Realm Point Build System

[Mantyluoto]

I like the idea of being able to totally design a realm, except for shape and size of it, and whilst i've always known it was there i've not looked to heavily at the rules.

Plus i think that giving your players free rein is a good thing. and is deffinately something i'm going to look into.

Let us know if you intend to run a game and what system you'll use. i'm interested.

[Sarelth]

Well, I like having a pre-made map myself. That way you do not get some to much in the way of randomness in a game with this type of realm creation. Less Chaotic that way.

Well I might be able to run a game, but I tend to be way to distracted for something like that. I would not want to start a game only to not even get a turn done...

[kgauck]

Consider how easy it is to rule up a province. While strategies will vary between players, constructing a balance between a large realm that can be cheaply ruled up, and one that is so high in level that its a strong, defensible base will produce variation. Most realms have a strong point and are surrounded by more empty provinces. A city and its hinterland.

If you are able to rule provinces up, there will always be an incentive to keep a few low level provinces available for future development. A single mighty province makes internal development harder, and only expansion is attractive in many situations.

[AndrewTall]

To prevent the 'tower province' strategy - which may sound good to the player but would soon prove a) stifling and b) boring you could increase the cost of holdings as they increase in size.

i.e. a L1-2 province is undeveloped (2/3 cost), a L3-4 is developed, a L5-6 is urban (+1/2 cost) for example. That would encourage a number of small provinces with only a few larger provinces with most of 'average' level.

I would beef up the base cost of a province, and chuck in 1/2 the law free - that way 1/2 the law (round alternatively up and down from province to province) is seen as normal, and neophyte players are less likely to automatically 'max out' or forget the law, having very low law will be clearly seen as a disadvantage since the system gives bonus points for having low law.

A veteran player would know that law holdings are important - a newbie might assume that as 'king' they 'have rights' and see any law holdings as simply extra cost. Since a lot of domain play focuses around regents asking for support from the law holder a PC who buys just the base province would miss out on a lot.

[irdeggman]

I think by mixing in PC building with domain building you have made the system "clunky".

What I mean is that it might be better to have the player build his PC normally then use his blood score value as the basis for how many points he has to build his domain. (similar to the 2nd ed system)

I would not give any variant costs based on class, because in 3.5 RP collection is not based on class but rather on skills (it is just easier for some classes to get better skill ranks than it is for others).

I would also follow some sort of escalating cost for holding/province levels to slow down the highest level holding/province syndrome.

Something like the cost to raise your bloodline score (present score plus 1) that way it gets expensive to focus too much. {Similar to the point buy method of ability score generation}

[Exile]

To me, it looks as if that system was based on what I remember of the existing one contained in the original rulebook.

On a skim-through of it, I think that it could work quite well, and I'd be interested in seeing what people came up with when designing a network of domains.

I suspect that the major problems would come from fitting in non-landed domains to the mix - that'd almost certainly require some GM intervention to try to have things make some degree of sense. That said, the 3.5 revision of the rules removes the link between province size and non-landed income, which makes it easier to fit guilds and temples into a map.