dundjinnmasta's Birthright 4e Conversion Thread

[Mathew_Freeman]

Ultimately what I would love to see done with Bloodlines would be done the following way.

Scion Multiclass (Feudal Lords campaign setting did an excellent Noble Multi-class that I would consider using for this purpose!)
== Bloodline Feats (ala Channel Divinity)
== Paragon Path (One for Each Bloodline? One just called Great Scion, maybe?)
== Epic Destinies (True Scion? Awnsheghlien & Ehrsheghlien?)

I would suggest that several Paragon Paths would be better, as it would allow you to customise them more towards the strengths of the different bloodlines. Plus, you could (eventually) even have more than one for each Bloodline, allowing different foci depending on what aspect of the Line you were emphasising.

However, you could also have one named Great Scion that emphasised the divine spark over any particular aspect, perhaps with some radiant themed powers.

[bbeau22]

You are on the right path and think that if you want to really mix 4th edition into Birthright you have to do it that way. I was going to simply have different paths for each bloodline leading up through epic. Break up the minor, major and great abilities between them.

I also think you need to create powers that are specific to Birthright. Like a bonus "+2 to ruling law" ability that can be used once every three months type of thing depeding on your class.

This way, someone that wants to excel at rulership will have to sacrifice combat abilities. It will be nice to see two warriors that are level 10 and one could crush the other because one has fought many battles while the other ruled up some law. They are both still warriors at the core though.

The creatures or people with true bloodlines I am not sure how to deal with but they certainly have to be special cases. I will think about it some more.

-BB

[Sir Tiamat]

[...]This way, someone that wants to excel at rulership will have to sacrifice combat abilities. It will be nice to see two warriors that are level 10 and one could crush the other because one has fought many battles while the other ruled up some law. They are both still warriors at the core though.[...]

Though realistic, in my experience this can be less fun in a mixed group. In one of the campains I ran, we ran into difficulties because the ruler-characters felt useless in combat situations and the non-ruler characters felt usseless in domain play: they basically could not contribute anything when in a situation in which they had not specialized.

Fourth has some drawbacks, but I think that the way fourth handles balance has many merrits. The philosophy that characters should have a distinct but equally important role within each situation is a major improvement for the old situation in which a character had a larger role or smaller to play depending on the situation.

I think that fourth edition Birthright domain play should consist of additional situations in which players have distinct but equal roles, instead of forcing players to specialize in a situation-specific role. Having distinct but roughly equal roles in various situations will simply be more fun.

[kgauck]

Fourth has some drawbacks, but I think that the way fourth handles balance has many merrits. The philosophy that characters should have a distinct but equally important role within each situation is a major improvement for the old situation in which a character had a larger role or smaller to play depending on the situation.

That's because 4e envisions only one situation: combat. So, its much easier to balance all characters as equal, but different, combatants. If combat is simply not a part of one's birthright game, 4e itself is the over-specialized and useless entity at the table.

I can see applying the principle of everyone being different but equal only when the game is basically reduced to one thing. Instead, the thing that has made BR so interesting has been the many different spheres of activity in which the game can take place. The idea that it doesn't matter what you're good at because its always useful makes no sense to me.

I wonder why a character optimized for ruling decided to wander away from court and start adventuring. Either the player received no feedback that he was building poorly, or should have used another character for this adventure, or accepted that his character is not all things to all people in all circumstances.

Omnicompetance isn't so much a feature as it is a bug.

[bbeau22]

Ken,

I am with you, but I do see some benefit to having a system where everyone can actually play. Perhaps part of the problem was the way skills were implemented in 3.5. The lack of skills on some classes precluded them from being a factor for certain part of adventures. I didn't see the reason why Warriors got such few skills while others got an over-the-top amount.

But I am a big fan of choice and consequence. Even in the current campaign, I try to include adventures every so often to keep my players honest about their combat skills. Most go so heavy into blood powers that they do become weak in combat ... but 3.5 is fairly kind and the feats they blow on bloodpowers doesn't have a major effect on their combat prowess.

In 4th edition, it is mainly a combat system but I think it can be VERY adaptable to a domain level style of play. Have options to replace powers with rulership powers. Instead of a new holy strike you get a new holy temple growing power. Those priests that have spent their days fighting evil on the fringes of society are a very powerful priests, but can only wield influence by reputation and those around them. A powerful priest ruler wields far more power in influencing the flock, but probably can't slay the dragon that is attacking the village. Would need help.

I think it makes for a more dynamic relationship between people.

-BB

[kgauck]

I am with you, but I do see some benefit to having a system where everyone can actually play. Perhaps part of the problem was the way skills were implemented in 3.5. The lack of skills on some classes precluded them from being a factor for certain part of adventures. I didn't see the reason why Warriors got such few skills while others got an over-the-top amount.

Because every class is not suited to every situation, some classes should be precluded from being a factor in certain parts of adventures. The solution to this was the heart of 3x, multiclassing. No BR PC should be a fighter full stop. Fighters exist in Cerilia, but they are single focused, all-I-do-is-fight bodyguards and soldiers. On the other hand, fighter makes a fine dipping class to stiffen up a character.

There are many types of campaigns, from the pure combat dungeon crawls, to the combat free courts of intrigue and politics. So classes tend to reflect pure archtypes and you have to multiclass to get the end result you're looking for. But with multiclassing its easy for each DM to tell players what proportions of combat and non-combat to expect over the game. As such its easy make the 100% combat character, the 75% combat, the 66% combat, 50% combat and so on.

Most go so heavy into blood powers that they do become weak in combat ... but 3.5 is fairly kind and the feats they blow on bloodpowers doesn't have a major effect on their combat prowess.

Are blood powers balanced or better than combat powers? Do they use blood powers so often that combat is irrelevant? Either the players are doing this to themselves, or the DM is withholding useful information about how the world works. Either way, its not a system problem (unless the powers are unbalanced) its the people playing the game.

Those priests that have spent their days fighting evil on the fringes of society are a very powerful priests, but can only wield influence by reputation and those around them. A powerful priest ruler wields far more power in influencing the flock, but probably can't slay the dragon that is attacking the village. Would need help.

I think you've just recreated the problem above where the leader types become weak in combat.

After all its easy to make a Fighter with one feat every third level and 4 skill ranks per level, if you want to avoid extreme builds. 4e characters can't trade all their combat skill for non-combat, but in 3e you could have created or limited them to classes whose design philosophy was a good match for you campaign to begin with.

Because I have never had a major NPC in combat where I rolled for them individually, and am content to have combat free games.

The Gavin Tael in the 4e Major NPC thread can be summarized for me as

TRAINED SKILLS
Streetwise, Athletics, Intimidate, Endurance.

ABILITY SCORES
Str 20, Con 16, Dex 14, Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 12, Bld 25

Done. Everything else will never be used by me. And this part of 4e is so blunt and dull all I can do is throw up my hands, because I can't play with this. Apparently Gavin Tael is a spymaster to rival Guilder Kalien, and for some fluff we can describe him as athletic. The first part is simply not plausible, the second is fluff. So I really have a character who has a 12 INT, a 13 Wis, and 12 Cha, and a Bld of 25, which should be toast confronted with a character who is a skilled diplomat, financier, scholar, theologian, or anything other than a spymaster, I guess.

As far as I am concerned this character is useless, and even at 9th level would never have anything to do were he a PC. Unless I took the spymaster thing seriously. And then he's good at one thing.

[tpdarkdraco]

There are many good points raised. In my experience 4e is more aimed at combat for characters and even though there are Skill Challenges now the roleplaying has taken a back seat.

What I plan on doing for my 4e conversion is go back to 2e BR. Bloodlines & abilities were random rolled if the player chose to have a bloodline. This was then additional on top of the normal character. PC's who did not have a bloodline then recieved 10% extra xp then blooded characters to make up for these extra abilities and wealth they might have. I am going to convert the current Blood abilities and treat them like a magic item. You are the magic item with these extra powers.

I have also looked at the Noble multiclass from Fedual Lords and it is still orientated towards combat. On the other hand the Fedual Lords - Adventurers Guide has other good role playing info that I plan to convert to BR. They have your background which can have different benefits like the Noble gets an income/lvl gain as taxes from their land. There are also allegences that you can have and being sworn to your local lord can give you a benefit. Plenty of role playing extras.

Also just a general comment of adventurers vs ruler. When I was DM my campaign I had rulers and adventurers and I can't say I had much of a problem with the differences they could do. Even if they had taken skills to be a better ruler and not adventurer. They still pulled their weight in combat or they might have been a slightly better ruler then the other PC.

[dundjinnmasta]

Simply put: Rulers in BR are ment to be adventurers. It says in the 2e BR campaign so the fact that "4e is all combat" is irrelevant to me because they are suppose to be adventurers and therefore good at combat. I plan to use adventures along side of the domain system and if there is a point where the characters come into contact with other regents then a fight may or may not break out so I got the combat information all nice and handled infront of me.

4E is the engine for the game when things get ugly and everything descends into combat then the system comes into play and I will be using it. I doubt that I am going to offer "non-combat" powers though I may allow these as feats because there are examples of non-combat feats (Skill Focus & Skill Training, right off the top of my head).

I have not decided how I would like to see the Domain system work at this point but I have a few visions for it. The first one is similar to how the Alchemy & Ritual system works but I think this would be best used on the Realm Magic system. I would likely modelled a domain system closer to the 2E system then the 3.x system.

Speaking of combat! I just recently got ahold of the Hard Boiled Ideas: Armies pdf from Bad Egg and I think there is definite potential to use it for a 4E BR mass combat system (aka War!).

[kgauck]

I don't have a problem with adventuring, I have a problem with every obstacle being combat. My players went places and did things, and I prefer a heroic Arthurian tint for BR, but most of their activities took place among other people, and so killing people would have had serious consequences. Adventuring doesn't have to mean combat. See my extended adventure of Njalgrim's Doom on the wiki.

[Vicente]

Speaking of combat! I just recently got ahold of the Hard Boiled Ideas: Armies pdf from Bad Egg and I think there is definite potential to use it for a 4E BR mass combat system (aka War!).

Can you elaborate a little more on this? I'm pretty interested on that pdf myself