Class/regency proposal.

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 4th Edition
21

Since the non adventure class would have no adventure impact - just non-adventure skills and feats, then it shouldn’t be a ‘wasted’ level at all - it shouldn’t cost xp or affect future xp gains like an adventurer class would. The simple way is to say ‘every time you level up your adventurer class, you also level up in a ruler class.’ (basically a gestalt class approach, but less munchkin-y as the classes don’t overlap)

However as the non-adventure ‘class’ is just skills, feats, and maybe abilities, I’d avoid levels entirely. I’d either give skill points/feats directly at DM whim, or give them character points to buy skills/feats/etc from the non-adventure list. If they really wanted to buy non-adventure stuff with xp aI’d try to figure out a fair conversion, or more likely, wing it.

You could give out character points either when they level up, or based on roleplaying, story telling, success in domain level play, etc.

The idea should be to minimise book-keeping and the need to consider trade-offs. Since non-adventure skills would be, roughly, a skill for each holding type (or at most 2), craft/profession skills, etc, etc (basically the old non-weapon proficiency type stuff) then it shouldn’t take much book keeping.

22

Or by Power Source AND Role

Controller (source type) Favored (+2 on create/contest/rule)
Striker Guild Regency Collection Full
Tank (source type) Favored (+2 on create/contest/rule)
Leader (source type) Favored (+2 on create/contest/rule)

Martial Law Regency Collection Full
Divine Temple Regency Collection Full
Arcane Source Regency Collection Full

So, for instance, a cleric would get Temple Full, and Temple Favored, while a Warlord would get Law Full and Law Favored, whereas a Rogue would get Law Full and Guild Full(but neither favored).

Its kind of generic, but I suppose it works as well as class-specific regency collection. I like class specific, because you can do things like say “Rogues and Rangers rule their holdings differently”.

23

In this system, whether as I OP’ed or as some others have suggested, the idea is that Class determines only which type of regent you are, not really how good you are doing things. In fact, if you take out the feat, there’s at most a very modest bonus to a single holding type for some classes, thus your gameplay effectiveness is based more on rolls and which actions you take then what kind of optimizing crap you can squeeze onto your char sheet.

In the 3.5 version, it was disgustingly easy to be a regent getting full rp from all sources. The 3.5 spirit of “lets make everything easy to optimize, so a poor char is 1/10th as good as a well-thought out one”, where the game was won or lost based on what made it onto your sheet rather then what you did in the game is best left behind us.

Lets let your char sheet be a very, very minor determinant of your game play, other then what type of domain you control.

24

The more I think about it, the more I believe we must keep Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities completely separated from the combat/adventuring system, specially the levels of the chars. In fact, I believe we should aim at creating a system for Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities elements that go beyond 4th edition, but are inseparable from D&D itself. Below are the main reasons:

• Futureproofing: there is no way we can know how powers, feats, classes we develop will work or not with D&D, given that it will continue to produce more material: more classes, races, powers, etc. In fact, in a few years we will have D&D 4.5, and after that, D&D 5.0. No doubt these will change dramatically how the adventuring and combat system works, but no doubt will keep some core D&D elements: Classes, Races, 1-18 (or something) attributes, skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, etc. I strongly believe that we must focus on this milestones, drawing inspiration from the original 2dn edition setting, but evolving the Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities so they will be much more simple to integrate and update regardless how the combat rules work.

• Player Oriented: The characters should choose to focus on how they rule their Domains and specialize all they want, but not at the expense of their adventuring life. This is both more fun (generally speaking), makes creating NPCs regents a piece of cake (just choose a monster from the MM, like the Lvl 4 Human Wizard, apply the Domain rules, ready to go). Also, It lets you portray the classic young lvl 1 prince with very strong lineage seamlessly, or makes no impact in having bloodied and non bloodied characters on a party (mechanic and power wise)

• Simple: It will be much more simple to design a standalone Regency, Domain play and Blood abilities system, that is consistent, simple and fun into itself (while retaining things like Bloodlines, which make defines the setting) than making sure it´s balanced, goes well with Core and Supplemental D&D Material.

Just my 2 cents here.

25

In regards to certain criticisms of the BRCS 3.0/3.5 skill system:

The skill system was a good idea but it suffered in one respect of implementation: Too much emphasis on skills.

I.e. 5 ranks of a skill gave you a +1 synergy bonus, with no cap.

This is compounded by the fact that even when taking into account cross-class penalties, certain classes ended up having much more skill points. Particularly when comparing the extremes of say the Fighter vs Rogue.

Furthermore, the addition of 3 skills that had some overlap between other skills and/or abilities.

This could have been scaled down slightly to simply be 5 ranks = standard +2 synergy bonus. Now you might argue “But Phil, then what is the point of having more than 5 ranks?” Well for starters, the Master X feats all require 9 skill ranks; furthermore random event as well as battle resolution is based around a skill check + character (in)actions. Thus the emphasis turns from “you need lots of skill points to be competent as a ruler” to “you need lots of skill points to be an exemplary ruler”

Another way to make it more accessible to certain classes is to modify the war checks like the Feint ability. I.E. include Base Attack bonus to the roll to favor the more martial classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian primarily, cleric, druid, rogue, bard secondarily, sorceror and wizard at bottom). This is something that was suggested in the Complete Warrior book where Sense Motive skill was the “strategy skill”.

A good deal of the description of the “lead” skill falls under Diplomacy but also the leadership Feat. You could always include the leadership modifier to such checks if necessary. Rogues tend to not want to necessarily publicize their deeds and the classes based around feats (fighter, lesser extent wizard or classes that gain bonus feats during class progression like ranger) are then mechanically more pre-disposed to take the leadership feat. Particularly as the scion class/template grants a bonus to the leadership score and most of anuire’s strong bloodlines are in the hands of more martial like rulers.

Thus, characters wouldn’t feel quite as compelled to necessarily multiclass as deeply to maximize their potential rulership related skills. Of course, there is nothing stopping a player to take Noble class or rogue levels and so forth to maximize their rulership. But how is that different from a player that twinks out their character to be a melee beast?

As for the debate between how to proceed with domain level play in 4th edition, let’s look back at how 2e functioned as our “base” mechanics.

-RP gain was based on class.
-Specialized proficiencies were in the old “NWP” class groups to limit “cross-class” NWPs.
-Class based bonus abilities towards rulership (free espionage, agitate, etc)

Now, some of the NWPs in 2e were incredibly powerful. Intrigue for example was essentially a free pro-active espionage action with little cost.

So, analyzing this demonstrates that what truly differentiated a Fighter and a Fighter-regent was that the latter controlled a domain and was more likely, albeit it not necessarily, to possess 1 or more NWPs related to maximizing their rulership potential, and a bloodline.

That being said, I think the ideal situation would be to have a scion template that adds specific rulership skills to the (non) player character, in addition to access to the bloodline abilities. Furthermore, the template may give blood abilities or access to blood abilities the character can pick each time they gain a level (say at level 1 you pick animal affinity (minor), and at level 6 you decide to take animal affinity (major) instead of the abilities listed in the PHB for your class). Abilities would scale based on your level just like racial abilities.

Additionally the same could be done for special domain actions. However, we would have to add an additional class of ability (instead of at will, encounter, daily) that would be “domain” and that you gain abilities every few levels accordingly, even if they are just +1 to a roll.

One of the arguments I saw earlier was in regards to the BRCS being made skill based to better port to other campaign settings. Now, I’m not sure what are the limits of WotC “licensing” of the Birthright game to the community, but you have to come to a decision: Either make it a BIRTHRIGHT game mechanic and focus on expanding the SETTING, or make a generic game mechanic system, and use the setting as an example of implementation. Personally, I think the former is a much more interesting use of time.

26

I think your 2 cents are worth their value in gold.

27

I have been working on my own 4E Conversion rules on the DnDi site and here is what I have so far. I feel more ppl here will give me feed back.

Martial Access to Law
Divine Access to Temple
Psionic Access to Temple
Arcane Access to Source
Primal Access to Source

Defender Access to Law and Temple
Striker Access to Law and Guild
Controller Access to Temple and Guild
Leader Access to Law, Temple, and Guild

Province is Access by All

But after that I give players 2.5 pts to spend on the different Access. Person can spend 0 pts, 0.5 pts, 1.0 pts, and 1.5 pts to an Access. Example as followed.

A Paladin has access to Province, Law, and Temple; he spends 1pt to Province, 1pt to Law, and 0.5pt to Temple. That means that he will gain full regency from Provinces and Law holdings and half regency from Temples.

A Fighter might do 1pt to Province and 1.5pt to Law and get full regency from Provinces and full plus half regency from Law.

A Warden (using a Native American style play) might do 1pt Law (for his warrior tribe) and 1.5pt Source (for his connection to the Primal Spirits of the Land).

A Swordmage could do 0.5pt Province, 0.5pt Law, 1pt Temple (Wizard School), and 0.5pt Source.

As for Multiclass and Hybrid class, pt assignment should be limited. Access from Multiclass is limited to 0.5 pts. Access from Hybrid class is limited to 1.0 pts. Examples as followed.

Fighter who multiclass as a wizard can only assign 0.5pts to guild or source.

Fighter/Wizard Hybrid class is limited to 1.0pts to Law, Guild, and Source. Temple and Province is access by both so they can be 1.5pts.

Players should not be able to make Holdings in areas that they have no points in (and therefore gain no regency from). I would allow a player to change pt arangement by way of Retraining.

I also want to add my vision of a Temple Holding is one of Training and Learning. That could be a training facility for warriors or a wizard’s school; not just a place for ppl to pray to gods. Case in point, all of the Cuiraecen temples seem to me to be all about training warriors, its the Haelyn temples are the real bible thumpers.
As for Bloodline Strength, I am thinking of setting min/max base on character tier.
At heroic tier, Min of Tainted/5, Max of Major/40.
At paragon tier, Min of Minor/15, Max of Great/60.
At epic tier, Min of Major/35, Max of True/90.
I am thinking of a starting bloodline of Minor/20.

28

Now here is where the community at large differs.

There is a measureable group that considers BR to actually be the domain system and not the “setting”.

There are a lot of people that play the game as a mix of Forgotten Realms and BR blood abilities with no domain level play.

There are a lot of people that only play domain level games (most PbP games focus on domain level play) and some of them have actually moved beyond the “setting”.

Personnally I go with the setting and a mix of play styles (both PC level and domain level).

29

I will be keeping it short for now and later expand my line of reasoning. The way I see it this second class should be an amalgamate of the character (bloodline & ruling experience) and the domain.

Another principle that I now faver is that every class can go with every domain class, with few prerequisites.

So a fighter or mage could become a guild ruler, or also a source ruler if they had ritual knowledge.

30

Any swapping out immediately shifts the balance between PC’s that have domains and everyone else - it immediately makes the mixed character weaker than those who don’t mix so doesn’t seem to follow what little I know of 4e philosophy.

I.e a different class for each domain type? I like the idea, but wonder if we don’t just need to have a single class, with different skill/feat choices affecting which domains the ruler is capable with.

31

Right, therefore the “ruling class/domain class” should remain seperate of the adventuring class. Regents should IMO recieve a second class that represents both their skill as ruler as well as the skills of their administration and domain.

I.e a different class for each domain type? I like the idea, but wonder if we don’t just need to have a single class, with different skill/feat choices affecting which domains the ruler is capable with.

That would be a good start, create powers for a single ruler class, which would allow regents to specialize in specific holdings. However, eventiallyI would like to see different roles, similar to defender, striker, leader and controller.

32

My only thought on this is that adding a layer of rules on top of an already set of rules will not get new players and interrupt the flow of a game.

For example is the current 3.5 style system. Just imagine trying to layer the current system on top of 4th edition adventuring rules.

What I am saying is that the two system at least have a similar look and feel to be somewhat compatible with each other. And if you are creating a similar system, then why not just change the regular rules so everything meshes together.

Simply, it is easier to create a side system to attempt to work with other game styles than it is to change Birthright to fit those other games.

33

4th ed seems very compatible with BR to me. But I never played any 3rd ed BR, so I could have a skewed perspective.

Do we need a different skill for each type of holding? I certainly don’t remember that from second ed, nor do I think it is necessary for 4th.

Class as the basis for regency seems solid to me, should someone who has devoted their life to the study of the sword benefit more from forging bonds with soldiers, petty nobles and town guards (Law) or Channeling the unseen power of ancient forest (Source). It not only seems simple but intuitive, if you want to be a ‘wizard’ regent one would play a wizard (or warlock etc.).

Now there are a lot more classes now, and 2nd ed wasn’t exactly balanced in its choices (paladins were simply better than fighters). It should be pretty easy to keep the spirit of birthright, while embracing the balance of 4th ed.

For me I would lean towards 1 primary (full) and 1 secondary (half) for everyone (or for some classes 3 secondary). I could see making the full class based and the second background based, but could just as easily see each class as having a list. I would not change the fact that everyone gets full benefit from province.

I might have some actions described by adventures (as recommended in the original material) which could involve skill challenges or straight RP (diplomacy or trade missions that the group wants to RP out for example) but others would simply be a roll as described in the original regency rules.

I could see an extra skill or two rounding out the list nicely, but I hardly think you need to add dozens of custom skills each of which has a very narrow application. Trading seems conspicuously absent, I could see a logic for engineering (though it seems more like an NPC skill in most cases), etc. Since these weren’t essential to the original rules, it hardly seems necessary to condemn 4th edition for not having them.

34

Well, I can’t stand the horribly clustered skills or the lack thereof in 4th Ed, but I would use Diplomacy for laws, Religion for Temples, Streetwise for Guilds and Arcana for sources. Provinces would be usable by anyone with them.

35

The problem I had with skills in 3.5 are the lack of them for some classes. You are telling me that a fighter with an average intelligence is only capable of doing two skills well in his career.

So if a fighter decided to be good at swimming and climbing … he is almost incapable of intimidation, or spot checking. He could split up his skills among different abilities, but 3.5 rewards stacking. Being bad at lots of skills is far worse than being very good at two skills and terrible at the rest.

4th edition solves this problem. Might not be to your liking … but at least it does something about it. Allows characters to be a part of not just combat but role-playing and skills checks.

-BB

36

Well, I always thought that being virtuosos at two skills was pointless, so I always sprinkled my skill points liberally around. Of course, I usually had an Int modifier and was often human, so that helped. Besides which, you never need any skill points to role-play properly - suggesting that 4th Ed allows you to roleplay where 3rd Ed didn’t is simply disingenuous.

37

2nd ed was worse.

Non-weapon proficiencies were almost impossible to improve (basically it took using a non-weapon prof slot to increase the chance by 1 and you couldn’t (without magic) change your relevant ability score to make it any easier.

BR had many “key” non-weapon proficiencies which only compounded this issue.

IMO 4th “simplified” the system to the point where skills are mostly meaningless.

While I agree you almost never had enough skill points to get what you wanted in 3.5 the system was designed for tailoring your character.

Basically you could be really, really good a few things but not so good at others - or you could be a renassance man and dabble at many things but never be really good at any of them. You know - sort of paralleling “real life” in this aspect.

Also in 3.5 there are only a handful of skills that can’t be attempted “untrained” - even Knowledge skills can be attempted “untrained” although only “commonly known” things will be “remembered”.

Skill focus (among other feats) can be taken to make a character “better” at certain things and fighters have bonus feats which frees up the level based feats for such “role-playng” feats.

And nothing says you have to make a skill check all of the time - so it is possible to “role-play” certain things, and there are even rules for substituting different relevant ability scores for skills (like intelligence for gather information when it is library based instead of interaction based) - so nothing prevents substituting Str for Intimdation checks instead of Charisma depending on the circumstances.

4th ed does a lot of things to improve the flow of the game, but the way it handles skills overall is not one of them IMO.

38

This is going to be long so I apologize in advance.

I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you can role-play better in 4th edition better than 3.5, just that I do think it is an improvement in the skill system. Possibly still flawed, but never the less better.

I have always believed that characters could and should be competant in far more skills than they were allowed in 3.5. How is someone that choose the life of sneaking around and stealing be able to be more competant in a more wide range of skills including non-rogue skills? Other classes really had no choice other than giving themselves a high intellgence or use the small amount of feats they get (other than warriors.)

What I believe ended up happening is they went ahead and linked rogue abilities to skills (which might have been a mistake.) Because there was lots of skills to be had they loaded up rogues with skill points so they can build their abilities how they like. Now to keep them balanced with other classes they had to give everyone else far less skill points.

Now I agree 4th edition might have gone too far, but I still like it more. 1/2 your character level in all non-trained skills as your ranking. +5 if you are trained.

I think we are used to using skill points to tailor your character, but in 4th edition they are feats. Big difference to deal with.

Now if you want to be ok at a bunch of skills you can use feats to keep gaining training in skills you typically don’t have as a class. If you want to be really good at a few skills you can use feats to raise your current trained skills higher. At least you have a baseline ability in all skills so you can be part of the conversation.

Perhaps this is just a personal belief, but I hated role-playing a skill well that I had no skill points in. If I had a 0 for diplomacy, it didn’t make sense for me to start acting very diplomatic just because I am able to role-play it out properly. Same goes to intimidate or bluff. Now that you have at least a minimum score in those abilities it is far easier to be a part of it.

-BB

39

I think this is the important part. Compared to 3e, giving that 1/2 character level makes things seem that characters are too good with skills, and maybe they are if they were 3e characters, but in 4e it doesn’t work like that. If you make a skill check where a well trained person is expected to succeed like 50% of the times, a non-trained one will succeed only 25%, enough to allow that person to participate in a group action (like a skill challenge) but not enough to be confortable using it (it’s more like a last resort or only if players know the failure is not going to be a big mess).

That 1/2 skill level represents a minimum level of proficiency that will allow the 4e character to be always minimally useful in group actions or when things aren’t tailored to his specializations. Or at least that’s the idea behind it in my oppinion.

40

A lot depends on how you used skills - if maxing out was built into DC’s then an average PC would only have 4-5 usable skills - 2+human+ int. That said 4-5 is a fair number. Anyone interested in skills would just dip into a level of expert/etc or choose high int anyway…

Even with rulers=2 skills then as a DM if you figured ‘good, probably suceed at most stuff’ at around 2/3 then the flexibility of the system allowed the choice of how good to be refined very well - it all depends on how the DM builds the DC’s, expectations of the campaign, etc. Personally I built in arithmetic cost increases to gaining points and the like and roughed out ad hoc bonus form support - even unskilled to include other pc’s.

4e has gone back to nwp’s in many ways, a small number of skills (2 if I read it correctly) with digital results; 3e was analogue, far from perfect, but significantly better than 2 or 4 e if skills were seen as the key aspect of a character.