4th edition Birthright according to Bbeau22

[bbeau22]

4 Edition Birthright

This is a write up of my over-view of how I am going to convert Birthright into 4th edition. I will try to note reasons why I am making certain moves as I go.

Please feel free to add in your thoughts. See any glaring problems? If you have any thoughts to expand this so it might work better. I am open to any opinions.

Races – Keep all of the non-human races as they are in the player’s handbook in their powers and abilities. Of course they are described different for their unique qualities and history in Birthright but they will play the same as the handbook. Races not available in Birthright will not be allowed.

For the human races there will be small changes to represent the regional differences in humans. I am going to have them keep their choice of +2 stats for one and add in a regional +2 according to the original rules. To reduce their power instead of them having an option to choose an extra feat they will have one assigned to them.

- Anuireans - +2 Wis, Bonus skill: Diplomacy and a base +3 to it.
- Brecht - +2 Dex, Bonus +1 to AC when wielding a light weapon and light armor.
- Khinasi - +2 Int, Bonus skill: Arcana with a base +3 to it.
- Rjurik - +2 Con, Bonus +5 to defense against abilities with the cold trait.
- Vos - +2 Str, +2 to hit and damage when bloodied.

Now I am not sure how balanced they are. Might have to adjust them. The stats are taken from the 2nd edition rule book.

Classes – Classes from the original rule book will be allowed in. I tried to keep this process simple.

- Allowed old classes – Fighter, Priest, Wizard, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue
- New class allowed – Warlord
- Missing classes – Druid, Bard

For the missing classes hopefully future releases will include them. Until then druids will have to be treated as priests and Bards will have to be rogues. Much too difficult to create whole new classes for each. For Warlord some old warriors can be switched.


Skills

Skills have been switched in 4th edition and they are much harder to pick and choose with skills you work on. With that in mind, I am going to remove skills that have domain effects. Many of the same benefits will be given as feats.

- Administrate – Remove the skill. Create a feat that allows a reduction in realm maintance but make it fixed. As the character goes up in level they can save more gold. Ability check for success.
- Diplomacy – Keep the same. Add in Lead into diplomacy.
- Lead – Remove. Bonus to realm actions replaced with feats.
- Gather Information – Remove birthright extras and replace with feats.
- Warcraft – Keep in for war.

Feats

There will be feats added in to help with domain actions. Current feats will be removed or adjusted to match 4th edition.

Blood Abilities

For this conversion, I will keep blood abilities as an added layer to a character that is blooded. 4th edition is about balance and there would be ways that can be added in but a simpler process. Character will need to use a starting feat to be blooded. Then the score will determine the abilities just like before.

They will need to be switched to 4th edition rules. They will be switched to at-will, encounter, per day, or per week. This will take time but not extremely hard.

- Healing blood ability will be switched to a second wind style ability
- Detection abilities will be looked at and perhaps removed.

Domain actions

This is going to go through a change that makes it resemble 4th edition a bit more.

Each regent will now have an attack and defense stat for Guild, Law, Temple, Source and Realm/Province. The base attack is +0 at level 1 and the base defense is 10 at level 1. This keeps the ratio the same.

There will be feats and class bonuses to these different stats. Not sure of the balance but classes will have bonuses to these stats dependant on level. This is a very early thought for this and will go through some changes. I was thinking that a fighter with law will be hard for a rogue to remove.

Fighter – Law +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Priest – Temple +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Rogue – Guild +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Wizard – Source +2 at level 11, another +2 at level 21
Paladin – Temple and Law +1 at level 11, another +1 at level 21
Ranger – Unsure. +1 to source and law maybe

There are plenty of different parts to look at and I am unsure what to do yet. Courts I will try to keep the same. Adjust all of the realm actions to 4th edition style actions. Each month is a standard action.

War

Not sure yet.