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  1. #11
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Many people have commented on how they use DM's fiat to "adjust" the bloodline strength of their players. My point on this was that if it required adjusted very often than the system needed to be adjusted so that it wasn't common practice for the DM to make these adjustments.

    The ability and scion template system proposed would most definitely help to alleviate this DM fiat. If a player wants to be a scion he rolls (or using point buy) to create 7 ability scores. He then puts them where he wishes, if he wishes to be a powerful scion then he should logically place a high score there the same as if he wanted to be a powerful fighter (high strength and constitution). He then may choose a scion template (major gives him a +4 to his blood score, great a +8). Note that by using these increases he gains access to more abilities. The ECL scion templates also give him access to more hitpoints (based on his regency collection). I don't think most people really liked the 2nd ed rule of +10 hitpoints for a 0-level holding. The proposed system definitely ties the bonus hitpoints into the regent's ability to rule which seemed to make a lot more sense than the old system.

    In one of my games I had a player who was extremely pissed off because he had rolled such a low blood score. I had told him he could be the regent of a province in Brechtur, but he insisted his roll made him ineffectual. Using the proposed system he wouldn't have had that problem.

    Back to the scion ECL system. I posted a comment that on how would they stack up a with some of the other ECL races, Drow +3 ECL, Duergar +3 ECL, Thri-Kreen (+3/+5 ECL)? If they are looked at using a reasonable blood acore (say starting with an 11 or 12 before applying the template modifier) I think they come out pretty close.
    Duane Eggert

  2. #12
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    First, on the topic of self-promotion of homebrew rules. I do it all the
    time, and I heartily encourage everyone else to do so as well! I want the
    final conversion document to be a grand compendium of every conversion
    idea that anyone anywhere has ever had, thoroughly indexed and
    cross-referenced, with charts and tables to show differential impacts on
    dozens or hundreds of game observables. I know that will never happen,
    but I can dream! At the very least, I want to hear everyone`s house rules
    for everything under the sun. I will never use 90% of what others post,
    but the chance to steal *ahem* gratefully adopt that juicy 10% is the sole
    reason I`m here, lying in wait for it (and occasionally trying to force
    people into sharing ;). More data is always better.

    Thank you, Dr. Doom, for sharing your work with us all these years and
    encouraging us to rip it apart. I`m glad you`ve been around.


    That said, there is a different grievance in this thread which should not
    be lightly dismissed.

    On Sun, 16 Mar 2003, Atarikid wrote:

    > Yes, I understand that the "volunteers" have dedicated their beloved
    > personal time and what not to this project. But the simple fact that
    > they volunteer to do this should not suddenly become the *Holy Shield*
    > of can do no wrongs.

    This is indeed a simple statement of fact. Volunteer efforts are
    extremely precious and heartily to be encouraged, but they are by no means
    error-free; nor do they never bruise feelings.

    > The d20 draft was written by a small tight nit group that was chosen
    > by invitation only from a tiny peer base. The BR Online community was
    > not taken into consideration when the "Offical d20 Group was formed
    > and through out the design process of the Core Rules Document."
    > Anytime questions where asked, the party line was we`re working on it,
    > it is great, but you can`t know anything about it till its ready for
    > release.

    I know the makers of the document had their reasons for choosing this
    course. However, I think the people left out of the making of this
    document have at least as good a set of reasons for being angry about it.
    What`s done is done, so we can`t go back and make everyone happy with the
    situation, but I do feel that some recognition from the various parties
    that there is legitimate disagreement over the best way to develop a joint
    conversion -- indeed, whether there ever ought to be anything at all
    labeled "official" -- would be a healing step.

    I know the people who made this thing as a labor of love feel bad when
    people left out of the making get pissed at them for being left out, but
    I`ve got to say that you chose to make this problem for yourselves. It
    was easy to predict when this all started that some people would get very
    angry about the process. Therefore, I must agree that

    > This is not how a fan based community revival should be handled.

    Never releasing anything that everyone agrees on is far better IMO than
    releasing even a "perfect" something (though of course we know such a
    thing is impossible even in principle) at the price of such badly bruised
    feelings in some quarters.


    Ryan Caveney

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  3. #13
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    On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Mourn wrote:
    > DCs didn`t exist before, remember.

    Sure they did, but it was a constant, a save vs rods/staff/wands or
    paralysis/poison/death magic got easier as you went up in level. You`d
    have to do a bit of subtraction to figure out what they were, but the
    concept of rolling to beat a given number was there.
    --
    Communication is possible only between equals.
    Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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  4. #14
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    On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, irdeggman wrote:

    > if it required adjusted very often than the system needed to be
    > adjusted so that it wasn`t common practice for the DM to make these
    > adjustments.

    I know I`m endlessly repeating myself here, but there is a crucial point
    which is too often being glossed over.

    Just because you want to balance bloodline _against_ ability scores does
    _not_ mean you need to make bloodline _into_ an ability score.

    I might accept the former. I cannot accept the latter.

    I heartily support some form of point-buy system to generate bloodline
    scores deterministically, specifically in order to remove the gross
    unfairness of the huge random variation in the standard table.

    However, I think any change to the bloodline system which results in every
    single blooded character presented in any 2e Birthright product not having
    exactly the same bloodline score as they were printed with is a bad idea.

    Generate bloodline scores however you want. I just think it is a terrible
    plan to change the scale of the resulting bloodline scores.


    Ryan Caveney

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  5. #15
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Another option would be to generate the score like any other ability, then double it to put it into the old range but keeping the halfed score for use with the ability modifer tables. A bit complicated but definitely doable.
    Duane Eggert

  6. #16
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    On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, irdeggman wrote:

    > 1) It is a relatively easy concept to follw. Paralleling the normal
    > ability scores and is hence more intuitively understandable.

    I think it`s *less* intuitively understandable than "this is the maximum
    number of RP you can gain per domain turn."

    > 2) It makes it easy to apply a "modifier" to adjust the DC of blood
    > abilities. (This is by far the most significant issue.

    Divide by 5. Or ten. Or 7.382, if you like arithmetic. No worries.

    > 3) It gives those who wish to play a non-scion something to make a
    > trade off with.
    > 4) It will help to eliminate (or reduce) the need for DM`s fiat when
    > trying to have players start as regents.

    Again I say, this is completely independent from having the number range
    from 3 to 18 or 1 to 100 or pi to the inverse hyperbolic tangent of .999.

    > 5) By using an ability score (and the bonus spells advancement system)
    > it is relatively easy to "create" a semi-universal mechanic to
    > determine the amount (and strength) of blood abilities a scion is
    > eligible to have.

    Starfox`s N points of abilities per K points of blood score is much easier
    to both describe and use. It`s also a truly universal mechanic. It
    should definitely be adopted.


    Ryan Caveney

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  7. #17
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    On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, irdeggman wrote:

    > Another option would be to generate the score like any other ability,
    > then double it to put it into the old range but keeping the halfed
    > score for use with the ability modifer tables.

    Possible. Note for reference that in standard BR rules, generating a
    bloodline score from a given strength yields the following ranges:

    tainted 4 - 14
    minor 5 - 30
    major 8 - 42
    great 8 - 64

    I don`t want to do anything in character generation that artificially caps
    generated bloodline at just 36. Even the draft`s "great heritage" feat
    only raises this to 2*(18+8) = 52. If you`re committed to this course,
    I say triple or even quadruple is a better model than double. Or, rather,
    since in the 3e DMG point-buy system you get an 8 for free, the best
    conversion I can see is actually 6.5 * (Bld - 8), at which point making a
    table to convert directly from stat buy points to bloodline score is
    easier than introducing the concept of a Bld stat to begin with.


    Ryan Caveney

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  8. #18
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "daniel mcsorley" <mcsorley@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
    Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 1:20 PM


    > the normal method for setting DCs for those in 3e is to treat them
    > as spells cast by a sorceror of the appropriate level. This is how
    > dragons, fiends, etc set DCs for spell-like abilities.

    This makes the most sense for me. I`m kind of at a loss for a use for a
    bloodline ability score modifier.

    Kenneth Gauck
    kgauck@mchsi.com

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  9. #19
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
    Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 5:09 PM

    > I heartily support some form of point-buy system to generate bloodline
    > scores deterministically, specifically in order to remove the gross
    > unfairness of the huge random variation in the standard table.

    A wise man once wrote: "The setting always trumps the rules." In my current
    campaign I have been lucky enough to have players who were happy to pick
    character roles from my pre-existing campaign setting, so I was able to just
    assign blood strength and some of the blood powers based on the family
    connections of the PC`s to existing NPC`s. Players got to make some
    selections to fulfil their character concepts. For me this is the most
    satisfying way to handle bloodlines. If a new player wanted to create a
    character from an area where I had no knowledge of the nobility, I`d be
    inclined to just assign a minor bloodline and give the character 3d4+10
    blood strength.

    Kenneth Gauck
    kgauck@mchsi.com

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  10. #20
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    On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

    > A wise man once wrote: "The setting always trumps the rules."

    *bow* Touche`.

    > I have been lucky enough to have players who were happy to pick
    > character roles from my pre-existing campaign setting, so I was able
    > to just assign blood strength and some of the blood powers based on
    > the family connections of the PC`s to existing NPC`s.

    Such a situation is ideal, to be sure! I was only trying to suggest what
    might be done by DMs who are not so marvellously fortunate. I agree that
    the phrase you quote above is the higher law.


    Ryan Caveney

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