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  1. #1
    Olesens
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    Regency/holding/souces question

    Soviet wrote:

    > Okay I have some questions about the regency system...
    > 1) Is the regent the only one who take regency: In my gaming group there is a
    > F5(regent) a F3/T3 and a F3/M3..well The mage wants to become court wizard but
    > how does he gain control on the sources? and what if they are aready controlled
    > by another mage from a neigborhood domain?

    Yes, only those people with holdings/provinces will collect regency. If your mage
    wants to be court mage and control the realm's sources (a court mage doesn't have
    to be the owner of the realm's sources, that is just how it is most commonly used)
    he has several options as follows:
    - -Act as a lieutenant of the regent and help the regent create some sources in the
    realm. Then use investure to transfer the ownership of the sources to th mage PC.
    - -Have the mage PC do "Create Holding" which costs only gold. From there he can
    rule it to level (1) then start collecting RPs. Then he's got to oust the other
    mage and take over with contests
    - -Get the fighter regent to have a friendly regent priest divest (investing holdings
    away from someone without that person's consent, althought it is just like
    investure) the other wizard's sources and hand thier control to the PC mage.

    Hope that helps. I'd also suggest using the 10 - target level +/- RP = success
    chance for all Rule actions. Also, do not let your players skirt the Diplomacy
    action. If the fighter wants to make some sort of agreement on trade routes with
    the local guilder, then make him use a diplomacy action, not just standard [snail
    mail] letters.

    >
    > 2)The thief character wants to start taking control of the guilds, is this a
    > simple contesting action vs the holdings? if he is suscesful does he gets
    > regency points for them?

    The thief just can't up and contest the guilds. Only people who control holdings
    in province X may contest other people's holdings. Contest also costs RPs, things
    a holding-less PC doesn't have. Contest will disable or destroy holdings, not
    transfer them intact. If the thief wants to take over the guilds without damaging
    them, he's going to have to get the friendly neighborhood priest to do the
    Investure spell for him. But keep in mind, nothing is for free and not all
    neighborhood priests are going to do the spell for just a bit of shiny metal. If
    the priest does the spell for your PC, the PC will owe the priest a lot. And when
    the priest is going to get thrown out of the neighboring realm because he contested
    the king's law holdings, guess who Mr. Priest is going to come running to for help?

    >
    > 3) can a non regent wizard cast realm spells?

    No. Period. However a regent with source holdings could let the non-regent wizard
    borrow the source for the month it takes him to cast the spell. Assuming, of
    course, that the non-regent wizard had learned a realm spell from somewhere. And
    if you want to be difficult, think of how many pages of a Wizard's Spellbook a
    realm spell would take up? At 50gp a page, that can get expensive.

    >
    >
    > 4) this is way out of topic: but has anyone considered how powerful a Vampire
    > will be upon the world of Cerilia(he does feed on blood)?

    There is an awnsheglien called the Vampire in Brechtur but he didn't just make up
    his name so there are definetly more Vampires about. However Cerilia is a
    low-magic world so there aren't many Vamps. But for bloodtheft to occur it has to
    be a strike through the heart so they wouldn't be THAT more powerful. Unless the
    DM want them too be...

    A little note on the low-magic ness of BR, you have to be consistant if you want it
    to stay that way. Don't give out many magical items, maybe a Sword +1 at 4th
    level. Also remember that most items are custom made. A plain sword +1 will be
    VERY rare. If a wizard is going to take the time to create a magical item, he will
    put some extra little spell on it. Maybe a Sword +1 that can Detect Magic once per
    day. Make each item unique. Also, make the enemies "normal." Fill your stories
    not with Displacer Beasts and Elemental kin, but with regular humans, demi-, and
    - -oids. If I put something more fantastic in, I try to make it an awnsheglien or
    something in the service of a greater (demi)human(oid), even if the master is an
    awnsheglien. I'm just speaking from my exprince with trying to keep my BR
    campaigns of a low-magic feel (limited exprince compared to others on the list).

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  2. #2
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    Regency/holding/souces question

    Soviet wrote:

    > 1) Is the regent the only one who take regency: In my gaming group there is a
    > F5(regent) a F3/T3 and a F3/M3..well The mage wants to become court wizard but
    > how does he gain control on the sources? and what if they are aready controlled
    > by another mage from a neigborhood domain?

    Well, the only person who collects regency is the one who controls the provinces
    and/or holdings (and he must be of the appropriate class.) A court wizard can't
    cast realm spells unless he can get control of a source AND has regency points to
    spend. I suppose it is debatable whether a non-wizard regent who held sources
    could spend a month working with his court wizard (a LT?) and pump RP into the
    spellcasting efforts of his non-source holding buddy.... If you were going to
    allow such a thing I think you'd have to require that both characters dedicate all
    their efforts to it. (That is, no other domain actions that month.)

    > 2)The thief character wants to start taking control of the guilds, is this a
    > simple contesting action vs the holdings? if he is suscesful does he gets
    > regency points for them?

    Well, not exactly. If he want's to snag control of the guilds out from under the
    current regent he's going to have to either get him to relinquish control somehow.
    The only other way I can think of is that he can start up his own Guild(0) which
    requires no RP and then contest the current guy's guilds. Note that it requires
    two successful Contest actions to destroy a holding of any size larger than
    Guild(0) and that only one Contest is required to nix a 0 level holding. You can,
    however, Rule a holding up to (1) without spending any RP to do so, which is good
    because you don't earn any RP until you get your holding up to level (1) anyway.

    Unless he can get the current guilder to give up the holdings he has built up, that
    means your wannabe guilder will have to Create Holding -- Guild(0), Contest the
    other guild(s) twice to destroy them and then Rule up his Guild(0) to replace those
    destroyed. Understandably, very few regents just hand over their holdings without
    a very good reason.

    > 3) can a non regent wizard cast realm spells?

    This is debatable. Personally, I think it might be possible as I noted above, but
    I'm sure plenty of people would argue this point. I base my opinion on the
    Tuarhieval sourcebook which has a non-wizard controlling source holdings. She
    apparently "lends out" these sources from time to time to wizards within her realm,
    but gives no gaming information on how this is accomplished, which leaves us a bit
    high and dry, eh?

    It also begs another question. IF it is possible for a non-regent wizard to cast a
    realm spell as I decribed above (that's a big IF) could a non-blooded elf mage cast
    one in the same manner? I mean, an elf isn't required to have a bloodline in order
    to cast "true" magic. Why not cast a realm spell if he can borrow both a source
    and RPs?

    > 4) this is way out of topic: but has anyone considered how powerful a Vampire
    > will be upon the world of Cerilia(he does feed on blood)?

    I don't think this is off topic at all, but I've been pretty bad about going off
    topic in the past, so mine might not be the best opinion about such things. :-)

    A vampire might, indeed, be a real pain in the neck on Cerilia. As someone else
    pointed out (Memnock?) there is already a Vampire awnsheghlien. IIRC, he gets the
    benefits of having committed bloodtheft when he "drains" a victim, which makes him
    pretty formidable. I don't think there are traditional AD&D vampires on Cerilia,
    though, are there? At least, I've never even thought about introducing one,
    personally. I don't like the level draining abilities of undead, so I don't use
    them much...

    Laters,
    Gary

    - --

    The lesson of the 20th Century is this: Only the paranoid survive.

    - --

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  3. #3
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    Regency/holding/souces question

    >

    I find that the Baldur's Gate computer game did a great job at making
    magical items unique. Like, each item there has a little story attached
    to it. If you find a Ring Of Protection +1, it's not just any Ring Of
    Protection +1. Each and every item you find has its own unique history.
    This would be especially nice to do for your Birthright campaign, since
    with the low number of wizards around and all, the making of a magical
    item is special event indeed, done only on special occasions. That Ring
    Of Protection, for example, might have been one of a pair of two
    rings forged in ancient times by the finest silversmith of Baruk-Azhik and
    enchanted by the highest wizard in the Sielwode to be worn by the regents
    of those respective realms to seal a treaty they just made...
    Plus, in Baldur's Gate there's stuff around like the Helm Of Infravision
    that also wards off critical hit effects - not all that powerful, but very
    interesting indeed. Think twice before you just give out one of those
    standard magical items - Cerilia is very unlikely to have standard magical
    items. An item gets standardized when it's been produced lots of times
    already, but that's very unlikely to happen with anything but potions in
    Cerilia, again because there just aren't that many wizards around. More
    often than not, an item should have some little "quirk" related to the
    events that led to its creation. Perhaps the Ring mentioned above was
    fabricated to seal a treaty the two regents signed to ward off the
    encroaching goblins - perhaps it turns a vile green each time a goblin
    comes near it or maybe it will do 1d4 points of damage when it touches a
    goblin. Be sure though, not to let those quirks make magic items too
    powerful. I think that the Helm Of Infravision mentioned above makes for
    a fine example - you don't want to make em more powerful than that...
    And finally, you might want to consider giving items charges that in the
    DMG are permanent. A Ring Of Invisibility, for example, might work only 9
    times, and then crumble to dust...

    Be creative...

    - the Falcon
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