Blackguards

[kgauck]

If we stick with 2e thinking, all whatever are a subclass of one of the four archtypes, so warlocks, battlemages, and eldritch knights would all be subclasses of wizard, so its certainly possible to just go from there regarding who can use sources.

[irdeggman]

Well than the majority than agrees that Blackguards not only could be in Birthright but perhaps should and we agree that Paladins and thus Blackguards should have the ability to cast realm spells provided they meet the other requirements. Even if we don’t agree on the definition of a Blackguard and to who they associate with we agree on the above two points.

The BRCS already has that in it, they just sort of "suck" at it.

Blooded rangers, paladins, and other minor divine spell casters are capable of casting divine realm spells, but due to the spell level requirements, many realm spells are beyond them.

[AndrewTall]

I personally dislike the idea of 'paladin' spells as opposed to 'priest' spells - paladins have slightly fewer spheres and spells than a full blown priest but the source of the magic is identical.

If you move to 3e and replace the paladin spell list with '+1 spellcasting level' every few levels to simply stack with any priest levels taken then it makes more sense - in 3e a paladin is really just a fighter/cleric with a few spellcasting levels converted to granted powers.

I'd allow any blooded spellcaster to cast realm spells - but would consider restricted the more powerful spells to those with 2-3 levels of scion, or the more powerful bloodlines.

[Beruin]

So far, I've stuck to the opposite view - realm magic is so advanced magic that only major spellcasters, i.e. wizards and priests, should be able to wield it.

However, given that in 3E multi-classing is soo easy, this might not be a perfect solution any more.
This problem hasn't arisen IMC yet, and probably won't any time soon, as the Paladin PC is more likely to rule law holdings and provinces (Tuornen to be specific), but I guess I''ll stick to this ruling and caster level requirements might help to make a one level dip into the cleric class not that attractive - apart from the fact that I'd require a in-game reason for this.

[Sinister]

I personally dislike the idea of 'paladin' spells as opposed to 'priest' spells - paladins have slightly fewer spheres and spells than a full blown priest but the source of the magic is identical.

If you move to 3e and replace the paladin spell list with '+1 spellcasting level' every few levels to simply stack with any priest levels taken then it makes more sense - in 3e a paladin is really just a fighter/cleric with a few spellcasting levels converted to granted powers.

I'd allow any blooded spellcaster to cast realm spells - but would consider restricted the more powerful spells to those with 2-3 levels of scion, or the more powerful bloodlines.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Paladins have a rigid code and have their own spells, which while they overlap some with cleric spells still many are just paladin only.

I did have a question about scion levels. The wiki only has 2 levels but I've seen in many places people talking about more than 2 scion levels. Am I missing something?

[irdeggman]

I did have a question about scion levels. The wiki only has 2 levels but I've seen in many places people talking about more than 2 scion levels. Am I missing something?

There are "officially" only 2 levels.

Level 1 for major bloodlines

Level 2 for great

When we were talking about trying to find a way to stndardize the way to build awnies (and ersheglien) we talked about a 3rd level for "true" bloodlines. But that was never "finalized" - although it is fairly easy to insert.

Some of the early discussions/proposals for scion class levels had up to 5 levels being banted about.

But it was settled on only 2 and a scion could have no levels and still be "blooded" and have access to blood abilities (albeit only minor ones) with no scion class levels. In order to get the bonus hit points for ruling a domain a scion must have at least 1 scion class level (it is specifically a class benefit).

[ryancaveney]

in 3e a paladin is really just a fighter/cleric with a few spellcasting levels converted to granted powers.

This is also the approach I use in 2e (and 1e, for that matter): the social role of paladin exists, but it is not a single character class -- it's always been, to my mind, just a mix of levels from fighter and cleric. Therefore, I'd do the same thing with blackguards: paladin = fighter/cleric of somebody nice, so blackguard = fighter/cleric of somebody naughty. As dual- or multi-classed clerics, they could cast clerical realm spells if they had the right temple holdings and enough cleric levels. I find that 3e's universal multiclassing greatly simplifies all sorts of things, so I am now an enthusiastic proponent of that aspect. I also really like the suggestion somebody made about requiring that no character can take more than half their levels from spellcasting classes, so I impose that as well, which tends to divide old-style full clerics into cleric/aristocrats, cleric/experts, cleric/fighters and cleric/rogues. This has the added bonus of effectively creating appropriate paladin-types for all the religions, because champions of Eloele should definitely be cleric/rogues rather than cleric/fighters, and proper champions of Sera should perhaps be cleric/experts who specialize in aggressive business practices (Carl Icahn and Bill Gates, anyone?).