Class/regency proposal.

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 4th Edition
1

My idea is that each class should have either a Full regency and Half regency holding type, or a Full Regency with bonus type.

Province Law Guild Temple Source
Cleric Full – – Full/Favored –
Fighter Full Full/Favored-- – –
Paladin Full Full – Half –
Ranger Full Full Half – –
Rogue Full – Full/Favored –
Warlock Full – – Half Full
Warlord Full/Favored Full –
Wizard Full – – – Full/Favored

Favored grants +1 to Rule, Create, Contest for that holding type.  Bonus increases					
to +2 at Paragon Tier, and +3 at epic tier.

Feat: Focused Holding
Requirements: Class has a Full/Favored item on the regency collection table.
Benefit: The bonus doubles from favored. +2 at heroic, +4 at paragon, +6 at epic level.

The idea is that some classes lend themselves towards doing multiple things, and some are specialists. There is a degree of balance in all of them.

Comments? Ideas?

2

It is simple, so starts off well.

If you are moving away from skills but mostly keeping straight 4e, then classes become the obvious candidate, in which case your approach sounds pretty good.

If however you decide to build a non-adventure side to your game, then I’d place domain rulership, RP, etc squarely in that section. So your PC with a ‘background’ of sailor, craftsman, etc gets skills in those areas, your PC with a background in ‘merchant, noble, clergy’ etc gets various skills they can use in domain rule.

3

I personally like the approach of divorcing realm rulership almost entirely from classes, providing a bonus perhaps only in terms of a tier bonus.

As Andrew says, then, regency would be matched to backgrounds of some kind instead. This rulership-focused side would entail a separate progression in realm-appropriate skills, feats, and powers. I would link it to bloodline advancement, organically growing through deeds and experience in ruling the realm, as well as study in some instances.

4

You could have feat progressions.

As a Pc gains ‘levels’ they can either spend feats to gain bonuses to actions with a holding, or in gaining the types of holdings from which they can gain RP.

So regent A specialises in law holdings and spends their 3 feats getting ‘gain regency from law’, ‘gain +2 on all law actions’, ‘gain +5 on claim tax action’ or some such things

Regent B spends their 3 feats on being able to gain RP from province, law and sources, they likely have more RP, but have to spend more to have the same success on actions…

The exact number of eats required and the effect of the feats would, of course, need balancing in the context of a developed system.

5

I am very much against divorcing realm rulership from classes. D&D is very much dependant on classes not to mention the original Birthright system used classes.

The thing is, like everything in Birthright, things are left vague and open to DM’s to explain. With Birthright I see the classes not as your standard run of the mill classes like standard D&D. The Priest we play isn’t the priest that walks from town to town doing good and destroying undead … we play the priest that runs the churches and gives the hands on priest the ability to do good. Wizards aren’t the blast fireballs at the goblins in the dungeon, they are the wizards that influence rulers or rule themselves. The warriors we play aren’t the tank that fights trolls in the swamp to save the village … we play warriors that have a knack for leading men into war.

Classes has to be a part of the equation. How is it hard to explain that a higher level wizard would be better at ruling a source than a low level wizard if blood was equal. If that wizard took realm like powers they should be superior. In the 4th edition this can be accomplished by replacing combat powers with realm like powers. Because people are taking realm powers instead of combat powers they will be very weak class for adventuring but strong in rulership.

Now blood scores are still separate. Low level people with high blood scores are still going to be a force to be reckoned with … but a highly seasoned opponent with a weaker blood score might be able to hold his own against the talented youth at first.

6

BB, in this respect I am trying to balance a simulationist perspective with a game play one. I want a player to be able to have their cake and eat it too. Particularly in 4e, if you swap anything from the adventuring class for a realm class, you make that class woefully underpowered to the point of throwing completely out of whack the adventuring system. If you want adventurer regents, their abilities cannot eat the same pie.

I frankly don’t care how 2e BR was constructed. With 4e we are now farther away from those even more faulty and shortsighted game mechanics. The story and setting is what matters. The best functioning rules that do justice to the story and setting should always be used, IMO.

The primary problem with tying realm rulership to classes is that, even moreso in 4e than ever before, the adventuring classes are just that–ADVENTURING classes. They are not designed to mimic all walks of life and pigeonhole all living PC races into this or that class. Life exists beyond classes, and it typically takes the form of things like: farmer, fisherman, artisan, merchant, courtier, noble, general, etc.

4e describes the adventuring classes by tiers because it points out that even a 1st level adventurer is in the “Heroic” tier. Are all regents adventuring heroes? You could play it that way, but the default BR setting does not seem to assume this. It assumes that PCs will be adventurers, but that the majority of their peers will likely spend most of their lives just living out their roles, not dungeon delving.

Further, just as skill at blacksmithing or sailing does not increase the more ogres you slay, skill at leading and ruling people, keeping financial books, balancing favors and needs, interpreting and applying law, making good policy, etc. does not increase with the number of ogres slain, or even most skill challenges (climbing cliffs, navigating wilderness, bypassing traps).

If you can’t conceive of life without classes and levels, I do see some adjustments that can be made to anchor back to them. First off, give significant XP for standard ruling of a realm. Otherwise you have the bizarre occurrence of a noble who has spent his whole life at court, studying everything he can, taking leadership risks, and doing everything that regents do day in and day out, suddenly looking like he knows nothing compared to the adventurer who has hardly spent a day at court but has cleared out a whole bunch of dungeons.

Second, to keep your regents capable of adventuring per the rigorous level-based D&D regime, don’t force them to swap out powers and feats for regent-specific ones. Grant these in addition to the normal adventuring progression. Otherwise your group of level 15 characters will get their asses handed to them by an 11th level adventure challenge. You destroy the tiers and play balance entirely if you force power swapping.

Of course, in this world defined entirely by adventuring class and level, now that noble who has never spent a day in the wilderness or in serious life-threatening combat is now as able as the dungeon sweeper. Which is why I maintain that it is folly to tie realm rulership to class and level. Keep it independent and nothing suffers–your adventurer hero-kings can still adventure and do brave deeds, but they can also become wise rulers so exceptionally forged in the crucible of adversity that by their noble upbringing they can compete with more sedentary regents. And best of all, such a “both, and” system does not do violence to the story and setting in such a way that suspension of disbelief is seriously strained.

7

An approach I have been working on might satisfy both Rowan and bbeau22.

Basically, everything remains class based as bbeau22 suggests, and I think his argument is compelling. However, Rowan is right, 4e is not a multi-classing environment, so to have both adventuring and realm abilities, characters need extra abilities to manage domains.

Ultimately, that means deciding what kind of ruler a character should be at some benchmark locations, say 1st level, 5th level, 10th, 20th, and if one desires, beyond. Then create a pattern of abilities that produce that end result.

Because the power-up at each level in 4e remains profound, I prefer to maintain a low level environment for BR. Tentatively, I remain structured around the range of class levels typical in the published materials, so that the top rulers will be just beginning their paragon path, and characters at the end of the paragon path will be diminishingly rare. Based on the feel of things, I am slightly increasing the levels of characters, just so that the top end is no long my 3x standard of 10-12, but more like 11-14. Basically, Aeric Boeruine becomes a 13th level Warlord, instead of the published 12th level 2e fighter, or a Fighter 4/Noble 8 in 3e.

There are two tracks of abilities for domain powers, one is a standard every regent needs this stuff package of abilities, like the ability to attract dedicated cohorts, followers, and contacts, recruit lieutenants, perform court ceremonies, Iron Will, stuff like that. Then there are talent trees so a regent can focus on diplomacy, administration, finance, warfare, espionage, trade, rapport (what we would call public relations), and such abilities. Each talent tree is intended to have roughly a six level arc, so that a 13th level character like Aeric Boeruine has just picked his first power from a third talent tree.

Third, is a path of blood ability power-ups. So every character gets their starting blood abilities, plus blood mark and blood history. All of these powers are weak, almost tainted at 1st level. The 1st level version of Aeric Boeruine does not have the full strength version of Battlewise that impose the kinds of problems that made ECL an issue compared to the character that had Animal Affinity, or something like that. Instead the 1st level character who selects Battlewise can effect one unit with a minor bonus. Every three levels you get a blood ability power up. You can’t select the same ability to power up consecutively.

A character like Aeric Boeruine, might have selected Battlewise twice (at 3rd and 9th levels) Bloodmark at 6th level, and Anduiras’ Resistance at 12th.

The result is that a character gains realm abilities, and has a distinct class identity. In a sense, everyone is automatically multi-classes as a noble (which is pretty much how I built 3x characters), and commoners get the same thing, but based more on the idea that everyone is multi-classed as an expert in some profession.

A commoner fighter might select weaponsmith has his “profession” and get get abilities that allow them to master that “domain”. So they can attract apprentices, make masterwork items, join a guild, derive an income, operate a workshop. Their life outside of adventuring. What do they do between adventures.

So that’s my idea, and I will post on it further as I get more of it worked out.

8

In some online games, one levels as, say a Fighter, but also levels as a Blacksmith. I’m not sure I like making it more complicated.

If we don’t allow too many “optimizations” then it doest matter if Prince Avan is a level 30 fighter or a level 1 fighter.

in my proposal, the 2nd example would get a +2 bonus over the 1st example.

So, the uber-master prince of Anuire with 1000’s of gold and regency really could be a level 1 fighter, and still be an effective regent.

if there are not tons of bonuses that you can tweak and optimize into the char.

If good rulership is more a function of player then character, I think we can sidestep the issue.

If a given DM thinks level IS very important, then go with the (max regency = 1/2 bloodline + Level) variant.

9

The ‘non-adventure’ classes are likely to be quite simple - no hitpoints, saves, ac, attack, etc - just skills and feats, possibly with blood abilities on the side with the same base ability stats.

As such I’d hope that they could be quite simple.

You could then either take the easy view - ‘domain’ class and ‘adventure’ class advance in lockstep, so a L20 fighter is going to be very good at the ‘domain’ stuff - possibly ‘general’ but equally possibly ‘wastrel’.

Personally I’d prefer to track the progression separately, and possibly do away with levels entirely - just gain ‘domain xp’ that buy skills or feats.

I like Ken’s take on blood, but would prefer to simply make a string of abilities that could be chosen in place of adventure abilities by the blooded if the power has adventure level application, or put a cost on the power if it has domain application.

10

I am convinced that a seperate “ruling class” is the way to go in 4th edition. As the 4th system provides streamlined combat and balance, we should try to keep it intact and add to it rather than swap out powers.

That said, I have begun pondering the subject, whether the “non-dventure classes” or “ruling classes” should perhaps not be tied to the ruling character, but to the domain. In which each domain has “levels” and abilities and of which the nature and level of the ruling character is but a part of its total abilities. We could then tie “domain classes” or better yet domain skills or powers to holding type.

11

I think having a seperate ruling class adds another level of complexity to an already complex game. For those who love RoE type complication, go for it. For the masses, I think a simpler system is a better system.

Each class gets either a favored holding or a secondary holding type which they gain half regency from.

Level doesn’t have to matter at all, although I do like scaling bonuses based on tier.

If level doesn’t matter at all, then why does it matter if you call yourself a Warlock 3, or a Master Guilder 3, seriously?

12

I just recently find a nice little pdf from RPGNOW called Feudal Lords: Noble. It even has “bloodline” powers and is a multiclass only class. I am convinced that the way to good with both Scion and Regent would be as a multiclass and then you have ALL three types of people represented in Birthright 4e: Normal, Blooded Scion, and Regent (obviously blooded but their powers will be slightly different in scope from the Scion to show the difference).

13

As long as the multi-class system is 4e Compliant and not some bizaare leftover of the past like Fighter 11/Realm Regent 13, then I’m fine with that.

It minorly diminishes the adventuring ability of the regents, by forcing them to give up their Paragon Path in favor of multiclassing into regent.

14

You could go with Power Source rather than class?

Martial favour Law and Guild.
Divine favour Law and Temple.
Arcane favour Source.

15

Personally, I think the best way to update Birthright to 4e is to design Birthright as a “ROLEPLAYING GAME” and not a “Setting.”

Birthright would be it’s own roleplaying game aside from 4e, since 4e is totally different in its approach. Shoeing in Birthright to work around 4e when it was initially designed as a 2e setting would create problems. I think the best way to handle it is not tack on the world on to 4e, but to design a new game to go with the setting.

The more I read threads like this, the more I come to realize that Birthright is unique in its own way. To use Birthright as intended, you need a new game system to handle the rules. I suggest we stick with 3e, or better yet, look at other game systems to design a better game. Birthright can be made to fit 4e, but since I don’t have 4e but have some understanding of its design principles – 4e and Birthright can not fit without some redesign of one or the other.

16

As someone that is both familiar with Birthright 2e, Birthright 3e/3.5e, and 4e I disagree. 4e is feels way closer to 2e then the 3era ever did and I do not feel that either will have to change at all in theory. In truth I think 2e was way simpler then the BRCS because there was very little extra to the 2e.

17

Yeah, I guess I won’t be donating/burning my 2ed books in a whyle… The original 2ed was far from perfect, but I’ve always felt some security in being able to go back to a printed rule.

To get back to the Class/Regency proposal: I would try to fit the 4ed classes into full/half regency – and NOT create new ruling classes; Imagine “new” players, who conceivably know nothing other than 4ed: They would probably have an easier learning-curve if they had direct translation of their favorite class/character. The best thing we can do is make Birthright accessible; and make it simple…

“I always knew that my dwarven warlord had blue blood – I just never expected to see him ruling the country!”
“Careful, young blood-rock, you may soon find that resting from dungeon-crawling is as eventful and equaly challenging of an adventure!”
“How so Master Jan? My dwarf need two weeks of restand he’ll be back underground as soon as…”
“Well, it so turns out that your domain has a Radom Event; and he’ll have to trouble with demands from local merchants…”
(…)

18

The problem with avoiding non-adventure classes is that the 4e player needs to redesign their character plan completely to add the Br elements, instead of a simple add-on for domain play only they need to consider trade-offs in feats and abilities taken which means a geometric rather than arithmetic increase in complexity. Limited-write up ruling classes which have no impact on combat-play are simple by comparison, any complexity added will be minor as the choices will be fewer in number than trying to reverse engineer the existing classes.

The trouble with the ‘base it on class’ approach is that is makes a sweeping assumption that rulership is effective based on the particularly class, and likely the level. 3e’s skill based system was far superior to 2e in that regard if marginally more complicated. Why should a fighter who has never commanded men be better than a noble at generalship simply because the fighter has spent 2 years killing trolls? Using the existing level system for rulership forces all NPCs to have significant adventure level expertise and that indicates a bizarre world build - just how many ruins / goblin raiders are there out there? I’d say that the simplicity drive is overdone - players who can’t handle tracking a few extra feats/skills certainly can’t hope to track dozens of NPCs and political interactions so they wont play anyway.

I’d prefer, if building a system, that we make it completely independent of the system - I don’t see 4e lasting to be frank, and certainly it is heading in the wrong perspective from a BR perspective.

The work is surely not that complicated:

  • List of skills for each holding
  • List of feats to affect bloodline and holding ability
  • Basic system for skill and feat progression.
  • Alternate powers at adventure level for each bloodline - optional if you want an adventure level impact of bloodline only.

I’d personally like to see a wholesale expansion to provide a rules basis for story and simulationist (i.e. role not roll) play in 4e, but that’s a bit more ambitious and I know that some people see that sort of play as old fashioned and irrelevant :frowning:

19

4e will last as long as 3e/3.5e did, there is no doubt in my mind. The system is simply more powerful then the older systems ever were and it has potential for so much but for those that don’t give it a chance it is a moot point.

As far as 4e Simulationist go there just isn’t much but there are some simple rules here or there. The biggest that I know of is the Advanced Player’s Guide by Expeditious Retreat Press that makes a Crafting System that is very similiar to the Ritual System. The Adventure’s Vault has an alchemy system that is based on the Ritual System.

The new 4e multi-class only rules are very similiar to Kits from 2e and is very powerful in creating new optional things. The first of the multiclass classes were the Spellscarred from the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide and as I stated before there is an Feudal Lord: Nobles pdf on RPGNOW that is the same as the Spellscarred and I believe could even be used stock for a “Scion” class for BR with their “Bloodline” abilities.

20

Agreed; it would be bad for them to re-design: we just need a “small” add-on. Here is the current use case: I co-DM a group of guys playing 4ED: they ALREADY have characters (we’re in our fourth game, and some have switched, but others are sticking to theres – and you know how emotional people get about changing THEIR character). My intent would be to slowly lead them into a BR like setting/game (most likely based on Narnia) each would have holdings; some of them are familiar with BR mechanics others not! Ideally all I’d do a series of some sort of adventures for them to “learn” the ropes (Leadership/Administration skills mainly, but I can already imagine warfare and diplomacy being in the cards…)
Sure, someone “born” into the role of a sovereign could probably be of a “Noble” class (if we go with the new class idea), or even a Warlord-based-general-kit (if we go with new class-available skill sets).

(…)
Limited-write up ruling classes which have no impact on combat-play are simple by comparison, any complexity added will be minor as the choices will be fewer in number than trying to reverse engineer the existing classes (…)

So essentially I could go to them and offer that they start a second “noble/ruler class” (leaving the problem of being a scion/blooded asside) - But then I know some of my guys are going to be fumming about wasting time on multi-classing. I know it’s a poor excuse; I think I might as well just “give” them a bloodline, and bloodline-based skills (that had been something I had used a long time ago): since bloodline may increase with awesome deeds so could they “learn” administration etc… Then only the Full/Half regency thing would be in question;and that can simply be aligned on class.
Again, you guys can say I’m REALLY over-simplifying, but in order to isolate the BR-based skills, using the bloodline as the basis makes sense.

“Master Jan, Now that my dwarf has received the gift of Azrai; I wish for him to establish a fief in the northern hills; so that he may spy upon the goings-on at Caer Paravel!”
“Indeed, if you so wish, he has learned new skills in leading the black dwarves away from danger; he is now a skilled leader. But his bloodline is still weak, and he will need to be stronger in order to master the workings of administration which are critical to ruling over a strong realm!”
“Fear not Master Jan… This is only the start!”