View Poll Results: Should all (except for creating a 0-level holding) domain actions require RP be spent?

Voters
26. You may not vote on this poll
  • (a) Yes

    16 61.54%
  • (b) No

    10 38.46%
  • (c) Other (please provide suggestions with as much detail as possible)

    0 0%
  • (d) Abstain

    0 0%
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  1. #1
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Based on sort of recent discussions on Domain actions and RP. It appears that things could benefit from a series of polls designed to narrow the mechanic down.

    This will be the first poll then followed by #2 and then #3.

    The idea being that once one thing is 'decided' then it frames the next decision (i.e., poll) etc.

    The mechanics I'm looking at are the ones that have beenmost frequently discussed and have the most detail associated with them.

    Concerns that arrise over the entire Domain system revolve around mases up large RP pools without having to use them.

    Domain Actions have become increasingly easy to do with the narrowing down of the feats of Chap 1 such that several people think that they may be too easy to accomplish without some additional tweaking. The flip side is not to make them too difficult.

    Also there has been voiced opinions that the importance of RP has been watered down as things have progressed. IMO this is the place to capture that in some way or another.

    Here are the follow-on polls I think will help narrrow down this mechanic/aspect. Each poll will be run in order so that there is a point of reference for the poll and the "box" is narrowed down progressively.

    Poll 2:

    What should be the base DC for domain actions? Note this is the base only, the modifiers will be on a different poll. Only 4 are provided since they cover the most common variations on DCs.

    (1) 5

    (2) 10

    (3) 15

    (4) 20

    (5) Other (please provide suggestions with as much detail as possible)

    (6) Abstain

    Poll 3:

    What modifier should be used for domain actions?

    (1) +1 GB per target level

    (2) +1 RP per target level

    (3) + x2 GB per target level

    (4) + x2 RP per target level

    (5) Combination of (1) and (2) above (depends on domain action)

    (6) Combination of (1) and (4) above (depends on domain action)

    (7) Combination of (3) and (4) above (depends on domain action)

    (8) Combination of (2) and (3) above (depends on domain action)

    (9) Other (please provide suggestions with as much detail as possible)

    (10) Abstain
    Duane Eggert

  2. #2
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    I asked the DM from my local campaign what he thought of this topic. This is what he sent back to me....

    I have done a comparison of 2E actions vs 3E actions:
    Agitate:
    2E: 1GB and 1RP
    3E: 1 GB

    Contest Holding:
    2E: 1RP
    3E: 1 GB

    Create Holding:
    2E: 1GB note provinces can oppose
    3E: 1 GB

    Create Ley Line:
    2E: 1GB per province crossed/1RP per province crossed note 1RP maintenance per season
    3E: 1GB per province crossed/1RP per province crossed

    Create Province:
    2E: 1GB (3GB if not adjacent to another province)
    3E: none

    Create Trade Route:
    2E: 1GB/1RP
    3E: 1GB

    Diplomacy:
    2E: 1GB/1RP
    3E: 1GB

    Espionage:
    2E: 1GB troop movement/strength can be done as a Realm Action
    3E: 1GB

    Rule Holding:
    2E: 1GB/1RP per target level
    3E: 1GB

    Rule Province:
    2E: 1GB per target level/1RP per target level
    3E: 1GB per current level

    You'll notice almost without exception, 2E actions required 1RP along with the 1GB. That was dropped in 3E and IMO needs to be added back in. In fact, I think that for all the above actions, going back to the 2E requirements would be a good step. Other notes:
    Contest Holding should be 1GB/1RP
    Create Holding provinces should be able to oppose, too, representing a landed regent exerting his power of denial in his own land
    Create Ley Line should have the 1RP/season maintenance
    Create Province should be added back in at a DC20
    Espionage should again allow a Full Domain Action (Domain plus supporting Court) for these three pieces of info:
    5 Common rumors and information
    10 Catalogue troop position and st rength in a province
    15 Reveal the domain statistics of a province (attitudes, regents,
    holding levels, etc.)

    I like how the 2E rules require a little bit of influence (RP) to be used and it would keep RP pools down to a dull roar requiring almost no tweaking of anything else IMO, with the added benefit of saving you a lot of work in redesign lol.
    The change to Espionage would make it much more useful to regents for those types of info. Right now, it is never used. However, on a Realm scale, it might very well be used.
    - Derek
    I have found that, in my gameplay, RP aren't all that useful to a non-spellcaster, and generally sit, unused unless you are a landed regent who needs to perform a major agitation to swing a hostile province into your pocket. Adding RP requirements for actions will really bring use back to RP, and deal with the creep of bloodlines that occcurs when you have huge pools of RP and nothing to spend it on.

    -Mike
    "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion -- and usually easier."

    - R. A. Heinlien, from The Collected works of Lazarus Long

  3. #3
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    I voted that RP should be required, but I'm not certain it should be for absolutely ALL standard domain actions except Create Holding. Espionage and Diplomacy are the 2 that come immediately to mind, and Agitate is debatable as well.

  4. #4
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Note this poll wasn't to determine if GB could also be used or of GB could be used instead of (something that I think Osprey had proposed at one time - using an conversion of something like 5 to 1 or 10 to 1). The latter could be a variant added afterwards - but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I think we have been putting the cart before the horse on the domain action discussions to date.

    Let's start somewhere so we have a base to stand on while we build the mechanic for performing domain actions.
    Duane Eggert

  5. #5
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    For the record, the vriant I have used IMC was that extra GB could be spent to support an action, but only if RP were spent first. In other words, if 4 RP were spent to give a +4 bonus to a domain action, then up to 4 GB could also be spent to add an additional bonus (+1 per GB) to the action. The basic concept was that GB weren't useful unless well-applied (represented by regency being spent to influence the populace).

    But that variant, however, is seperate from any base costs for domain actions, which is the focus of this poll.

    Osprey

  6. #6
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    This question of what the base RP costs of domain actions are has come up in my campaign. The situation of our players is perhaps unusual in Birthright. The players were mundane unblooded characters until during the course of the first adventure they received the bloodline of the undead former ruler of a realm. The former ruler asked them to look after his people and revenge his death. The problem was that someone else was already ruling that realm (our new arch-nemesis Colin Schafepate of the Zweilunds in Brechtur). Using the 2ed Birthright rules(as we were) where most domain actions had an RP cost, our players would be hard pressed to set up rebel law/temple/guild domains because they had no RP.
    Giving actions RP costs might stop powerful regents from building up huge pools, but also kindly consider the little guy with no RP. Other variations on our theme could be invisioned; Robin Hood's Merry Men, disloyal stewards, and various other blooded scions with out starting RP but the desire to play the game of politics. While I love the divine rule aspect of blooded characters being the best rulers, not all blooded scions have RP.

    [Our DM mashed together old 2e rules and your wonderful BRCS rules and mostly ignored rules to concentrate on storytelling, but I am a bit of a rules nut so your poll caught my attention.]

  7. #7
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    Danip schrieb:



    >This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

    > You can view the entire thread at:

    > http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...ST&f=36&t=2841

    >

    > Danip wrote:

    > This question of what the base RP costs of domain actions are has come up in my campaign. The situation of our players is perhaps unusual in Birthright. The players were mundane unblooded characters until during the course of the first adventure they received the bloodline of the undead former ruler of a realm. The former ruler asked them to look after his people and revenge his death. The problem was that someone else was already ruling that realm (our new arch-nemesis Colin Schafepate of the Zweilunds in Brechtur). Using the 2ed Birthright rules(as we were) where most domain actions had an RP cost, our players would be hard pressed to set up rebel law/temple/guild domains because they had no RP. Giving actions RP costs might stop powerful regents from building up huge pools, but also kindly consider the little guy with no RP. Other variations on our theme could be invisioned; Robin Hood`s Merry Men, disloyal stewards, and various other blooded scions wi

    > th out starting RP but the desire to play the game of politics. While I love the divine rule aspect of blooded characters being the best rulers, not all blooded scions have RP.[Our DM mashed together old 2e rules and your wonderful BRCS rules and mostly ignored rules to concentrate on storytelling, but I am a bit of a rules nut so your poll caught my attention.]

    >

    Robin Hood need not be represented by an unblooded PC. In one variant of

    the story he is Robin of Locksley, the son of a saxon noble and, in the

    birthright context, might very well be a blooded PC. His merry men might

    well be unblooded NPC´s but why would you want the merry men as minor

    NPC´s to control holdings? Will Scarlet might be the exception if we

    take him as bastard son of Robins fathers as in the movie "Robin Hood:

    King of Thieves" with Cevin Kostner then William Scarlet could have half

    the bloodline of Robin.



    The characters very close to Robins story would be William Moergen in

    Osoerde and the rebel in Kiergaard Mournsinger? Under 2E rules there was

    a character Kit presented in the Book of Regency that allowed to earn RP

    from successful adventures (warrior king?) and several other

    opportunitys to get RP without having holdings before (e.g. the magic

    ring which converted bloodlinepoints into RP without loss).



    As in most provinces holdings have already reached the maximum level,

    "setting up rebel holdings" would be problematic as you have to start

    from 0 and contest away the more powerful competition. Have you

    considered simply dropping a "Great Captain" event on the illegal ruler

    and declaring the PC of your choice to be that great captain?

    bye

    Michael

  8. #8
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    Conjuer Dragon,
    Using the knight-errant kit's (from the Book of Regency) RP awards for adventuring is a good idea. But might not work in all PC situations. In particular our party did much adventuring incognito (think commando raids) because the ruling regent had a Stalin-like secret police. Can the power of the people flow to their secret champions if they dont know about them?
    The Great Captain mechanism is another good one for getting characters a starting point but seems a bit generous to the Great Captain (the PCs). I think our DM wanted to make the players earn everything they acomplished the hard way so they appreciated it more.


    I think what I am basically trying to point out is that having no RP costs to domain actions opens up a wide variety of different ways to act at the domain level. Without ruling a single holding or province, our characters managed to at various times; conduct diplomacy (on behalf of ourselves and other realms), conduct espionage (against our arch-enemy regent), establish a trade route (between two unfreindly nations with us as a go between), agitate (for ourselves and against said arch-enemy), muster a mercenary army (using the freindly lands of Muden), move said troops, and hunt for able lieutenants. The domain rules are a powerful and easy way to think of PC and NPC actions which have large scale ramafications. In normal D&D rules our characters could have done that same things, Birthright just gave the DM balanced rules to figure out the effects.
    Perhaps you can see thru my party's example how an open interpretation of the domain rules beyond just those who hold several non-(0) holdings or provinces opens up a variety of interesting and realistic ways of affecting domains. The inverse of our situation also opens up. The ruler of a powerful domain might have to worry not just about other regents but also of that charismatic and blooded peasant who is upset about the new grain tax. The peasant doesnt have to become a Great Captain, steal away some of the lords law holdings, slowly build up RP over several domain turns, then use the agitate action against the lord. Instead he could just start publicly decrying the new tax as an agitate action. This gives the DM a new way to think about challenging the PC ruler. The Great Captain event is a serious problem, while a man on a soap box is less serious. Of course, if the Agitate action retains its 1GB cost in the BRCS the ruler should wonder how the peasant got so many resources to organize his little political venture (other ringleaders, outside influence?.....). There are other ways to decribe popluar unrest (most easily in just lowering the domain attitude at the begining of the domain turn). By not having an RP cost the DM can describe the same result in a more colorful way but still be within the balanced framework of the domain rules. The introduced NPC (the peasant) still has to gather resources (the 1GB to cover traveling expenses around the province, rent out meeting halls, publish manifestos, etc), make the same kind of success roll to succesfully agitate, etc.

    I love the bloodline aspect to Birthright, but the blood of the Gods and stored Regency points in my opinion should not be required to use a domain action. Blood and RP should give a leg up. In my above examples, if the party and the peasant were not blooded they would have little chance of becoming more than a minor temporary actor on the domain stage. Even with blood, the party will have a hard time of every toppling a powerful regent. I give the blooded peasant NPC even less chance.

    I hope I have persuaded some of you to vote for no RP cost on domain actions. Other than using d20, this might be the thing I like about the BRCS you've made. Hopefully some other way can be found to encourage people to use RP.


    Thanks,
    Danip (the wanna-be Sea-King)


    No on Prop. RP! It hurts small buisnesses! :lol:

  9. #9
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Danip,

    I see where you are going and understand you concerns.

    In the current Chap 8 there is discussion for how to incorporate the domain system into a setting without bloodlines. This will, of course, be revised after the details for handling domain actions are finally decided on. But the process can be used/adapted by DMs for situations like what you are talking about. So keep that in mind, in case the poll goes agains the way you'd like it.

    That is part of the concept of Chap 8 itself - to provide methods to look at things outside the standard BRCS methods.
    Duane Eggert

  10. #10
    I voted No.

    I think RP should be the scion's 'bonus' over the non-blooded man. With the system set as no RP in the base costs a non blooded character can create/control holdings. I think that works very well, though it would be altering BR somewhat substantially.

    Allow RP to be spent more openly on various domain actions to add success/whatever. This would grant the scion an almost permanent advantage.
    Thread Slaying Specialist.

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