Chap 5 for discussion

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 3.0/3.5 Edition
1

Hi,
I used to play 2ed Birthright all the time and just downloaded the 3ed playtest version last night and have been reading through it. I realize that it is a playtest version but one significant area was missing and I was wondering about it.
In 2ed, they gave you the option of playing the regent of a nation that was already there or they gave you rules for creating your own new domain, if I remember correctly it was a point system based on your bloodstrength.
The playtest version doesn’t really give you any information on what the players should do when they are creating new characters and want them to be regents, or whatnot. So are these rules somewhere on these boards and I just haven’t found them yet? are they going to be part of the d20 Atlas? or is it just assumed the the characters who want to be regents are just the rulers of one of the established nations?

Thanks,
Aoskar

2

I believe most people play with the established realms presented in the existing material, either with the printed regent or one of the heirs. IMO the system presented for creating new domains were not the best, but if one want to use them they can quite simply be used directly without any conversion at all.

My immediate suggestions for changing the system would be to give the characters a set amount of points to build their domains with, perhaps the same amount as they had to buy attributes. If you want more powerful domains this could be doubled or even tripled.
Province cost I would set to 2/level, with no reduction for any class, and rather increase Law to 2/level but with a reduced price for fighters.

3

I’m not part of the conversion team, so take this with a large dose of salt. :slight_smile:

I don’t think the ‘make your own domain’ rules are going to be included. The conversion to 3.x edition is to make the system work with current rules of AD&D. There is TONS of work (I have been a part of the atlas) just getting the realms and basic rules down. The ability to carve out your own rules outside of the canon system, IMHO, are just too much. The system has so much to offer by playing a current realm/regent, that providing rules to bypass the campaign are silly (not a flame!).

Thus I don’t think we will see any. However, I have been proven wrong in the past.

4

Actually there was suposed to be something on the make your own domain rules included in the playtest. But with the rush to get it out (due to public pressure) it got missplaced. We haven’t found the files that had the original notes on it either. The person who wrote that part is on a ‘walk about’ and we haven’t heard from him for quite awhile.

When ever that chapter gets revised adding rules for making your own domain was something that many people pointed out as missing and they basically wanted it back in.

So, eventually they will be there but I can’t give you anything to go on right now or even a time line for when it would be available.

5

So could you give me a rough guess-timate/homebrew idea for how to go about it? I might be a significant minority here but I always liked to make my own realm because I felt it made the game more “mine” than if I just took over some realm that seemed to be kinda prefab. I understand that Anuire has a dynamic and everything but it just irked me when we would play with given realms and you try to do something and then some ruleslawyer type whips out the book and says, “well it says here that the people of _____ wouldn’t go for that, so the dm should role a reaction check or something.” Believe me, that kinda BS has happened to me before.

So anyway, does anyone have any kind of homerule 3.0 version of the create your own domain rule?

Thanks,
Aoskar

6

In the mean time, you could always only use the current Province and holding levels in the realm, while totally remaking the history of the realm and thus the population’s general alignment. So you wouldnt get that problem anymore.

That’s what we did in the campaign I’m in, as I am playing the Duke of Mieres, who was never a vassal to the Avin, though we kept Vaumel as the guildmaster just cause he’s too cool to toss out, also we changed the population’s alignment to neutral from neutral evil.

7

It dosent say anything about a province or population have an alignment in the BRCS nor any efeects a different leader would have on it… sure every player wants the lawful evil monarch’s Chaotic neatral ppl to hate him but does that mean they hate the Lawful Good Paladin also?

8

The general population allignments I was refering to are in the 2ed version, with the realm descriptions.

As for how the people would react to having a regent of differening alignment, it would really depend upon the regents actions that affect the realm. If the actions are different enough from the realms alignment then the regent could suffer a minor loss of regency. A similar idea is put in the BRCS where a regent suffers a minor loss of regency for “acting inconsistant with your alignment.” (page 101) As the faith of the people is what gives most regents RP, another effect could be reduced RP collection. It really just depends on how far you would prefer to swing it.

9

Here is the thread for Chap 5 Ruling a Domain - discussion.

With the word file (BRCS-playtest version) attached.

10

Elves, Dwarfs and Goblins as largest nations except humans should have a variant way of ruling a domain, assets and domain actions as result of totally different cultural traits. (Elf don’t need road for Trade routes (nature stride) also have no corruption and don’t pay tax!!! they should pay ½ of GB for mustering units and maintenance doe to grate understanding among them. THEY Don’t get old!!! That mast have reflection on Rule action, Goblins could “use” slaves or units for Build action or have +2 on province level maximum but can have –1 to loyalty every turn, Dwarfs Build faster and better produce more and have better equipment for units, earns more from trade routes est. This is just an idea because I think expectedly for elves because they are so different society from humans. I have big problems with non-human regents and there domains.

I know this is big job but …

Please comment

11

Originally posted by hazard@Aug 11 2004, 12:36 AM
Elves, Dwarfs and Goblins as largest nations except humans should have a variant way of ruling a domain, assets and domain actions as result of totally different cultural traits.

While I agree 100% with you, I think this should be handled by one of:
a) Leave it to the individual DM to decide. There seems to be a great variation in how different people see the society of the elves and goblins.
B) Put this into the atlas under the resepctive domains there. It iss not only the non-human domains that should have special rules attacched to them, but also realms like Mhoried who should be able to raised better levies.
c) Don’t include any special rules, and leave it to the individual group to decide what flavour their game should have.

12

Things we also need to determine:

We need to include explicit wording in the domain actions which ones can be modified by the spending of GB.

We also need to determine and list the types of Ceremony that require a temple to complete some portion of it – e.g. : Cermony of Investiture, etc, versus a Transfer Ceremony.

13

Just a few random ones I can come up with at the moment.

  1. We need to more clearly define what a Lieutenant is capapble of doing. At the moment it appears to me that he is allowed to take any action each round, which with several lieutenants can easily unbalance the game.

  2. The Agitate/domain attitude rules should be changed back to follow the general rules for domain actions rather than the ones for attitude of NPCs. While I initially really liked the idea I have found several flaws with it. First the complication of negative agitation, which I think is one of the more interesting aspects of the game. Another problem is that the regent at the moment more or less receives a free agitate action in every province, which easily becomes quite a few dice rolls if there are a number of domains in play. This might be more a matter of taste, bbut I think the domain attitude segmetn fits more naturally at the end of the turn, effectively tallying up with the people think of the turn that just passed.

  3. I strongly disagree with the new Build rules where several actions can be taken to speed up contrsuction and that an action is required every turn for any consruction to go ahead. A large domain can now force build a huge fortification in record time, and a small domain will have its court effectively crippled even to get a small constuction finished. I think an action to get the construction started is reasonable, but after this it should be automatic progress, with the necessary master builder etc to oversee the progress to be included in the initital action.

  4. INstead of making the Rule Province very difficult to succeed because it is too powerful I think it is a better solution to increase the price to more close reflect the incredible benefit gained. This could proabably be discussed in more detail in another thread,

  5. Include a list (similar to the spell lists) for ease of reference on what actions fall under what category.

  6. To take account of the possibility of doing sosme advance preparations and planning court actions (in their current version) should perhaps be on a per turn rather than per round basis.

More later.

14

Under the paragraph for readying an action the following is written:

Readying: Readying a domain action allows you to take a standard court action later, in response to a specific event. Only standard Court actions can be readied.

Shouldn’t this be referring to Standard actions as opposed to Court actions? If not the ability to ready an action is greatly reduced.

15

1) We need to more clearly define what a Lieutenant is capapble of doing. At the moment it appears to me that he is allowed to take any action each round, which with several lieutenants can easily unbalance the game.

I would think the proper [intended] rule is this: “an invested Lieutenant may perform one Domain Action in place of the regent each season. A Lieutenant may also personally oversee his regent’s Court Actions at any time.”

In discussing this with Raesene some months ago, we had come up with the above clarification for Lts., and an additional role of an Advisor, who can perform Court Actions for the regent, but not domain actions.

IMC (a few house rulings you may or may not like), I ruled that investing a Lt. is still a domain action, but appointing an advisor is only a Court Action, though searching for one may require a Court Action per month to search for talent within the regent’s realm, or in allied and friendly realms. I require full Espionage domain actions in neutral and hostile realms; levels of hostile law and guild holdings inflict a penalty equal to their total levels in the province(s) being searched.

Osprey

16

Originally posted by Osprey@Aug 11 2004, 06:11 AM
I would think the proper [intended] rule is this: “an invested Lieutenant may perform one Domain Action in place of the regent each season. A Lieutenant may also personally oversee his regent’s Court Actions at any time.”

This would actually make the Lieutenants close to useless. By no longer giving the regent access to more actions they don’t give much back to the domain. They could of course grant a bonus to the action if they perform it as I full action, but in many cases this will be negligible unless the Lt is of a very high level.

What benefit it would be from a Lt overseeing a Court action I cannot see at this time. As most Court actions have an automatic success chance there is little effect in having a character helping on such actions.

In discussing this with Raesene some months ago, we had come up with the above clarification for Lts., and an additional role of an Advisor, who can perform Court Actions for the regent, but not domain actions.

Just as the Lt is of no benefit to a Court action I cannot see what benefit an Advisor (which I don’t think there is any mention of in the system at the moment) would have at the moment. If one define them as granting additional Court actions I think this is just a broken way of avoiding the limitations set down on the number of Court actions by the Court expenditure.

I think a reasonable question to ask here is what a Standard action on the domain level actually entails. The current description in the BRCS implies that a Standard actions for all parctical purpouses is an action performed by the court, but with some minimal guidance frmo the regent. “Regents have organized and able assistance to handle day-to-day matters; often a simple message or two is all that is necessary to perform a domain action.” This makes me wonder where the Standard action actually arises from. A huge realm with many reatainers have the same single Standard action as a lone wizard with no help except his bat familiar hanging from a beam in the roof.

I would propose to change the terminology used for the various actions to the terms Character action, Court action, Full action and Realm action. The fundamental action would be a Court action, which can be used to take most actions that affects the domain in question, such as agitate, contest or wage war. The number of court actions would be determined by the expenditure of the court, e.g. equal to the number of GB spent per turn or half per round. The regent would have three Character actions per turn (or one per round if one want a more well defined turn resolution), which can be used to take actions that the regent himself are personally involved, such as adventures and magic actions (cast realm spell, forge ley line etc.). In addition a Character action would have to be combined with a Court action for the regent to apply his skill bonus and to use any RP to increase the chance of success. A realm action would require a number of court actions equal to the number of provinces affected, plus a Character action if the regent want to influence the outcome.

To come back to the Lt they could be allowed to take a Character action each per turn to help an action slightly. For actions like Contest, Rule etc. they would be of a minimal effect as they cannot spend any RP (unless the regent have granted them some through a Ceremony), but for actions where straight skill checks are invovled they mght be useful. The best example I can come up with is as the realms general, where they can apply their Warcraft skill to lead the armies. A court action would still be required to sort out the logistics and run the army, but it might benefit from a great leader other than the realm regent.

There you have me rambling again :slight_smile:

17

I merged some info from a related topic that should be included here. The questions/comments on creating your own domain.

18

Actually it does give the Regent more actions the way we worked it out. A regent may take a character actions while his lieutenant rules in his place for that action round. It allows PC regents to go off one adventures, conduct diplomacy, etc, while still getting their domain action as well. Also the bonus court action should not be overlooked. It allows a regent without a court at all (e.g. a wizard) to still conduct court actions by getting his chosen lieutenant to do them instead.

This is the info I use…

Lieutenant Abilities:
All of your lieutenants can carry out character actions each game turn, either adventuring, training, leading an army of your soldiers in battle, etc. Most of the time they are looking after their own affairs, perhaps adventuring a little or visiting their families, but in times of crisis (or if you’re off on an adventure and need some solid backup) you may specify what each of your lieutenants is up to. Remember that they do have their own minds and may get annoyed if you take up too much of their time.

Lieutenants Actions You may also select a single lieutenant to perform a lieutenant action each game turn (1 lieutenant action / action round). This Lieutenant Action can be any character or court action available to you. So your lieutenant can muster troops, supervise the building of a structure, lead your soldiers to occupy a province, etc. Effectively, this gives you a bonus court action every action round as long as you have at least one lieutenant.

Lieutenants & Domain Actions: If you decide that your regent is urgently needed elsewhere and cannot be in your realm for your domain action you may designate your lieutenant to carry out the domain action in your place. The lieutenant can spend RPs on your behalf, however the success of the domain action is determined by the lieutenants abilities, not yours. So if you have the Master Merchant feat and you get your fighter lieutenant (who doesn’t have the feat) to create a trade route, he does not gain the same bonus to the success roll. See the domain action section for more details.

Advisors are a little different as they don’t give bonus actions, but you can use their skills to assist with domain actions, court actions and on the battlefield. So a wizard regent could hire a couple of military advisors to lead his armies.

19

Hmmm, where to begin…

IMC I limited Lts. performing Domain Actions in place of the regent to once per season. There’s some solid reasoning behind this (besides it being the rule in 2e as I understand things): only an invested Regent really has the power to utilize the full resources of his domain. There’s also a very important game balancing factor here too: a single Lt. is prevented from running a realm entirely on a regent’s behalf. IMO a Lt. should reflect a limited version of the regent, one who can act in the regent’s behalf but not for 3 domain turns per season.

I think there should be a very solid distinction between Lts. and Advisors: Lieutenants are invested with a Ceremony Domain Action; this is in part a mystic ritual, because it imbues a Lt. with the power to act in the regent’s name, which means they have the ability to spend both GB and RP when performing a domain action. Moreover, I believe that it should be ONLY an invested Lt. who can perform a standard Domain Action in the regent’s behalf, using their Character Action and any applicable synergy bonuses from a relevant skill; Advisors should be limited to Court Actions, not having the invested authority to act with the full power of the regent himself.

So, this leads to several reasons to have invested Lieutenants: their skills may compliment their regent’s, making them better suited to certain domain actions than the regent himself. Don E, this should answer your question about why one would bother with Lts. at all. A Spymaster, for instance, could serve an invaluable role performing Espionage actions for his warrior liege. A Fighter regent could use his Chamberlain, a Master Administrator, to Rule a province, while he uses his character action to adventure or train a unit (a Court Action where his Lead skill is important) or just take a break from rulership, perhaps spending time with family or friends (everybody needs a vacation once in a while, even PC’s :wink: ). If a regent wants to be off adventuring for months at a time, he should then have 3 or more invested Lts. if he wants to fully utilize his domain actions without personally overseeing them. Failing this, his court can direct the actions, but there will be no skill synergy bonuses from an invested character directing the action as there would with a Lt. or the regent running it. RP and GB can be spent normally here, at least using the current BRCS rules.

By contrast, an Advisor is to me nothing more than a glorified courtier, a member of the regent’s court singled out for their exceptional abilities in one or more areas, and probably given extra pay/lands (1 or more GB/season) to reflect this. However, as only a Decree Court Action would be necessary to name an advisor, I don’t think they should be invested with the same sort of power as a Lt., meaning they cannot perform Domain Actions in the regent’s name. Again, only the regent or an invested Lt. would have the necessary authority to coordinate such an action effectively.

Now, as to why would you want an advisor to run Court Actions? Well, by the BRCS rules, there are several areas where such a character would be extremely useful: leading and training units in the regent’s or allies’ realms, for one thing. It only requires a Domain Action to wage war in neutral or hostile territory. A defensive war requires only Court Actions, or none at all in the regent’s own realm; thus, a marshall [advisor] could lead defensive forces, a vital role if the regent happens to be off adventuring, or perhaps waging war elsewhere when the home realm is attacked. However, having a commander capable of leading an offensive campaign (a War domain action) should definitely require an invested Lt. as opposed to an advisor IMO.

Training units with the Lead skill also requires a Court Action and the Lead skill. This is a role where militant advisors have been invaluable IMC. Champions of a realm are often appointed with advsor status IMC to do this, and to act as heroic unit commanders (Hero Units) - well worth a few GB per season if and when war breaks out.

Finally, I use Court Actions to cover all sorts of more minor actions that wouldn’t require the main focus of the realm’s court and resources. Examples include recruiting other courtiers within the realm or in allied realms, something which I would allow Lead or Diplomacy synergy bonuses to affect; Diplomacy actions to allied nations to work out details of some specific arrangement might only require a Court Action, since a standing alliance already covers the major groundwork required of a full domain Diplomacy action; a Master Engineer is another advisor-type who can maximize Build CA’s (Court Actions); and finally, character-led Diplomacy and Espionage actions where a regent has Embassies and Spy Networks respectively are only Court Actions, but these will benefit from a Lt.‘s or Advisor’s synergy bonuses. The last are also examples where a regent’s RP and GB could make a big difference backing up a Lt. or Advisor despite them being only Court Actions, but the characters’ synergy bonuses can save the regent some resources by providing a bonus from the beginning.

20

[b]I think a reasonable question to ask here is what a Standard action on the domain level actually entails. The current description in the BRCS implies that a Standard actions for all parctical purpouses is an action performed by the court, but with some minimal guidance frmo the regent. “Regents have organized and able assistance to handle day-to-day matters; often a simple message or two is all that is necessary to perform a domain action.” This makes me wonder where the Standard action actually arises from. A huge realm with many reatainers have the same single Standard action as a lone wizard with no help except his bat familiar hanging from a beam in the roof.

I would propose to change the terminology used for the various actions to the terms Character action, Court action, Full action and Realm action. The fundamental action would be a Court action, which can be used to take most actions that affects the domain in question, such as agitate, contest or wage war. The number of court actions would be determined by the expenditure of the court, e.g. equal to the number of GB spent per turn or half per round. The regent would have three Character actions per turn (or one per round if one want a more well defined turn resolution), which can be used to take actions that the regent himself are personally involved, such as adventures and magic actions (cast realm spell, forge ley line etc.). In addition a Character action would have to be combined with a Court action for the regent to apply his skill bonus and to use any RP to increase the chance of success. A realm action would require a number of court actions equal to the number of provinces affected, plus a Character action if the regent want to influence the outcome.
[/b]

First off, I’m pretty certain more attention is given to describing Domain Actions than you have quoted. The main such definition is that domain actions represent the major focus of a regent’s court and resources in that action round (month). Mages in general make a poor comparison here, as they follow their own rules to a certain extent. Also, the ability to affect multiple provinces with a large Court as a Realm Action is a HUGE incentive to build a large court. However, Realm Actions require (in BRCS) a Full Domain Action, meaning either the Regent or his Lt. must personally oversee the realm action with a Character Action in order to coordinate such a large-scale effort.

The main distinction is an easy one: Domain Actions are the main events on the domain scale, Court Actions are minor actions or extensions of the main domain action. Some descriptive text in the revised BRCS could easily clarify this, rather than requiring a complete re-writing of the rules.

Don E, I’m sorry to say I’m completely opposed to your re-arrangement of the Domain Action system, because it turns into a real cluster-f*** and seems to get very unbalanced based on who has the biggest court. I think the BRCS system is pretty decent as is - one of the greatest balancers of the game as I’ve played it is that each regent only gets 3 Domain Actions per season, 1 per month - extra minor actions, and extended realm actions, are represented by Court Actions. After a year and a half playtesting this, I can attest to this working quite well. It provides a powerful limitation on regents’ personal realms just growing and growing and growing. For a regent with maxed-out RP collections and an already-wide reach, the next stage of power is to build alliances and vassals. Coordinated offenses by allied regents is far more powerful than one big regent doing it, because of their ability to Contest multiple times in the same month.

Finally, a question for you: how much have you played with the BRCS sytem of Domain and Court Actions? Are these comments based on experience using that system and not liking it, or are they mainly theoretical criticisms?