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  1. #31
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    Its not entirely necessarily to take all of the worst elements of video games along with the good ideas. It may however prove to difficult not to just get in the spirit of the thing and create something that will make Blizzard blush.

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    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    There is no need to create a possible unbalancing class, not to mention if we do create a new class then we would still have to follow the leveling path (1-30 powers) in the 4th edition players handbook that gives at-will combat powers and encounter combat powers specificly .... which means we would have to create an entire new leveling mechanic that I am strongly against.
    I'm not sure if you are responding to a noble adventurer class, or the ruler 'class' mechanic for domain rulership only that I suggested.

    I'm not too bothered about an adventurer class beyond magician, so I can't comment on a noble class - if splitting out adventure and game play it becomes unnecessary in my view anyway.

    The point of the 'ruler' type class I suggested is to prevent unbalancing - the domain stuff happens outside adventures, so making PC's use their abilities and feats on domain stuff weakens them compared to other characters. That means that we need an alternative mechanic - just like we do for various other non-combat areas of the game that used to be non-combat proficiencies, etc.

    The leveling path is purely a mechanic to reflect skills and feats - but if you wanted powers we should be able to come up with some (just swapping powers from at will / encounter / daily to at will / per season / per year).

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    Its not entirely necessarily to take all of the worst elements of video games along with the good ideas. It may however prove to difficult not to just get in the spirit of the thing and create something that will make Blizzard blush.
    Totally unrelated, but Blizzard is not a very original company. They are extremely good at polishing other people design ideas and they have tons of money and talented people to do that.

    Related to classes, there has been a Druid version posted on ENWorld that has a very 4e feel to be honest. Not sure if it will fit Cerilia, but it fits DnD 4e for sure. Wizards has also posted some examples of Illusion powers on its site, although they fell pretty rushed

  4. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    I'm not sure if you are responding to a noble adventurer class, or the ruler 'class' mechanic for domain rulership only that I suggested.

    I'm not too bothered about an adventurer class beyond magician, so I can't comment on a noble class - if splitting out adventure and game play it becomes unnecessary in my view anyway.

    The point of the 'ruler' type class I suggested is to prevent unbalancing - the domain stuff happens outside adventures, so making PC's use their abilities and feats on domain stuff weakens them compared to other characters. That means that we need an alternative mechanic - just like we do for various other non-combat areas of the game that used to be non-combat proficiencies, etc.

    The leveling path is purely a mechanic to reflect skills and feats - but if you wanted powers we should be able to come up with some (just swapping powers from at will / encounter / daily to at will / per season / per year).
    Ok I see what you are saying. Some sort of additional skills that every regent has available to them no matter if they are heavy into adventuring or just into ruling. I am not totally against that but certainly we have to look at every angle.

    If we seperate ruling powers/feats/abilities whatever we want to call them, how would we balance them into the characters. Would it be off of their adventuring level, bloodline score or some other mechanic. Would they get a bunch choose from just being a noble at character creation or could they gain them as they level.

    On the flip side if a character was brought up a noble and really had no adventuring life at all .... what class would they choose? If we left it the same and creating a seperate noble non-weapon then they would be able to level their powerful class taking all of the most powerful abilities even though they haven't spent a day fighting. Seems just as unbalanced the other way. This isn't a problem with an online campaign but certain messes up tabletop games.

    Here are some solutions ...

    1. Create a list of traits that a character can choose from at creation. Lets call it background. The character has a choice of Noble, Artisen, Merchant, Commoner. We can create more.

    2. Each Background will give a list of starting abilites they get on top of their class level.

    Noble - Starting skill bonus to diplomacy and other ruling skills.
    Artisen - Not sure. Something about creation.
    Merchant - Starts with extra money, bonus diplomacy.
    Commoner - Bonus to gather information, or whatever they call it in 4th edition ... streetsmart or bonus

    All could get bonuses to reactions of the like type. Commoners get along with other commoners ... Nobles with nobles.

    3. Then we can come up with feats and powers with pre-req for each background. As they level up in addition to their regular powers lets say every three levels they can choose one of these extra abilities that will assist them in domain rulership. Commoners to start might have some unique feats that a noble leader might not have.

    Feats could be ...

    Commoner feat - Leader gets bonus to loyalty rolls if he spent time in that province.
    Merchant feat - Guild actions from that the ruler controls gets a +2 bonus.
    Merchant feat - Ruler get a 20% bonus money from all trade routes contolled.
    Noble feat - Anytime law challenges another holding it ignores the -2 for challenging a different type of holding. (not even a rule but people were talking about it.

    Just a couple of quick ideas. From the above their is an instant benifit to being of a certain background and even more benifit as they level.

    -BB

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    There's now a homemade bard in ENWorld too. Link here:

    http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=231413

    And the druid is here:

    http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=230397

  6. #36
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    I read the druid at the enworld link, and suspect that the wizards druid will be much of the same. According to the Rjurik Highlands, the druids are, "priests, judges, arbitrators, sages, and teachers all in one." I missed the powers and abilities to make one these things and saw quite a bit of powers and abilities which did not describe the druid very much at all. Namely shape shifting. A 2e druid started shapechanging at 7th level, a 3e druid could wild shape at 5th, and could only wild shape large animals at 8th level. These are mid-level abilities and given the low level distribution of characters in BR, one didn't expect to see much druidical shape changing, even if one associated with druids.

    If 4e wasn't D&D, and it didn't use the same names, would anyone seriously be thinking about converting BR to this system? Birthright took standard D&D of the second edition and ramped the day-to-day power down substantially, with both limits on who could wield it, and by the way it described the world, with so many low level characters in important places.

    4e has taken standard D&D and ramped up the power substantially. So representing what was already an underpowered setting using an overpowered game system can't help but cause problems.

    4e is hardly unredeemable. The additional powers make every level something to look forward too. But even though the power per feat is lower (at the Heroic Tier, Weapon Focus does +1 damage instead of +2. Power Attack has a maximum of +3 damage for the two-handed weapons fighter) the simple abundance of powers and feats makes characters much more potent than they used to be.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vicente View Post
    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.
    It is more Administration than 4th level Brulan had, but any 1st level character can be expected to have +10 to +12 on their skills if they want, and the lower potency of combat feats makes selecting skill based feats all the more attractive. Because the 4e view is to make the PC much more potent and then just match him up against a tougher 4e opponent with his own bag of tricks.

    The solution to use the 4e mechanics and maintain the BR feel may be to start from the ground up and ramp the powers down to achieve the authentic BR feel. However, this will require some adjustment for 4e players. Now many of us regard this adjustment as the essential thing that makes BR worth while. But there is no denying that its a barrier.

  7. #37
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    If we seperate ruling powers/feats/abilities whatever we want to call them, how would we balance them into the characters. Would it be off of their adventuring level, bloodline score or some other mechanic. Would they get a bunch choose from just being a noble at character creation or could they gain them as they level.
    I see three methods:
    1. Base it off their class level - the draw back being 'why should a good ruler be a good fighter?' - the two power ranks really measure something totally different - but this one is easy.

    2. Create a totally separate class purely for the book-keeping, so everyone knows that a L5 ruler is better than a L2 ruler and by how much. There is the slight problem that a L20 ruler with no 'adventure' class then gets stomped in one blow, but frankly they should have minions for that sort of thing - and the princess is supposed to be vulnerable to the assassin, that's why she hires the PC's.

    3. Ignore a level based mechanic totally, give skill points / feats for achievement and usage and track them on an ad hoc basis. The book-keeping for this is possibly anethema for 4e.

    I'd see bloodline score as one of the measures of how well you are doing, with a bloodline ability bonus to skills maybe.

    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    On the flip side if a character was brought up a noble and really had no adventuring life at all .... what class would they choose? If we left it the same and creating a seperate noble non-weapon then they would be able to level their powerful class taking all of the most powerful abilities even though they haven't spent a day fighting. Seems just as unbalanced the other way. This isn't a problem with an online campaign but certain messes up tabletop games.
    You could either use a darksun character tree approach and say you can level up an adventure class for every 2 or 3 domain class level's, or track two separate experience pools. Slightly more complex either way, but if you just have each class, domain and adventure, shadow each other then as you say someone without any experience with one still gets very good at it - which is a bit odd as you say. The class choice would be fairly irrelevant in the extreme case so I'd pick whatever suited their rulership style.

    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    Here are some solutions ...

    1. Create a list of traits that a character can choose from at creation. Lets call it background. The character has a choice of Noble, Artisen, Merchant, Commoner. We can create more.
    High, middle, lower class - several systems have ideas we can steal.

    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    2. Each Background will give a list of starting abilites they get on top of their class level.

    Noble - Starting skill bonus to diplomacy and other ruling skills.
    Artisen - Not sure. Something about creation.
    Merchant - Starts with extra money, bonus diplomacy.
    Commoner - Bonus to gather information, or whatever they call it in 4th edition ... streetsmart or bonus

    All could get bonuses to reactions of the like type. Commoners get along with other commoners ... Nobles with nobles.
    Nobles would get etiquette and the like, commoners craft skills - they are both effective but only in their social setting. Pity the city boy lost in the wilds - and the barbarian in the big city.

    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    3. Then we can come up with feats and powers with pre-req for each background. As they level up in addition to their regular powers lets say every three levels they can choose one of these extra abilities that will assist them in domain rulership. Commoners to start might have some unique feats that a noble leader might not have.
    As they level up the original social strata changes if they rule a domain, if we want to balance rulers with non-rulers then it gets a bit trickier.

    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    Feats could be ...

    Commoner feat - Leader gets bonus to loyalty rolls if he spent time in that province.
    Merchant feat - Guild actions from that the ruler controls gets a +2 bonus.
    Merchant feat - Ruler get a 20% bonus money from all trade routes contolled.
    Noble feat - Anytime law challenges another holding it ignores the -2 for challenging a different type of holding. (not even a rule but people were talking about it.

    Just a couple of quick ideas. From the above their is an instant benifit to being of a certain background and even more benifit as they level.

    -BB
    We need to make various 'non weapon skills' (now their is an old 2e hand talking!) and similar feats, then describe the advancement mechanic. Ther big decision is probably do we have 'ruler', 'craftsman', 'peasant' classes to reflect non-ruler characters, and if so what sort of role do we see each position fulfilling.

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    I read the druid at the enworld link, and suspect that the wizards druid will be much of the same. According to the Rjurik Highlands, the druids are, "priests, judges, arbitrators, sages, and teachers all in one." I missed the powers and abilities to make one these things and saw quite a bit of powers and abilities which did not describe the druid very much at all. Namely shape shifting. A 2e druid started shapechanging at 7th level, a 3e druid could wild shape at 5th, and could only wild shape large animals at 8th level. These are mid-level abilities and given the low level distribution of characters in BR, one didn't expect to see much druidical shape changing, even if one associated with druids.
    Is really a problem for the setting to see shape changing as a more usual thing? Does it break something? What skills did a 2e druid have to fit that judge, sage, ... role you are speaking? Because reading the 2e class they have 0 skills related to that, and if you are talking about spells probably the druid can fit the same role with rituals.

    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    If 4e wasn't D&D, and it didn't use the same names, would anyone seriously be thinking about converting BR to this system? Birthright took standard D&D of the second edition and ramped the day-to-day power down substantially, with both limits on who could wield it, and by the way it described the world, with so many low level characters in important places.
    Scions could get out of hand if the player had some lucky rolls when creating the character. Very out of hand.

    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    4e has taken standard D&D and ramped up the power substantially. So representing what was already an underpowered setting using an overpowered game system can't help but cause problems.

    4e is hardly unredeemable. The additional powers make every level something to look forward too. But even though the power per feat is lower (at the Heroic Tier, Weapon Focus does +1 damage instead of +2. Power Attack has a maximum of +3 damage for the two-handed weapons fighter) the simple abundance of powers and feats makes characters much more potent than they used to be.
    Any multiclass 2e character or any spellcaster in 2e/3e character is more powerful that its 4e counterpart. Only martial characters seem more powerful in 4e than in previous editions and it's because they were a failure in 2e/3e compared to spellcasters. Is not a new fact that in all 3e power-gamer polls clerics and wizards were always the first classes by a large margin.

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    I see three methods:
    1. Base it off their class level - the draw back being 'why should a good ruler be a good fighter?' - the two power ranks really measure something totally different - but this one is easy.
    He need not be, of course. But...

    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    2. Create a totally separate class purely for the book-keeping, so everyone knows that a L5 ruler is better than a L2 ruler and by how much. There is the slight problem that a L20 ruler with no 'adventure' class then gets stomped in one blow, but frankly they should have minions for that sort of thing - and the princess is supposed to be vulnerable to the assassin, that's why she hires the PC's.
    Throughout history there have been people who didn't adventure, but their fencing skill was not so dull. Although the ruler might not see an adventuring life, he can still be good with a sword. His court weapon masters/lieutenants/trainers will see to that as a part of his raising as a noble. He'd still probably be a low hp character, but you may award his training with skill that gives him a bonus to AC and maybe to hit. Damage he produces would be minor, but at least it would give him opportunity to score some hits and evade couple of attacks from an experienced enemy and not to be a sitting duck.
    That would be the difference between him and battle/adventure hardened fighter.

    Two nobles fighting would be an interesting duel with fewer hits and it would last several rounds until someone scores a hit after much parrying. Couple of well placed hits and opponent goes down.
    Rey M. - court wizard of Tuarhievel

  10. #40
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vicente View Post
    Is really a problem for the setting to see shape changing as a more usual thing? Does it break something? What skills did a 2e druid have to fit that judge, sage, ... role you are speaking? Because reading the 2e class they have 0 skills related to that, and if you are talking about spells probably the druid can fit the same role with rituals.
    Have you read a lot of the Rjurik Highlands?

    They emphasize the role of druids (I do not remember if Rjurik druids got any special benfits or not - but Rjurik Bards specifically did as well as a requirement to "lawful")

    The Rjurik also had "Special Dooms" and they marked individuals in a generally considered "bad or forboding manner".

    Now also remember that in 2nd ed BR there were no "druids" and that priests of Erik were druids. They got the special powers listed in the BRRB but were still "priests" and not "druids per se".
    Duane Eggert

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