Chapter 5 ideas

[Raesene Andu]

Yep, trade routes were originally realm actions, and I think produced more GB too. The rules were changed for the BRCS for exactly the reasons you highlighted.

[Osprey]

The more I've thought about key skills for actions, the more excited I've become about certain changes, the biggest one being:

Create/Contest/Rule Guild Holdings: Profession (Merchant)

I love making this skill a must-have for serious guild regents, it goes back to the original practical feel of the BR game as I remember my first impressions of it, and reinforces the BRCS-stated notion that things like Profession skills should be more important for characters in the BR setting.

Besides, Administrate is immensely useful simply for its cash-saving abilities alone, I'd be perfectly happy if it were only a key skill for Rule Province.

I'm still undecided as to what I think best for other holding types. But it's something that really needs to be resolved for the sake of finalizing those Master feats for Chapter 1. I'm really curious to hear any other ideas for input.

Another one I've proposed that I definitely still favor:

Coronation and Invest Province: Lead

This just makes sense to me, as these domain actions are the quintesential actions where charismatic leadership would have the biggest effect. Create Province is another one Lead might apply to for similar reasons, though if this actions is more about "taming the wilderness," then probably Administrate would be more appropriate.

For Law holdings, I'm really tempted to make Knowledge (Law) a key skill, though Lead is also an effective one here too. What do you think? I kind of miss the Law skill from 2e, but I'm not sure how it would fit into 3.5 BR as a useful skill seperate from regent uses. Perhaps manipulating the legal system to one's advantage?

Finally: I still am a big fan of Knowledge (Nature) to Create/Contest/Rule Sources, and K/Arcana to create ley lines.

Ideas? Comments? Yay or nay?

Osprey

[irdeggman]

Something I’ve been think about and rereading past posts on the subject was how to change the RP collection methods from the BRCS-playtest. While the skill-based collection system was great in concept it failed miserably mechanically when put into use.


In 2nd ed the RP collection method was very unbalanced, some classes made out far better than others in how much RP they could collect.

So something like this is what I was thinking of. A regent draws regency (RP) from his holdings as follows:


The amount of RP a regent can collect in a domain turn is limited to his bloodline score.

A regent chooses a primary class and for this class he collects RP at the full rate. For any other class he collects RP at ½ of the rate that class would normally collect. The question is whether or not the primary class should be fixed at character creation or be more flexible and fall along the line of whatever class the regent has the highest level in at the time of RP collection.

A regent can only collect RP once from each holding. That is he can’t collect full rate as a fighter and half the rate of a cleric for the same holding.

A regent of any class collects RP equal to the province rating for any province he controls.

Fighters – 1 ½ times the Law holding level

Clerics – the Temple holding level and ½ the Law holding level

Rogues – the Guild holding level and ½ the Trade Route level

Wizards/Sorcerers – 1 ½ times the Source holding level

Druids – 1 ½ times the Temple holding level or if allowing druids to hold sources then the Temple holding level and ½ the Source holding level

Ranger – 1 times the Trade Route level and ½ the Guild holding level or if allowing rangers to hold sources ½ the Guild holding level and ½ the Trade Route level and ½ the Source holding level

Bard – ½ the Guild holding level and ½ the Trade Route level and ½ the Law holding level

Barbarian – 1 times the Law holding level and ½ the Guild holding level (this one is real tough)

Noble – 1 ½ times either Law or Guild Holding level – the character must choose which is his focus when the first level of noble is acquired and this can’t be changed or 2 times the province rating for any province he controls (this one is by far the hardest one to handle)

[Osprey]

Hmmm....accepting the basic premise of class=RP collection rates for the time being...a few comments:

RP collection greater than holding levels? I have pretty strong feelings against this, as RP collections are going to shoot through the roof. In other words, there's goping to be way more RP out there than in any previous version of the game.

RP for trade routes? No way, baby! The GB from trade routes is more than enough reqward IMO. Those cash cows need no further incentive for any regent to build them, especially considering how easy they are to create as long as they're not opposed. Here I'm all in favor of splitting off from the 2e game.

I don't think Rangers, as minor spellcasters, should gain any regency from sources, though druids are a different matter. I think the cutoff should be no realm spells = no source RP collection.

What's wrong with a basic premise of 1 times the primary holding level and 1/2 times any secondary holding level? Also, do you think it's necesarily a problem if there are somewhat uneven collections? After all, it would be ridiculous to assume that all classes are equally well suited to being regents, however "fair" it might seem as a game mechanic.

If using class-based collections, I would go with something closer to the original game (leaving out trade routes). Allow one primary regent class for collection, this being the character's highest level class (this should be non-negotiable; your highest class level is certainly your character's main professional focus). If a character has two high classes of equal level, they may choose which is their primary regent class. Secondary class levels from multiclassing grant 1/2 normal collection rates for that class type (and yes, this does encourage multiclassing, but keep in mind that the multiclass monkeys will pay a heavy price in lack of specialized skills and abilities more often than not). Collections from secondary classes do not stack with one another or with the primary class collections. Also remember that there are more reasons than just RP collection to have certain holding types and trade routes, such as the general security of law holdings, income from trade routes and provinces, or realm spells from temples and sources.

Here's some revision suggestions:

Noble – Full Collection (1 RP per level) from Provinces
-Choose either Law or Guild for full collection at 1st level, the secondary type gets 1/2 collection (total all holding levels, round up).
[Yes, these are and should be, IMO, the 'favored sons' of regents, as they are born to rule].

Fighters – Full Province and Law collections

Clerics – Full Temple collections, 1/2 province and law

Paladins - 1/2 temple, law, and province collections [paladins probably don't make the greatest of focused regents, as their deific devotion is rather distracting from the duties of a ruler; however, totalling all 3 holding types may well add up enough to provide a good chunk of RP; also, with multiclass paladins some of this problem might be alleviated, such as Noble/Paladins of Haelyn, Cleric/Paladins of Neserie, or Fighter/Paladins]

Rogues – Full Guild collections, 1/2 province and law

Wizards/Sorcerers – Full Source collections, 1/2 province collections [wizards must multiclass to get anything from law or guild holdings, as seems only proper].

Druids – Full Temple and Source collections [without ley lines they are inferior source regents, and they make terrible landed regents; also, since sources are counter to land/temple levels, this will tend to balance itself more than a first impression might imply]

Ranger – Full Law collections, 1/2 province and guild

Bard – Full Guild collections, 1/2 province [I think blooded bards would make excellent guild regents if they put their mind to it, focusing on artisans and/or information networks for their guilds]

Barbarian – 1/2 Province, Law, and Guild collections [barbarians really are not well-suited to ruling anything resembling civilized provinces or holdings; levels in these places derive from organization, counter to any barbarian's focus]

OR...a possible alternative:
Barbarians gain only 1/2 province and law collections, but they also gain 1 RP per company of troops under their direct command (the regent barbarian must pay the units' maintenance). I like this one, as it represents the real measure of status and power for barbarians from classic D&D: the Horde. B)

So all in all, characters will get either full, half, or no regency collection for the primary class, and at best 1/2, 1/4, or no collection for secondary classes. I think this will lead to far less of a regency overflow problem, while encouraging appropriate classes for regents of certain holding types.

Another little stickler of a subject are prestige classes. Since these are built seperate from any direct base class level requirements, it's difficult to do the sensible thing, which would be to have PrC levels stack with the appropriate base class. I think it best to either ignore PrC levels entirely, or have them automatically stack with the highest class levels when determining the primary regent class. I'm leaning towards ignoring them as the least problematic way to go.

[harvs2]

I personally think that the GB cost of rule actions should be scaled in porpotion to the level of holding being ruled.

For instance...

The difference in a Level One holding and a Level Two holding is actually quite insignificant in many ways.

A level 1 holding handles about 1000 people, a level 2 handles about 2000. A level three holding though sees a large additonal of people (and as such more infrastructure is needed).

A GB cost of 1 GB per desired level seems to fairly simulate this difference for holdings levels.

Incidentally, it also has an affect of slowing the game down to a degree (it becomes rather expensive to do large scale realm actions to rule holdings).

[irdeggman]

I did have problems with having anyone get RP greater than holding level but was having trouble getting any type of evening out of RP colection. The 2nd ed system was flat out broke in this regard. Thieves and Clerics slammed fighters by gaining more RP from holdings.

The first premise is that a regent, regardless of what kind gains full regency from provinces. Aglondier is a prime example of a Wiz Regent (using the capital R for province ruler).

I really don't have trouble with ranger, bard or paladin not getting RP like other classes - but in the spirit of 3.5 it just didn't make sense to shaft them. It made more sense to spread their collection around to reflect their lack of focus.

So keeping in mind that all classes should be balanced per 3.5 concepts how would this be kept in regards to RP collection? Bring me another rock Osprey old man

[tcharazazel]

So the Noble class who gets x2.5, and all others can potentially get x1.5-x2 RP collections.

So the max RP you want to allow a regent to collect will be x2 RP, then irdeggman?

and then all classes should be able to get x2 RP then?

heheh, well if you go by the 3.5 idea of Balanced then you really will be ignoring the reasons why certain classes really were not meant to rule domains as well as other classes. So, whats your reasoning besides that 3.5 has balanced classes?

Additionally in 3.5 classes were mainly balanced for combat really... look at their social skill diferences and tell me they are balanced for the generally social domain level actions that are a large part of BR. Bards, Nobles and Rogues have far more social skills than any other class. So how should we balance them for a game that has a strong basis in social interactions as per 3.5? Heheh, doesnt really make sense then does it?

If you wanted to really use a more logical system, you should probably go by which skills are the dominante ones for ruling a province/holding. If they only get the skills as cross class skills then they should get 0 rp from ruling it (would have to multiclass to get RP then), if they have 1/2 the skills as class skills then they should get 1/2 the RP and if they have all skills as class skills then they should get full RP. True this would probably cause some unbalancing, however, it cerrtainly is more logcial and wouldnt be arbitrary balancing for balancing sake.

[Athos69]

A skill-based collection, in my personal opinion, is probably the most fair method of doing things. To use a 3.0/3.5 analogy, it opened up the option for a wizard to carry around and effectively use a Longsword if he wanted, provided he expended a feat on Martial Weapons Proficiency.

The same general concept should be adhered to. If said wizard wants to sacrifice skill points and throw them into something like Administrate, or Diplomacy or even Warcraft, he should be able to reap the benefits of doing so.

If Duane, you are so concerned with the proliferation of RP, then let's do something like stretching out the table, giving 100% Regency collection for higher skill rank totals.

An example would be if 20 ranks were needed for 100% collection, 5 could still be 0%, but you'd see 20% at 8, 40% at 11, 60% at 14, 80% at 17 and 100% at 20.

[Athos69]

Conversely, we could stipluate that it is the average of the skill ranks that determines the percentage of the RP income without fiddling with the table at all.

Using an average forces the player to take both (or all) of the skills to achieve the maximum RP collection as soon as possible. if the 100% threshold is set at 10 ranks (average), a character that puts ranks into only one of the skills will only get 100% collection at 17th level, where he can get 20 ranks. (20+0)/2 = 10

The drawback to this approach is that it will take a character until 3rd level to generate any RP at all.

If we go with an averaging scheme, I would expand the table a bit, setting a threshold of 4 ranks (average) for 10% collection.

[tcharazazel]

heh, thats definately the easier way to do it. If the average level of the NPC regents is 7th level, then they all could potentially have 20 ranks and thus 100% of the RP collection. Those who do not focus upon the required skills would get less RP, which makes sense.