Chap 1 revision (7-04)

[Ariadne]

First: Nice write up. The humans are made really great now, als well as dwarves and halflings. Well, the elves have a bit hard ablility adjustments.

I refer to the paladins of Avani. Making them lawful neutral and substituting smite evil to smite chaos would seriously change the “Ariya” setting where a LAWFUL GOOD paladin of Avani MUST be regent. It would force a complete change of the “Ariya” setting (or a house rule again) because of this. Players who played in that setting for years and years, will not be that amoused about this…

Maybe, it can be changed to a variant, that paladins of the Ariyan Temple of Avani still must be lawful good with all PHB abilities, while paladins of all other sects must be lawful neutral. This would stop causing troubles with existing settings. If I remember right, no other setting causes troubles of paladin alignments (regardless of deity), so IMO only the paladins of the Ariyan Temple of Avani should be changed in this manner…

The other write ups of paladins are really well succeeded.

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Ariadne@Jul 25 2004, 11:35 AM

I refer to the paladins of Avani. Making them lawful neutral and substituting smite evil to smite chaos would seriously change the “Ariya” setting where a LAWFUL GOOD paladin of Avani MUST be regent. It would force a complete change of the “Ariya” setting (or a house rule again) because of this. Players who played in that setting for years and years, will not be that amoused about this…

Maybe, it can be changed to a variant, that paladins of the Ariyan Temple of Avani still must be lawful good with all PHB abilities, while paladins of all other sects must be lawful neutral. This would stop causing troubles with existing settings. If I remember right, no other setting causes troubles of paladin alignments (regardless of deity), so IMO only the paladins of the Ariyan Temple of Avani should be changed in this manner…

Sorry, Ariadne but the poll results clearly showed that people wanted the paladin alignments to match their deity. So it is not a variant and is one of those things that just won't work having a variant for it. It is an all-or-nothing type of thing.

Personally I preferred having their alignments per the the 2nd ed material, but the votes came in otherwise.

I guess the Atlas group will have to make the necessary adjustments to match.

What specifically in the PS of Ariya would require the paladin-prince to be lawful good? I don't recall reading anything specific about the Ariyan Temple of Avani that leads to it having to be a lawful good one, in fact most of the descriptions apply to lawful neutral as equally as they do to lawful good.

[geeman]

At 01:32 PM 7/25/2004 +0200, irdeggman wrote:



>>I still think the solution to the Paladin of Moradin class is to

>>eliminate
it and allow BR dwarves to freely multi-class between the

>>fighter and
cleric classes. It`s more in keeping with the original

>>BR method of
portraying that race, and doesn`t require tweaking the

>>3e/3.5 paladin class
in a way that differs overmuch from the more

>>reasonable variations of that
class for the human deities.

>

>Isn`t that freely multiclass combo already allowed by both the BRCS and

>the core rules?Fighter is the favored class of dwarves, which means that

>it doesn`t count when figuring out multiclass penalties.And I know this is

>based on your use of paladins as a prestige class vice a core class.

>{Something you`ve espoused repeatedly.}IIRC you have also taken the stance

>that paladins of Moradin shouldn`t be allowed in the BRCS anyway.



Yes, I`ve repeatedly said that there should be no paladins of Moradin in

the BRCS and that`s still what I`m saying. IMO, human paladins should be a

prestige class, but that`s pretty much unrelated to whether BR dwarves

should have them in the first place. There should be no dwarven paladins

at all or, rather, a "holy warrior" prestige class of dwarves should have

only an incidental connection to paladins AND that class should be a

prestige class. The dwarven take on warriors and religion should be

handled by allowing them to freely multi-class as BOTH fighters and

clerics. The class combo is still possible, of course, with dwarves having

fighter as their favored class, but allowing them to freely take levels in

both classes better describes the emphasis of that race without trying to

put it into the conventions of the paladin character class, which is in

more than one respect an odd fit.



Gary

[Athos69]

First off Gary, I've always been an advocate for Dwarven rights... Well, I have a soft spot in my heart for them at least, so whatever I say on the topic will have some bias.

Are you saying that we should specifically state in the BRCS that one of the Core setting rules and philosophies -- that of the freedom for any core race to be any core class -- is now null and void? It seems to be a very radical departure from the entire spirit of 3.0/3.5 to be taking.

If we do eventually take this tack, could we add War to Moradin's portfolio, to allow for access to the Warpriest PrCl? (or at least write a Moradin-specific Battlepriest PrCl for the atlas?) I'd be willing to try my hand at such a PrCl, but don't have any experience with such things. I doubt I'd get the right balance without 10 revisions.

[RaspK_FOG]

All other things aside, I believe that having dwarves have both the cleric and fighter class as their favoured ones is too much!

One thing most people do not immediately realise is that having fighter as your racially favoured class allows you to built a character with many levels in a spell-casting class and maybe another class and only few levels as a fighter; such a combination can actually be very deadly!

[geeman]

At 08:22 PM 7/25/2004 +0200, irdeggman wrote:



>Sorry, Ariadne but the poll results clearly showed that people wanted the

>paladin alignments to match their deity. So it is not a variant and is one

>of those things that just won`t work having a variant for it. It is an

>all-or-nothing type of thing.



One could have a little text saying that paladins of Avani are lawful good

or lawful evil, and a general comment that lawful neutral paladins

smite/protect against chaos while lawful good ones smite evil.



Gary

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by geeman@Jul 25 2004, 04:20 PM
One could have a little text saying that paladins of Avani are lawful good

or lawful evil, and a general comment that lawful neutral paladins

smite/protect against chaos while lawful good ones smite evil.



Gary

Sorry, again I refer to the poll that was conducted.

Anything other is basically saying that the what the majority voted on was incorrect and is being ignored.

If anyone wants to do something else in their campaign they most certainly can, it is a core principal of D&D that house rules rule.

Here is the link to the poll:
http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...showtopic=2515

The clear majority (9 to 4) wanted paladins to have the same alignment as their god.

[Athos69]

Here, here Duane!

[Athos69]

So... does anyone want a Battlepriest of Moradin PrCl? I'll be basing it on the Warpriest PrCl, with a few uniquely Karamhul twists, such as granting War as a 3rd Domain, and maybe a few Elemental Earth aspects...

[geeman]

At 10:12 PM 7/25/2004 +0200, Athos69 wrote:



>First off Gary, I`ve always been an advocate for Dwarven rights... Well,

>I have a soft spot in my heart for them at least, so whatever I say on the

>topic will have some bias. :)Are you saying that we should specifically

>state in the BRCS that one of the Core setting rules and philosophies --

>that of the freedom for any core race to be any core class -- is now null

>and void?



Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. :) That`s exactly the point of coming

up with campaign material, the specifics of which supercede the core

rules. I`ve argued that so many times, honestly, I should summarize it and

set up a hotkey.... "Press the Control-Alt-Campaign button to portray

campaign specific materials that override core rules."



In this particular case, however, I`d suggest that it`s not really a matter

of restricting dwarves so much as it is a matter of portraying that race in

a way that is unique to the setting. The paladin character class is not

IMO a very good representation of the dwarven race`s theology or

emphasis. That`s not to say they couldn`t have their own "holy warrior"

class, but the paladin in the 3e rules isn`t very apt. The special

abilities are just too... well, human. The warhorse is the most obvious

thing, and replacing that by summoning an earth elemental or any of the

other things that have been suggested just don`t seem to work. The spell

list of paladins also has some things that seem odd for a dwarf to cast,

and one or two of the other special abilities don`t seem particular

sensible either.



>It seems to be a very radical departure from the entire spirit of 3.0/3.5

>to be taking.



I`d draw a comparison to restricting true magic to scions or Cerilian elves

in that regard. While that is a more obvious departure than changes to the

paladin class by race for the campaign setting, it does violate the

so-called "spirit" of 3e/3.5, doesn`t it? (I`m not really sure there`s any

such thing as a "spirit" of 3e/3.5 but I`ll assume there is for now.) Why

keep the restriction on true magic users in a 3e conversion? Because it`s

campaign specific material that expresses the dynamics of the

setting. 3e/3.5 allows for much more options than 2e did, campaign

materials do not. More accurately, they create their own systems of

options that do not exist in the core materials while placing other

restrictions on those options that exist in the core materials. Taking all

the dynamics of 3e/3.5 and putting them into the BRCS is like taking the BR

bloodline system and making it core material.



Birthright in particular has paladins that differed from the 2e campaign

materials in ways that, frankly, got this exact same argument from people

who thought the 2e D&D rules should take precedence over the campaign

materials, along with several other campaign-specific issues. Some of

these things are much more easily recognized, the most consistently and

annoying (to the BR old timers) that still come up would be gnomes and

monks. They are in the core materials, so why not include them in

Birthright? Well, because they aren`t part of the original BR materials

and there are campaign specific reasons for that. Paladins of Moradin are

less obvious, but they were a perfectly valid option for the original

Birthright campaign materials should it have been something that expressed

a particular theme of that campaign-specific race. BR`s system of paladins

varied significantly from that of 2e, and in ways that made many 2e fans

cringe. Paladins of Moradin would not have been a particularly dramatic

departure from the core rules for BR, especially when compared to other

things that were changed in the setting. They do not necessarily fit with

the BR dwarven race, however, so they aren`t included, and shouldn`t be

included in a conversion to 3e/3.5 for the same reasons they weren`t there

in the first place.



More than many other settings has restrictions on things like race and

character class. Some of those things are 2e holdovers (I wouldn`t have

things like level limits or prevent



>If we do eventually take this tack, could we add War to Moradin`s

>portfolio, to allow for access to the Warpriest PrCl? (or at least write

>a Moradin-specific Battlepriest PrCl for the atlas?) I`d be willing to

>try my hand at such a PrCl, but don`t have any experience with such

>things. I doubt I`d get the right balance without 10 revisions. :)



I think either or both of those would be good solutions to the BR dwarf

class issue--though as you note it might require a little tweaking to make

it appropriate for BR (not unlike the dwarf/paladin issue itself....) I

have yet to see a prestige class that I thought fit perfectly into

BR. They all seem to require a little tweaking to make them work, so

there`s probably a little twist or two to the Battlepriest that should be

done mostly in regards to how its powers might effect units on the scale of

BR companies, for instance.



Gary