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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    Any swapping out immediately shifts the balance between PC's that have domains and everyone else - it immediately makes the mixed character weaker than those who don't mix so doesn't seem to follow what little I know of 4e philosophy.
    Right, therefore the "ruling class/domain class" should remain seperate of the adventuring class. Regents should IMO recieve a second class that represents both their skill as ruler as well as the skills of their administration and domain.

    I.e a different class for each domain type? I like the idea, but wonder if we don't just need to have a single class, with different skill/feat choices affecting which domains the ruler is capable with.
    That would be a good start, create powers for a single ruler class, which would allow regents to specialize in specific holdings. However, eventiallyI would like to see different roles, similar to defender, striker, leader and controller.

  2. #32
    My only thought on this is that adding a layer of rules on top of an already set of rules will not get new players and interrupt the flow of a game.

    For example is the current 3.5 style system. Just imagine trying to layer the current system on top of 4th edition adventuring rules.

    What I am saying is that the two system at least have a similar look and feel to be somewhat compatible with each other. And if you are creating a similar system, then why not just change the regular rules so everything meshes together.

    Simply, it is easier to create a side system to attempt to work with other game styles than it is to change Birthright to fit those other games.

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post

    I'd prefer, if building a system, that we make it completely independent of the system - I don't see 4e lasting to be frank, and certainly it is heading in the wrong perspective from a BR perspective.
    4th ed seems very compatible with BR to me. But I never played any 3rd ed BR, so I could have a skewed perspective.

    Do we need a different skill for each type of holding? I certainly don't remember that from second ed, nor do I think it is necessary for 4th.

    Class as the basis for regency seems solid to me, should someone who has devoted their life to the study of the sword benefit more from forging bonds with soldiers, petty nobles and town guards (Law) or Channeling the unseen power of ancient forest (Source). It not only seems simple but intuitive, if you want to be a 'wizard' regent one would play a wizard (or warlock etc.).

    Now there are a lot more classes now, and 2nd ed wasn't exactly balanced in its choices (paladins were simply better than fighters). It should be pretty easy to keep the spirit of birthright, while embracing the balance of 4th ed.

    For me I would lean towards 1 primary (full) and 1 secondary (half) for everyone (or for some classes 3 secondary). I could see making the full class based and the second background based, but could just as easily see each class as having a list. I would not change the fact that everyone gets full benefit from province.

    I might have some actions described by adventures (as recommended in the original material) which could involve skill challenges or straight RP (diplomacy or trade missions that the group wants to RP out for example) but others would simply be a roll as described in the original regency rules.

    I could see an extra skill or two rounding out the list nicely, but I hardly think you need to add dozens of custom skills each of which has a very narrow application. Trading seems conspicuously absent, I could see a logic for engineering (though it seems more like an NPC skill in most cases), etc. Since these weren't essential to the original rules, it hardly seems necessary to condemn 4th edition for not having them.

  4. #34
    Ehrshegh of Spelling Thelandrin's Avatar
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    Well, I can't stand the horribly clustered skills or the lack thereof in 4th Ed, but I would use Diplomacy for laws, Religion for Temples, Streetwise for Guilds and Arcana for sources. Provinces would be usable by anyone with them.

    Ius Hibernicum, in nomine juris. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

  5. #35
    The problem I had with skills in 3.5 are the lack of them for some classes. You are telling me that a fighter with an average intelligence is only capable of doing two skills well in his career.

    So if a fighter decided to be good at swimming and climbing ... he is almost incapable of intimidation, or spot checking. He could split up his skills among different abilities, but 3.5 rewards stacking. Being bad at lots of skills is far worse than being very good at two skills and terrible at the rest.

    4th edition solves this problem. Might not be to your liking ... but at least it does something about it. Allows characters to be a part of not just combat but role-playing and skills checks.

    -BB

  6. #36
    Ehrshegh of Spelling Thelandrin's Avatar
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    Well, I always thought that being virtuosos at two skills was pointless, so I always sprinkled my skill points liberally around. Of course, I usually had an Int modifier and was often human, so that helped. Besides which, you never need any skill points to role-play properly - suggesting that 4th Ed allows you to roleplay where 3rd Ed didn't is simply disingenuous.

    Ius Hibernicum, in nomine juris. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

  7. #37
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    The problem I had with skills in 3.5 are the lack of them for some classes. You are telling me that a fighter with an average intelligence is only capable of doing two skills well in his career.

    So if a fighter decided to be good at swimming and climbing ... he is almost incapable of intimidation, or spot checking. He could split up his skills among different abilities, but 3.5 rewards stacking. Being bad at lots of skills is far worse than being very good at two skills and terrible at the rest.

    4th edition solves this problem. Might not be to your liking ... but at least it does something about it. Allows characters to be a part of not just combat but role-playing and skills checks.

    -BB

    2nd ed was worse.

    Non-weapon proficiencies were almost impossible to improve (basically it took using a non-weapon prof slot to increase the chance by 1 and you couldn't (without magic) change your relevant ability score to make it any easier.

    BR had many "key" non-weapon proficiencies which only compounded this issue.

    IMO 4th "simplified" the system to the point where skills are mostly meaningless.

    While I agree you almost never had enough skill points to get what you wanted in 3.5 the system was designed for tailoring your character.

    Basically you could be really, really good a few things but not so good at others - or you could be a renassance man and dabble at many things but never be really good at any of them. You know - sort of paralleling "real life" in this aspect.

    Also in 3.5 there are only a handful of skills that can't be attempted "untrained" - even Knowledge skills can be attempted "untrained" although only "commonly known" things will be "remembered".

    Skill focus (among other feats) can be taken to make a character "better" at certain things and fighters have bonus feats which frees up the level based feats for such "role-playng" feats.

    And nothing says you have to make a skill check all of the time - so it is possible to "role-play" certain things, and there are even rules for substituting different relevant ability scores for skills (like intelligence for gather information when it is library based instead of interaction based) - so nothing prevents substituting Str for Intimdation checks instead of Charisma depending on the circumstances.

    4th ed does a lot of things to improve the flow of the game, but the way it handles skills overall is not one of them IMO.
    Last edited by irdeggman; 08-21-2009 at 11:05 AM.
    Duane Eggert

  8. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Thelandrin View Post
    Well, I always thought that being virtuosos at two skills was pointless, so I always sprinkled my skill points liberally around. Of course, I usually had an Int modifier and was often human, so that helped. Besides which, you never need any skill points to role-play properly - suggesting that 4th Ed allows you to roleplay where 3rd Ed didn't is simply disingenuous.
    This is going to be long so I apologize in advance.


    I certainly didn't mean to imply that you can role-play better in 4th edition better than 3.5, just that I do think it is an improvement in the skill system. Possibly still flawed, but never the less better.

    I have always believed that characters could and should be competant in far more skills than they were allowed in 3.5. How is someone that choose the life of sneaking around and stealing be able to be more competant in a more wide range of skills including non-rogue skills? Other classes really had no choice other than giving themselves a high intellgence or use the small amount of feats they get (other than warriors.)

    What I believe ended up happening is they went ahead and linked rogue abilities to skills (which might have been a mistake.) Because there was lots of skills to be had they loaded up rogues with skill points so they can build their abilities how they like. Now to keep them balanced with other classes they had to give everyone else far less skill points.

    Now I agree 4th edition might have gone too far, but I still like it more. 1/2 your character level in all non-trained skills as your ranking. +5 if you are trained.

    I think we are used to using skill points to tailor your character, but in 4th edition they are feats. Big difference to deal with.

    Now if you want to be ok at a bunch of skills you can use feats to keep gaining training in skills you typically don't have as a class. If you want to be really good at a few skills you can use feats to raise your current trained skills higher. At least you have a baseline ability in all skills so you can be part of the conversation.

    Perhaps this is just a personal belief, but I hated role-playing a skill well that I had no skill points in. If I had a 0 for diplomacy, it didn't make sense for me to start acting very diplomatic just because I am able to role-play it out properly. Same goes to intimidate or bluff. Now that you have at least a minimum score in those abilities it is far easier to be a part of it.

    -BB

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by bbeau22 View Post
    Now I agree 4th edition might have gone too far, but I still like it more. 1/2 your character level in all non-trained skills as your ranking. +5 if you are trained.
    I think this is the important part. Compared to 3e, giving that 1/2 character level makes things seem that characters are too good with skills, and maybe they are if they were 3e characters, but in 4e it doesn't work like that. If you make a skill check where a well trained person is expected to succeed like 50% of the times, a non-trained one will succeed only 25%, enough to allow that person to participate in a group action (like a skill challenge) but not enough to be confortable using it (it's more like a last resort or only if players know the failure is not going to be a big mess).

    That 1/2 skill level represents a minimum level of proficiency that will allow the 4e character to be always minimally useful in group actions or when things aren't tailored to his specializations. Or at least that's the idea behind it in my oppinion.

  10. #40
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    A lot depends on how you used skills - if maxing out was built into DC's then an average PC would only have 4-5 usable skills - 2+human+ int. That said 4-5 is a fair number. Anyone interested in skills would just dip into a level of expert/etc or choose high int anyway...

    Even with rulers=2 skills then as a DM if you figured 'good, probably suceed at most stuff' at around 2/3 then the flexibility of the system allowed the choice of how good to be refined very well - it all depends on how the DM builds the DC's, expectations of the campaign, etc. Personally I built in arithmetic cost increases to gaining points and the like and roughed out ad hoc bonus form support - even unskilled to include other pc's.

    4e has gone back to nwp's in many ways, a small number of skills (2 if I read it correctly) with digital results; 3e was analogue, far from perfect, but significantly better than 2 or 4 e if skills were seen as the key aspect of a character.

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