Of Divinity and Bloodlines...

[Magnus Argent]

boy did my post get misunderstood.

lets go by by an extreme example:
sir protagonist the lucky (anduiras tainted 6) in his infinite wisdom grabs his bloodsilver sword of eternal plot and goes to fight the gorgon (azrai true 100+ lets say 120). in a spectacular turn of events he kills gorgon and using a tighmaevril weapon gets 60 pts of bloodline.
now as per book of regency p24 sir protagonist gets 6/6-1 d6 to roll vs gorgons 120/6 d8.
it is mathematically impossible to win for sir protagonist thus his bloodline changes to azrai.
sir protagonist the lucky (azrai tainted 66). now slaying the gorgon is an epic feat and thus a generous (or intelligent) gm may decide that it qualify as the great deed needed for improving the bloodline strength. thus sir protagonist the lucky is now (azrai minor 66). considering he just ate a true bloodline (and changed derivation) this feels wrong.

now imagine he went drunk on success and went on to fight and kill the manslayer (azrai true 95). sword of eternal plot working as intended would dutifully transfer 47 blood to sir protagonist, but protagonist having already increased his bloodline strength in his lifetime is barred from doing it again (book of regency p17).
thus we have sir protagonist the lucky (azrai minor 113) who consumed 2 true bloodlines.

As I understand it, Bloodline Strength is an adjective that has no value in and of itself in terms of game mechanics. Tainted Bloodlines begin with a bloodline score between 4-16. Minor Bloodlines range from 5-30.. Major, 8-48. Great 8-64. I don't think there's a difference between 4 scions who have a Tainted, Minor, Major, and Great bloodline, each with a Bloodline Score of 10. In terms of game mechanics, there's absolutely no difference, is there?

And even in terms of the game world and how NPCs treat them.. they'd probably be given equal amounts of respect. Why? Great bloodlines range from 8-64. Having a score of 10 means the scion comes from a bloodline that simply is not living up to its potential.

[Fizz]

As I understand it, Bloodline Strength is an adjective that has no value in and of itself in terms of game mechanics. Tainted Bloodlines begin with a bloodline score between 4-16. Minor Bloodlines range from 5-30.. Major, 8-48. Great 8-64. I don't think there's a difference between 4 scions who have a Tainted, Minor, Major, and Great bloodline, each with a Bloodline Score of 10. In terms of game mechanics, there's absolutely no difference, is there?

The bloodline strength does play a role, because every blood ability requires a particular strength.

To continue your example, the four scions may all have a Score of 10, but the one with a Great bloodline could have the blood abilitiy Invulnerability. The other three lesser bloodlines could not have it.

And many abilities have stronger effects for higher levels of bloodline strength (such as Animal Affinity).

-Fizz

[Osprey]

The bloodline strength does play a role, because every blood ability requires a particular strength.

To continue your example, the four scions may all have a Score of 10, but the one with a Great bloodline could have the blood abilitiy Invulnerability. The other three lesser bloodlines could not have it.

And many abilities have stronger effects for higher levels of bloodline strength (such as Animal Affinity).

-Fizz

The strength of a blood ability is not related to the strength of the scion's bloodline though. In the 2e rulebook a minor scion can have Major powers, and a major scion can have Great powers.
Through advancing the blood, even a tainted scion could have Great powers but still be tainted.

The Book of Regency talks about increasing one's bloodline strength (once in a lifetime at most! and no one is allowed to acquire a True bloodline if they are not born with it; according to the BoR True bloodlines are only in those who were present at Deismaar though this does not explain the Roele emperors keeping true bloodlines).
In that section, the book helps flesh out the concept that bloodline strength is really about the public perception of the bloodline - its fame and renown. It's the historic greatness of a scion's divine heritage.
But it really has no mechanical effect on blood abilities or bloodline score in 2e.

[Magnus Argent]

The Book of Regency talks about increasing one's bloodline strength (once in a lifetime at most! and no one is allowed to acquire a True bloodline if they are not born with it; according to the BoR True bloodlines are only in those who were present at Deismaar though this does not explain the Roele emperors keeping true bloodlines).

Roele was a Champion at Deismaar and walked away with a True bloodline. Following the normal rules children of scions, the sons and daughters of Roele would have been born with True bloodline, as well. As would their children .. and so on and so on.

The bloodline loses its luster only if their spouse has a higher bloodline score. IIRC, when two scions have children, the kids' bloodline scores will be the the average of their parents' scores and they will inherit the bloodline derivation and strength of the parent with the greater bloodline score.

[Doyle]

I think this presents a problem. If there is not "selective breeding", then the True bloodlines would eventually vanish.
If a True bloodline (40) has a child with an unblooded, then the child would retain the True bloodline at a score of 20. If that child grows up and has a child with a minor bloodline person with a score of 22, then resulting child - grandchild of the 'True' would be a minor bloodline with a score of 21.
The bloodline score can bounce up a down between generations but without the 'once in a lifetime event' each generation the bloodline will only go down.

[Fizz]

The strength of a blood ability is not related to the strength of the scion's bloodline though. In the 2e rulebook a minor scion can have Major powers, and a major scion can have Great powers.
Through advancing the blood, even a tainted scion could have Great powers but still be tainted.

Hmmm.... my understanding is that to have a Great ability, one must have a Great bloodline. If one has a Minor bloodline, you can't have a Major or Great power. Why would they use the exact same nomenclature (minor, major, great) as the blood powers themselves, if they didn't Strength to limit which powers were available?

The 2nd Ed Core Rulebook does refer to "[i]some of the abilities listed in Table 13 are major or great abilities only[i]", which i take to mean requires that level of bloodline strength.

Further, this is supported in BoR. Page 17, Blood Ability Tables says "...first ascertain the character's bloodline derivation and strength... in the Birthright Rulebook. Then simply roll on the correct table to determine which blood abilities the character possesses". And when you look at Tables 1-7, Great / Major abilities are not under the Minor bloodlines tables. For example, if a character has a Minor Anduiras bloodline, they roll on Table 1A; all those abilities are Minor. They could not have Elemental Control (a Great ability) or Divine Wrath (a Major ability).

So, yes, i maintain that bloodline Strength does have a mechanical effect. It determines which blood abilities, and the power's strength, one can have.


-Fizz

[Fizz]

The Book of Regency talks about increasing one's bloodline strength (once in a lifetime at most! and no one is allowed to acquire a True bloodline if they are not born with it; according to the BoR True bloodlines are only in those who were present at Deismaar though this does not explain the Roele emperors keeping true bloodlines).

Not just BoR, but the Core Rulebook mentions that about True bloodlines as well.

Well, a child gains the bloodline strength of the parent with the higher score. Starting with the first Roele, who probably had a very high score, being so close to the gods at Deismaar, that line has probably dominated over the centuries, keeping the children True. And the Roele family probably married into strong lines as well, so the average score of the children remained high. Plus they may have raised their scores as they reign, if only through rulership... So i could envision the True strength holding out all the way to Michael.

-Fizz

[Osprey]

Hmmm.... my understanding is that to have a Great ability, one must have a Great bloodline. If one has a Minor bloodline, you can't have a Major or Great power. Why would they use the exact same nomenclature (minor, major, great) as the blood powers themselves, if they didn't Strength to limit which powers were available?

Why indeed? Lack of creative language use? I certainly would agree that using different terms for the bloodline ability groups would have been helpful.

There's no doubt this overlap has confused many readers. But further careful reading shows there is no actual connection between bloodline ability power levels and bloodline strength.

Also worth noting there are no Tainted or True powers either, so the parallels between blood ability levels and bloodline strength are incomplete.

The 2nd Ed Core Rulebook does refer to "[i]some of the abilities listed in Table 13 are major or great abilities only[i]", which i take to mean requires that level of bloodline strength.

This means some of the more powerful blood abilities like Regeneration do not exist as minor-level abilities at all. No mention of bloodline strength here, just bloodline ability levels.

Further, this is supported in BoR. Page 17, Blood Ability Tables says "...first ascertain the character's bloodline derivation and strength... in the Birthright Rulebook. Then simply roll on the correct table to determine which blood abilities the character possesses". And when you look at Tables 1-7, Great / Major abilities are not under the Minor bloodlines tables. For example, if a character has a Minor Anduiras bloodline, they roll on Table 1A; all those abilities are Minor. They could not have Elemental Control (a Great ability) or Divine Wrath (a Major ability).

So, yes, i maintain that bloodline Strength does have a mechanical effect. It determines which blood abilities, and the power's strength, one can have.

-Fizz

The Book of Regency refers back to the core rules for determining bloodline abilities based on one's Score. The core rules pretty clearly do not limit bloodline abilities based on one's strength - it is random based on bloodline score alone.

The BoR bloodline ability tables were just made to make finding a blood ability by its derivation and strength easier, as well as including the new blood abilities in there. There will be a lot less re-rolling on the BoR tables to get an appropriate blood ability than there was in the Core Rulebook.
But the system for determining which abilities a scion has still goes back to the core rulebook - nothing changed there. If your minor bloodline character is supposed to get a major ability of Anduiras, then they can go straight to that table in BoR and roll. Nothing contradicts that.

BoR page 16 also says very specifically:

Bloodlines are measured by strength (a word: tainted, minor, major, great , or true) and score (a number). The score is a rules mechanic used by players; the strength is largely a role-playing term for reputation used by characters.

This doesn't contradict the core rules on bloodlines, it emphasizes that Bloodline Strength is about reputation not anything mechanical like how potent one's powers are.

Fizz, I understand your logic but I do not see how it agrees with the RAW. It seems like you are extrapolating based on what you think it should be rather than what is actually written. There's nothing I can find in the original rules - ever - that says one must have a bloodline strength equal to or greater than one's bloodline powers.

That being said: the BRCS revision for 3.0/3.5e did change the bloodline rules to match your version of things, so you are clearly not the only one who thinks the rules should have been changed (they changed quite a lot of the bloodline rules though, for better or worse). I think many DMs and players have always wanted bloodline strength to have more mechanical meaning, so that greater bloodlines are almost always more powerful than lesser ones. But in the 2e original, the bloodline score was the thing that mattered for powers, and nothing else. Bloodline strength gave you a higher starting score (and thus a greater chance for more powers and more potent powers), more public renown if your bloodline was known, and better henchmen as a result of the better reputation.

FWIW I have used the BRCS version of bloodlines for my own campaigns. I only went back and learned the differences with the 2e system when I played a couple of short-lived 2e domain games online. That's when I realized there was no direct correlation between strength and score other than one's starting score range.

[Osprey]

Not just BoR, but the Core Rulebook mentions that about True bloodlines as well.

Well, a child gains the bloodline strength of the parent with the higher score. Starting with the first Roele, who probably had a very high score, being so close to the gods at Deismaar, that line has probably dominated over the centuries, keeping the children True. And the Roele family probably married into strong lines as well, so the average score of the children remained high. Plus they may have raised their scores as they reign, if only through rulership... So i could envision the True strength holding out all the way to Michael.
-Fizz

Mostly I just noticed the discrepancy between the BoR saying scions with True bloodlines were present at Deismaar and the Roele bloodline preserving the True bloodline through generations of scions who were not at Deismaar. Small editing error, really.

[Fizz]

Also worth noting there are no Tainted or True powers either, so the parallels between blood ability levels and bloodline strength are incomplete.

I always read Tainted as being just a semblance of a bloodline, so weak / impure that it doesn't justify any actual abilities. True bloodlines i think were ignored because no PC would ever actually have a True bloodline (since only those present at Deismaar, or direct ancestors, could have one). In effect, True lines were meant only for powerful NPC's.

The Book of Regency refers back to the core rules for determining bloodline abilities based on one's Score. The core rules pretty clearly do not limit bloodline abilities based on one's strength - it is random based on bloodline score alone.

No, BoR only refers back to the Core Rulebook for derivation and Strength. Then it says to use Tables 1-7 to determine which blood abilities the character has.

Here is the full text block:
Before using these new blood ability tables, one must first ascertain the character’s bloodline derivation and strength as described under “Bloodlines” in the BIRTHRIGHT Rulebook. Then simply roll on the correct table to determine which blood abilities the character possesses.

But the system for determining which abilities a scion has still goes back to the core rulebook - nothing changed there. If your minor bloodline character is supposed to get a major ability of Anduiras, then they can go straight to that table in BoR and roll. Nothing contradicts that.

Well, BoR does not say to use Table 12 again to determine level of powers. It goes from derivation/Strength straight to the new tables. To me, that suggests the tables in BoR are meant to replace Tables 12 and 13 in the Core Rulebook (for that reason you state- too many re-rolls).

This doesn't contradict the core rules on bloodlines, it emphasizes that Bloodline Strength is about reputation not anything mechanical like how potent one's powers are.

I think the reference to this (page 16 in BoR) is to make clear that numerical scores are not what characters would know- that's only for us players. That is, the Gorgon would never say "My bloodscore is 120".

It also says that Strength is "largely" a role-playing term. "Largely" does not mean "solely", or even "primarily". So it does not explicitely rule out any associated mechanics.

Unfortunately, since BoR was never officially published, we can't be sure if more editing / revisions / clarifications were in the works. Maybe someone should email Stark and find out his intent (assuming he remembers... heh).

Fizz, I understand your logic

Well that's something at least... lol.

That being said: the BRCS revision for 3.0/3.5e did change the bloodline rules to match your version of things, so you are clearly not the only one who thinks the rules should have been changed (they changed quite a lot of the bloodline rules though, for better or worse).

That is in part why i favor my interpretation. Bloodlines are not a 3e-ism, so the conversion (as i understood it) tried to emulate the intent of the original bloodline rules.

FWIW I have used the BRCS version of bloodlines for my own campaigns. I only went back and learned the differences with the 2e system when I played a couple of short-lived 2e domain games online. That's when I realized there was no direct correlation between strength and score other than one's starting score range.

Indeed, and i understand your point in that the Core Rulebook does not explicitely say so. The only reference i have that potentially supports mine is the one i quoted (which as you point out has its own ambiguousness). So i agree there is nothing explicit.

Like i said, let's get Mr Stark on the phone.


-Fizz