Why wizards are weak

[Michael Romes]

The problem is long term (or often even short term) co-operation, and absent co-operation taking over guilds for free money is a key aim for many other regents.

Except that it should not be free money.

Especially in Anuire with it´s still valid bias of fighters as landed regents and merchants being a bit looked down upon there should be social repercussions. What would the Prince of Avanil have to tell the others at the next Sword & Crown about Boeruine, the traditional Archduke of the West, the selfannounced next Emperor - haggling with merchants himself over prices for candles and silverware? Perhaps send him an abacus as a gift and wish him luck for his new business as he made himself look like a fool unfit for the throne of an Emperor of Anuire... That would be very different in Brechtür of course.

And a landed regent who takes over the guilds of a guild regent will not only make that regent his enemy if he does not find a way to cooperate (e.g. as liege and vassal with a reasonable tribute or even only as allies against common rivals), he will inherit the same competition from the rival guilds that the guilder had before. So not only does he have to store RP to rule up his holdings (now more as he added guilds) and reserve an action for that in addition for the seperate action needed to rule up his provinces one by one, and to defend against contests (now more as he added all guilders who want to expand as his rivals that were rivals of the guilder before that he took the guilds from) but he lacks the ability to collect all the Regency from the guilds. Which means spending the pretty gold he so coveted on contests instead of the readily available RP that a guilder would harvest in addition to the gold.

Most regents have only slightly more holdings/provinces in sum than their bloodscore for a very simple reason - holdings that do not generate RP for you means you miss out on a bonus that a willing vassal of yours could reap and that your enemies if any competent should certainly use.

So a traditional tabletop game group who co-operate will do very well as a team as you say, shift the game to a PBEM however and the odds of a co-operative group drops drastically - but the ruler/etc still needs GB.

Then use the means available that anger littles (e.g. 2E law claims as a form of taxation of foreign holdings), negotiate a tribute "for the ducal protection of your temple/guild", offer a close relationship to a friendly priest or guilder who you know better from adventuring and offer him an alliance where you muster the armies and he shares the costs or rescue someone in danger of being taken over and offer him a vassalage with a share as tribute to the liege.

If anyone will work cooperatively it should be the Gorgon and his allies and the major NPC´s and they should make any player feel - by contesting to test how larger you RP pool still is, by letting you waste RP on defending against contests or ruling up holdings that you earn no RP from instead of ruling up provinces and raising you bloodline score to gain more abilities or to humiliate you in adventures as their personal power as a e.g. dedicated Fighter 10 would be larger than a Fighter 8 /Guilder 1/Priest 1 just to earn RP from all holdings (still limited to bloodline score)

For many rulers losing out on a free action every 2-3 turns (the guild/etc being spread over more than 1 realm any one realm won't get all the action) and whatever RP they could get through vassalage (1/3 tops maybe?) is a small price to pay in exchange for guaranteed gold and minimal risk of the guilder turning against them.

1/3rd would be far too much. Tribute or teeth had been historically mostly 10% to church and 10% to the liege, give or take some depending on country and time. A landed regent wants a strong and competitive guilder as his ally or vassal - because the next larger realm certainly has one.

Then your game is too static outside the relation between the landed regent and the one guilder he chose to take over. Does no priest ridicule the landed regent for disgracing himself as a peddler counting coppers where he should expand his provinces to provinde room for his population instead? Does not every guild that had competed with the guilder you took over now compete with you (in addition to the law and landed regents that before already competed with you)?
Normally in a game noone has too much Regency - or even enough to raise it every year, because RP needs to be spend defending and expanding one´s holdings. If you can do without the RP that the guilder had earned then you have too passive rivals in your game.

[Michael Romes]

...
Currently I am running a Pathfinder BR campaign. A sea change in that system is that crafting magic items cost only money and time but not experience points (there is a feat for non-casters to craft magic items too, but I don't allow that one). This means all spellcasters - even magicians - with a few levels of experience could start making serious profit (as much as half the value of a finished item if sold at market price, to a max of 500 gp per day profit crafting 1000gp worth of market value each 8-hour work day. 7 days of the 8 day week could earn an artificer 3500gp a week!
This makes other professional incomes laughable in comparison. In a Pathfinder world, artificers can get pretty darn wealthy!
So naturally, creating an institution to band artificers into a guild and take a cut while facilitating production and competitive sales is a natural next step, hehe.

Even the old 2E Rulebook already had the "Ply Trade" action which allowed Wizards, magicians and priests to earn 25 gp per character level times the province level to sell spellcasting services.
8th level Wizard in a level 5 province would have earned 1000 gp per action round.
Caine (10th level) in Endier (6th level) would have already made in 2E 1500 gp - or imagine Aelies (16the) in Ilien (7th) and that without the risk of actually adventuring or the expense of XP to create magical equipment (and magical stuff ought to cost XP, especially in a "wizard magic is rare"-setting like Cerilia. The "Book of Magecraft" expanded on that by mentioning that with the use of Diplomacy a Wizard could negotiate a higher fee from his client.

...
2. Sources and Realm Actions
This was the biggest problem. Other regents can rule and contest multiple holdings at as time, multiplying their rates of growth compared to wizards.

A landed regent can raise only 1 provinces level in a rule action. However any holding type can be used for multiple rulings - a wizard (given enough gold and RP) could rule up all his sources at once. The Book of Magecraft mentions that a wise wizard comes to an agreement with competing wizards before to avoid a bidding war to rule actions like it so often happens in guild wars. An even wiser Wizard knows that he really needs only 1 high source, preferably in mountains or ancient forest and can forge ley lines from there to all his other sources to gain the advantage of the highest sources level for his spells without having to rule up all sources (he will of course rule up enough holdings to gather the RP his bloodscore allows).

A wizard carving out a new source domain can take decades! Which might sound great in a dusty history book, but sucks for PC source regents who thought it was going to be exciting to build their own source domain.

I don not remember the 3E rule action but in 2E a wizard could rule multiple sources? Or do I remember that only from the computer game of Birthright - The Gorgon´s Alliance?

[Osprey]

I don not remember the 3E rule action but in 2E a wizard could rule multiple sources? Or do I remember that only from the computer game of Birthright - The Gorgon´s Alliance?

You are quite right about that, honestly I had forgotten that was true in the core setting.
In the BRCS, when you do a Realm Action, the Regent uses their domain + character action for the 1st target holding, and 1 Court Action for every additional target holding. So higher-level courts are a necessity for enlarging a realm action's maximum scope. Which worked great for normal regents, but not so much for source regents, and I guess it's something that never got resolved to my satisfaction in the BRCS.

[Michael Romes]

You are quite right about that, honestly I had forgotten that was true in the core setting.
In the BRCS, when you do a Realm Action, the Regent uses their domain + character action for the 1st target holding, and 1 Court Action for every additional target holding. So higher-level courts are a necessity for enlarging a realm action's maximum scope. Which worked great for normal regents, but not so much for source regents, and I guess it's something that never got resolved to my satisfaction in the BRCS.

I never thought it to make sense that a court is something needed for a nonlanded Wizard ruling sources. A court is where politics and diplomacy happen, so something a landed regent needs who wants to compete, communicate and impress other regents.

What courtiers could rule up source number 2, 3 and 4 when the true wizard is located at source number 1 and wants to rule them both up as a realm action?

No, either the 2E rule makes sense - a Wizard simply can use a realm action to rule up multiple sources in different provinces. Or for simplification any source connected to his ley line network counts as if he is personally present.

[Michael Romes]

... Well, except in Vosgaard, where it may be considered rude to begin a business meeting without punching the other guy in the face. =)...

When I read your post I rememberd that scene from DS9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qChmTbcaU44

[Michael Romes]

...
Which suggests to me that there is a problem with the guild rules - guilds should not be an 'easy money' win that everyone automatically piles into. I've done it myself when playing a ruler as the benefits of trade routes are so great (esp in 2e) so know the problem well. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it - maybe with separate domain-level classes as noted - but something needs sorting out in my view, this is not however a 'source' point - it applies equally, if not far more so, to realm rulers and temple rulers.

One possible way to prevent a regent to desire the ownership of other holdings for their monetary income would be to use the 2E BR rule for Lieutenants for Regents too.
A lieutenant who has no expertise in the action (e.g. a fighter trying to build a trade route) the success chance is cut in half.

Which means that in an Anuire-centric game the landed Fighter regent can either multiclass to be able to prevent that and still be able to gain RP from those other holdings - the latter still limited by his bloodline, or
and I find that better, has a larger incentive to keep holdings in the hands of allies and vassals who know how to utilize them and reap their full benefit.

I'd note that in practice guilds in particular should run on a cost:benefit basis - 10 RP bidding wars are a sucking quagmire of influence that should be avoided like the plague by any economic rationalist (unless they simply have nothing better to spend RP on). Particularly in BRCS where province level is irrelevant to guild income

Which is silly IMO. A guild holding resembles control of a guild master over the amount of trade in the province and if you have a level 3 guild in Anuire (10 province) then that ought to earn more than a level 3 guild in Anuire´s backyard forests in a level 3 province.