More Powers

[geeman]

At 11:07 AM 8/18/2003 +0200, Cinder wrote:



>Hey GEEMAN, what do you think of my suggestion (2 posts up)? What about

>the rest of you?



The first draft of the BP system had blood abilities in which some of the

base powers or enhancements cost 2 or even 3BP. I found, however, that

making the base powers, enhancements or reductions to the blood abilities

cost more than 1BP wound up making the system a bit hard to implement. In

particular, the issue of raising one`s blood abilities as one`s bloodline

increased became somewhat unwieldy, as did the problem with players wanting

to save a point during character generation in anticipation of gaining more

later. I found it problematic in two senses. First, from a DMing

standpoint, it throws off assigning an ECL for bloodline a bit by giving a

character the _ability_ to have an ability (if you will) but because he`s

not spent the point yet he doesn`t actually have that ability, so the ECL

that he has doesn`t actually manifest. Second, (and this one sounds a bit

silly but I found it to be true) the simple idea of saving a BP is somewhat

odd in implementation. For the same reasons one wants players to fill

their feat slots and spend their skill points when they level up one also

wants them to spend their BP. It just cuts down on the amount of

accounting and retroactive character design that goes on. Since one`s

bloodline only increases very slowly it`s easy to forget one is storing a

BP in the first place, so when bloodline does increase the player forgets

about the point held in reserve.



Other folks might have more success implementing 2+ BP powers and

enhancements than I did, but for the purpose of a basic system I think

going with a 1 point increment is more practical.



Gary

[Cinder]

Ahhh, I see what you're saying. It would fit the system better to have the players spend there BPs right away. For simplicity, I can agree with that. For discussion's sake I will play the Devil's Advocate.

I don't think saving points is a terrible problem, however. The player should be keeping track of the numbers of BPs anyway, noting unspent points isn't that hard (a BR specific character sheet could have a specific spot for it). The BP system is already outside of the skills/feats system as it is not level/class dependent. I think functionality is more important than making it match any particular system. Do note that I haven't actually playtested any of this, and this is all just intellectual speculation. So take it for what it's worth.

As far as potential ECLs are concerned, the players make their own decisions. They will know what they're giving up and what they have to gain. Saving points isn't necessarily going to wreck the ECL approach, hell the ECL system is based on "use your best judgement." The potential will eventually materialize, and if it doesn't, so what? The player decided to take a chance at a specific/better power. They take a chance everytime they pick a feat, increase a skill, and place ability attributes. Now don't get me wrong, I do believe in making things as balanced as they can be. But how exactly equal are the various blood powers? It all depends on the campaign being run and the DM's and players' tastes in particular.

With all that said, I do think that simplicity is the key. One for one is nicely simple and I like that. So, what I would suggest to curb the "taking a ton of low end powers" is to either make the first step of a power really weak or place a cap on numbers of powers a scion can know (which would be based on bloodline strength) similar to a sorcerer's "number of spells known." Thanks for reading and what do you think?

[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> Without scaling the powers up there`s the possibility of a scion

> having as many as 9 blood abilities. I don`t think it`d really be a

> problem for such a character to exist, but it was demonstrably

> different from the original text,



The interesting thing is that while it is certainly different from the

rules, it is fairly consistent with the published NPCs, many of whom have

a large number of quite minor blood abilities. If greater flexibility

means more small effects of bloodline rather than fewer larger ones, that

sound fine to me. That said, I also really like the finer scaling you`ve

introduced.



> I found that in several cases I had to add more "active" powers to

> that blood ability in order to scale it up. That is, a character who

> got low-light vision eventually got a bonus to dex or something,

> making the power quite different from the original version. However,

> I don`t think it was very different than the scale of the Animal

> Affinity blood ability what goes from sensing and empathizing with

> animals to shapeshifting into them.



I think it`s definitely consistent, and a very good idea as well.





Ryan Caveney

[geeman]

At 07:02 PM 8/27/2003 -0400, Ryan Caveney wrote:



> > Without scaling the powers up there`s the possibility of a scion

> > having as many as 9 blood abilities. I don`t think it`d really be a

> > problem for such a character to exist, but it was demonstrably

> > different from the original text,

>

>The interesting thing is that while it is certainly different from the

>rules, it is fairly consistent with the published NPCs, many of whom have

>a large number of quite minor blood abilities.



This is definitely an interesting thing about how they actually wrote up

certain NPCs. For the most part, however, I found it was the awnsheghlien

who had more blood abilities than their bloodline would allow even if they

had rolled perfectly on Table 12. Most notable is possibly the White Witch

who has five blood abilities (1 great, 3 major, 1 minor) with a bloodline

score of minor, 20. That`s pretty much the justification for the

awnsheghlien "prestige class" granting additional BP.



Other than awnsheghlien are there particular NPCs that you`re thinking of here?



Gary

[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> Other than awnsheghlien are there particular NPCs that you`re thinking

> of here?



OK, I stand corrected. I`ve gone through all my BR books, and found 124

NPCs who have their blood abilities listed and aren`t awnsheghlien. None

of them have too many blood abilities for their bloodline score. Many are

maxed out, and the average seems distinctly higher than randomly rolling

on the table would give, but certainly not impossible. I suppose I just

hadn`t grasped how many blood abilities you can have even with a fairly

low bloodline score; for example, with just a 36, you can have a minor,

two majors and two greats (but only one such scion in 200,000 will roll

so well).



However, of the 29 awnsheghlien with listed blood abilities, 21 (72%) have

too many blood abilities. Several of them with minor or major bloodlines

also have Major Resistance to Magic, which is supposed to be restricted

only to those of great or true bloodline strength.



The White Witch at 20 with 2/2/1 would need a 36 to qualify for her blood

abilities, but she is not the worst offender. That honor goes to the Hag,

with a bloodline score of 39, and eight blood abilities, five of them

great. Looking at table 12 on page 22, we see that there is *no*

bloodline score which allows you to have more than seven blood abilities,

at most four of them great. Runners-up are the Minotaur (36, 3/3/2), the

Serpent (77, 1/2/5) and the Magian (44, 1/1/5). Now, the Gorgon has eight

blood abilities, six of them great, but if you imagine extrapolating the

table up to a bloodline score of 200 or so, I don`t really see a problem

with that. So yes, there does seem to be ample evidence for allowing

awnsheghlien to have more blood abilities than normal scions of their

bloodline score could. It`s not just the fault of the authors of Blood

Enemies, since Tara the Black Princess (from PS Tuarhievel) and the Spider

and Gorgon (from the original boxed set) are among the offenders. The

Leviathan and the Seadrake are both given many fewer than they seem to

deserve, however -- is there some bias against sea monsters?





Ryan Caveney

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

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

Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 2:44 PM





> but only one such scion in 200,000 will roll so well).



Certainly true if characters are generated at random (as some PC`s are), but

I prefer to imagine that what has happened is that as scions dilute their

bloodlines, they tend to retain their ancestoral blood abilities until their

blood strength cannot sustain them. So I would expect that the families

portrayed are old declining families, not new rising families. This makes

sense politically.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> I prefer to imagine that what has happened is that as scions dilute

> their bloodlines, they tend to retain their ancestoral blood abilities

> until their blood strength cannot sustain them. So I would expect

> that the families portrayed are old declining families, not new rising

> families. This makes sense politically.



Yes, that would make a great deal of sense. In fact, on that

recommendation I`d have no trouble going back through the list and giving

more to those who seem to have lost out. Rjurik scions in particular seem

to be quite short of blood abilities -- most harshly done by is poor Sketa

of Aandvjor, a candidate for queen with a major bloodline, but no blood

abilites at all! I am quite happy to adopt this idea IMG.



Even if one were to generate all scions randomly (which I don`t think

should be done, but even so), it still wouldn`t follow that the hundred

scions given detailed profiles in the books out of the tens or hundreds of

thousands of total scions who inhabit Cerilia ought to be a representative

sample -- in fact, I`d argue that having more blood abilities than average

would tend to make a scion more likely to rise to the kind of prominence

necessary to be mentioned in one of the books.





Ryan Caveney

[geeman]

At 08:10 PM 8/30/2003 -0500, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> > but only one such scion in 200,000 will roll so well).

>

>Certainly true if characters are generated at random (as some PC`s are), but

>I prefer to imagine that what has happened is that as scions dilute their

>bloodlines, they tend to retain their ancestoral blood abilities until their

>blood strength cannot sustain them. So I would expect that the families

>portrayed are old declining families, not new rising families. This makes

>sense politically.



Just for the sake of nonesuch numerical nonsense: If there are four

generations per century and there have been an average of 5,000 scions per

generation then since Deismaar there have been 4x15x5,000=300,000

scions. Give or take a few tens of thousands, of course.



Anyway, in general, I don`t tend to favor random bloodline

generation. It`s too... well, random--which makes little sense in the

context of the survival of the fittest after sixty odd generations, the

mingling of godly powers over that time, and any suppositions one might

make (as I do) regarding bloodlines being a tool of some unknown/unrealized

power that guides the fate of Cerilian politics be it called the Land`s

Choice, Gaia or the DM. More intent in character development and design is

IMO a better way to go. Provided that a "responsible min/maxing" approach

is employed, that is. Random tables may make character generation more

exciting, but they don`t necessarily lend themselves to good character design.



In dealing with the declination of bloodlines through the generations, one

could certainly view the "weakening" as being something that is a product

of weakening bloodline strength values rather than bad rolls on the Blood

Ability table. It`s easier, I think, to describe that using the BP system

since the blood abilities are more articulated in those descriptions....



Gary

[QuestingMage]

ryancaveney wrote:

-- is there some bias against sea monsters?

Help&#33; Help&#33; Ahm bein&#39; o&#39;ppresed&#33;
<glug glug glug>
LOL&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol:

[ryancaveney]

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> there have been an average of 5,000 scions per generation



Where does this come from? You`re one of very few people I can think of

who are as obsessed with accurate large-scale Cerilian demographics as I

am, so I would very much like to hear the reasoning that went into this

number. My personal inclination would be to make the number much higher,

by a factor of ten at least.



> Anyway, in general, I don`t tend to favor random bloodline generation.

> It`s too... well, random--which makes little sense in the context of

> the survival of the fittest after sixty odd generations,



I quite agree. The only reason I`m interested in the random generation

table is that it`s the only guide we have to the statistical population

distribution of blood abilities. Of all the scions of Anduiras on the

continent, how many of them have Battlewise? That`s the kind of question

which leads me to study the random table. I certainly don`t think they

actually happen randomly from generation to generation within a family.

I just want global relative frequency data.



> Random tables may make character generation more exciting, but they

> don`t necessarily lend themselves to good character design.



I definitely think random character generation is bad. The probabilites

from the tables I no longer use directly are still interesting, though. =)





Ryan Caveney