Magician spells

[masterdaorin]

Sorry for the confusion. It's been over 20 years since the first heady days of the BR mailing list that I was a part of and, just coming back, I'm unfamiliar with all the stuff you guys have been doing here since then! By "lost files" I meant the nine chapters available on this site that convert to 3e rules for BR.

In any case, in the chapter that discusses classes, I'm happy with the magician class as it is presented, so far - but I haven't sat down and really attempted to digest the perceived limitedness of the class, as Osprey expressed.

When I do, if I have any suggestions on changing the magician class, I'll come back to this thread and post them, if anyone is interested. I'm attempting right now to collect all the information into one document, and edit it as best I can to fix any errors. I have just finished, last night, before the power went out, the rough draft of my Birthright Campaign Sourcebook.

Glad to see that my Royal College of Sorcery stuff is still around! Thanks, guys! (I had lost that information... although I think I'm going to revamp the CoS in my new campaign)

[Osprey]

Sorry for the confusion. It's been over 20 years since the first heady days of the BR mailing list that I was a part of and, just coming back, I'm unfamiliar with all the stuff you guys have been doing here since then! By "lost files" I meant the nine chapters available on this site that convert to 3e rules for BR.

In any case, in the chapter that discusses classes, I'm happy with the magician class as it is presented, so far - but I haven't sat down and really attempted to digest the perceived limitedness of the class, as Osprey expressed.

When I do, if I have any suggestions on changing the magician class, I'll come back to this thread and post them, if anyone is interested. I'm attempting right now to collect all the information into one document, and edit it as best I can to fix any errors. I have just finished, last night, before the power went out, the rough draft of my Birthright Campaign Sourcebook.

Glad to see that my Royal College of Sorcery stuff is still around! Thanks, guys! (I had lost that information... although I think I'm going to revamp the CoS in my new campaign)

I think proper credit for the 3.0 BRCS goes chiefly to Travis Doom, who was the principle author of that document.

The BRCS 3.5 project used that conversion as the basis for the 3.5 update. As Sorontar mentioned, there was very, very limited contribution or consultation by Rich Baker.

However, I think WOTC (but not Rich Baker) did sanction the BR.net community to make an official 3.5 conversion for the Birthright setting, but did not extend that permission to later D&D versions (4th and 5th ed).

Re. the Magician class, I agree that it works far better as an NPC class than trying to balance it as an equal to other PC core classes.

[masterdaorin]

Ah, that makes sense now. Travis Doom - now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

Thanks for the info!

Just curious: why was it felt that an official 3.5 conversion was needed? Were the nine chapters by Travis missing information?

[masterdaorin]

Re. the Magician class, I agree that it works far better as an NPC class than trying to balance it as an equal to other PC core classes.

Oh, I think it's fine as a PC class, too. I think these specialty spell-casters are meant to be narrowly-defined regarding their spell lists.

The magician makes for a fine counter-balance to the bard, I suppose; sorta of a "non-musical" version of the bard.

I've also always liked the idea of having a lower-powered PC class, as well, so that not every PC is a superhero regarding special powers and abilities.

If it's any consolation to you, Osprey, I like the magician class that is presented in the 3.5e word document (although whether you wrote it as is, or Travis, I'm still not quite clear on now...). Can I ask you any questions regarding the 3.5e word docs that may arise?

[Sorontar]

I believe the history of the conversions is:

Dr Travis Doom wrote his version of a conversion of Birthright for 3ed - see discussions at http://www.birthright.net/forums/dow...?do=file&id=21 , http://www.birthright.net/forums/dow...?do=file&id=67 , http://www.birthright.net/forums/dow...?do=file&id=66

The BR.net community used that as a starting point/inspiration and sought to correct various issues about the 2ed version and created the 9-chapter-long BRCS 3e (with the consent of WotC).

When 3.5e came out, the BR.net community started to amend the BRCS 3e so it could work with 3.5e as BRCS 3.5e, but only completed the first draft of chapters 1-5. For this reason, the BRCS 3.5e chapters are only available as individual chapters, not as a combined document. The BRCS 3e is available as a combined document though.

There are still various editorial and technical errors in the BRCS 3e/3.5e. The version of the BRCS 3e/3.5e that is echoed on the wiki is exactly the same as that released as pdf files (3.5e having preference over 3e). The known errors are listed on the errata wiki page instead. This was a policy decision so there is consistency between the copies of the BRCS 3e/3.5e that are available, which will make corrections easier (if we ever do them).

There is no BR.net conversion for 4e or 5e, though there are links to various attempts by individual members of the community.

The wiki contains information about NPCs, locations and organisations that is based around the BRCS 3e/3.5e but can often easily be reconverted to other systems/versions.

Sorontar

[masterdaorin]

Thanks, Sorontar! That clears things up for me.

If the community is interested, I'm going through the 3.5e chapters and fixing all of the technical/grammatical errors that I can find, and adding some new info to it, and collating it all into one document. I don't have access to 3.5e, so that's why I'm doing a 3e version of 3.5e chapters. I have 5e, but I think I prefer 3e... mostly because I have never played 5e yet, though it looks very similar to its predecessor.

I'm on my final draft. It should be done in a couple of weeks, barring work schedules. However, I'm adding my own stuff to it (minor though they are), so I'm not sure it will be amenable to the communities' rules on converting the BR stuff to later editions (or earlier, I suppose, in this case - LoL) and posting it here.

[Sorontar]

As mentioned on the BRCS:Errata page, some of the corrections are not decided upon due to contradictions. Just because we know there something that needs fixing doesn't always mean we know how to fix it (or haven't come to an agreement yet). The Downloads page has copies of the Word docs that I think relate to the 3.5e BRCS chapters. For the 3e BRCS I think you need to convert the 3e BRCS pdf.

A lot of the Ch 6-9 content isn't that specific to 3e but there are still issues about how warfare etc could be managed better.

IIRC a number of the changes made between 3e and 3.5e were things to character creation like feats and classes, as well as a rebalancing of the bloodline scores. I can't remember whether anything changed related to the Scion and Guilder classes.

Sorontar

[Osprey]

IIRC a number of the changes made between 3e and 3.5e were things to character creation like feats and classes, as well as a rebalancing of the bloodline scores. I can't remember whether anything changed related to the Scion and Guilder classes.

Sorontar

The BRCS Scion classes were all redone for 3.5. A few features were added to each, and some rebalancing was done IIRC.

[masterdaorin]

I'm surprised the Scion classes weren't made into prestige classes...

What was the purpose of giving Magicians Decipher Script and Use Magic Device?

[Osprey]

What was the purpose of giving Magicians Decipher Script and Use Magic Device?

Conceptually - especially in terms of arcane abilities - they were similar to bards, who had those skills, as did rogues.