Starting the 4e conversion

[aluman]

While not the most active here (mostly due to detesting straight DnD in 3.X), I was fortunate in getting my 4th ed DnD books early (up to now I had used AGoT with some modifcations for Birthright).

Here is some thoughts for BR 4e
1. Warlocks need to be replaced or removed, they don't fit slightly.

2. Eladrin's Fey Step actually reminds me a bit of the halfling abilities.

3. Human subraces could get a +2 to what they used to get a +1 to, but detracts minorly from the 'good at everything specalist at nothing' that they push for 4e Humans.

Blood Abilities
With the increase in feats gained in 4e, it Could be possible to use feats to simulate blood abilities, make extensive feat chains. In fact having 4 tier chain (like how Multiclassing works) is fairly reasonable. Each feat could replace an ability with blood power from the feat (or enhance an exsisting ability).

Another solution is to not worry about it and more or less bring back the method in 2e. Balance while its still there is less 'everything must equate' its more of a 'everyone must be useful.'

[Pabloj]

Just In case you missed my first/introductory post: Hi, my name is Pablo! Nice to meet you all.

I would very much like to help in this effort, since I love Birthright and Im really liking the look of 4th Edition. Still, I have very little time to devote to this, so I will contribute with my 2 cents whenever I can.

Since I´m already at this, I have a first idea/thought to share: I believe it will be really hard to come up with powers/feats that run smoothly with 4E mechanics. They have playtested this system for months, and even before the books were on the streets, people started finding loopholes and exploits. And we are just looking at the core rule book, with tons of splatbooks coming.

I believe that it might be better to completely separate the blooded mechanics from the core mechanics: let´s make the blooded abilities matter only on realm level, or on army battles and such. It will save us a lot of headaches trying to figure balanced powers/feats, and we might even have them invalidated with further 4E development. In this a way we will "futureproof" this unique Birthright mechanics for when a 4.5th, 5th and 6th editions come out.

Personally, I was never much into 3x editions, so I will gladly wok from 2nd edition sources. Still, it would be a shame not to take advantage of the tons of work people made to do the 3x conversion.

[aluman]

My issue with that is, it removes a lot of what made adventuring in Cerillia unique.

[Pabloj]

Mhhh, you still would have Regents and scions, deciding the fate of their nations with their rulling and their blood abilities. It is stil quite unique. You just would not have blooded abilities on normal "party" gaming.

[Sorontar]

Birthright is different things for different people. My campaign is purely adventuring these days, but the Seeming/Blood abilities etc all play a significant part of the story and do influence the PC actions.

And we generally do not do regent things at all. As far as the party knows, there are no regents in the party, just agents of regents. And not all party members are blooded.

So blood abilities should still be able to used at the adventure/encounter level. But I like the idea of some abilities having different affects at different levels. For example, diplomacy may give the character alertness about the cultural tendencies of a community which they enter. This could help them 1) talk to a town official (per encounter) 2) be generally well received by people at a market/in a village (per day) 3) get a new treaty (domain level).

Sorontar

[kgauck]

However there is a natural compromise here.

1) Adventure powers are taken as feats, along a talent tree for each derivation
2) Free powers are given 2e style for domain level play.

Good roleplay might suggest that the domain powers provide some guide to good feat selections, but I'm not sure that's required.

[Vicente]

Or when you take feats to swap powers for blood abilities (a tree for each derivation) you get also some minor effect for domain play. Maybe not at heroic level, but it could be a possibility in paragon or epic levels.

[kgauck]

That's fine, but its indistinguishable from the position offered earlier that blood powers are just feats.

[Green Knight]

Here we go again...brings back memories of various 3E conversions.

What I'd like to see is a 'quick and dirty' 4E conversion published fairly quickly - that tries to keep as close to 4E as possible, even if it means 'changing' BR.

But I'd also like to see a more fleshed-out 4E BIRTHRIGHT, where as much of the flavor of BR is preserved, even if it means introducing new concepts to 4E.

[kgauck]

Not only do we need a 3-4 conversion, but a direct 2e to 4e conversion, since the core materials and source inspiration is 2nd edition. I don't think I've written a stat block in six months, since it seems pointless to convert a character from 2 to 3, only as 4 dawns.