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Thread: Bloodline Points.
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03-04-2003, 12:14 AM #11
Gary`s system certainly has a more 3e feel. It is in no way inferior to the
official system from the published materials, and I personally prefer it to
the way its written up in the new BRCS. I`m tempted to switch over for new
players, since its going to produce numbers similar to existing numbers (and
can be easily tweaked for effect) using familiar 3e mechanics.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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03-04-2003, 12:14 AM #12
At 05:23 PM 3/3/2003 -0500, Daniel McSorley wrote:
> > I used a bloodline score of 39 as an example, but that was not
> > meant to be a score of 39 in "bloodline as an ability score" with an
> > ability score modifier. It`s the bloodline score in the "old" 2e way of
> > doing it where that score is the actual number of RP one collects, and the
> > number one compares to a table in order to determine blood abilities. It`s
> > just a bloodline score of 39.
>
>The 39 came from "roll as an ability score, subtract 2, then roll 1d6 for
>each of those", which is what threw me.
I need to rewrite it then to make it clearer. It`s still at the rough
draft stage, though, so it`s bound to be a bit confusing.
A simple number for bloodline strength would seem to solve some of the
complexity issues regarding domain maintenance and collection. While it
wouldn`t be terribly difficult to come up with some sort of turn-based
collection sheet that had an entry like this:
Bloodline Collection Storage
Strength (x2) (x4)
_________ __________ _______
But that`s rather a later stage....
Gary
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03-04-2003, 01:28 AM #13
At 04:32 PM 3/3/2003 -0600, Kenneth Gauck wrote:
>Gary`s system certainly has a more 3e feel. It is in no way inferior to the
>official system from the published materials, and I personally prefer it to
>the way its written up in the new BRCS. I`m tempted to switch over for new
>players, since its going to produce numbers similar to existing numbers (and
>can be easily tweaked for effect) using familiar 3e mechanics.
Well, it`s certainly not all figured out yet. There are a few issues I
haven`t even really thought of, like how much of a bloodline represents an
ECL, let alone describing all the blood abilities with options, bonuses,
etc. all figured in. That`s one of the more interesting aspects of the
system, though, so it should be fun.
Gary
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03-04-2003, 03:16 PM #14
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Gary wrote:
> One of the complaints some folks have had (or maybe it`s just me...) is
> that the blood abilities are not particularly well balanced. Just as an
> example, Bloodmark may not be worth much in relation to Detect Illusion
> despite the fact that they are both minor blood abilities, so if one
> uses a
> random blood ability table then a character can wind up with a less
> powerful character than another person despite having the same
> bloodline. Worse, if one is picking one`s blood abilities rather than
> determining them randomly some blood abilities will rarely, if ever, be
> chosen. While it`s probably not possible to balance such things
> perfectly
> in a way that will accommodate every possible gaming situation, there are
> steps that could improve our ability to balance them.
Bloodabilities are exacty so useful as the setting in which they are
used. Bloodmark is extremely useful if the scion has to do a lot of
diplomacy with unblooded people ("whoa! A blooded noble speaks with me,
how can I be of service?") or even other scions ("Mmmh, he is a blooded
scion as well, better treat him with respect, and not like the other
peasants.").
Battlewise, a really useful ability when you lead armies into battle has
been described as useless by Ariadne - as I assumed because the
character that has it, does not lead armies into battle...
> Furthermore, blood abilities don`t have an awful lot of variation in
> them. Sure, one can come up with different descriptors for some of
> them--Bloodmark being the most obvious--but by and large a character with
> Courage is a character with Courage. It works the same for
> everyone. Also, because many of the blood abilities are available
> only at
> particular levels (minor, major or great) we wind up not only with a very
> strange set of tables, but many of them are very rare (I`ve been
> playing BR
> since it came out and some blood abilities have yet to appear in my
> session) because relatively few characters have a bloodline powerful
> enough
> to take them.
Courage? Remember what Aedan tells us about Courage in "The Iron
Throne". Courage is not lack of fear, but to overcome fear. Michael
Roele lacks fear utterly, some PC could have his kind of "courage" -
utterly fearless, which means perhaps overconfident, and certainly
taking more risks than necessary. Another character could be afraid to
death and trembling for fear - but overcome his fear because of his
courage bloodability.
bye
Michael Romes
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03-04-2003, 06:01 PM #15
At 03:09 PM 3/4/2003 +0100, Michael Romes wrote:
>>While it`s probably not possible to balance such things perfectly in a
>>way that will accommodate every possible gaming situation, there are
>>steps that could improve our ability to balance them.
>
>Bloodabilities are exacty so useful as the setting in which they are used.
>Bloodmark is extremely useful if the scion has to do a lot of diplomacy
>with unblooded people ("whoa! A blooded noble speaks with me, how can I be
>of service?") or even other scions ("Mmmh, he is a blooded scion as well,
>better treat him with respect, and not like the other peasants.")
That`s true. My point, though, was that with the standard BR rating of
blood abilities as minor, major and great is a fairly blunt tool. A method
of paying for them using points which essentially breaks those other
categories into thirds will allow for more careful articulation of those
powers. All the blood abilities could be written up with a set of standard
point costs, but since all things are really guidelines individual DMs
could then alter the point values for their particular play or campaign
styles should they feel the need to do so.
Another thing that`s just occurred to me is that we don`t really have any
rules for increasing one`s bloodline strength. There are some guidelines
that describe such a thing as extremely rare, etc. but there are no actual
game mechanical descriptions for how that might happen. In the system
originally presented there`s no real reason to record the number rolled for
bloodline strength after it is used to determine bloodline score. However,
if one does note that number then the DM might use it at some point,
granting a bloodline strength point for particularly heroic actions of the
type described in the BRCS and BoR. (A slightly more relaxed standard
might make sense in that that text was meant to describe a one-time jump in
strength rather than a process of 3-4 points.) When the "bloodline
strength score" reaches the next highest point on the bloodline strength
table (which I`ll go ahead and recreate here for the sake of reference) the
character`s bloodline strength would go to the next higher rating.
Score Strength
1+ Tainted
4+ Minor
8+ Major
12+ Great
18+ True
Note that this would NOT be bloodline score, which can go up and down with
several ways other than by DM fiat. It`s not a particularly detailed
system, but it at least provides some sort of game mechanic for how to go
about such a thing.
I`m an old time Traveller aficionado from back when all RPGs were published
in little 4x6 pamphlets that cost $7 apiece. Worse, I`m of the breed that
got a big kick out of the record keeping methods used in that
system. Universal Profiles kept track of everything from planetary
information to animal encounters, including starships, robots and
characters. Anything that could be expressed as a string of alphanumeric
digits was. Ah, it was glorious....
I mention this because the way I`ve been recording the blood abilities for
the purpose of this system is by noting the name of the blood ability then
the number of bloodline points spent on it in parenthesis. Animal
Affinity(6), for example. That has a nice symmetry with the way provinces
and holdings are written. If everyone knows that minor blood abilities are
those with 1-3 bloodline points spent on them, major 4-6, etc. then all one
can intuit additional information from that number. If the modifier for DC
checks against blood abilities, for example, is to be based on bloodline
strength then one would know from the number what that DC was. That
doesn`t really express the utility of the blood ability particularly well
since it`s possible to spend additional bloodline points on various tweaks
and alterations to the blood ability, but it does give us some information.
I`ve always found the record keeping potential of BR to be an interesting
challenge. Using this system of reflecting bloodline one might go with
something like this:
An(38), maj(10), Courage(4), Divine Aura(2).
Where "An" represents the Anduiras bloodline derivation and "38" the
bloodline score, "major(10)" the bloodline strength with the actual number
rolled, "Courage(4)" that blood ability at the major level with four
bloodline points spent on it, and "Divine Aura(2)" that blood ability at
the minor level with two bloodline points spent on it.
Here are the abbreviations for the various derivations I`ve been
using: An, Az, Ba, Br, Ma, Re, Vo. Bloodline strength is abbreviated min,
maj, grt. Both of those are pretty obvious to anyone familiar with the
setting. Actually, I`ve been using a fourth category "Mighty" abbreviated
"mty" that represents blood abilities with 10-12 bloodline points spent on
them. I didn`t put that in the original post because it isn`t canon. One
could further abbreviate the blood abilities, but using much more than a
contracted version of the title wouldn`t probably be useful. DAura(2)
would still make sense, but one might have to look up DA(2).
Here`s a write up for a version of the Healing blood ability that functions
with bloodline points:
Healing (An, Ba, Re)
You may heal damage to yourself or other characters, remove diseases or
cure blindness, deafness or paralysis.
BP Healing
1 1d6 + bloodline strength modifier hit points 1/day.
1 Remove Disease 1/week.
1 Cure Blindness, Cure Deafness or Remove Paralysis 1/day.
1 Neutralize Poison 1/day.
(Bloodline strength modifier is +0 for tainted, +1 for minor, +2 for
major, etc.)
By spending additional BP you may increase the number of times you may
perform each type of healing. For 2 BP you can heal 2d6 hp per day, or
Neutralize Poison twice per day. BP may be spent on this blood ability in
any combination up to the limit for BP on a particular ability. (I use 12
IMC.)
Gary
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03-04-2003, 06:46 PM #16
At 09:32 AM 3/4/2003 -0800, I wrote:
>An(38), maj(10), Courage(4), Divine Aura(2).
Wait, wait... this is better:
An(38/10); Courage(4), DAura(2).
"An(38/10)" then represents the derivation of Anduiras with a bloodline
score of 38 and a bloodline strength of 10 or a major bloodline. One has
to know that bloodline strength of 8+ is a major, which would take some
getting used to, but it wouldn`t be _that_ hard once it was all said and
done. Plus, it _looks_ like the way provinces are written up, so it has a
nice consistency.
Anyway, for the sake of not sending a post that contained nothing more than
an example of my psychotic record keeping fetish here`s another blood
ability written up in the blood ability point style.
Long Life (All)
You have gained extraordinary longevity through your connection to the divine.
After reaching the age of adulthood for your race (PHB 93) your rate of
aging decreases. Add 1 to the number of blood points put into this ability
and square the sum to find the number of years (or magical aging) that pass
before you age a single year. For instance, if you have Long Life as a
major(4) ability you age 1 year for every 25 (4+1=5 squared) that
pass. Having Long Life as a great(7) ability means you age 1 year for
every 64 (7+1=8 squared) years that pass.
By spending +1 BP you are immune to the effects of magical aging.
By spending +2 BP you remain "ever young" ignoring the negative
consequences for aging. Though you never feel the pangs and infirmities of
aging, your maximum age is not increased except by other BP spent to
decrease the rate of your aging.
Example: A human scion with 5 BP of Long Life could be immune to the
effects of magical aging for 1BP, ignore the negative effects of aging when
becoming Old or Venerable for another 2BPs, and with his 2BP remaining age
only one year for every nine (2+1 squared) that passed. He would still die
of old age when his body reach 70+2d20 years of age but would reach that
stage at 1/9th the speed after reaching adulthood.
Gary
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