Results 11 to 20 of 56
-
03-16-2003, 06:03 PM #11
- Join Date
- Dec 2002
- Location
- Malden, MA
- Posts
- 761
- Downloads
- 2
- Uploads
- 0
On Sun, 16 Mar 2003, Gary wrote:
> Particularly things like Table 12: Blood Ability Acquisition on p22 of
> the RB. That structure and progression of that table has always
> mystified me.
It`s a terrible table, I agree. Easily solved by Starfox`s method:
"A character gets one point of bloodline abilities for every full five
points of bloodline strength. Minor abilities cost one such point, major
abilities cost two, and great abilities cost four points." This tends to
give slightly more BAs than rolling on that table, but that doesn`t bother
me at all, and anyway it can be easily tuned to taste by changing the
conversion number (one point per seven or ten or three or...) and perhaps
refined by making some majors better than others, etc.
> thinking in particular of Blood History, which from I can tell could
> give the effects of a vast number of intellect based skill ranks.
Yes, and not just Int -- read loosely, Blood History could allow you to
use every single skill and feat in the game at a decent rank, plus Bardic
Knowledge. It needs to be limited somehow, perhaps with a BardKnow-like
DC to test how likely it is that you can remember anything relevant to the
immediate situation in a short time.
> Character Reading also is a rather vaguely written and
> poorly implemented 2e blood ability.
In 3e it`s really easy: +10 to Sense Motive. That is one positive change
in going to 3e mechanics, I agree. The skill system is better.
> Other issues include things like bloodtheft. In all honesty, I`ve
> been reading posts on the subject for years and I have yet to find a
> system of doing bloodtheft that I thought really worked.
Mine is really simple: "piercing through the heart" is purely a poetic
phrase. Any killing of a scion where there is physical contact, including
strangling them, clubbing them over the head or slaying them with a touch
spell, permits bloodtheft. Touch spells delivered by Spectral Hand work
too, since the hand is manifested from the caster`s own life force.
Ranged attacks will generally cause return of the bloodline to the land,
but if there is someone else in physical contact with the scion when they
die, that third party is likely to gain the benefits of bloodtheft. If a
whole group of people simultaneously kill a scion (e.g., the murder of
Julius Caesar), each of them will get some blood benefit. Certain special
situations have special rules: for example, the Disintegrate spell
destroys the bloodline utterly, not allowing bloodtheft but also
preventing transfer of stored RP to the heir; and killing a scion while in
control of another person`s body by Magic Jar will cause the possessed
body, not the possessing mind, to gain from the bloodtheft.
> Another issue that I`d like to see better developed is the monetary
> system at the domain level.
OK, this is no longer about bloodlines. At present, I am content to say
"the GB is whatever unit it needs to be to let the domain level work
unchanged." I periodically change my mind about how best to connect it to
the adventure level monetary system, but I don`t worry about it too much.
> Large scale combat is probably something that could also be endlessly
> refined, and I`d like to see a substantially more developed system.
Now we`re really far afield. =)
> but they retained a few things that I don`t much care for--like the
> 3x5 battlefield map.
Agreed. By far the biggest problem with the warcards is that stupid map.
I am actually perfectly happy to use the warcards, just so long as they
are spread out on a nice, big hex map with no stacking allowed. (I
actually use 1/2" square cardboard counters on the map, with the warcards
off to the side for reference, so that the battle can easily fit on a
small table.) I still fiddle with a wide variety of alternate systems,
but that one change removes most of my objection to the warcards.
> OK, sure. "All other things being equal" characters with equal
> character levels should also be equal in power.
Right. I`m just saying that if you`re gonna bother to count the effect of
blood abilities, which are generally on the minor magic item scale, you
really need to count up the equality of *all* the other things before it
starts to matter. Consider, for example, Heightened Ability: it should
not induce any ECL at all unless *just one single point* of ability score
difference due to *any* other reason also induces an ECL.
Ryan Caveney
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
03-16-2003, 06:15 PM #12
- Join Date
- Mar 2003
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Posts
- 32
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
I am 100% with Shade on this one. I am basically satisfied with the "old box" bloodline system. At least, it is far better than the 7th ability score rules.
I am not at all concerned about game balance. I don't need ECLs, CRs, or whatever to figure out how to DM a campaign that is challenging and exciting to my players.
On the other hand, it is a convension in D&D to game balance everything. So, ECL adjustments might be the way to go. However, I do hope such game balancing rules will be highly contained and easily ignorable by those of us who don't like (or need) them.
Just my thoughts...
-
03-16-2003, 06:24 PM #13
- Join Date
- Mar 2003
- Location
- Copenhagen, Denmark
- Posts
- 32
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
> "A character gets one point of bloodline abilities for every full five
> points of bloodline strength. Minor abilities cost one such point, major
> abilities cost two, and great abilities cost four points."
Well, if we are going to have a new bloodline system, I'll probably vote for this one. It's simple, consistent, to the point, and it allows plenty of room for the individual DM to adjust it as he sees fit.
-
03-16-2003, 07:57 PM #14
- Join Date
- Jan 2002
- Location
- Germany
- Posts
- 883
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
mhelles 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=1439
>mhelles wrote:
> I am 100% with Shade on this one. I am basically satisfied with the "old box" bloodline system. At least, it is far better than the 7th ability score rules.
>I am not at all concerned about game balance. I don`t need ECLs, CRs, or whatever to figure out how to DM a campaign that is challenging and exciting to my players.
>On the other hand, it is a convension in D&D to game balance everything. So, ECL adjustments might be the way to go. However, I do hope such game balancing rules will be highly contained and easily ignorable by those of us who don`t like (or need) them.
>Just my thoughts...
>
The ECL´s for major or great scions do bother me.
Not only do non-blooded characters LOSE their bonus to XP, now blooded
characters get a penalty instead.
While formerly Birthright characters had something in addition to the
core rules, now the special bloodlines will replace the advantage of
having one or more levels of classes which you will not have, because
you have a bloodline.
This disadvantage is not justified. The XP a scion loses over his career
adds up to large amounts of XP while the powers scions gain do not add
up to reflect this loss.
When we need to balance characters then the XP loss of scions should
reflect the gain.
And the best for this, when the gained ability is static, is to pay a
static amount of XP.
In Tome&Blood are several Prestige Classes who receive a "virtual" brew
potion feat to store spells in their blood (Blood Magus) or Sword (Spell
Sword).
A scion could during creation or when gaining a bloodline through
bloodtheft or investiture simply gain a "virutal" magic item creation
feat=Bloodline, which allows him to create magic items=blood abilitys
for which he pays the XP and perhaps the gp (ritual cost?) from the DMG
for the approbiate magical item.
IF the XP losses and costs for magical items in 3E are balanced to
reflect the posession of magical items vs. having more XP, then this
will balance scions with bloodabilites against those without.
bye
Michael Romes
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
03-16-2003, 08:22 PM #15
- Join Date
- Jan 2003
- Posts
- 317
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
>The simple fact of the matter is that bloodline needs to be incorporated
in a way that it feels like a part of the d20 System, not a separate system
that gets tacked on. And the easiest way for it to do that is to mesh in
with the existing tools in the system, namely skills, feats, and spells.
Simple fact according to who? That`s your opinion, not a fact. I disagree;
I think the bloodline system can and maybe should be modular, something you
can tack on to the existing system.
>To balance with the system as it is built, bloodline should not just grant
scions special powers with no kind of trade-off for commoners. It should,
however, open up many more OPTIONS to the scions.
I agree here. There should be a trade-off. But where we are in disagreement
is the size of the tradeoff. I think it should be small; you think it
should be large.
>But, as I was saying, I agree fully with geeman. The big changes in the
system from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition call for big changes in the
Bloodline system, since it was built on 2nd Edition mechanics.
The only thing that depended on 2e mechanics were the effects of individual
blood abilities. Those are easily changed (50% MR changed to 25 SR or
whatever).
>One example I want to note is from the Forgotten Realms. In 2nd Edition,
noble-born drow gained extra special abilities for free, and in 3rd
Edition, those abilities must be purchased with feats. I`m not saying this
is the exact method that should be used, but it gives you an idea of how
the official designers took a look at a 2nd Edition mechanic and made it
work (and well) in 3rd Edition.
Not a bad idea, *IF* you buy into the need to integrate bloodlines with 3e
rules. I don`t.
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
03-16-2003, 08:46 PM #16
- Join Date
- Jan 2003
- Posts
- 317
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
>Have you seen the stuff I posted about "2e bloodline in 3e style"?
>
>Gary
I have. I really like your ideas. 2e bloodline in 3e style would be a great
way to handle bloodline generation. My only concern is that the relative
frequency of bloodlines is off. Under the system as it stands, you only
need to roll a 14 (-2) to get a Great bloodline. Under the old rules, it
was only a 5% chance.
True should be taken off as a possibility, and great should be increased to
15 or 16. Major should be like 12-15, and the other 2 should be increased
accordingly. IMO of course.
I think overall your 2e bloodline in 3e style works much better than the
scion class idea, which is not intuitive at all and rather clunky.
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
03-16-2003, 09:21 PM #17
- Join Date
- Nov 2001
- Location
- San Diego, CA
- Posts
- 99
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
Originally posted by Shade
Simple fact according to who? That`s your opinion, not a fact. I disagree;
I think the bloodline system can and maybe should be modular, something you
can tack on to the existing system.
If you dropped it into any other game, like Vampire, it wouldn't work either. For one, the traits range from 1-5 or 1-10... with your Bloodline 60 or something for the Gorgon, it would break the system.
And there's no need to make it modular, because this isn't about a Birthright conversion for the Storyteller System or for GURPs of the free WINDOW engine. This is for the d20 System conversion of Birthright, and it should be written for the d20 System. Simple as that.
I agree here. There should be a trade-off. But where we are in disagreement
is the size of the tradeoff. I think it should be small; you think it
should be large.
My argument with the way the system worked in the document went both ways. According to it, a "powerful" scion could have less power than a weaker scion, but still be a higher ECL. That doesn't make sense. I am merely pushing for a cohesive system that makes use of the new d20 System mechanics, as opposed to making it a completely seperate system that isn't connected to the mechanics.
The only thing that depended on 2e mechanics were the effects of individual
blood abilities. Those are easily changed (50% MR changed to 25 SR or
whatever).
And what about new mechanics that 2nd Edition never had? New rules and ideas that would benefit the conversion, but wouldn't be used because "there's no reason to make it work with the d20 System."
And what about those blood abilities that were given vague descriptions in 2nd Edition? Some of them are given vague descriptions in 3rd Edition.
Not a bad idea, *IF* you buy into the need to integrate bloodlines with 3e
rules. I don`t.I walk this fine thread...
Mourn
-
03-16-2003, 09:43 PM #18
At 02:31 PM 3/16/2003 -0600, Shade wrote:
>My only concern is that the relative frequency of bloodlines is off. Under
>the system as it stands, you only need to roll a 14 (-2) to get a Great
>bloodline. Under the old rules, it was only a 5% chance.
>
>True should be taken off as a possibility, and great should be increased
>to 15 or 16. Major should be like 12-15, and the other 2 should be
>increased accordingly. IMO of course.
The way I explained this to my players is that the background feat that
would give the +2 on the bloodline strength score would only be available
if the DM wanted to make the possibility of players having true bloodlines
available. One of the things I`m sure a lot of BR fans have considered is
the idea of running a "return of the emperor" campaign in which the
bloodline of Roele returns somehow with the character in question being the
stereotypical "boy who must become a man/man who will become king" so
popular in fantasy fiction.
The actual descriptors for the bloodline strength, of course, don`t
actually mean much unless one adds some sort of number to them in order to
have a modifier for the purpose of DCs.... This might be a better table:
Score Strength Modifier
1+ Tainted +0
4+ Minor +1
10+ Major +2
14+ Great +3
20+ True +4
The modifiers could be flipped around a bit....
There is no way to get over 16 on the above table during character
generation using the standard ability score generation (3-18 -2)
suggested. At least, not without some sort of bonuses. On a table like
the one above the background feat I was thinking would add +2 to the
bloodline strength score check could be upgraded to +4, but I think a
better solution might be that the character might have to dedicate both his
feats (as a 1st level human) to get up to 20.
I`ve always thought there should be at least one, probably two more
bloodline strength categories. "Touched" which would represent a scion
with the barest minimum of bloodline score (not more than 2d6 in the
2e-->3e system) and "lesser" between Minor and Major. While that`s
certainly not BR canon it would allow for a slightly different table with
higher modifiers, and there`d be no need to require the optional bonus to
bloodline strength feat to be taken twice, unless one wanted to just make
it _that_ difficult in which case it could still be 20+ on the table below:
Score Strength Modifier
1+ Touched +0
3+ Tainted +1
6+ Minor +2
9+ Lesser +3
12+ Major +4
15+ Great +5
18+ True +6
Just out of curiosity... how many true bloodlines are out there? Anyone
have any thoughts on this?
>I think overall your 2e bloodline in 3e style works much better than the
>scion class idea, which is not intuitive at all and rather clunky.
So far 2e --> 3e is my favorite too, though I haven`t actually had the
opportunity to playtest it yet. I want to give the bloodline as an ability
score method a little more time.
Gary
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
-
03-16-2003, 11:49 PM #19
- Join Date
- Apr 2002
- Location
- BR mailing list
- Posts
- 1,538
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
>
> But this fairness breaks down as soon as you start calculating ECLs. If
> one player buys Str, Dex and Con while another buys bloodline, and you
> only assign an ECL to the second one, that`s completely unfair and really
> nothing more than an admission that the point values in the buying system
> are wrong and you don`t feel like correcting them.
>
I say a general ECL system works fine with character point generation
methods. As long as the players had some idea what the campaign was going to
be about, and spent their character points building characters geared for
such situations, it doesn`t matter too much if that is combat, intrigue,
investigation or whatever. Naturally, a party geared for intrigue will be
worse at dungeoneering than a party geared for that, but that is always the
kind of balance the Dm has to handle.
/Carl
__________________________________________________ ___
Gå före i kön och få din sajt värderad på nolltid med Yahoo! Express
Se mer på: http://se.docs.yahoo.com/info/express/help/index.html
************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.
-
03-17-2003, 12:15 AM #20
- Join Date
- Dec 2002
- Location
- Victoria BC, Canada
- Posts
- 368
- Downloads
- 0
- Uploads
- 0
Originally posted by ConjurerDragon
The ECL´s for major or great scions do bother me.
Not only do non-blooded characters LOSE their bonus to XP, now blooded
characters get a penalty instead.
While formerly Birthright characters had something in addition to the
core rules, now the special bloodlines will replace the advantage of
having one or more levels of classes which you will not have, because
you have a bloodline.
non-Blooded characters w/ 10% bonus to XP + Blooded characters at normal XP
EQUALS
non-Blooded characters at normal XP + Blooded characters with ECL XP penalty
There is still an XP gap there between both parties. All that has happened is that one group is receiving a penalty instead of the other group receiving a bonus.
Let's look at an XP progression with ECL, shall we?
To achieve a 5th (class) Level character -- unblooded characters require 10,000 XP total (1,000+2,000+3,000+4,000 XP). Blooded characters with an ECL of +1 require 14,000 XP total (2,000+3,000+4,000+5,000 XP), but they are considered a 6th level character for purposes of determining CR and encounter strength.
That's a 4,000 XP gap. A bit bigger than under 2nd Ed, but then again, you can'treally equate 2nd Ed XP with 3rd Ed. Vastly different animals those two.
-Mike"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion -- and usually easier."
- R. A. Heinlien, from The Collected works of Lazarus Long
Thread Information
Users Browsing this Thread
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks