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Hello,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>

>You`re welcome. I love exploring variant rules. =)

Me too ;)

>This is an interesting point in itself -- balancing costs depends to a
>certain extent on guessing how people will use the abilities they buy, but
>not I think an overwhelming one.

Well, also style of play can influence balancing a lot. The extra marks
don´t get out of hand in my games because "holding" or "land" rulers have
much more politicial weight (not dependent of the rp) in a realm
(translated
in actions, resources,...).

>True. However, all this power is obtainable without a Land Mark of any
>kind -- just as people without Law Marks can still own law holdings and
>use them to make claims against other holdings` income, suppress trade
>routes, and levy some kinds of troops; and anyone who wants more cash can
>create some guild holdings and trade routes during play. In each case,
>the only during-play area in which regents differ by class in the original
>system is the amount of RP they collect from these holdings, not what else
>they can do with them (except for realm spells). Therefore, it seems to
> >me that the Marks should only affect RP- and DDP-related things, and in
>the original system everyone got full RP from land, so Land Marks should
>be cheap.

Well, maybe my problem in the costs is the assumption that someone
without land mark is not going to have lands: paying 3 points per land level
is way too expensive to get land (same with the rest of holdings). And also
that the act of creating some guilds (or another holding) during play to
earn money or political power is quite hard: there aren´t nearly any empty
spaces in the realms described in the rulebooks. As we always design our
realms, we don´t have the problem of someone getting a realm full of some
thing (temples for example) and not having a mark for that holding (although
that could happen, but it should be strange).

>Yes, but *everyone* had Land, Great in the original rules, so its point
>value can`t really be determined this way.

Yes, you´ve reason here.

>Yes, I gathered that. But some (like some blood abilities) have only
>major & minor, and I saw a place for a 3-level system (minor, major and
>great, like some other blood abilities), so I went with it.

Valid aproach. But I like more the 4 levels aproach (I use it everywhere
in my birth games ;)

>This sounds fairly reasonable to me, as long as you do keep it that rare.

I´m going with that: True gives double rp, but it´s very, very strange
(and you need a true bloodline).

>So you think one Declare War should give 12 War Moves, not 4? If for some
> >reason a regent did a Declare War in an action round other than the
first,
>would you let the war moves extend into the next domain turn?

They get war moves till the end of the turn. But this action is a very
"house-rule thing". It allows to conquer enemies, invest provinces, and
move
full armies into enemy territories... You can move into an enemy realm
small
strike groups (raiding, scouting,...) without declaring war. For us,
Declare
War is a full scale conflict, not some skirmishes.

>Hmm. You may have something here, though I`d be more comfortable making
>Research the free action.

Well, could do too. But I prefer my spellcasters being more active, so I
gave them a more useful power (and it has not unbalanced the game as they
run out of resources to cast spells if the cast too many).

>True. However, even with the perfectly reasonable discount you suggest,
> >maintaining units with RP is grossly expensive.

Yes, quite expensive. You could reduce it more (but then it would be too
cheap in my opinion, and I don´t feel well making them pay 2.5 rp ;)

>And they need this to make the ones they have worth the price...

This could make them worth more. You can´t have all marks and powerful
bloodline, so you must choose carefully how many rp you earn, and your
maximum ;) (none of my players has chosen this mark)

>=) I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

I´ll post it as soon as I review it (although I´m now playing with the
"holdings as classes" thing ;) )

>Ah, the Magian is probably my favorite awnshegh. He is a lich-like
>creature (though whether actually undead or just an undead-like awnshegh

Whoah. That´s a nasty awnshegh. Nice to know from him (every awnshegh is
normally a new world full of problems to the players ;) )

>OK, that`s better, but then what exactly does the word "saved" in your
>formula "Gain RP = 20% of saved GB" mean?

Before you roll your turn income, you get rp. You get 20% of the gb you
have in your treasury in that moment. But you need to have a source of
income and/or expenses to get that percentage. Just sitting with some gb
saved is not going to generate any rp for you.

Greetings,

Vicente

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