits an ability gives and whether or not those benefits extend to the scion's party.

I would love some feedback. I wanted to find a balance anchor, which was easier than I thought because 4e lacks contradictions.


EDIT:

After having played and DM'd 4e for nearly a year now in regular weekly games and having been exposed to the material longer, I've updated the PDF with more streamlined 4e terminology and modified several abilities to be (what I consider) more balanced with the general ruleset.

That said, I believe in preserving this unique feature to Birthright and as such most of these abilities are, to a degree, a step above the typical 4e power. It's also true that blood abilities in 4e can superpower a 1st level character, as they are not scaled by level. This is an issue that can't be fixed without a complete overhaul of blood abilities as a concept, but this PDF is meant to TRANSLATE from 2E, preserving the intent of the abilities rather than changing it.

The link to the updated PDF is: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0...thkey=CImE_6cK

I would love feedback, ideas, to rekindle the discussion. There are several inconsistencies in the acquisition tables, as I had to remove blood abilities I did not translate, such as Bloodtrait, Bloodform, Invulnerability and others. I'm not sure how to proceed with those, as they were left more to imagination and improvisation than clearly defined rules. Again, suggestions would be welcome.

Jerrith
11-16-2009, 09:04 PM
I'd love to take a look at this, but I keep getting the error

"Sorry, the page (or document) you have requested is not available.

Please check the address and try again."

When I try to follow your link in google docs.

Rykros1
11-17-2009, 03:27 AM
Ouch, sorry about that. Should be fixed now.

Jerrith
11-19-2009, 03:05 PM
I am in the process of a more thorough examination of the abilities now, but from what I have looked at so far, you have done a very good interpretation of the 2e bloodline abilities as written into 4e values. In fact, my group and I were in the process of our own 4e conversion of the bloodlines and many of the values and powers you chose match ours exactly.

We're being a bit more liberal in our changes since we're trying to keep each tier balanced amongst itself (majors somewhat comparable in power to other majors, etc). Some powers were obvious must-haves compared to others.

However, using your guideline of keeping as close in function to 2e as possible, I'll try to give some feedback of things that I noticed on first inspection.

First off, I'll mention two general concerns. You used a (bloodline) bonus to defenses and saving throws often. Since bonuses of the same type do not stack, this means that a lot of these abilities will not stack with other bloodline abilities, causing some redundancy. Was this a design choice, or was bloodline to act like an untyped bonus? In comparison, I could find only two abilities that give a bloodline bonus to attack and damage, causing minimal overlap.

Secondly, in 4e, alignment seems to be on its way out. The neutral evil rogue we would've encountered back in 2e might now just as easily be unaligned. I don't know of any examples of powers or abilities that work on a specific alignment any more, either. I'd gladly be corrected if I'm wrong, but attacks that might normally have focused on evil now do things like bonus damage to undead and/or demons, focusing on creature type rather than alignment. To keep up with 4e, that means bloodline abilities like Protection from Evil should be reworked to shift away from alignment.

Here's a few specific notes on individual abilities:

Battlewise: This change makes it much stronger than 2e, where it was purely relegated to the warcards. This actually makes battlewise useful in situations other than war, which I like, but I'm torn on the duration of an entire encounter for a rather large boost of +2 to realistically everyone. In contrast, the feat Action Surge for humans, which gives a +3 to attack to the one attack you use an action point for, is considered a prime pick feat. Granted, at least the bonus is typed, but as mentioned earlier this only overlaps with Divine Wrath, which is DM controlled. I'll think on this one more; I like where you're going with it, but it's a large change.

Blood History: Typo, Maela should be Masela.

Divine Wrath: An extra standard action every round, and all powers (including martial powers I'm assuming) deal maximum damage? 0.0 Also, you should clarify if the cause fear attack is an aura or if it takes an action.

Heightened Ability: +2 to a statistic is very, very strong for a minor ability. Mind if I ask what your reasoning was on making this a +2, instead of its old +1?

Iron Will: Why the Toughness feat instead of training in Endurance?

Sorontar
11-19-2009, 03:20 PM
Alter Appearance: In 2e, alter appearance lasts for 10 rounds plus one round per level. The 4e Disguise Self power lasts for one hour (1,000 rounds). This is an enormous increase in power for one of the already powerful major abilities.


In 2ed, one combat round is 1 minute (10 rounds is a turn), so one hour is 60 rounds for 2ed. I believe that a 4ed round is shorter, so the comparison isn't quite right as it uses different units of measurements.

Sorontar

Jerrith
11-20-2009, 02:07 AM
In 2ed, one combat round is 1 minute (10 rounds is a turn), so one hour is 60 rounds for 2ed. I believe that a 4ed round is shorter, so the comparison isn't quite right as it uses different units of measurements.

Sorontar

You are correct, and I edited my post. Good catch. The 4e round is 6 seconds long, and I didn't account for the change in amount of round time.

tpdarkdraco
11-22-2009, 01:57 AM
I'm giving credit where credit is due. I've used tpdarkdraco's work as a template and revised the function of blood abilities to fit 4e containers and terminology (e.g.: at-will, encounter, daily, end of your next turn, end of encounter, etc.) as close as possible.

Thanks for the credit, but I had already put the Blood Abilities into 4e containers and terminology.



One of the primary goals here was to balance any bonuses that resulted from a blood ability. So as a starting point, I took a Minor ability like Alertness and deduced that a skill bonus from a Minor ability would be +2 (+4 Major/+6 Great) because a Minor ability never just gives a single skill bonus (as in the case of Alertness, there was an additional anti-surprise mechanics).

So going forward from that, I took the +2/+4/+6 and lowered it depending on how many other benefits an ability gives and whether or not those benefits extend to the scion's party.


This is something I didn't do when I did my conversion. I like what you have done. The balancing of the bonuses seems good. The Blood Abilities was one of the first things I did with 4e. I think you have scaled my conversion alot better to balance with 4e. I admit that was something I wasn't going for originally. Nice work.

tpdarkdraco
11-22-2009, 04:53 PM
Rykros1. I have noticed that the Elemental Control blood ability you have made too powerful. Summoned creatures use Standard Actions to do attacks and not minor. Way to powerfull if it is only minor as a summoned creature with your rules could have up to 3 attacks per round or you could have an attack and it could have 2 attacks. Way to unbalanced.

I would look at all of the Elemental Control powers you have. They all have a similar problem with balance.

Rykros1
11-22-2009, 09:06 PM
First off, I'll mention two general concerns. You used a (bloodline) bonus to defenses and saving throws often. Since bonuses of the same type do not stack, this means that a lot of these abilities will not stack with other bloodline abilities, causing some redundancy. Was this a design choice, or was bloodline to act like an untyped bonus? In comparison, I could find only two abilities that give a bloodline bonus to attack and damage, causing minimal overlap.

This was a design choice. The reasoning is not to let things get out of control and result in blood abilities being the sole factor for determining success or failure in an encounter. This reduces the potential for a munchkin/min-max factor to stain the game.

Any ability that can provide a numeric bonus to the same skill check, for instance, also has its own situational use. If a character has the Alertness and Blood History abilities, he will not be a Perception god as a result of the bloodline type bonus. However, he will still have the anti-surprise mechanic of Alertness and the ability to recall ancestral knowledge in certain skills (except Perception, for balance).

Let me know what you think about this.


Secondly, in 4e, alignment seems to be on its way out. The neutral evil rogue we would've encountered back in 2e might now just as easily be unaligned. I don't know of any examples of powers or abilities that work on a specific alignment any more, either. I'd gladly be corrected if I'm wrong, but attacks that might normally have focused on evil now do things like bonus damage to undead and/or demons, focusing on creature type rather than alignment. To keep up with 4e, that means bloodline abilities like Protection from Evil should be reworked to shift away from alignment.

Excellent point and one I admit I hadn't considered. Perhaps this can be changed to work only against creatures with the Aberrant, Demon, Devil and Undead subtypes? Although more 4e-ish, it still doesn't seem right, especially when you take a setting like Birthright, where the awnsheghlien are a clear presence of evil. With the above change, the ability would not benefit a character facing an awnshegh.

I'm currently a blank for ideas on this.

Here's a few specific notes on individual abilities:


Battlewise: This change makes it much stronger than 2e, where it was purely relegated to the warcards. This actually makes battlewise useful in situations other than war, which I like, but I'm torn on the duration of an entire encounter for a rather large boost of +2 to realistically everyone. In contrast, the feat Action Surge for humans, which gives a +3 to attack to the one attack you use an action point for, is considered a prime pick feat. Granted, at least the bonus is typed, but as mentioned earlier this only overlaps with Divine Wrath, which is DM controlled. I'll think on this one more; I like where you're going with it, but it's a large change.

I can see your point here and this was my line of thought for this ability (and many others like it). First, my decision was not to compare blood abilities directly with feats/skills/rituals/powers because of the concept of blood abilities. They are supposed to be passed down from the divine, so very few people in the setting have them (when compared to the rest of the population) and unlike the other game mechanics listed above, a character rolling for blood abilities can theoretically have enough bad luck that he only gets one.

With that in mind, I return to my original +2/+4/+6 base and downgrade the normal +4 (Major) bonus to a +2 because it extends to the party. It is also a daily power, so if it lasts until the end of the encounter, the character can't use it again in any other encounter that day.

Lets take several gaming situations as examples. In a situation where the party only faces one encounter in a day and that encounter is relatively meaningless to the story (such as a random encounter in a hostile domain) then the use of this ability helps them wipe out their opponents a little quicker than the time it would take to achieve the same result without it.

In a situation where a single encounter in one day is a critical one to the story, it is the DM's responsibility to design it well enough to let Battlewise be a solid bonus, but not enough to overpower cunning opponents.

In a situation where the characters are in a dungeon crawl (especially a time-sensitive one) the player will need to gauge when it's best to use this ability, knowing that it won't be available farther down the depths of the dungeon.

Also take into consideration that these blood abilities are not a feat variant. The characters can still have blood abilities AND action surge. They are a part of the setting so, naturally, parties of scions will be a formidable force to be reckoned with - and that's part of the allure.

Thoughts?


Blood History: Typo, Maela should be Masela.

Gotcha. Fixed.


Divine Wrath: An extra standard action every round, and all powers (including martial powers I'm assuming) deal maximum damage? 0.0 Also, you should clarify if the cause fear attack is an aura or if it takes an action.

Yeah. It sounds pretty intense at first. Here's the thing. For 90% of the game the player won't be able to use this ability. Whether it comes into play at a moment when the character encounters a hated enemy from his background prior to the game starting or an enemy that has repeatedly caused suffering to him and his party members throughout the campaign, it's just going to be something really fun to let loose for one battle.

I don't think it's expected of the DM at this point to counter the summoning of Divine Wrath with just the right obstacles to make it near obsolete. That one time when a player is given the opportunity to use Divine Wrath, it should just be a moment of, "Ok man, let it rip."

Nor does this ability have to impact that "final battle" element of any long term campaign. It's a good idea in most such stories to feature the "final boss" as an enemy who works the strings from a safe distance and if the scion does finally get to the point of a direct confrontation with this being, Divine Wrath wouldn't qualify. This person realistically would seldom have met the scion and his party up until this point and all the suffering they may have faced was through indirect intermediaries.

An ability with such a conditional use and one that takes up a Major slot really should do something pretty awesome, else the player will be sitting on a pair of words on his sheet that don't mean anything.

There is also an alternative of decreasing the potency of it and allowing for a more liberal use, but as it's defined in the original BRCS, I thought this was a pretty close copy.

Thoughts?


Heightened Ability: +2 to a statistic is very, very strong for a minor ability. Mind if I ask what your reasoning was on making this a +2, instead of its old +1?

The reasoning was that this ability will only benefit the character once, at creation. Unlike a lot of other abilities, it will never serve as an element that solves a problem in an encounter.

One can argue that it is a persistent aid in a lot of encounters because the additional +1 modifier is always present, but it doesn't have the same feel as another ability that the player can invoke to solve a unique problem.


Iron Will: Why the Toughness feat instead of training in Endurance?

It was a toss up. The original ability grants hit points and Endurance benefits, so it was either Endurance training and +2 hit points or the Toughness feat and a bonus to Endurance.

I wanted to stay as close to the +2/+4/+6 base as possible, but training in a skill gives a +5 bonus to it. On the other hand, Toughness gives more hit points than the original ability does. In terms of copying terminology, it does make sense to give training (worded as proficiency in 2e) to Endurance and a flat HP bonus.

Maybe this can be revised to be: +2 permanent HP, +2 to Endurance, +2 to saves vs. dominate effects?

+2s across the board, not duplicating actual containers?

Not sure.

Rykros1
11-22-2009, 09:12 PM
Rykros1. I have noticed that the Elemental Control blood ability you have made too powerful. Summoned creatures use Standard Actions to do attacks and not minor. Way to powerfull if it is only minor as a summoned creature with your rules could have up to 3 attacks per round or you could have an attack and it could have 2 attacks. Way to unbalanced.

I would look at all of the Elemental Control powers you have. They all have a similar problem with balance.

Yeah, it can definitely appear so.

I looked at it in a similar way I looked at Divine Wrath. The summoning element of the EC ability can only be used once a week and then the character is on his own, having expended a use of one of his Great abilities.

Additionally, and rightly so, I believe, the original ability meant for the summoned elemental to fight along side you, not instead of you, so decreasing its potency for a weekly power to one that replaces your abilities for the round you choose to attack with it doesn't quite pop as a Great blood ability that can be used in this manner with rarity.

Also, the Arcane Power overview on Summoning explains that standard actions are required unless otherwise noted, which is intentional for DMs who want to inject some of their own ideas using these rules. Add to this the fact that the elemental has half the summoner's HP and can be concentrated on by a smart enemy, it can be killed fairly quickly and again, the scion needs to wait a week.

On the other hand, it may perhaps be prudent to change the Encounter powers these elementals possess to Standard Actions. As they all have damage dealing abilities to targets in a burst along with a secondary effect, allowing the scion to have his own abilities in full use in addition to the elemental's encounter power may be too much.

As for standard attacks, that's what it's supposed to be there for, once a week. To help the scion get the advantage in a potentially tough situation.

What do you think?

tpdarkdraco
11-23-2009, 02:09 AM
Rykros1,

I hadn't considered the Weekly part of the power. Maybe it would be better to change this to a Daily Power and increase the dice damage by one step e.g. from 2d8 to 3d8.

I will have to have a good look at home as I am at work at moment.

You wil also note in my version the Elemental Control the Elementals had some interesting Utility type powers where as you have gone for straigt out damage. Suggest have Utility type power which is weaker for damage and the main attack power have more dice damage.

Jerrith
12-06-2009, 05:00 AM
This was a design choice. The reasoning is not to let things get out of control and result in blood abilities being the sole factor for determining success or failure in an encounter. This reduces the potential for a munchkin/min-max factor to stain the game.

Any ability that can provide a numeric bonus to the same skill check, for instance, also has its own situational use. If a character has the Alertness and Blood History abilities, he will not be a Perception god as a result of the bloodline type bonus. However, he will still have the anti-surprise mechanic of Alertness and the ability to recall ancestral knowledge in certain skills (except Perception, for balance).

Let me know what you think about this.


Fair enough.

With that being said, I noticed that both Resistance and Major Resistance are untyped bonuses. Also, the +2 history bonus from Blood History is untyped. Were these an oversight?



Excellent point and one I admit I hadn't considered. Perhaps this can be changed to work only against creatures with the Aberrant, Demon, Devil and Undead subtypes? Although more 4e-ish, it still doesn't seem right, especially when you take a setting like Birthright, where the awnsheghlien are a clear presence of evil. With the above change, the ability would not benefit a character facing an awnshegh.

I'm currently a blank for ideas on this.



That would depend on how you write up 4e awnsheghlien, and what monster type they are. One option is to make awnshegh a monster type and add it to the list, or make it add defenses against those with the blood of Azrai.

Our conversion did a complete rewrite of the ability, named it Divine Shield, and made it work against everyone instead of just evil creatures. To balance it, we made it an encounter power activated as an immediate interrupt, lasting until the end of your next turn.

As an aside, Enhanced Sense deals with "evil" as well, and deserves a similar restructure.



Yeah. It sounds pretty intense at first. Here's the thing. For 90% of the game the player won't be able to use this ability. Whether it comes into play at a moment when the character encounters a hated enemy from his background prior to the game starting or an enemy that has repeatedly caused suffering to him and his party members throughout the campaign, it's just going to be something really fun to let loose for one battle.

Thoughts?



In that case, the bonuses should be untyped, since this is a rare occurrence. It should stack with everything else.




Maybe this can be revised to be: +2 permanent HP, +2 to Endurance, +2 to saves vs. dominate effects?

+2s across the board, not duplicating actual containers?

Not sure.

That sounds good, especially since it's a minor ability. If you are worried about that being too weak, you could raise the amount of hp given, and/or tier it per level of play. To mirror the toughness feat, it would be +5 hp, raising to +10 at 11th level and +15 at 21st.


I finally had a chance to sit down and take a closer look at the abilities. One of the things I noticed is that, due to its wording, the +2 bonus to perception from Alertness only works during combat encounters. If the intention was to make the +2 passive, you could delete the immediate interrupt and trigger lines entirely and achieve the desired effect.

Blood History suffers from a similar problem. Due to its wording, it seems like the +2 bonus to history checks only applies when blood history is activated to give a +2 to another skill. I got the impression that the +2 to history was meant to be a passive bonus. Moving the +2 to history above the start of the stat block for the description of the encounter ability would solve this.

Finally, the Courage [great] bloodline ability grants a +2 bloodline bonus to defenses for all units in the scion's area of the battlefield. I noticed that for the minor and major versions, the defense is specifically against fear, but the great level does not have this restriction.

Jerrith
12-08-2009, 09:26 AM
I think Divine Wrath merits its own post, so I made this separate reply here.

I still feel the bonuses are far too powerful, even surpassing Divine Wrath's 2e might. Effectively, the benefit is giving an action point every round, combined with maximum damage and the bonus to attacks to make sure they land. This is beyond a great level of ability, DM controlled or not - and that's not even counting the bonuses to defenses, saving throws, and resistance.

I'd suggest the following:

Instead of a standard action, grant the use of a level 1 at-will power as a free action once per round. I originally was leaning toward a melee or ranged basic attack, but with 4e's balancing of melee and magic there's no need to penalize non-melee types.

Increase the bonus to attack rolls, damage, saving throws, and defense to an untyped +3. Resistance to damage remains at 5. To be honest, all this alone is enough to make the power quite enviable.

Add a component to translate "variable durations always last the maximum amount of time." -2 to save against the scion's effects that a save can end.

The maximum damage portion is harder to work with. Since spells and melee are now comparable, it's difficult to translate the maximized spell power directly. Here's some ideas I came up with, starting with my favorite:

All damage or effect dice in the Hit and Effect lines of your powers are increased to the next die power. For example, an attack that does 2d10 damage would now do 2d12. A heal that normally heals 3d6 would now heal 3d8. An attack dealing 1[w] damage inflicted by a longsword (1d8) would now do 1d10. Note that this does not apply to non-attack added effects like sneak attack, hunter's quarry, or static damage bonuses.

Another possibility, and the one I thought of first, is to increase each attack by one dice completely. For example, 3d6 becomes 4d6. I thought this could be too strong, because some attacks would go beyond maximum damage that way (for example, a 1[w] attack becoming 2[w]).

The final possibility is to increase the scion's crit range by 1. This would have the effect of causing maximum damage more often.

Again, I'd advise the raising of the type of dice used by 1. Of course, it's also easy to drop this last element completely and the power will still remain quite potent.

JakobLiar
12-09-2009, 02:49 AM
Don't mean to be stepping on toes or trying to sidetrack the conversation but... how is the 4th Edition re-modeling of Birthright doing so far (as WotC said it'd be a long time) by Birthright.net?

tpdarkdraco
12-09-2009, 06:48 AM
I know others are working on various parts of 4e conversion. I currently have about 85 pages.

Blood Abilities chapter is almost complete. I have been modifying my version from the various other members. My are not all the same as Rykro1. Most are but some I don't agree with. When I have finished mine I will post again.

Other chapters I am still working one. I am working on Backgrounds & Regions. Similar format to forgotten realm layout. I have just about finished Anuire and will post that in the next month or so in the download section for input and comments.

I have some new feats, I am working on the Magician Class, Organisations to join or swear allegance to, and a social ranking system which works as a character level domain style system. I have finished the races which I have previously posted and uploaded in the downloads section.

Rykros1
12-17-2009, 07:14 PM
Fair enough.

With that being said, I noticed that both Resistance and Major Resistance are untyped bonuses.

Fixed.



Also, the +2 history bonus from Blood History is untyped. Were these an oversight?

Fixed.



That would depend on how you write up 4e awnsheghlien, and what monster type they are. One option is to make awnshegh a monster type and add it to the list, or make it add defenses against those with the blood of Azrai.

I like this. Modified to include Azrai blooded creatures. I like your overhaul of it, but going as much as I can for word-for-word conversions, at least for now.



As an aside, Enhanced Sense deals with "evil" as well, and deserves a similar restructure.

Fixed.



In that case, the bonuses should be untyped, since this is a rare occurrence. It should stack with everything else.

Makes sense. Modified.



That sounds good, especially since it's a minor ability. If you are worried about that being too weak, you could raise the amount of hp given, and/or tier it per level of play. To mirror the toughness feat, it would be +5 hp, raising to +10 at 11th level and +15 at 21st.

Modified.



I finally had a chance to sit down and take a closer look at the abilities. One of the things I noticed is that, due to its wording, the +2 bonus to perception from Alertness only works during combat encounters. If the intention was to make the +2 passive, you could delete the immediate interrupt and trigger lines entirely and achieve the desired effect.

Yeah, that makes more sense. Fixed.


Blood History suffers from a similar problem. Due to its wording, it seems like the +2 bonus to history checks only applies when blood history is activated to give a +2 to another skill. I got the impression that the +2 to history was meant to be a passive bonus. Moving the +2 to history above the start of the stat block for the description of the encounter ability would solve this.

I think you may have misinterpreted my interpretation of the skill. The "+2 bonus to another skill" is encounter based because you can choose a different skill to give that bonus to with each new encounter.

The idea is to apply the word for word "recalling the knowledge of your ancestors" and giving it a practical use. So if you come along a challenge that involves walking the tightrope, you can recall the knowledge of an ancestor who was a skilled Acrobat and for that encounter you would receive a bloodline bonus to Acrobatics checks. I'll reword the ability to reflect what I just explained.


Finally, the Courage [great] bloodline ability grants a +2 bloodline bonus to defenses for all units in the scion's area of the battlefield. I noticed that for the minor and major versions, the defense is specifically against fear, but the great level does not have this restriction.

This was intentional to reflect that inspiring courage on the battlefield is different from protecting yourself from Fear specific powers aimed at you as an individual.

Although now that I look at it, it doesn't look quite right.

Rykros1
12-17-2009, 07:18 PM
I think Divine Wrath merits its own post, so I made this separate reply here.

I still feel the bonuses are far too powerful, even surpassing Divine Wrath's 2e might.

Going to give this some thought.

Jerrith
12-18-2009, 09:48 AM
Excellent. Thanks for all your effort in putting this together. One more thing: Unreadable Thoughts, as per the chart and 2e, is listed as a minor ability, while in your stat block it is listed as a major, and appears to be statted as such.


Also, here's something I noticed recently when rolling for blood abilities. The chart for rolling random blood abilities from the old 2e book of regency has a couple errors in it. For example, Major Resistance is listed at every tier for Anduiras, while if you look at what options are actually available, Anduiras only has access to one resistance: Magic; and only at the minor level. I suppose its saving grace is that it lists the possibility of unique resistances to a family, but I doubt it was their intention to roll it as such. It's just another one of the wonky things with all the 2nd edition material; I just reroll when I hit an error like that, but it might be something to consider.

Rykros1
07-25-2010, 11:03 AM
After having played and DM'd 4e for nearly a year now in regular weekly games and having been exposed to the material longer, I've updated the PDF with more streamlined 4e terminology and modified several abilities to be (what I consider) more balanced with the general ruleset.

That said, I believe in preserving this unique feature to Birthright and as such most of these abilities are, to a degree, a step above the typical 4e power. It's also true that blood abilities in 4e can superpower a 1st level character, as they are not scaled by level. This is an issue that can't be fixed without a complete overhaul of blood abilities as a concept, but this PDF is meant to TRANSLATE from 2E, preserving the intent of the abilities rather than changing it.

The link to the updated PDF is: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B9LYoEBEEaWoOWYyMjI1N2EtOGVhZS00OGRiL WEyMzYtNGFlOGYzZmU5YzIy&hl=en&authkey=CImE_6cK

I have also updated it in the OP.

I would love feedback, ideas, to rekindle the discussion. There are several inconsistencies in the acquisition tables, as I had to remove blood abilities I did not translate, such as Bloodtrait, Bloodform, Invulnerability and others. I'm not sure how to proceed with those, as they were left more to imagination and improvisation than clearly defined rules. Again, suggestions would be welcome.