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06-17-2008, 05:33 PM #21
You're probably right. Which makes my 3.5 library a great comfort to me.
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06-17-2008, 06:03 PM #22
I see what you are saying, that is why we need to find a way to have a soldier have the option to become a more leader type.
In 4th edition they come as Paragon Paths where the fighter has access to different abilities. We could have a Paragon Path called Noble Ruler that would give different feat options that have to do with ruling more than fighting. They would still be leveling up as a warrior and get some warrior abilities, but many more that had to do with realm rulership or more specifily law rulership.
Not to mention that being blooded we could also have feats and powers they have access to that allow them to rule a realm more effectively starting at level 1 instead of level 10.
This can be applied to every class.
I also don't like to pigeonhole noble as a certain type of class. Nobles can be warriors or priests, rogues ... they can all be noble. Why force them into one class type when we can have a set of feats that any class can take from. Some feats will have pre-req's for certain classes, but mostly any noble born ruler can pull from.
-BB
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06-17-2008, 07:58 PM #23
No problem there, at some point most leaders have to make the transition from a doer of things to a leader of those who do.
In 4th edition they come as Paragon Paths where the fighter has access to different abilities. We could have a Paragon Path called Noble Ruler that would give different feat options that have to do with ruling more than fighting. They would still be leveling up as a warrior and get some warrior abilities, but many more that had to do with realm rulership or more specifily law rulership.
To think for a minute that by taking Administration as a skill is the same as being Brulan is enough for me to put 4e back on the shelf. Here's a 4th level character optimized for domain play. Domain play is what sets BR apart. You can't optimize characters for domain play, if everyone does everything equally well, just differently, I don't even see the point in naming characters.
I also don't like to pigeonhole noble as a certain type of class. Nobles can be warriors or priests, rogues ... they can all be noble. Why force them into one class type when we can have a set of feats that any class can take from. Some feats will have pre-req's for certain classes, but mostly any noble born ruler can pull from.-BB
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06-17-2008, 09:20 PM #24
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I think you can work over those problems Kenneth. First, on 4e that character should pick Skill Training and Skill Focus feats (for a +8 for that skill). With a high score in the relevant attribute your NPC will have around +10 to +12 to Administration at level 1. That's more than the Administration skill from Brulan Broweleit (4th level) in the wiki. And probably more than most PCs.
Secondly, you can allow several uses of the Administration skill only to be allowed to Trained users. So, even if a level 10 warrior would get also get +5 from his level to Administration, it's less worth than the +5 from the Skill Training your NPC gets.
Even in 3e, if your NPC is a level 3-4 guy he is not going to have his skill bonuses much better than the level 3-4 4e NPC (I'm pretty sure they end more or less the same).Last edited by Vicente; 06-17-2008 at 09:24 PM.
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06-18-2008, 03:43 AM #25
Another way to handle NPC's is to just make them completely seperate. Just some thoughts on the top of my head.
- Make administrators and the like have 1 hp which means they die very easily. Heck they never picked up a sword their whole life, they should drop almost instantly. 4th edition would call them minions.
- Have three levels of administrators. Novice, Experienced, Expert. Just to toss numbers out there have novice have a +5 on one skill. Let have Experts have one skill at +10 and another at +5. Make a true expert have a +15 on one check, +10 on another and +5 for a third.
- This can be part of a characters court and each expert can be listed with which level they are at and what their skills are. Would not need any other information.
- I would assume more powerful luitenants would have adventuring levels and possibly more skills to assist in rulership.
-BB
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06-18-2008, 03:52 PM #26
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I'm still reading my 4e books (just came in a few days ago due to Amazon's poor pre-order policy), but I think there are a couple of ways to handle rulership skills and so forth.
Beau, you've mentioned Novice, Experienced, and Expert guidelines for NPC creation. Well, the DMG has Templates designed to apply quickly to NPCs or monsters to make them fill a role well, and to bump standard ones up to elite or solo. Your idea could be translated into templates to do something similar.
If we want templates that can be applied to player characters with no effect on adventuring ability, we would just need to have the template focus on domain-level only skills and feats and so forth, with no bonuses to powers or hp or level-based stats.
Something else occurred to me that might prove even easier and more freeform:
--Create a suite of skills (Administrate, Warcraft, Rulership, per holding, whatever), feats, even powers (weekly, monthly, seasonally/per turn, annually) that have to do with rulership and domain level play with no adventure impact.
--Give NPCs access to a number of these based on a basic NPC level you assign, using the PC generic class chart to determine how many they would get. This allows all NPCs to be freely customized into any specialist you wish--scholar, ruler, magistrate, bandit lord, merchant, etc. It also keeps stat detail focused on only what is needed and allows mid- to high-level NPCs who are not incongruously devastating fighters (of course, you could just ditch even this and say that NPC X just has a +10 modifier to Administrate and leave it at that, but for the Chamberlain and others it would be good to know a little more)
--Give PCs access to these skills through their bloodline, gaining a certain number in addition to their adventure abilities as they go up in level, sort of like Paragon paths but starting at level 1
--Give PCs the ability to freely swap any of their other powers, feats, or skills with those in the Domain Rulership suite if they wish to focus their characters even more on rulership
NPCs should be pretty easy this way, even easier in the absence of Powers. Just assign a basic level and you know almost all you need to know; you do need to pick the skills and feats that matter you want to focus on, but the level basically calculates on its own the modifier for the skill. In this level-dependent system, you could even derive hit points, attack abilities, and defenses in a pinch if you needed to, without having to list them ahead of time, if we had a fallback NPC template for this.Last edited by Rowan; 06-18-2008 at 03:58 PM.
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