Chapter 5 ideas

[Athos69]

I'm not sure who is assigned to work on Chapter 5, but there are a few things I'd like to bring up for discussion.

Rule Province -- In a game I'm playing, I've noticed a glaring loophole from a cost-effectiveness standpoint. The current cost for this action is 1 GB x the current level of the province. For a level 0 province, this results in a free action. I'd like to see this action have a minimum cost of 1 GB.

Create Province -- I'd like to see this as an option -- There are many seafaring powers out there who can lay claim to islands as provinces. I have no idea what to stipulate as parameters, but it could be an option.

Depopulate Province -- This could be used as a means to rid a province of a population of goblins, Orogs, or any other 'undesirable' race that is giving your nation morale problems.

Create Holding -- Should this be opened up to allow a Domain Action to establish multiple holdings of the same type in many provinces?

[Raesene Andu]

Very quickly, because I'm supposed to be working...

Rule Province: I'm already using this rule, so yes, a minumum cost of 1 GB

Create Province: Will be added.

Depopulate Province: I'll look into adding something like this... although pillaging provinces sort of cover it...

Create Holding: No, can only create one holding at a time, otherwise makes it too unbalanced.

[Athos69]

Thx Ian!

[tcharazazel]

By Depopulate province did you mean lower the province level or to just slaughter all its inhabitants? There is a difference as a higher source rating means that it can hold a higher number of tribal groups, like the goblins, Orogs ect you mentioned.

To lower its province level, just pillaging it would work, While actually slaughtering its tribal groups would probably require first meeting them on the battlefield, and then you could slaughter them all however that may not be viewed as a "good" deed as it would be women and children you're talking about. Much better to round up those who havent fled the province and put them in work camps, MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Athos69]

Thing is, Dwarves may take a dim view of it if dealing with goblins, but Orogs are considered vermin and no tears would be shed...

[Raesene Andu]

In one campaign I ran, one of the PCs wanted to slaughter the goblin population of one of the Five Peaks provinces (having defeated the province's army). That caused the entire goblin population of the province to rise up and the PC's army suffered a humiliating defeat and was forced to withdraw. I wrote some rough rules to determine the number of levy units that he faced, something like 1/4 of the province's population. Not entirely accurate, but fun at the time.

[Osprey]

Create Holding: No, can only create one holding at a time, otherwise makes it too unbalanced.

It seems to me this would be no more unbalanced than Rule Holding as a Realm Action, or Contest Holding as a Realm Action. There's no sound logic in forbidding Create Holding as a Realm Action, is there? If that' is too unbalanced, then I'd argue that in fact you might as well say the same for all Realm Actions. While they are very powerful, they're to me the the truly impressive aspect of a blooded regent's power - that great scion with a level 10 court is a vicious opponent or a powerful friend...

[Osprey]

A Note on Domain Action DC's (this will be posted in Ch. 5 section, too):

Was it really necessary in the BRCS to lower DC's by one from their 2e origins?

IMC, for Rule Province or Holding I use DC 10 + target level of province/holding, which you might have noticed reading tcharazazel's examples ( I think he forgot that I even changed that ).

In BRCS it was DC 10 + current level of province or holding.

To be blunt, I think my system's better: this way, it's 1 DC harder for every action, which answer's Athos69's concern about the +1/+2 bonus on Master Feats...there's where the extra +1 gets sucked up.

Also, it keeps ruling to higher levels just a tad harder, which is necessary when allowing +1 per +5 skill.

Finally, it makes a distinction between the Create Holding DC (10) and Ruling a Holding to level 1 (DC 11 now, was DC 10 in BRCS).

Raesene, a question: If Create Holding is so resource intensive that it cannot be done as a Realm Action, why is it one of the easiest Domain Actions in the game at DC 10? Whereas Ruling Holdings is more difficult, yet it's no problem to do up to 6 a month with a sufficient court?

[Raesene Andu]

Firstly, I should point out that I didn't write the original chapter 5 in the BRCS, I'm just editing it. Chapter 5 was added in virtually unedited, so is the one that will likely need the most alteration based on everyone's playtesting.


DC 10 + target level. I use the same rule, so likely that will be up for inclusion, unless someone can give me a valid reason why not.


As for Create Holding, I would imagine that setting up something from scratch is a lot more time consuming to do than expand something that already exists. It is also something that might take more of the regent's time (meeting the locals, arranging for building to be built, etc), rather than just delegating the work to his agents in that province (with rule and contest actions).

The reason it is unbalanced if you allow mutiple create actions is that it speeds up the maximising of holdings too much. If (with a sufficiently high court and resources) a regent could create mutiple holdings in one action, rule them the next action and so on, he could go from nothing to say 6 level 2 holdings in one domain turn. Is that realistic? If forced to create each holding individually then it would take at least 3 times as long for the same result.

As for it's DC, well that is only the base DC. It can be opposed by other regents and the province ruler with RP and their holding levels. That could make creating a holdings much more difficult if it is in enemy lands. That does hold true for all actions of course, but something to remember. Even friendly regent aren't going to sit by and allow compeditors to muscle into their territory.

[Osprey]

Fair enough - this is a case though where game balance really stands as the dominant reason more than any realism-rationalization. In truth, every realm action is decidedly powerful and potentially unbalancing, and represents the scope of a blooded regent's power in creating sweeping change. If pressed we could probably justify allowing or not allowing realm actions for any given domain action.

Speaking of which, for game balance, I was re-reading the original domain rules from 2e last night, and came across Create Trade Route, which was supposed to be allowed as a Realm Action. Please, gods, no!!! Here is a case where I'd say NO WAY should Trade Route be allowed as a realm action. Talk about unbalancing - trade routes are powerful additions to a guild's income. Moreover, being Diplomacy based, they should be considered at least as time-consuming and resource-intensive as creating a holding. I'd strongly advocate keeping them a standard domain action only. As it is, with the BRCS rules, guilders tend to become immensely wealthy even creating trade routes at a max. rate of 1 per month. No need to let that be speeded up.

Osprey