New File Added: Custom Rules Version for Birthright

[Fizz]

The trojan you refer to is because you have clicked on some other link than the book probably, the pdf file I have uploaded is secure.

I don't know. It had the right name- "birthright-rulebook" etc, but was an .exe that AdAware did not care for at all.

-Fizz

[ebatalis]

This is probably a typo out of us to be replaced, the commoner class, replaces all type of named classes as, nobles, guildiers, bards and classes that do not fall under the general class rules for other classes. i.e Warriors, Wizards, Clerics. Thanks for the fill in, I will check out and correct the typos.

PS. We have already proceeded and corrected several errors and typos on the book, mostly with the help of players. Thus a great thanks to all of you.

[Thelandrin]

You're going to roll all the rogue classes, including nobles, into a commoner class? I really don't agree.

[ebatalis]

You're going to roll all the rogue classes, including nobles, into a commoner class? I really don't agree.

No, we are not rolling out the rogue class. The rogue is staying but he gets the attention needed to be a full grown and playable class, although we deem the BARD class incoherent and non usefull for player character and our departement of Rulebook creation is on fire working on the Guitar hero campaign book for the wanna be Curt Cobains of RPG.
Bard-Trader-Noble etc are merely proffesion intergrated in the commoner class which is used mainly to promote players who dont really want to be all the rest and just cant interpret the above into any class, this is our point.

[AndrewTall]

No, we are not rolling out the rogue class. The rogue is staying but he gets the attention needed to be a full grown and playable class, although we deem the BARD class incoherent and non usefull for player character and our departement of Rulebook creation is on fire working on the Guitar hero campaign book for the wanna be Curt Cobains of RPG.
Bard-Trader-Noble etc are merely proffesion intergrated in the commoner class which is used mainly to promote players who dont really want to be all the rest and just cant interpret the above into any class, this is our point.

Why does bard have to be a guitar-hero? A Bard (class) character doesn't have to be even remotely a bard by career - although traditionally viewed as the musician the skills and powers work for any career where leadership and reasonable skills with magic rather than martial orientation - swap "plays a musical instrument" for "gives stirring speeches and has keen wit" and you've got "perfect khinasi noble" in one step for example.

I note that the rogue's massive skill set means that the moment you move away from hack 'n' slash the rogue starts mopping the floor with other classes, in a world of diplomacy and intrigue type game skills become far more important than BAB.

[Sorontar]

Why does bard have to be a guitar-hero? A Bard (class) character doesn't have to be even remotely a bard by career - although traditionally viewed as the musician the skills and powers work for any career where leadership and reasonable skills with magic rather than martial orientation - swap "plays a musical instrument" for "gives stirring speeches and has keen wit" and you've got "perfect khinasi noble" in one step for example.

I agree. Poets, speechmakers, historians, journalists, heralds can all be categorised as a type of bard. They are people with a message to send or record, whether it be through speech, song, pen or music.

Though we were being silly when we created him, have a look at the Hammer. He is bard but all he plays is other people's property!

Sorontar

[ebatalis]

This can be a long thread to discuss about and do trust me No-one I have experiences as a player can play the Bard as you mention. Most people are leftovers of some guitar rock star who believe the bard to be some sort of musician and some sort of con man.
I will agree that the class as created is sily, but I will double that when someone wants to play something like that in our system rule he does not have to have the curtain of the bard upon him. Since our rule system is based on skills and not feats, I can safely assure you that the rogue is not moping floors, at any time and personality plays a major role in the groups. I cant make you see what I see in my gaming tables and let you understand the mood of the people but I can safely tell you that we are already over the gap of classes and how useful they can be when we ebraced the fact that Role playing is out of the box of the rules.

Our team of creators in the majority finds the social approach to the skills of the D&D game silly and we think that it needs a major breakthrough and some sort of player mentality to understand how to play a social skill. Since "intimidate" and "bluff" cant be trained and diplomacy is a lot more than talking with glibness. Do feel free to throw out ideas at us for the use and the role of social skills that dont involve "rolls" that go over situtations, cause that does not work. If you pay some time to read our companion rule set you will see what we are trying to build and make, and thus far it works, for us at least. Thank you for posting your opinions, and I am very sorry we cant speak in real for this so we can skip the misunderstanding ((maybe)) of the written words.

[AndrewTall]

Since our rule system is based on skills and not feats, I can safely assure you that the rogue is not moping floors, at any time and personality plays a major role in the groups.

mopping not moping!

moping: feeling blue and generally slouching around and under-performing.

mopping the floor with: beating your opponent easily - a similar metaphor to "cleaning the room of mooks" but alluding to the way in which a mop is used to clean a floor.

While some people are innately better or worse at social skills, there is considerable ability to train them - although sometimes with negative results of course. Military training, some elements of business training, much psychology, etc all teach techniques, understanding, etc to give people skills at intimidation, question, charming, empathising, etc - like any skill some people respond better to training than others, but talent multiplied by skill is far more effective than talent in the raw.

[Fizz]

I agree with Thelandrin, AndrewTall, and Sorontar. I think removing the bard class is a bad idea. The bard in 2nd Ed i always felt was a decent class- a jack of all trades with potential at a lot of things. I've had players play bards and they were not "guitar hero" types at all. They fit quite well into Birthright, and not having them would be a detriment.

Also, if your system is skills-centric, then the addition of the guilder class makes sense. Guilders were designed to leverage skills (non-weapon proficiencies in 2nd Ed).

Remember that skills-rolls are meant to determine whether a character is successful, not to replace roleplaying. There should be some actual interaction involved. That is, the player should not just say "i try to convince the guard". Rather, the actual conversation should be played out. And then a roll to determine success. In this way, i've found no deficiencies with such skills.

And social skills are certainly things that people can learn. So i don't understand the desire to remove them.

Really, it's not any different than combat. I don't have to be a good fighter myself in order to play one. I describe my actions, and the dice determine success. No reason that can't work for any task, including social skills.

-Fizz

[ebatalis]

I agree with Thelandrin, AndrewTall, and Sorontar. I think removing the bard class is a bad idea. The bard in 2nd Ed i always felt was a decent class- a jack of all trades with potential at a lot of things. I've had players play bards and they were not "guitar hero" types at all. They fit quite well into Birthright, and not having them would be a detriment.

Also, if your system is skills-centric, then the addition of the guilder class makes sense. Guilders were designed to leverage skills (non-weapon proficiencies in 2nd Ed).

Remember that skills-rolls are meant to determine whether a character is successful, not to replace roleplaying. There should be some actual interaction involved. That is, the player should not just say "i try to convince the guard". Rather, the actual conversation should be played out. And then a roll to determine success. In this way, i've found no deficiencies with such skills.

And social skills are certainly things that people can learn. So i don't understand the desire to remove them.

Really, it's not any different than combat. I don't have to be a good fighter myself in order to play one. I describe my actions, and the dice determine success. No reason that can't work for any task, including social skills.

-Fizz

We saw fit that the general class of the Commoner as we labeled it can be named as bard-guildier-noble etc and by that I mean anything not fittin in the more specific classes of the system ie. wizard-cleric-rogue-warrior, I can not say that a noble cant be a warrior for instance but what if a noble does not want to be a warrior, then the commoner class fits in for him and by adding skills and abilities that will complement such a class its viable in the game. The bard class tried to play an all around type of character often choosen by players in order to meta game or abuse the rules, not to mention the vomiting outcome it could take in the 3rd edition games. The guildier on the other hand made us feel itself was not complete nor it had anything to offer to a player, advancing in skills and abilities in a class like the commoner withing the skeptic of beeing a guildier is true for us, cause skills make the guildier and the noble not stats and powerfull class abilities.

The social skill system is tottaly different than the combat system, the main reason is one and only one, the first can and must be roleplayed where the second it stands atop solid rules. Thus we cannot compare them and I feel that they are tottaly different things. Then the so called social skills are producing a laughable result in the case of training, imagine a warrior trying to improve in time an intimidate "social" skill, or what makes a basis for a "bluff" skill in order to train upon. We find out that skills must have a thesis upon which they must be worked around and the social skills have none. Thus we have come upon the fact that social skills can be roleplayed by anyone because what determines who can intimidate and who cannot and be rolled against a PC or NPCs Wis/Intuition score that determines also the perception of a character. That is most of the circumstances on the DMs point of view but that is what his role is, to be a solid arbiter of the game in which he participates.