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Thread: 4e Blood Abilities
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11-23-2009, 02:09 AM #11
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Rykros1,
I hadn't considered the Weekly part of the power. Maybe it would be better to change this to a Daily Power and increase the dice damage by one step e.g. from 2d8 to 3d8.
I will have to have a good look at home as I am at work at moment.
You wil also note in my version the Elemental Control the Elementals had some interesting Utility type powers where as you have gone for straigt out damage. Suggest have Utility type power which is weaker for damage and the main attack power have more dice damage.
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12-06-2009, 05:00 AM #12
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Fair enough.
With that being said, I noticed that both Resistance and Major Resistance are untyped bonuses. Also, the +2 history bonus from Blood History is untyped. Were these an oversight?
That would depend on how you write up 4e awnsheghlien, and what monster type they are. One option is to make awnshegh a monster type and add it to the list, or make it add defenses against those with the blood of Azrai.
Our conversion did a complete rewrite of the ability, named it Divine Shield, and made it work against everyone instead of just evil creatures. To balance it, we made it an encounter power activated as an immediate interrupt, lasting until the end of your next turn.
As an aside, Enhanced Sense deals with "evil" as well, and deserves a similar restructure.
In that case, the bonuses should be untyped, since this is a rare occurrence. It should stack with everything else.
That sounds good, especially since it's a minor ability. If you are worried about that being too weak, you could raise the amount of hp given, and/or tier it per level of play. To mirror the toughness feat, it would be +5 hp, raising to +10 at 11th level and +15 at 21st.
I finally had a chance to sit down and take a closer look at the abilities. One of the things I noticed is that, due to its wording, the +2 bonus to perception from Alertness only works during combat encounters. If the intention was to make the +2 passive, you could delete the immediate interrupt and trigger lines entirely and achieve the desired effect.
Blood History suffers from a similar problem. Due to its wording, it seems like the +2 bonus to history checks only applies when blood history is activated to give a +2 to another skill. I got the impression that the +2 to history was meant to be a passive bonus. Moving the +2 to history above the start of the stat block for the description of the encounter ability would solve this.
Finally, the Courage [great] bloodline ability grants a +2 bloodline bonus to defenses for all units in the scion's area of the battlefield. I noticed that for the minor and major versions, the defense is specifically against fear, but the great level does not have this restriction.
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12-08-2009, 09:26 AM #13
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I think Divine Wrath merits its own post, so I made this separate reply here.
I still feel the bonuses are far too powerful, even surpassing Divine Wrath's 2e might. Effectively, the benefit is giving an action point every round, combined with maximum damage and the bonus to attacks to make sure they land. This is beyond a great level of ability, DM controlled or not - and that's not even counting the bonuses to defenses, saving throws, and resistance.
I'd suggest the following:
Instead of a standard action, grant the use of a level 1 at-will power as a free action once per round. I originally was leaning toward a melee or ranged basic attack, but with 4e's balancing of melee and magic there's no need to penalize non-melee types.
Increase the bonus to attack rolls, damage, saving throws, and defense to an untyped +3. Resistance to damage remains at 5. To be honest, all this alone is enough to make the power quite enviable.
Add a component to translate "variable durations always last the maximum amount of time." -2 to save against the scion's effects that a save can end.
The maximum damage portion is harder to work with. Since spells and melee are now comparable, it's difficult to translate the maximized spell power directly. Here's some ideas I came up with, starting with my favorite:
All damage or effect dice in the Hit and Effect lines of your powers are increased to the next die power. For example, an attack that does 2d10 damage would now do 2d12. A heal that normally heals 3d6 would now heal 3d8. An attack dealing 1[w] damage inflicted by a longsword (1d8) would now do 1d10. Note that this does not apply to non-attack added effects like sneak attack, hunter's quarry, or static damage bonuses.
Another possibility, and the one I thought of first, is to increase each attack by one dice completely. For example, 3d6 becomes 4d6. I thought this could be too strong, because some attacks would go beyond maximum damage that way (for example, a 1[w] attack becoming 2[w]).
The final possibility is to increase the scion's crit range by 1. This would have the effect of causing maximum damage more often.
Again, I'd advise the raising of the type of dice used by 1. Of course, it's also easy to drop this last element completely and the power will still remain quite potent.
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12-09-2009, 02:49 AM #14
Don't mean to be stepping on toes or trying to sidetrack the conversation but... how is the 4th Edition re-modeling of Birthright doing so far (as WotC said it'd be a long time) by Birthright.net?
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12-09-2009, 06:48 AM #15
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I know others are working on various parts of 4e conversion. I currently have about 85 pages.
Blood Abilities chapter is almost complete. I have been modifying my version from the various other members. My are not all the same as Rykro1. Most are but some I don't agree with. When I have finished mine I will post again.
Other chapters I am still working one. I am working on Backgrounds & Regions. Similar format to forgotten realm layout. I have just about finished Anuire and will post that in the next month or so in the download section for input and comments.
I have some new feats, I am working on the Magician Class, Organisations to join or swear allegance to, and a social ranking system which works as a character level domain style system. I have finished the races which I have previously posted and uploaded in the downloads section.
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12-17-2009, 07:14 PM #16
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Also, the +2 history bonus from Blood History is untyped. Were these an oversight?
That would depend on how you write up 4e awnsheghlien, and what monster type they are. One option is to make awnshegh a monster type and add it to the list, or make it add defenses against those with the blood of Azrai.
As an aside, Enhanced Sense deals with "evil" as well, and deserves a similar restructure.
In that case, the bonuses should be untyped, since this is a rare occurrence. It should stack with everything else.
I finally had a chance to sit down and take a closer look at the abilities. One of the things I noticed is that, due to its wording, the +2 bonus to perception from Alertness only works during combat encounters. If the intention was to make the +2 passive, you could delete the immediate interrupt and trigger lines entirely and achieve the desired effect.
Blood History suffers from a similar problem. Due to its wording, it seems like the +2 bonus to history checks only applies when blood history is activated to give a +2 to another skill. I got the impression that the +2 to history was meant to be a passive bonus. Moving the +2 to history above the start of the stat block for the description of the encounter ability would solve this.
The idea is to apply the word for word "recalling the knowledge of your ancestors" and giving it a practical use. So if you come along a challenge that involves walking the tightrope, you can recall the knowledge of an ancestor who was a skilled Acrobat and for that encounter you would receive a bloodline bonus to Acrobatics checks. I'll reword the ability to reflect what I just explained.
Finally, the Courage [great] bloodline ability grants a +2 bloodline bonus to defenses for all units in the scion's area of the battlefield. I noticed that for the minor and major versions, the defense is specifically against fear, but the great level does not have this restriction.
Although now that I look at it, it doesn't look quite right.
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12-17-2009, 07:18 PM #17
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12-18-2009, 09:48 AM #18
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Excellent. Thanks for all your effort in putting this together. One more thing: Unreadable Thoughts, as per the chart and 2e, is listed as a minor ability, while in your stat block it is listed as a major, and appears to be statted as such.
Also, here's something I noticed recently when rolling for blood abilities. The chart for rolling random blood abilities from the old 2e book of regency has a couple errors in it. For example, Major Resistance is listed at every tier for Anduiras, while if you look at what options are actually available, Anduiras only has access to one resistance: Magic; and only at the minor level. I suppose its saving grace is that it lists the possibility of unique resistances to a family, but I doubt it was their intention to roll it as such. It's just another one of the wonky things with all the 2nd edition material; I just reroll when I hit an error like that, but it might be something to consider.
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07-25-2010, 11:03 AM #19
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After having played and DM'd 4e for nearly a year now in regular weekly games and having been exposed to the material longer, I've updated the PDF with more streamlined 4e terminology and modified several abilities to be (what I consider) more balanced with the general ruleset.
That said, I believe in preserving this unique feature to Birthright and as such most of these abilities are, to a degree, a step above the typical 4e power. It's also true that blood abilities in 4e can superpower a 1st level character, as they are not scaled by level. This is an issue that can't be fixed without a complete overhaul of blood abilities as a concept, but this PDF is meant to TRANSLATE from 2E, preserving the intent of the abilities rather than changing it.
The link to the updated PDF is: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0...thkey=CImE_6cK
I have also updated it in the OP.
I would love feedback, ideas, to rekindle the discussion. There are several inconsistencies in the acquisition tables, as I had to remove blood abilities I did not translate, such as Bloodtrait, Bloodform, Invulnerability and others. I'm not sure how to proceed with those, as they were left more to imagination and improvisation than clearly defined rules. Again, suggestions would be welcome.
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