Birthright and a game of thrones

[Fizz]

“Bloodlines and blood abilities mean more than power to the Cerilian scion. They imbue each blooded character with distinction—a sign that proclaims to the world that this person is destined to do something. For good or evil, better or worse, a scion links himself to the land the day he inherits a bloodline. His actions will affect the world.”

There's something fishy about this. If read literally it means that any scion wandering the land would be instantly recognized as such. I don't think that was the intent. As for affecting the world, that may be true of a regent, but most scions won't ever have a single domain. So then how are they tied to the land?

I understand the mystique that may surround a known scion, particularly one who is a regent. But i'm not convinced that every scion is going to exude this aura of i'm better than you- respect me!. Heh.

-Fizz

[Osprey]

I've always assumed it's the scions with Bloodmark, Divine Aura, and Charm Aura who really stand out among common men (hence the Cha-skill bonuses). They're some of my favorite blood abilities for the flavor they bring into the game, though Divine Aura is quite the "quell the mob" power that can render whole units inert.

[irdeggman]

There's something fishy about this. If read literally it means that any scion wandering the land would be instantly recognized as such. I don't think that was the intent. As for affecting the world, that may be true of a regent, but most scions won't ever have a single domain. So then how are they tied to the land?

IMO, because they may be tied to the land and only scions can be so. . .

I understand the mystique that may surround a known scion, particularly one who is a regent. But i'm not convinced that every scion is going to exude this aura of i'm better than you- respect me!. Heh.

-Fizz

Could be.

But there should be something about them since even tainted bloodlines have a trace of divinity to them.

Just because they "seem" different to the peasant, it doesn't mean that the peasant knows why they are different only that there is something about them that exudes some type of "power" and the potential for "authority".

[irdeggman]

I've always assumed it's the scions with Bloodmark, Divine Aura, and Charm Aura who really stand out among common men (hence the Cha-skill bonuses). They're some of my favorite blood abilities for the flavor they bring into the game, though Divine Aura is quite the "quell the mob" power that can render whole units inert.

Those are the ones that demonstrate/epitomize the greatest effect - except maybe Divine Wrath.

[ausrick]

From a Dm's perspective, If a player is a Scion (and not the realm's ruler) and he is a level 9 wizard. People will fear him, as they should. Commoners will not want to cross him. Even a highly skilled veteran soldier would show him deference. Now, if this PC decided he didn't like the mayor of a town, who happens to be a level 3 aristicrat, so he uses fireballs to burn his house to the ground and kill his family. Peasants will flee, I would flee too. But I would hope there would be some cops/guards near by in my campaign. Witnesses to report the happening to further away places, political reprocussions, and I would dang hope to have somebody that would be of the right station and power level to deal with the situation. I guess the point is that No matter how high a level a character is, or how divine their bloodline is, or how much magic they can wield, you game has to be able to remind players that Cerillia isn't their personal romper room without consequences.

Question is right in his idea that normally flight takes precedense over fight in non-trained combatants, especially at the sight of carnage. Irdeggman has a point about scions possibly having a commanding presence by their tie to the land, whether this is just flavor or mechanical. When you meet a king usually you find yourself bowing and you don't even know why, I can see that happening/heard of it happening. All that said, plenty of Commoners have gotten ticked at their king enough to do him in if he is totally inept, tyrannical, and worthless. The Knight vrs peasants was originally from an article about dming styles, and I think it was based on a peasant uprising and responsive quelling attempt as opposed to a stroll into town slaughter fest.

Balance, or more like checks and balances, are all the things that a DM needs to take into account in the mechanics they use, and when they change something they need to think about implications. Some DM's feel that town guards and constabulary should never really be above level 1 warriors(Old skool level 0). If this DM has evil PC's and gives out experience to his players, he had better have some sort of contingency ready or he may have an urban bloodbath on his hands

The Issue of magic and aGoT's, the Down and Dirty Rules, and some other game system modifications really bear the same issue in mind. If you use the standard rules except make better than mundane equipment ultra rare, it will shift emphasis to skills, feats, and levels. If you eliminate entire schools of magic without changing anything else, it will make spell casters weaker and thus melee characters stronger. If you reduce hitpoints it will make your game more leathal. If you don't adjust spell damage for reduced hitpoints, it will gave evokers WoMD.

We need to help Lundos2 with some suggestions on how to achieve that balance, especially with a Low HP setting. My first thought, like Fizz and Osprey, would be to adjust the damage down or use a non-level based system. The other school of thought, about limiting access to spells to solve the problem. . . I see how it could work, but it could be a slippery and dangerous slope just because of the unforseen consequences of eliminating an aspect of the game totally. I see this one as taking the most work to maintain balance. Others have suggested Societal constraints (i.e. the wizard could level the whole block, but the re-precussions would be so bad that he wouldn't), these could work only if the mechanics could back it up.

balance and reality don't always mesh the best is what I'm finding out the more I tweak with games. Because when you think about it, yeah, realistically HP woudln't increase that much and combat is dangerous at all levels. At the same time massive Explosions with a 40' radius and bolts of lightning will jack anybody up. Mix them together and do you have a balanced gaming system though?

A fun thought, is in the D20 Ravenloft books, they have a chapter on DM tactics to put the fear of death back in your PC's. Ravenloft is a "low" magic setting. (Items are more expensive, rare, and normal people just don't see magic that often, not saying that powerful magics do not exist.) They have a lot of sidebars and DM recommendations on how to create this feel. I will look up some of those time permitting and share the ideas here.

[irdeggman]

You could also just start applying SR to all creatures and characters.

This would have the result of reducing the effect of spells and spell-like abilities and still keep the "normal" fighting intact.

If the cost of creating magic items is increased (i.e., the market price) this increases the material costs and the exp costs for creating magic items which reduces the amount of them in a game - but will yield greater income from creating them since the sale price goes up (i.e., higher profit). The increased exp cost will keep down the level of spellcasters since it will slow their progression accordingly.
What this does however is to make spellcastering classes less desireable to players. Giving them an bonus feat (at first level) and sn skill point per level would probably help to mitigate this while not making things overpowering. Also helps to shift things towards a more skill based game too.

[Patrucio]

Rather than trying to adapt the AGoT rules to Cerelia, you COULD try addapting the Birthright rules to Westeros. That's what I've been working on, and I've found it much easier to take things that direction than the other.

[Morcar]

Hello!

I have generally a problem with the "power-level" of D&D 3.0/3.5. I think such spells as Fly, Fireball and Teleport can destroy the sense of wonder in a low-magic campaign because they are early available in the game-rules.
I use a modification of the npc-classes as starting classes for players and make the coreclasses to prestigeclasses (with restrictions which have to fulfil). The npc-classes and the "new" prestige-classes have their own spell progression. In result the characters have more low-level spells and gain the high-level spells later in game.
Common adult people have usually in my campaigns a level of 3 to make them a little bit harder.
If someone interested in this variant he can buy a very good e-book from d20 Emerald Press called "Character Options: Commoners" which introduces modified npc-classes for players.
Avaivable for 5$ at: http://www.rpgnow.com/

P.S. Sorry for grammatical mistakes, I`m no native speaker (and was lazy in school )

[Lundos2]

First of all I'd like to thank everybody who wrote on this thread so far.

To clear something up: when I mean low magic, I didn't mean that high magic doesn't exist, but that magical items and powerful magic are extremely rare. I like Fizz' 'rare-magic' line. In birthright it is recommended that every magic item has a background story and a special reason to be created e.g 7 rings of protection +1 created/given to 7 dwarven brothers out to avenge the murder of their father etc.
Potions and scrolls are of course more commen. A lot of churches makes some items at least.

I like several of the ideas about magic. Encouraging players to specialize is a good idea. You might even make it specialized like the warrens in Steven Eriksons books. The increase in spell components prizes will at least make some problems to non-regent spellcasters. I thought about a slower spell progression too. Or you might make armours damage reduction (DR) work against spells. If a firebell eg gave 10d4 (average 25) and DR (chain mail 5) would make the total damage of 7 (or 20 if he failed the save), while an average 10th level man-at-arms have around 47. Is that too powerful? I mean a normal 10d6 fireball isn't a problem at all for a standard 10th level fighter.
For clerics you can reduce healing by removing the instant cure ability.

[ausrick]

I feel you. usually low hp or "low" magic rulesets are designed to add a little more realism into the campaign. and realistically a magical ball of fire would ruin the day of any adventurer, but unless you are going for a high PC body count something needs to give.

I just this week picked up the "Masque of the Red Death" book for the d20 Ravenloft campaign setting from Sword and Sorcery. Since it is designed to take place in the 1890's victorian era, they have modified the rules to better capture that kind of feel. I am by no means done reading it but so far it seems to have done a good job. Though not necessarily a parallel to BR, in MotRD, Strong magic exists, but in an enlightened, civilized society, it is hidden and kept secret. Magic is a dangerous force, and it can have dire consequences for people who delve too far into forbidden lore. They have some system of checks that you need to make when you cast a spell to see if it works how it is intended. Again, I'm not done reading it but it sounds interesting. They also echo the idea of the rarity (not lack of power) of magic items. And say that as the DM you should never place random magic items in a MotRD campaign. They say, echoing the BR idea, that every magic item was created for a specific reason, and probably has a name and a history. I'll have to keep reading but I'm sure they do some alteration to the spells that are available because I know things like fly and fireball would have similar negative effects to the story in 1890's London just the same as they would in 560's MR Anuire.