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  1. #21
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Since the non adventure class would have no adventure impact - just non-adventure skills and feats, then it shouldn't be a 'wasted' level at all - it shouldn't cost xp or affect future xp gains like an adventurer class would. The simple way is to say 'every time you level up your adventurer class, you also level up in a ruler class.' (basically a gestalt class approach, but less munchkin-y as the classes don't overlap)

    However as the non-adventure 'class' is just skills, feats, and maybe abilities, I'd avoid levels entirely. I'd either give skill points/feats directly at DM whim, or give them character points to buy skills/feats/etc from the non-adventure list. If they really wanted to buy non-adventure stuff with xp aI'd try to figure out a fair conversion, or more likely, wing it.

    You could give out character points either when they level up, or based on roleplaying, story telling, success in domain level play, etc.

    The idea should be to minimise book-keeping and the need to consider trade-offs. Since non-adventure skills would be, roughly, a skill for each holding type (or at most 2), craft/profession skills, etc, etc (basically the old non-weapon proficiency type stuff) then it shouldn't take much book keeping.

  2. #22
    Senior Member Arentak's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bagpuss View Post
    You could go with Power Source rather than class?

    Martial favour Law and Guild.
    Divine favour Law and Temple.
    Arcane favour Source.
    Or by Power Source AND Role

    Controller (source type) Favored (+2 on create/contest/rule)
    Striker Guild Regency Collection Full
    Tank (source type) Favored (+2 on create/contest/rule)
    Leader (source type) Favored (+2 on create/contest/rule)

    Martial Law Regency Collection Full
    Divine Temple Regency Collection Full
    Arcane Source Regency Collection Full

    So, for instance, a cleric would get Temple Full, and Temple Favored, while a Warlord would get Law Full and Law Favored, whereas a Rogue would get Law Full and Guild Full(but neither favored).

    Its kind of generic, but I suppose it works as well as class-specific regency collection. I like class specific, because you can do things like say "Rogues and Rangers rule their holdings differently".

  3. #23
    Senior Member Arentak's Avatar
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    In this system, whether as I OP'ed or as some others have suggested, the idea is that Class determines only which type of regent you are, not really how good you are doing things. In fact, if you take out the feat, there's at most a very modest bonus to a single holding type for some classes, thus your gameplay effectiveness is based more on rolls and which actions you take then what kind of optimizing crap you can squeeze onto your char sheet.

    In the 3.5 version, it was disgustingly easy to be a regent getting full rp from all sources. The 3.5 spirit of "lets make everything easy to optimize, so a poor char is 1/10th as good as a well-thought out one", where the game was won or lost based on what made it onto your sheet rather then what you did in the game is best left behind us.

    Lets let your char sheet be a very, very minor determinant of your game play, other then what type of domain you control.

  4. #24
    The more I think about it, the more I believe we must keep Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities completely separated from the combat/adventuring system, specially the levels of the chars. In fact, I believe we should aim at creating a system for Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities elements that go beyond 4th edition, but are inseparable from D&D itself. Below are the main reasons:

    • Futureproofing: there is no way we can know how powers, feats, classes we develop will work or not with D&D, given that it will continue to produce more material: more classes, races, powers, etc. In fact, in a few years we will have D&D 4.5, and after that, D&D 5.0. No doubt these will change dramatically how the adventuring and combat system works, but no doubt will keep some core D&D elements: Classes, Races, 1-18 (or something) attributes, skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, etc. I strongly believe that we must focus on this milestones, drawing inspiration from the original 2dn edition setting, but evolving the Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities so they will be much more simple to integrate and update regardless how the combat rules work.

    • Player Oriented: The characters should choose to focus on how they rule their Domains and specialize all they want, but not at the expense of their adventuring life. This is both more fun (generally speaking), makes creating NPCs regents a piece of cake (just choose a monster from the MM, like the Lvl 4 Human Wizard, apply the Domain rules, ready to go). Also, It lets you portray the classic young lvl 1 prince with very strong lineage seamlessly, or makes no impact in having bloodied and non bloodied characters on a party (mechanic and power wise)

    • Simple: It will be much more simple to design a standalone Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities system, that is consistent, simple and fun into itself (while retaining things like Bloodlines, which make defines the setting) than making sure it´s balanced, goes well with Core and Supplemental D&D Material.

    Just my 2 cents here.

  5. #25
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    In regards to certain criticisms of the BRCS 3.0/3.5 skill system:

    The skill system was a good idea but it suffered in one respect of implementation: Too much emphasis on skills.

    I.e. 5 ranks of a skill gave you a +1 synergy bonus, with no cap.

    This is compounded by the fact that even when taking into account cross-class penalties, certain classes ended up having much more skill points. Particularly when comparing the extremes of say the Fighter vs Rogue.

    Furthermore, the addition of 3 skills that had some overlap between other skills and/or abilities.


    This could have been scaled down slightly to simply be 5 ranks = standard +2 synergy bonus. Now you might argue "But Phil, then what is the point of having more than 5 ranks?" Well for starters, the Master X feats all require 9 skill ranks; furthermore random event as well as battle resolution is based around a skill check + character (in)actions. Thus the emphasis turns from "you need lots of skill points to be competent as a ruler" to "you need lots of skill points to be an exemplary ruler"

    Another way to make it more accessible to certain classes is to modify the war checks like the Feint ability. I.E. include Base Attack bonus to the roll to favor the more martial classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian primarily, cleric, druid, rogue, bard secondarily, sorceror and wizard at bottom). This is something that was suggested in the Complete Warrior book where Sense Motive skill was the "strategy skill".

    A good deal of the description of the "lead" skill falls under Diplomacy but also the leadership Feat. You could always include the leadership modifier to such checks if necessary. Rogues tend to not want to necessarily publicize their deeds and the classes based around feats (fighter, lesser extent wizard or classes that gain bonus feats during class progression like ranger) are then mechanically more pre-disposed to take the leadership feat. Particularly as the scion class/template grants a bonus to the leadership score and most of anuire's strong bloodlines are in the hands of more martial like rulers.

    Thus, characters wouldn't feel quite as compelled to necessarily multiclass as deeply to maximize their potential rulership related skills. Of course, there is nothing stopping a player to take Noble class or rogue levels and so forth to maximize their rulership. But how is that different from a player that twinks out their character to be a melee beast?


    As for the debate between how to proceed with domain level play in 4th edition, let's look back at how 2e functioned as our "base" mechanics.

    -RP gain was based on class.
    -Specialized proficiencies were in the old "NWP" class groups to limit "cross-class" NWPs.
    -Class based bonus abilities towards rulership (free espionage, agitate, etc)

    Now, some of the NWPs in 2e were incredibly powerful. Intrigue for example was essentially a free pro-active espionage action with little cost.

    So, analyzing this demonstrates that what truly differentiated a Fighter and a Fighter-regent was that the latter controlled a domain and was more likely, albeit it not necessarily, to possess 1 or more NWPs related to maximizing their rulership potential, and a bloodline.

    That being said, I think the ideal situation would be to have a scion template that adds specific rulership skills to the (non) player character, in addition to access to the bloodline abilities. Furthermore, the template may give blood abilities or access to blood abilities the character can pick each time they gain a level (say at level 1 you pick animal affinity (minor), and at level 6 you decide to take animal affinity (major) instead of the abilities listed in the PHB for your class). Abilities would scale based on your level just like racial abilities.

    Additionally the same could be done for special domain actions. However, we would have to add an additional class of ability (instead of at will, encounter, daily) that would be "domain" and that you gain abilities every few levels accordingly, even if they are just +1 to a roll.


    One of the arguments I saw earlier was in regards to the BRCS being made skill based to better port to other campaign settings. Now, I'm not sure what are the limits of WotC "licensing" of the Birthright game to the community, but you have to come to a decision: Either make it a BIRTHRIGHT game mechanic and focus on expanding the SETTING, or make a generic game mechanic system, and use the setting as an example of implementation. Personally, I think the former is a much more interesting use of time.
    Last edited by The incredible, edible Phil; 04-24-2009 at 04:09 PM.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pabloj View Post
    The more I think about it, the more I believe we must keep Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities completely separated from the combat/adventuring system, specially the levels of the chars. In fact, I believe we should aim at creating a system for Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities elements that go beyond 4th edition, but are inseparable from D&D itself. Below are the main reasons:

    • Futureproofing: there is no way we can know how powers, feats, classes we develop will work or not with D&D, given that it will continue to produce more material: more classes, races, powers, etc. In fact, in a few years we will have D&D 4.5, and after that, D&D 5.0. No doubt these will change dramatically how the adventuring and combat system works, but no doubt will keep some core D&D elements: Classes, Races, 1-18 (or something) attributes, skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, etc. I strongly believe that we must focus on this milestones, drawing inspiration from the original 2dn edition setting, but evolving the Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities so they will be much more simple to integrate and update regardless how the combat rules work.

    • Player Oriented: The characters should choose to focus on how they rule their Domains and specialize all they want, but not at the expense of their adventuring life. This is both more fun (generally speaking), makes creating NPCs regents a piece of cake (just choose a monster from the MM, like the Lvl 4 Human Wizard, apply the Domain rules, ready to go). Also, It lets you portray the classic young lvl 1 prince with very strong lineage seamlessly, or makes no impact in having bloodied and non bloodied characters on a party (mechanic and power wise)

    • Simple: It will be much more simple to design a standalone Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities system, that is consistent, simple and fun into itself (while retaining things like Bloodlines, which make defines the setting) than making sure it´s balanced, goes well with Core and Supplemental D&D Material.

    Just my 2 cents here.

    I think your 2 cents are worth their value in gold.

  7. #27
    I have been working on my own 4E Conversion rules on the DnDi site and here is what I have so far. I feel more ppl here will give me feed back.

    Martial Access to Law
    Divine Access to Temple
    Psionic Access to Temple
    Arcane Access to Source
    Primal Access to Source

    Defender Access to Law and Temple
    Striker Access to Law and Guild
    Controller Access to Temple and Guild
    Leader Access to Law, Temple, and Guild

    Province is Access by All

    But after that I give players 2.5 pts to spend on the different Access. Person can spend 0 pts, 0.5 pts, 1.0 pts, and 1.5 pts to an Access. Example as followed.

    A Paladin has access to Province, Law, and Temple; he spends 1pt to Province, 1pt to Law, and 0.5pt to Temple. That means that he will gain full regency from Provinces and Law holdings and half regency from Temples.

    A Fighter might do 1pt to Province and 1.5pt to Law and get full regency from Provinces and full plus half regency from Law.

    A Warden (using a Native American style play) might do 1pt Law (for his warrior tribe) and 1.5pt Source (for his connection to the Primal Spirits of the Land).

    A Swordmage could do 0.5pt Province, 0.5pt Law, 1pt Temple (Wizard School), and 0.5pt Source.

    As for Multiclass and Hybrid class, pt assignment should be limited. Access from Multiclass is limited to 0.5 pts. Access from Hybrid class is limited to 1.0 pts. Examples as followed.

    Fighter who multiclass as a wizard can only assign 0.5pts to guild or source.

    Fighter/Wizard Hybrid class is limited to 1.0pts to Law, Guild, and Source. Temple and Province is access by both so they can be 1.5pts.

    Players should not be able to make Holdings in areas that they have no points in (and therefore gain no regency from). I would allow a player to change pt arangement by way of Retraining.

    I also want to add my vision of a Temple Holding is one of Training and Learning. That could be a training facility for warriors or a wizard's school; not just a place for ppl to pray to gods. Case in point, all of the Cuiraecen temples seem to me to be all about training warriors, its the Haelyn temples are the real bible thumpers.
    As for Bloodline Strength, I am thinking of setting min/max base on character tier.
    At heroic tier, Min of Tainted/5, Max of Major/40.
    At paragon tier, Min of Minor/15, Max of Great/60.
    At epic tier, Min of Major/35, Max of True/90.
    I am thinking of a starting bloodline of Minor/20.

  8. #28
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The incredible, edible Phil View Post
    One of the arguments I saw earlier was in regards to the BRCS being made skill based to better port to other campaign settings. Now, I'm not sure what are the limits of WotC "licensing" of the Birthright game to the community, but you have to come to a decision: Either make it a BIRTHRIGHT game mechanic and focus on expanding the SETTING, or make a generic game mechanic system, and use the setting as an example of implementation. Personally, I think the former is a much more interesting use of time.
    Now here is where the community at large differs.

    There is a measureable group that considers BR to actually be the domain system and not the "setting".

    There are a lot of people that play the game as a mix of Forgotten Realms and BR blood abilities with no domain level play.

    There are a lot of people that only play domain level games (most PbP games focus on domain level play) and some of them have actually moved beyond the "setting".

    Personnally I go with the setting and a mix of play styles (both PC level and domain level).
    Last edited by irdeggman; 07-21-2009 at 07:45 PM.
    Duane Eggert

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    Since the non adventure class would have no adventure impact - just non-adventure skills and feats, then it shouldn't be a 'wasted' level at all - it shouldn't cost xp or affect future xp gains like an adventurer class would. The simple way is to say 'every time you level up your adventurer class, you also level up in a ruler class.' (basically a gestalt class approach, but less munchkin-y as the classes don't overlap)

    However as the non-adventure 'class' is just skills, feats, and maybe abilities, I'd avoid levels entirely. I'd either give skill points/feats directly at DM whim, or give them character points to buy skills/feats/etc from the non-adventure list. If they really wanted to buy non-adventure stuff with xp aI'd try to figure out a fair conversion, or more likely, wing it.

    You could give out character points either when they level up, or based on roleplaying, story telling, success in domain level play, etc.

    The idea should be to minimise book-keeping and the need to consider trade-offs. Since non-adventure skills would be, roughly, a skill for each holding type (or at most 2), craft/profession skills, etc, etc (basically the old non-weapon proficiency type stuff) then it shouldn't take much book keeping.
    I will be keeping it short for now and later expand my line of reasoning. The way I see it this second class should be an amalgamate of the character (bloodline & ruling experience) and the domain.

    Another principle that I now faver is that every class can go with every domain class, with few prerequisites.

    So a fighter or mage could become a guild ruler, or also a source ruler if they had ritual knowledge.
    Last edited by Sir Tiamat; 07-16-2009 at 12:15 AM.

  10. #30
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Tiamat View Post
    I am convinced that a seperate "ruling class" is the way to go in 4th edition. As the 4th system provides streamlined combat and balance, we should try to keep it intact and add to it rather than swap out powers.
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Tiamat View Post
    That said, I have begun pondering the subject, whether the "non-dventure classes" or "ruling classes" should perhaps not be tied to the ruling character, but to the domain. In which each domain has "levels" and abilities and of which the nature and level of the ruling character is but a part of its total abilities. We could then tie "domain classes" or better yet domain skills or powers to holding type.
    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.

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