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Thread: Administrate

  1. #1
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    There seems to be some Disigrement between me and my friends on what you can use Administrate for to cut costs. the questions is when you use Administrate to cut your Domain maitence by 25% does that include the payroll for units?
    Hope you guys can settle this for us.

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    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Military units are listed under domain assets and that is where domain maintenace comes from - so I would say yes it can be included in the reduction.
    They should have been included in table 5-4 especially since ships were.

    From the sanctioned Chap 1;

    Reducing domain maintenance: You may use Administrate to cut down the maintenance costs for your domain by 25% (round down). This requires a successful check each domain turn against a DC of 10 + the base maintenance cost in GB. Larger domains are harder to administrate effectively.
    Duane Eggert

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    thats what me and my friends thought, except the one that matters is the DM who disagrees. Does anyone else have any input?

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    I agree with you. But my DM thinks the same way your DM does.
    Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

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    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    Units should absolutely be included as domain assets - they're the most significant expense for landed regents with even minimal armies.

    A simple logic check also shows multiple ways in which being a skilled administrator could reduce the expense of maintaining troops: efficient supply systems, a local pub next to the barracks (which happens to be owned by the regent) , cutting discount deals on mass quantities of weapons, armor, and gear...payroll is only a fraction of unit maintenance costs.

    Your DM is just being a hardass, dude. Tell him to lighten up - it's not like landed regents get so many breaks on income and expenses anyways. In my experience, only wizards struggle more with keeping enough income to stay in the green.

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    Thanks for everyones input I think this changed his mind >

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    Hello, this is the evil DM who thinks Administrate was intended to apply to domain maintenence, not including court costs, unit costs, or regency costs.

    First, here is how I read the rulebook.
    1) The administration skill on page 23 states:
    Reducing domain maintenance: You may use Administrate
    to cut down the maintenance costs for your domain by 25%
    (round down). This requires a successful check each domain
    turn against a DC of 15 + the base maintenance cost in GB.
    Larger domains are harder to administrate effectively.
    2) Domain expenses, listed on page 97 states that there are 4 types of expenses
    Regency expenses
    Domain asset maintenance costs
    Military payroll
    Court costs
    So, administration only applies to maintenance costs.


    For a completely different line of reasoning, we don't have to follow the rulebook at all. Differnet people will always read it different ways, no matter how clear or grey it is. We can do what makes sense. 25% is HUGE when reducing costs, and with only 1 feat at first level a character can be GUARANTEED of making their administration check every season, even if their domain contains the entire world. A basic domain in my campaign has a total upkeep of about 24GBs, and if we apply administration to all costs to include court and military payroll this is 6GBs every season. What that means is every domain that has administration will win and those who do not will lose.

    This is only 1 skill, combined with 1 feat. 1 skill and 1 feat should not be worth 48,000 gold (or more) a year. Especially when they are available to a first level character.

    I understand why players would want this, so they can have larger armies, but I agree with the other DMs, it just doesn't make sense. Regardless of how you interperet the rulebook.

    By the way, thank you everyone for your input on this. Only the player who started this will be penalized in the campaign

  8. #8
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    You know, you should check out the revised BRCS rules on Administrate. I fixed that particular problem you're complaining about, as I also felt that a flat DC for a Master Administrator was grossly unfair.

    Here are the revised rules for Administrate for the 3.5 BRCS:

    1. As I understand it, domain maintenance includes all expenses (assets) subtracted from your gross collections. Thus, the administrate check to save GB includes the expenses of court, armies, ships, buildings, roads, bridges, shipyards, lieutenants, and anything else that is a regular seasonal expense. The only item I wouldn't list here is tribute to another regent - hard to cut corners on that.

    2. The DC to reduce this maintenance by 1/4 is 10 + domain maintenance in GB. So the bigger the assets list, the harder it is to maintain the domain efficiently.

    3. Master Administrator is a feat that now requires 9 ranks in Administrate, thus it is only available to a 6th level PC with dedicated Admin skill.
    A character with this feat makes the seasonal Admin check at DC 10 + 1/2 seasonal maintenance in GB.
    So Master Administrators can manage domains about twice as big as characters without the feat.

    I used these rules throughout my BRCS campaign for the last 2 years, I found they worked pretty well - very large domains/armies still grew beyond the reach of Master Administrators, but small ones were easily managable (efficient).

    Osprey

    PS - I still think you're being a hard-ass, Dunsel.

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    The thing is Osprey, Dunsel is right, at least when looking at the non-revised feat. It was an insanely powerful and broken feat. The definition I use for a broken feat is when no one under any circumstances, accept for role-playing, would either take the feat or not take the feat. Administrate was such a feat.

    The revised feat is much more balanced and I would recomend using it. Unless a regent really buffs up their Administrate score (puting a high stat in Int and using a magic item), even a medium sized realm will have a decent chance of missing their roll, though the benfits will be signaficant when they make it.
    Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

  10. #10
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Dunsel,

    Osprey was correct in what he said (I said pretty much the same thing). The BRCS was intended to go the way of 3.0 (now 3.5) and attempt to streamline as many things as possible.

    For one, there is no longer a roll against income in order for a Law holding to gain any income from other holding types. This was done to simplify the system (that was one area that almost everyone agreed was cumbersome in the 2nd ed system – the amount of bookkeeping necessary has generally been the largest complaint with the 2nd ed system). This also followed the simpler is better general philosophy of 3/3.5.

    For another, taxation is now a straight function of the province itself (i.e., no rolls).

    If you separate out salary (army payroll) then there is essentially very little that is left in the domain maintenance. In 2nd ed the two largest portions were the holdings and the armies. Ships were counted as armies. In the BRCS holdings have gone away from this total, since their maintenance costs have already been absorbed in the amount of income they generate.

    We have not rewritten Chapter 5 yet to make it clearer as to this intent. When it comes up you most definitely have input in how this should work, but for now Domain Maintenance is supposed to include everything that gets paid (except for vassalage) in a season (all assets {troops, ships, structures, etc.}, court costs, etc.) on a routine basis - that is not domain action costs.

    Having gone through all of that – it is your game. Remember rule 0 (you make the rules).

    As long as your player’s know what rules you are using (before springing the rules on them) it is fine.

    Oh and one more thing - it is at least marginally in bad taste to try to publically put your DM to shame and get the masses to tell him he is wrong (whichhe can't be, he is the DM).

    Look at this as a sort of Sage Advice - we are saying what it says and what it meant to say (not always the same thing, especially in a playtest version). What you do with it is up to you.
    Duane Eggert

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