In an action such as Rule, any regent with a similar holding in the province
or the province ruler can support or oppose the Rule attempt by subtracting
or adding, respectively, his holding or province level to the action success
roll. My players have argued that if a regent is ruling up, say, a guild
level 3 to a level 4, then that regent should be able to use his existing
level 3 guild as a positive modifier to his action roll. I ruled against
this, stating that only other regents could affect the roll in that way; the
Ruling (as in the domain action) regent could not use his current holding or
province level to affect the roll. Even though I understand my players'
reasoning for believing a regent should be able to use his current
holding/province level as a positive modifier, I disallowed it because I feel
it makes it too easy for the character to Rule up and is a loophole to save
RP. IMO, just being able to rule up in the first place is indicative enough
of the regent's influence in the province without the added benefit of a
freebie and automatic positive modifier.
How do some of you other DMs out there rule on this?