Draft 0.0 Birthright skills and feats

[Ryegar]

Well let me say that ive been gone for a while moving and such so this is the first post for me since the playtest was put out. My group has come up with this as a house rule so that Regents are not overly powerful yet can meet a standard character in battle and not be to weak to fight due to not having certain feats and skills. 1) feats no matter what class a regent gains an extra one every 2 levels to spend towards the domain feats only. 2) skills no matter what class a regent gains 4 bonus pts per level to spend on domain related skills only. Now maybe this is something that can be worked into the next draft as a house rule. This is something we just started testing so it may be to powerful or to weak not sure yet but it may be something you may want to ask your dm about Oh yah the playtest and other d&d books state they are guidelines not rules set in stone they can be changed to fit campaigns. The end and by no means am I trying to hack any one by pointing out the last sentence just a reminder.([_]

[DanMcSorley]

On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
> >`The land` is pretty much the same everywhere. Gods everywhere in D&D
> >draw power the same way from worshippers. Actually, some of the same gods
> >are in BR as are elsewhere, Moradin for example. A character with a
> >bloodline could operate the same everywhere; the unblooded people they
> >ruled would be the same.
>
> There are not bloodlines or bloodabilites of Moradin, as Moradin did not
> die at Deismaar. Dwarves could for example have bloodlines of Anduiras
> who died at Deismaar.

Obviously. My point was that divinity was the same in other worlds as in
BR, because some gods exist in both places. So bloodlines could probably
work the same too.

> Which could also lead to a witchhunt: In a world, where OTHER gods are
> prayed to, would not every cleric see the claim to have divine blood see
> as heresy?

No. Do clerics see the claim that other gods exist as heresy? No,
because it`s easily demonstrable, those clerics get spells too. People
with a divine bloodline have powers as well.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Shade]

At 01:49 PM 2/22/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Lord Shade wrote:
>> I strongly agree with Michael, IN PRINCIPLE. I hate the fact that you have
>> to be weaker than a normal adventurer in order to be a better regent. 2e
>> Birthright did not have that tradeoff, and "hero-king" was a viable
>> character concept.
>
>Yes it did. Unblooded people got a bonus to experience.

That`s true. But it was a pittance - what, +5% or something? Very different
from a +1-4 ECL, for instance.

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[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Romes" <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 2:51 PM


> Or would this Prince (who normally never should be in another place!) be a
> character like anyone from Toril and have abilites in addition to theirs,
> that -however the DM decideds- might be great or useless in other worlds?

Well they lack the tails and dorsal spikes that exist on other words.
Character development in BR should be internally consistant, and consistant
with the mechanics. There is no reason that because one word has all these
skills for dealing with firearms, and another has additional survival
skills, and a third has additional stuff for governing realms, that
characters in a fourth need access to all of them for the price of one.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Romes" <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 9:27 AM


> In my personal opinion, Birthright characters should be as
> different from core characters as Aebrynnis is from Forgotten
> Realms. Birthright regents who have to compete to others on
> the domain level should be able to use their normal skill and
> feat slots to spend on normal skills and feats.
>
> And the domain level abilities, like Regent Focus feat, should
> be additional feats, available and usable only by Birthright
> Characters in the Birthright setting.

Here is why I oppose this. In the BR world, the character who choses to be
a good ruler ought to be weaker than the charcter living over the hill who
is the pure version of the same character class. Keeping class strictly the
same, consider Rhobher Nichaleir, a 13th level cleric. If we postulate a
13th level priest elsewhere, who is no regent, and never was. How should
they differ? If regent feats are additional, then Rhobher Nichaleir is more
powerful as a character than they other guy. Note, I pick a high level
character to illustrate how the choices play themselves out over time. If a
character wants to be a better ruler than the guy off the street, he should
sacrifice in terms of what his peer would be able to take.

Prince Avanil should be less of a fighter than someone who has no cares of
state to distract him from cutting down his enemies. Rulers should have to
choose just how much they will attend to issues of state and how much they
will be exemplars of their class.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[Azrai]

Cerilia should have his own macrocosmos like in the new Forgotten Realms 3. Edition. Maybe one could travel to the outer planes, but not to different worlds.

Abilities like Bloodlines and RP, the essence of the gods, should not directly be connected to the "land", so a planeshift will not change them.

[Raedwald]

IMO it's all about choice. If you are a regent concerned about your domain you might takes feats to help you do this. If you are always running around to dungeons or battles you will probably take other feats. From a roleplaying and game mechanics standpoint it makes sense to have limited options.

Birthright is hard enough on non-blooded characters! Give the peasants a break!:)

[ConjurerDragon]

Raedwald wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1369
>
> Raedwald wrote:
> IMO it`s all about choice. If you are a regent concerned about your domain you might takes feats to help you do this. If you are always running around to dungeons or battles you will probably take other feats. From a roleplaying and game mechanics standpoint it makes sense to have limited options.
>
>Birthright is hard enough on non-blooded characters! Give the peasants a break!:)
>
As I know nothing about other worlds of D&D: How do kings rule kingdoms
there?
Have they to spend feats to better rule as well? Or is it just assumed
that a highlevel character can be a king (e.g. as in old times when at
level 9 or so a fighter became a lord) and rule like a king? Or is
Birthright the only world with a "domain-level" so that
rulership-enhancing feats are non-existant elsewhere?
bye
Michael Romes

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[irdeggman]

Birthright was the only TSR (now WotC) campaign that had anything akin to domain actions and domain style rule. That was one of the things that made it "special" and why so many of us love it so. It wasn't just a forgotten realms campaign with blood abilities added it was designed to be a blend of wargaming and role-playing. I have always described it as a blend of "Diplomacy" (if you know the game, if not I've just caused even more confusion) and "Highlander".

So in other campaign settings there were (and are) no domain rule actions.

[ConjurerDragon]

irdeggman wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1369
>
> irdeggman wrote:
> Birthright was the only TSR (now WotC) campaign that had anything akin to domain actions and domain style rule. That was one of the things that made it "special" and why so many of us love it so. It wasn`t just a forgotten realms campaign with blood abilities added it was designed to be a blend of wargaming and role-playing. I have always described it as a blend of "Diplomacy" (if you know the game, if not I`ve just caused even more confusion) and "Highlander".
>
>So in other campaign settings there were (and are) no domain rule actions.
>
Does that mean, that Kings in other settings rule their kingdoms good
and wise, while retaining all their personal
abilities and spending all their feats on things like Cleave and Weapon
Focus?

So the rulers of Birthright, who are assumed to be above normal
characters, even above normal kings, having divine blood unlike most
other mortals and being rulers far superior to other non-blooded kings -
THEY have to spend feats from their personal feat-slots to make them
able to rule better - while making them less impressive figures
personally without their realm and bloodline?
bye
Michael Romes

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