The Birthright Domain rules

[Arch-Sorcerer Gargamel]

I will elaborate on my views:

Its too difficult to be an independent wizard regent. Wizards can generate no gold, yet need gold to do many domain actions and cast Realm magic, which is silly.

A priest version of magician would make sense, seeing as to how there seems to be too many priests running around for the level of magic in the campaign.

There should be covert operations. If you can't perform Espionage operations without everyone knowing, what's the point. Also, the idea of covert holdings should be explored.

In addition to ruling up provinces, there should be migration and refugee rules. I'm sure when elves take over a new province they aren't going to leave the current inhabitants and they aren't going to replace them very quickly.

I would like to see more emphasis placed on cities. Perhaps some major cities should be independent provinces (Like Anuire) since often cities are vastly different than the country sides.

Buildings and constructions should play a larger role. Castles, palaces, harbors, military bases, roads, and city walls should all play more importance. The existence of special structures could also be a possibility and add flavor to the campaign. Monuments, similar to many rules floating around the internet could be implemented and have rules created for them. I'm sure Berhagen would like to build a Great Wall to shield themselves from Vosgard and Rzhlev. Also, more minor constructions could have effects on provinces and entire realms such as specific mines, cathedrals, etc. There is plenty of room for these to be explored.

A commodity/resource system should take the place of the current trade routes. This way, trade routes wouldn't just exist just to say I'm making money. It could also have special circumstances and prestige for realms that have good resources. If most of the gold in Anuire comes from Mhoried, then it is that much more important to keep out of the hands of the Gorgon and Tael. Trade routes could be used to spread goods throughout the land, rather than simple gold generation. Trade routes could have multiple commodities, because trade routes are just the paths that merchants take.

I'd like to see the oceans developed more. Naval rules, as well as the possibility of ocean/underwater provinces. Not every ocean area need be a province, just the ones in use. Guild, law and source holding could be generated from these 'provinces.' The province level wouldn't neccesarily be the number of people living there, but could be the fishing/guild potential, or the traffic of trade routes through that stretch of ocean. In addition the sea life could create enough mebhaighl for sources.

Underground and Underwater provinces. I'm not sure if there are any intelligent underwater lives, but I thought I'd throw this in anyway. The dwarves could go deep enough underground to where they shouldn't affect the surface province level. This would add a dimension to dwarves and subterranean humanoids. Oceanic awnshegh could control certain underwater provinces. It could be worked out, I'm sure of it.

The warcard (and possibly unit) system is terrible. I'm not quite what to suggest here, but it should be fixed. This goes the same for military generation. Levies decrease province level, but where do the normal units come from?

Perhaps another holding type can be utilized. A holding type that uses the same number that sources use to determine their level maximum. This would represent protected (undeveloped) nature level (by druids) of the province. This makes more sense than sources, because what are druids going to do with collections of arcane magical power? They could get regency from this and half as much from temples (druids still are religious figures).

Travel times should be fixed. That is to say, the distances given by the maps are hard to adjudicate. Maybe I'm just reading them wrong. More smaller scale maps would be nice. If anyone is so inclined.

I'm at a blank, but I'm sure I'll have more soon.

[Lawgiver]

-the time it takes for communications between regents of different provinces needs to be clarrified. Many PCs attempt to abuse the privelage of communication. They assume that a message from Talinit to Avanil arrives like email or something.

-One item with military units that may be a bit hard to implement would be personalities of troop commanders. For instance, it can take a few days to get word from a PC's capital city to the outer edges of some realms. By the time the orders are received the commanding officer may have moved on or used his best judgement and proceeded with an counter-attack against invaders even though the PC (who is not leading his troops) wished the troops to fall back. Just a bit of realism that adds flavor. Good luck on figuring out how to implement it without DM arbitration though. :-)

-Info on ernshegh is all but void. Are they the blood of azrai but good? OR are their powers from another source? Is it my choice or an uncontrolled transformation?

-As Eldred stated, there needs to be more emphasis on non-regent PCs. Lackeys find themselves idle many times or turning into errand boys who must obey the regents every whim.

-Suggestions on how to handle playing with multiple reents should be offered. Its very hard to play Birthright with large groups based on the standard rules. If you don't involve role-playing it turns into a turn based biding and rolling session. But if you try to throw in role-playing you are limited because it makes no sense for the regents of three realms to consistently be adventuring together or attempting to role-play a random event that deals with a single province in one realm.

[Mark_Aurel]

Excellent feedback. More takers?

[Rcook12a]

First off I want to say that the system works and that means alot to me since I have never seen another system that combined Strategy and RolePlaying. With that in mind these are some changes I would make or have made in my campaign.

1. All of my players live in the same kingdom and adventuring is the main method for resolving realm actions. I don't even let the players use the book, if for instance the "king" wants to increase tax income in a province by imporving the law there he either travels there or has the local authorities resources expanded (IE the regent sends money to hire more men to police the area and collect taxes; a large short term cost for long term gain). More oportunities and examples of using adventuring to accomplish realm actions would be excellant.

2. I don't like the fact that a Regent can gather taxes in a province when he has absolutely no legal (LAW) control of the province. Province ownership seems the largest steady source of income but all you have to do to get the money is have a magical tie (blood line) to the land, this makes no sence to me. Unfortunately I don't feel like reworking the whole system so I leave it alone. I don't think provinces should generate any income only regency. Income should be generated in descending amounts as follows Law (taxes), Guild and trade routes (trade), Temple (religious tithes) and Sources should generate some small amount of income just to be fair to wizards (it after all a game).

3. One of the other posters already mentioned a more in depth look at population changes and migration. I agree that this should be more significant than money and time. Especially in the case of inter racial conflicts. Elves would not allow themselves to be ruled by any other races in my opinion and I think racial conflicts would be more significant than in our own world where they are very significant.

There are few other things I would change but these are the "BIG Three."
Regards
Randy