Ch. 5 Key Skills for Domain Actions

[tcharazazel]

This is a topic that needs to be decided upon to finish up work on the Ch 1 Master feats.


To sum them up:

Create/Contest/Rule Province: Administrate.

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

Create/Contest/Rule Law Holdings: Lead or Knowledge (Law) or Warcraft. Ideas?

Create/Contest/Rule Temple Holdings: Diplomacy, Lead or Administrate. Ideas?

Create/Contest/Rule Sources: Knowledge (Nature)

Create ley lines: Knowledge (Arcana)

Coronation and Invest Province: Lead

[Benjamin]

For temples, I think something with Knowledge (Religion) should be used. This way we can keep all the Rule X based upon some Knowledge.

[Athos69]

Guilds do not rely on the Knowledge skill, so your attempt at forcing symmetry is broken. If the Rule action for Temples is switched to Knowledge (Religion), it would make some sense....

I'd also like to see Appraise get some use in there. Currently, it's one of the skills that Guildmasters need to have, but there is no appreciable use of value to the skill outside of RP collection.

[Osprey]

I don't think K/Religion does make much sense for ruling temples. This is essentially Theology, renamed for the sake of a modular skill system.

Tell me: is Theology really the primary measure of how politically powerful a temple can become? Does a good theologian necessarily make a good High Priest? While I'm fine with this skill being a requirement to measure actual regency collection (as in, yes, a High Priest needs a good theological grounding, especially to be respected by other clergy), I don't think it an accurate reflection of how well a priest regent could expand a temple's holdings. If it were, then why aren't our modern-day churches all led by academic theologians with Masters of Divinity and Ph.D's in theology? Could it be...lack of necessary charisma? Lack of ambition even? Often those with extreme theological knowledge simply become divorced from the masses of the church they're attached to (if any), making them if anything worse leaders, and certainly not the type to gain widespread popular appeal, let alone even a large following within a church's clergy.

The one exception is Contest Temple Holdings: here an excellent argument could be made for K/Religion being the primary tool, as theological debate is often a key part of temple rivalries acted out to sway the populace.

Nevertheless, I'd say Lead is probably the single best representative skill here. Charismatic speaking, swaying the masses, influencing one's peers...these are the hallmarks of successful religious leaders, the ones whose names go down in history. And the skill is broadly applicable enough to apply to influencing the necessary elements that measure the power of a church: the masses, the clergy, and the nobility being the 3 main groups that provide a temple's political power.

[Osprey]

I'd also like to see Appraise get some use in there. Currently, it's one of the skills that Guildmasters need to have, but there is no appreciable use of value to the skill outside of RP collection.

Hmm, I think it's good it factors into RP collection, but how important is it for a guild regent as opposed to a regular merchant? For the merchant on the street, this is of course an invaluable skill, as he uses it every day, in every transaction. But a guilder could as easily have professional appraisers on hand to take care of the really high-end stuff, having perhaps half of his own max. ranks in the skill - enough to make certain his employees and trade partners aren't pulling the wool over his eyes. But I don't think it applies very well to running a guild network, at least not as the primary skill.

However, Athos, I agree with you: Appraise gets little notice, and like many skills is one of those specialties that in all realism should probably be folded into Profession (Merchant) as the two go so closely hand in hand, and P/Merchant would invariably include appraisal skills.

If D&D gave more credit to those Profession skills, it might be amazing how many other skills like Appraise, Heal, and some Knowledge skills would simply disappear and fold into the larger groupings of Profession. Not the greatest division of skill sets IMO.

So if you have a nice DM, or are a nice DM, maybe you can talk them (or yourself ) into combining the two, leaving those precious skill points for a more diverse skill set.

[Osprey]

and what about Law holdings? here's the real stickler - while I think Lead may also best represent the primary skill that's useful here, I hate to have Law and Temple holdings use the same skill while we use a different one for guilds.

If there's a single place I'd be okay with using a Knowledge skill, it would be Knowledge (Law). Maybe this is because setting up a functional legal system is such a brain-twister (and hence Intelligence-based skills would make sense), and really does require a firm grounding in legal precedence, history, and the laws of other realms, especially within one's own culture. What the people will accept as "fair" or "just" might be very relative to what they know already, or what they've heard about, or their parents and grandparents and so on have always lived by.

The only drawback here is that this is a somewhat sophisticated view of Law holdings, and one that may or may not be appropriate for a medieval/early Renaissance-era setting. Some medieval legal systems were amazingly complex (and I'd say these were examples of bumbling attempts at a fair legal system more often than not; just look at English Common Law sometime, at least for as long as you can stand it :P ), others brutally simple and oppressive, but which ones represent high level Law holdings within the setting?

Probably in the end I favor K/Law as a key skill because it hearkens back to the original game, where Law was a seperate and essential skill for any serious law regent. At the very least, I very strongly believe it should account for at least one of the 2 key skills for regency collection from Law holdings, the other one probably being Lead.

Hmmm....will post ideas about this in the other thread on collections (Ch. 5 ideas).

Oh yeah, and I was reminded: Knowledge (Law) would be a class skill for all warrior-type classes, except Barbarians.

[tcharazazel]

The only drawback here is that this is a somewhat sophisticated view of Law holdings, and one that may or may not be appropriate for a medieval/early Renaissance-era setting. Some medieval legal systems were amazingly complex (and I'd say these were examples of bumbling attempts at a fair legal system more often than not; just look at English Common Law sometime, at least for as long as you can stand it* ), others brutally simple and oppressive, but which ones represent high level Law holdings within the setting?

Aye, K/Law seems very appropriate for Law holdings, especially considering what was written in the Book of Regency about higher level law holdings, page 31. Basically, that level 4 law the bureaucracy begins, level 5-6 the bureaucracy spreads and the holding consists of many law-keepers/makers/interpreters, level 7 the Law defines the nature of the province and may effect the province ruler.
This goes to show that a more sophisticated view of Law holdings was originally intended, especially for the higher level holdings.

So, what would this mean... well wouldnt really change much for fighters, palis, rangers, ect who dont have administrate as a class skill (as admin was the key skill to create/contest/rule law before). It will change Clerics and Rogues ability to rule law as they do have admin as a class skill, which makes sense really because so far we seemed to agree that clerics and rogues shouldnt be the best classes to rule law holdings. Finally, it would open up the door for bards and wizards who have all Knowledge skills as class skills to be better Law regents.

[irdeggman]

Making K/Law one of the key skills for RP collection from Law holdings would penalize fighters who don't have any Knowledge skills as class skills. We need to keep in mind that fighters, as a class, should be best at something and that comes down to law holdings. So making it multiple skills and including skills that are cross-class for them will definitely penalize them due to their poor selection of class skills and low skill point accumulation.


For Temples, instead of Lead (which IMO does fit for temples) perhaps Diplomacy or Perform (oratory). Diplomacy has a synergy bonus for 5 ranks in Knowledge (royalty and nobility). On the surface this would seem to benefit rogues and bards who have diplomacy as a class skill but there is the one extra caveat - the regent must be capable of casting divine spells.

I think the more we look at this the more we see the problem that people have brought up before - that using skills as a basis for RP collection favors classes with large skill point gains, rogues/bards/rangers. It can work but this is a legitamte concern and the skill selection should definitely address cross-class and class skills for classes that are favored for the type of holding.

[tcharazazel]

heh, well currently the administrate skill is used to create/contest/rule Law so doesnt this make fighters already not that good as Law regents? I mean, fighters already are shafted for create/contest/rule Law and if you read what I said again only clerics and rogues would loose their ability to more effectively create/contest/rule Law as they have administrate as a class skill.

And now if we change it to K/Law then it maybe more justified to allow the BR fighter class to get K/Law as a class skill, as they surely wont get administrate as a class skill and that let them become better Law regents.

So, overall if we do both these changes then the fighters will become better Law regents because they will finally have the skill to create/contest/rule Law as a class skill. And with you're strong advocation of fighters being the ultimate Law regents, irdeggman, doesnt it make sense that fighters should have this as a class skill? because otherwise your argument seems a little undermined by the fact that fighters may be good at collecting RP from Law holdings, however, they dont compare to clerics or rogues when it comes to creating/contesting/ruling Law unless they spend more RP...

Finally, as for having too few skill points... well for a landed fighter regent to also rule the law he needs to have 4 skills maxed then: Diplomacy, K/Law, Lead, and Warcraft. So, just 4 skills... means that a human fighter would need to have an Int of 12+ to make sure that he can effectively keep these 4 skills maxxed. Heh, should a fighter with a average Int be as good a ruler as a more inteligent one? Obviously not.

Dont forget he only needs to get 5 ranks in each to get full RP collections, so after level 2 he wouldnt even need to put any more skill points into the K/Law and Lead to gain full RP collection from his Law holdings, however, he would still need to wait until Level 4 to gain full collection from the Province. (as Diplomacy as its a crossclass skill). And if he really wanted to become a better ruler, he would likely start with and/or pick up a few levels of noble.

As classes can multiclass now, its not such a big issue for fighters really. It seems like this is probably one of the major reasons we shouldnt even bother to talk about fighters being the ultimate Law regents, because most fighters will be multiclass now. So, they will likely get more skill points from their other class(es) and if they actually want to be good rulers they will multiclass with a class with more skill points and social class skills really.


Ok Temple holdings, yeah I agree that Lead makes sense. However, Diplomacy makes more sense in a polytheistic world as they need to find ways to politically deal with their opponents and not just convince people to follow them. And this is crutial to the creation/contesting/ruling of Temple holdings.

(side note: I called it Osprey, you owe me $20, heheh)

[irdeggman]

I'm not against adding an additional class skill for some clases to balance things out.

One thing to keep in mind is that the core classes (fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue) should all be best at something on the domain level of play.

Nobles are assumed to be the best at ruling provinces. That should be their specialty then - the broader scheme of ruling empires.

Bards, rangers and barbarians are all too diverse to be the best at anything but their diversity could be used to spread out their places of collection among the various types of holdings. Sorcerers are in this case functionally the same as wizards.

Nobles just don't exist in all societies, regardless of what Gary wants to think. Vos nobels? Yeah right like that is going to happen. Rjurik nobles? - only slightly more likely than Vos ones, but still not very likely. Dwarf nobles - they as a race are too busy working and fighting to defend their lands from the Orogs too have the leasure time necessary to support the noble class. It is designed to take advantage of the time allowed by having privilege. Dwarven society would pretty much condemn those taking the time off of serious work as slackers. Elves are not so concerned with the value of property to support a class that is based on income and privilege. Whether or not they ahve princes (and not all elven domains do) their leaders (see Tuarhivel) are chosen by an outside force - The Thorn Throne and not what is considered the right of ascension.

So even though nobles are better at ruling large areas of population (i.e., provinces) they are limited by culture. With the the most likely cultures being the ones that ruled the largest amount of Cerilia (i.e., Anuire and Khinasi) so it works on a logic standpoint.