Independant Domain Play

[Mirviriam]

I've been reading on the 4th Edition trying to get a basis for a system which will allow DM's to choose between using 2nd, BCRS or 4th Edition rules for their domain level campaigns.

I reached the conclusion that Birthright should be completely independent of the edition at the domain level. Thoughts?

To make a system like that work, we'd have 3 basic solutions:

A) Players choose a style of play (law/guild/temple/source), which they collect full regency for that type of holding in addition to if they control the province.

B) We go with a skill system like the variant rules on RP collection in BCRS, where a multiclass character with a good selection of skills can gain RP from several styles of play.

C) Setup the noble class as the only class that can draw RP, forcing players to devote a portion of their personal power to domain management. ***I'm not sure how non-casters would collect from source or if allowed, just fleshing out my thinking right now :)

In the end it would probably be a certain combination of these things, but I presume that D&D will always have levels (because it's a way of measuring a player's powers/achievement/advancement & young people like that) & there will always be abilities (aka skills) under one guise or another.

From that point we simply have the players make an arbitrary decision on how they will advance their domains & you can have birthright in any flavor you want it.

[Vicente]

I'm my own house rules regency collection is not tied to class, or skill: the regent has 20 points to buy "regency powers" that determine from where he gets regency. That way domain play and adventure play are totally separated (although I did it like that because we only play Birthright at domain level :p).

[Mirviriam]

Point buying system's are alright...how's your look for the magic side then, do they harvest regency via the easy means & then cast domain spells with it?

[soudhadies]

Not to sound unduly critical, but how do you propose to make options B & C edition independent? The skill system and class systems diverge significantly between 2E, 3E, and 4E.

[Vicente]

Regency is used improve the odds of an action success, while the cost of the action is paid with another "coin". That other coin can be GB or MP (Magic Points), or both, depending on what you are doing.

I really never liked how Wizards were screwed for actions, regency, and gold bars all at the same time.

[Mirviriam]

Not to sound unduly critical, but how do you propose to make options B & C edition independent? The skill system and class systems diverge significantly between 2E, 3E, and 4E.

Setup a master table...

Arcane
Divine
Trade
Physical

Then players pick one of the 4 styles of play or whatever it is we agree to use. Point Buy system, randomly generate it, or setup a second table that links whatever classes or sets of skills they use to determine classes in the 5th, 6th, 7th edition. Easy as cake, every time a new edition comes out - we post a new table on the wiki, people post alternatives, we call a vote at some point & then ratify the table. IE:

I post: Hey guys, this should be the X Edition's match table....
Knowledge: Law + Leadership = Physical
Knowledge: Arcae + Spellcasting = Arcane
ETC

*Note I use the skills thing only because in BCRS, they use skills to limit collection of RP from holdings, say 5th Edition uses "Imaginary Stats" then we just create a table that matches "Imaginary Stats" to the 4 play styles.

Someone else likes it, & we vote it...then just use standard regency/income collection, spending, action rules designed for a universal system. We're basically grafting Birthright's campaign mode to any version of D&D by setting up a table to match the master table.

[Gwrthefyr]

Except that leads to a situation where the "four styles of rulership" might end up being unduly limiting, especially in terms of not screwing up everyone who is not a fighter (renaissance merchant princes? sorcerer kings? one is a staple of the period, the other a staple of the genre). Having regency collection tied to skills or be a form of class of its own can hardly be made independent of the system; e.g. in 2e, until the player's options books came out, skills were basically tied to a slighlty modified version of your core abilities, and as such could hardly be used in a similar way as 3e or 4e skills. 4e has the problem that its skill selection eschews a hell of a lot of non-combat stuff: on the other hand a number of the skills for BR3/3.5 had to be made up for the setting or pulled from elsewhere so that's not necessarily a problem, that's also how my True20 conversion is dealing with this.

Another alternative could be simply just relating it to blood/rulership/charisma (the removal of RP requirements for a lot of actions helps, but I'm still having the nagging feeling that unblooded characters need more love, although I made the entire nobility in my campaign blooded and modified one of the effects of investiture to make it so that investing a new lord of the realm or a lieutenant will also give them a nominal tainted bloodline - basically vassals dilute the regent's power a bit, use with caution sort of thing; I usually keep both a linear and a triangular version of my tables for these things), with no distinction except maybe a penalty as you cumulate power types (one type: bonus; two types: nothing; three types: slight (maybe 10%) penalty; four+ types (I have 6 or 7 holding types in my campaign): additional 10-20% penalty; thus you can get a "lay cardinal" who will probably get penalties that are more a RP issue, that sort of things, as they might not be much of a ruler for their holding type.

[irdeggman]

Setup a master table...

Arcane
Divine
Trade
Physical

Then players pick one of the 4 styles of play or whatever it is we agree to use. Point Buy system, randomly generate it, or setup a second table that links whatever classes or sets of skills they use to determine classes in the 5th, 6th, 7th edition. Easy as cake, every time a new edition comes out - we post a new table on the wiki, people post alternatives, we call a vote at some point & then ratify the table. IE:

I post: Hey guys, this should be the X Edition's match table....
Knowledge: Law + Leadership = Physical
Knowledge: Arcae + Spellcasting = Arcane
ETC

*Note I use the skills thing only because in BCRS, they use skills to limit collection of RP from holdings, say 5th Edition uses "Imaginary Stats" then we just create a table that matches "Imaginary Stats" to the 4 play styles.



While a quick think makes this seem plausable, the point is extremely valid about skills being totally different.

2nd ed and non-weapon proficiencies (basically it was pretty much near impossible to increase the "checks" to make any difference).

3.5 uses skills (as pointed out in the BRCS)

4th ed uses a lot fewer skills and "ranks" are mostly "automatically gained" - something similar to the Star Wars system. This causes a lot of issues.

If you want a totally independent system that is not based on any skills - try Fields of Blood by Eden press. It is all "money" based and will pretty much work regardless of the edition.

2nd ed and 4th ed work best, IMO if they are "class" based. 3.5 was specifically designed to work with skill becasue it was so easy to multiclass and almost every player tried to do it at one time or another, whereas in 2nd ed it was only common for non-humans (elves, dwarves, etc.)

[lmnoq]

I do not play 4th edition but I am wondering if you are wanting to have domain level play while adventuring or are you trying to invent a new way to do domain play for 4th edition?

I assume 4th edition has stats like INT and CHA, but then again I might be wrong. If 4th edition has stats and levels (again I might be wrong) then why do you not just take 2nd edition rules for non-weapon proficiencies and add them to your domain level play and not adventure play. I always liked giving more non-weapon proficiencies out for high INT. The players would be allowed to choose which 2nd edition class to follow for determining which proficiencies they could pick (I believe 4th edition has more classes than the standard four: fighter, cleric, wizard, rouge).

[Mirviriam]

D&D edition independent, adventure independent.

So converting to 4th Edition becomes a matter of simply converting the adventure stats. No more messing with domain rule conversions.

[Mirviriam]

While a quick think makes this seem plausable, the point is extremely valid about skills being totally different.

2nd ed and non-weapon proficiencies (basically it was pretty much near impossible to increase the "checks" to make any difference).

3.5 uses skills (as pointed out in the BRCS)

4th ed uses a lot fewer skills and "ranks" are mostly "automatically gained" - something similar to the Star Wars system. This causes a lot of issues.

If you want a totally independent system that is not based on any skills - try Fields of Blood by Eden press. It is all "money" based and will pretty much work regardless of the edition.

2nd ed and 4th ed work best, IMO if they are "class" based. 3.5 was specifically designed to work with skill becasue it was so easy to multiclass and almost every player tried to do it at one time or another, whereas in 2nd ed it was only common for non-humans (elves, dwarves, etc.)

So we take out skills - no option B then. Though really, as long as everyone has the same opportunity to pick one of the paths? Or the skills all cost the same, then they will have the same relative power when matched against the translation table. The real fear would be in one particular edition a certain class could purchase skills for cheaper than another class & create an imbalance (though whoever writes the translation table should be versed enough to make exceptions for this fact).

[Vicente]

I do not play 4th edition but I am wondering if you are wanting to have domain level play while adventuring or are you trying to invent a new way to do domain play for 4th edition?

I assume 4th edition has stats like INT and CHA, but then again I might be wrong. If 4th edition has stats and levels (again I might be wrong) then why do you not just take 2nd edition rules for non-weapon proficiencies and add them to your domain level play and not adventure play. I always liked giving more non-weapon proficiencies out for high INT. The players would be allowed to choose which 2nd edition class to follow for determining which proficiencies they could pick (I believe 4th edition has more classes than the standard four: fighter, cleric, wizard, rouge).

4e DnD has stats and levels yes. About classes, it has the four classic roles (fighter/defender, cleric/leader, wizard/controller and rogue/striker) and then creates classes around them. For example the "martial" defender is the Fighter, while the "divine" defender is the Paladin, they both fulfill the same combat role but in different ways.

4e has also skills, although they are simplified from 3e (you just choose which ones you know better, end of the story except if you use feats).

[Gwrthefyr]

4e DnD has stats and levels yes. About classes, it has the four classic roles (fighter/defender, cleric/leader, wizard/controller and rogue/striker) and then creates classes around them. For example the "martial" defender is the Fighter, while the "divine" defender is the Paladin, they both fulfill the same combat role but in different ways.

4e has also skills, although they are simplified from 3e (you just choose which ones you know better, end of the story except if you use feats).

I can see how such a system could cause problems (did Wizards just rehash 2e with tabletop wargaming concepts or what...)