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  1. #1

    A question of game mechanics.

    The rules for creating a holding state that you need one gold bar and some luck to create a level zero holding.

    Please consider the following scenario. Hapless PC A decides to create a guild holding and become a Guild Master in province B. Province B has one open slot that PC A can expand into. PC A spends a gold bar and manages to create guild holding C a level (0) holding in province B.

    The rules for ruling up a holding state that the cost is regency points equal to the target level of a holding and one gold bar per holding ruled.

    How is PC A to rule a level (0) holding to level (1) when PC A does not receive regency from guild holding C due to it being level (0)?

    Any thoughts?

  2. #2
    There have been 2 ways I've dealt with this as a DM. The first was to offer small amounts of regency as rewards for domain level adventures, ie role playing a rule action. The second way was to allow a PC to sacrifice part of their bloodline for regency. I think I may even have seen numbers such as 1 bloodline strength grants 10 regency for Bloodlines above 20, 5 for those above 10 and 1 for those below 10.

  3. #3
    The original 2nd rule states on page. 59.

    "Ruling a holding or province from a level 0 to level 1 costs 1 GB; no RP's must be spent."

  4. #4
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    A question of game mechanics. [9#28176]

    >
    > The rules for ruling up a holding state that the cost is regency points
    > equal to the target level of a holding and one gold bar per holding ruled.
    >
    > How is PC A to rule a level (0) holding to level (1) when PC A does not
    > receive regency from guild holding C due to it being level (0)?
    >

    Two house rules, either of which enable this:

    1 - reverse bloodline growth; normally a character can spend RPs to
    increase their bloodline. Allow a PC to decrease their bloodline to gain RPs

    2 - instead of requiring RPs to rule a holding, just have a higher target
    number for the check, and allow RPs to be spent to decrease the target
    number. Mechanically equivalent if you have RPs, but handles the
    exceptional case that you described above.

    #2 is from the 3e rules which float around here, and it`s one of the best
    rule improvements from the original rules.

    --
    Daniel McSorley

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Muaadeeb View Post
    The original 2nd rule states on page. 59.

    "Ruling a holding or province from a level 0 to level 1 costs 1 GB; no RP's must be spent."
    Must have missed that part. Thanks. It's been bugging me lately.
    Heh, I just looked at page 59. It's under the paragraph describing ruling a province up. No wonder I missed it.

  6. #6
    Thanks for the house rule answers.

    I don't do anything past 2nd edition though so I have no idea how they changed it for 3rd and 4th and what-have-you.

  7. #7
    Glad I could help.

  8. #8
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    There are several 3E conversions. As BR.net was an official site at the time it had to do a conversion to the current edition, which led to the BRCS (and sadly much bitterness). The BRCS can be found on the wiki or in the BRCS forum (the third sticky thread has the latest versions of the chapters).

    Dang, I'd have sworn that burning bloodline was official! Other solutions:

    1. Adventure reward, in King of the Giant Downs one adventure reward was a book that provided RP's and RP are an obvious adventure reward - particularly amongst the Vos where influence and personal heroism are inextricably linked.

    2. Gift / sponsorship from another regent. Gloves of Regency (?) allowed a regent to provide RP to a looey, a regent could also pay the RP on behalf of the would-be regent.

    3. Gift of the holding. The would-be regent could be invested directly with a L1 or better holding - this could be due to marriage, inheritance, reward for service, extorted, etc.

    4. Great Captain event. Normally seen as a way of cutting down would-be sun-kings there is no reason why the same rules can't be applied to a PC would-be regent who would then receive holdings in exchange for being the "man of the people" - albeit at a heavy cost.

    In practice I'd expect it to be very rare for someone to raise themselves from non-regent to regent without help. It is possible as noted above, and in non-game mechanics inevitable as a 'just below the radar' holding grew to be 'L0' and so on, but competition is tough, and once at holding level people are abruptly "on the radar" of many people - even at L0 holding.
    Last edited by AndrewTall; 08-15-2012 at 10:58 PM.

  9. #9
    Very true...but some people would be wondering "who" just built that level zero holding. In the BR PBEM world you can just look at the holdings page and "see" -- "Oh, it is Bob the commoner..."

    But if we add more realisms into the game - they probably would want to be cautious. For example, I imagine anyone wanting a stake in Endier would spend several espionage-styled actions to hide their foot prints as much as possible...

    It is possible for a no-body to get a foothold - but in most scenarios the current power structure will dismantle them.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Muaadeeb View Post
    Very true...but some people would be wondering "who" just built that level zero holding. In the BR PBEM world you can just look at the holdings page and "see" -- "Oh, it is Bob the commoner..."

    But if we add more realisms into the game - they probably would want to be cautious. For example, I imagine anyone wanting a stake in Endier would spend several espionage-styled actions to hide their foot prints as much as possible...

    It is possible for a no-body to get a foothold - but in most scenarios the current power structure will dismantle them.
    I would say that the current power structure has a vested interest in preventing new regents from springing up. A finite pie can only be divided so many times before its not worth the bother.

    Not to mention all an opposing regent needs is one level (0) holding to contest your holding and a friendly priest to pull an investiture to take the holding you had over.

    Which brings up another question, if you do contest a holding, and then invest it, does the holding remain contested or does it drop? I suspect it would drop because you could always stop contesting it once you own it, but what about holdovers who remain loyal to the former controller? I am sure they would try to keep things in an uproar in hopes that the former controller regains the holding.

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