(DnD 5e) Birthright Conversion

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 5th Edition
41

Completely non magical beings who can subsist on eating earth alone, are unusually dense, cold-skinned, etc - I see them as less into “showy” magic than the sidhe, but still elemental in nature, but earth/fire as opposed to the sidhe (water/air and possibly earth) or the giants (earthen ties).

The reference on page 5 of the rulebook is “Cerilian dwarves are nonmagical and never use wizard magic. They gain the standard saving throw modifiers allowed to dwarves…”

So they are simply modelling off the base 2e dwarf in my view.

Admittedly I see the karamhul as “under-done” in BR, the sidhe and halflings got a more bespoke treatment, whereas the karamhul, like the giants are merely touched by elemental origin.

I would see them as ideally moving away from clerical magic towards something analogous to druidic power albeit likely based on ancestor worship and less focused on untouched nature. I saw Moradin as a somewhat lazy direct import and think that removing an incarnate deity from the Karamhul would fit better with the move towards a sidhe-like spirit nature and also reduce diplomatic tensions with the Anuirean priesthoods easing interactions.

I confess to using the warforged rules from Eberron to reflect animate elemental spirits/ancestors given form through skill, and generally pushing them away from “short humans” towards something more distinct - with many human races added to BR, having “funny-looking human” races made little sense to me.

42

I don’t recall such a reference to their diet. Where is that?

are unusually dense, cold-skinned, etc - I see them as less into “showy” magic than the sidhe, but still elemental in nature, but earth/fire as opposed to the sidhe (water/air and possibly earth) or the giants (earthen ties).

Yeah I can certainly see them having an elemental subtype, but i don’t think that makes them magical. In the context of Birthright, creatures like varsks and griffons are not considered magical. I see the Karamhul in the same light.

The reference on page 5 of the rulebook is “Cerilian dwarves are nonmagical and never use wizard magic. They gain the standard saving throw modifiers allowed to dwarves…”

Well there ya go. Non-magical. :slight_smile:

I agree they have a resemblance to the standard 2nd Ed dwarf and that was certainly the starting point. But then the basis for the 2nd ed dwarf ultimately goes back to Tolkien, and i don’t think Tolkien considered his dwarves to be magical.

I would see them as ideally moving away from clerical magic towards something analogous to druidic power albeit likely based on ancestor worship and less focused on untouched nature.

I understand what you’re getting at- you want them to be more than short warriors. I get that. But that may be best done culturally.

I have always liked the idea of dwarven magic being based on runes. I actually tried this using the 2nd Ed Vikings handbook. It was rather fun actually. It gave the dwarves their own magic source (arcane because it used mebhaighl, but divine because the knowledge came from Moradin). So this gave the dwaves a magical side without them becoming spellcasters or cleric variants.

I confess to using the warforged rules from Eberron to reflect animate elemental spirits/ancestors given form through skill, and generally pushing them away from “short humans” towards something more distinct - with many human races added to BR, having “funny-looking human” races made little sense to me.

I know squat-all about Eberron so i can’t comment on that. But I actually liked how they handled dwarves in 2nd Ed Birthright. They were more unique than the standard dwarves of 2nd ed, but i agree the overhaul wasn’t as dramatic as what they did for elves.

-Fizz

43

Page 10 Baruk-Azhik, 3rd para under “the dwarven diet”, I can’t recall if it is in the main rulebook but given the limited write-up at the start suspect on reflection that the answer is “not”, alas for age, you forget where the heck you read stuff :rolleyes:

No, they are merely noted as not casting wizardly magic - the “non-magical” is specifically tied to that 2e staple limitation for non-humans (except elves), rather than being a generic term prohibiting them from any magic. They still have clerical magic and elemental aspects which directly contradicts a wider interpretation of the term, so unless you are also planning to enforce level limits and bans on dual-classing I’m unsure why you’d keep the no-wizards 2e relic, particularly as karamhul are otherwise at least as magical than humans and in my view far more so.

He didn’t have them non-magical either, and if you look at the myths Tolkein drew on Dwerger and so on are routinely described as having magical powers. I wonder sometimes if the tolkein import didn’t say “only human and elven wizards” because Gygax saw Gandalf and his brethren as human - something some Tolkeinites would vehemently argue.

The culture split is already done between humans, making it less effective between species (ideas for goblins welcome, I never had many ideas for their kind). If you want to differentiate Karamhul from the human tribes as other than them being “short grumpy people” you need something more than a superficial culture twist. I add spirit/elemental aspects to provide a mid-point to the sidhe, take them away from a direct competition with humans for living space, to me the culture should spring from actual differences, not just be a few habits.

To me anyone who casts a spell - wizard, priest, runecaster, or psionicist is a spell-caster, the rest is just details. I toyed with various options before settling for spell-casters drawing power either from the natural world (mebhiaghl) or the Spiritworld (mainly clerical but some wizardly magic). I didn’t want to have all-singing-all-dancing priestly casters given their other class and cultural benefits so I needed a split but in practice I let wizards draw on both sources of power to balance them a little and reflect my adjustments to the gods (making them myths only).

I didn’t find much use for Eberron as a setting, but two of their races were interesting to me, the shifters and the warforged. The shifters (descendents of lycanthropes) I used less as a race than as specialist warriors for the Rjurik and Vos (they can gain some interesting feats based on natural weapons and are an alternative to berserkers in some respects). The warforged (artifical lifeforms a like little sentient golems) I used albeit with a completely different back-story, in my setting the Karamhul forged them for elemental allies (giving them an avatar to manifest in) and, on rare occasion, to pass their spirit into when their mortal body failed them.

44

Elves not being able to be priests (single-class or otherwise) was never in 2nd Edition, yet the Sidhelien cannot use divine magic, so the Karamhul being inherently anti-magical provides an interesting parallel. In fact, it would make sense for their creator deity to have a back-door into his own creations, allowing them to channel divine magic from their creator, whilst still making them unable to arcane magic.

You then have lesser magic in the part of the magicians, which again differ from 2nd Ed rules for the Birthright setting, and dwarves can’t be magicians either. In fact, as magicians are lesser mages, not even the Sidhelien can join their ranks.

45

Ah, that would do it. I was never a big collector of the Domain Secrets books, so i was not familiar with that one. Interesting. I’ve never seen it mentioned in the main rulebook.

No, they are merely noted as not casting wizardly magic - the “non-magical” is specifically tied to that 2e staple limitation for non-humans (except elves), rather than being a generic term prohibiting them from any magic. They still have clerical magic and elemental aspects which directly contradicts a wider interpretation of the term,

Slightly different terminology may explain our differences here, i agree. When i think “magical”, i think of something that could not be (at least theoretically) justified with the known laws of physics. All the special features of being a dwarf don’t strike me as magical- weight difference and toughness could be from bone density, for instance. And we all eat rocks (salt), so a different physiology to process other stones (like various microbes have) isn’t a big stretch. I guess my point is simply that something outside of the real-world does not equate to magical inside of the Birthright setting.

so unless you are also planning to enforce level limits and bans on dual-classing I’m unsure why you’d keep the no-wizards 2e relic, particularly as karamhul are otherwise at least as magical than humans and in my view far more so.

I don’t think that’s quite the same comparison because level limits and dual-classing don’t impact the flavor of the setting. A flock of dwarven wizards though could be a game-changer. And of course, we don’t have any official characters of the sort, so we’d need to invent some, and figure out a reason why dwarven wizards are so rare.

Also, i am assuming you mean to require dwarves to be blooded, just as humans are, to be a wizard, correct? If so then i’m not vehemently opposed. But if not then i have a bigger bone to pick with you. Heh. As for magicians, a dwarf magician does feel a bit funky to me, but i could deal with it. :slight_smile:

He didn’t have them non-magical either, and if you look at the myths Tolkein drew on Dwerger and so on are routinely described as having magical powers. I wonder sometimes if the tolkein import didn’t say “only human and elven wizards” because Gygax saw Gandalf and his brethren as human - something some Tolkeinites would vehemently argue.

You know, the moment i wrote that i had a feeling you’d be much more of a Tolkien scholar than i am (which i’m not). LOL.

If you want to differentiate Karamhul from the human tribes as other than them being “short grumpy people” you need something more than a superficial culture twist. I add spirit/elemental aspects to provide a mid-point to the sidhe, take them away from a direct competition with humans for living space, to me the culture should spring from actual differences, not just be a few habits.

I agree, and that’s what i meant when i was talking about using Runes. Dwarves could be runecasters from the 2nd Ed Vikings book, but not clerics or wizards. So the runecaster subsumed both roles to the dwarves. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Vikings book, but runes are very different both in mechanic and effect than standard wizard / priest spells. So this made Karamhul magic vastly different and unique. And since the caster “carves” the runes, there is a strong elemental component to it- releasing the mebhaighl from the rock, so to speak.

Of course, anyone can do what they want in their own campaign. The question is one for our would-be 5E conversion, where do we draw the line of what was a legacy rule and the flavor of the setting? No doubt we will have some good discussions about such matters.

-Fizz

46

I agree. We should take the same approach that was taken for the 3.0/3.5 conversion - work within the functionality of 5ed but maintain the peculiarities of the 2ed Birthright. Only make changes when we agree there are problems to the playability and functionailty of the original rules within 5ed and where there are elements of 5ed that can be accomodated within the Birthright rules without changing the Birthright themes.

To me, that means that for default:

  • No Monks.
  • No gnomes.
  • No Sidhe clerics.
  • Five human races with distinct cultures and favoured character templates.
  • Druids are a type of cleric for Erik only.
  • Paladins are only warriors for certain deities.
  • Karamhul have a magical resistence and as such cannot be mages.
  • Halflings have an association with the Shadow World.
  • There is a Shadow power - Seeming.
  • Magicians are lesser powered than True Mages.
  • There are Law, Guild, Temple and Source holdings and regents.
  • There are provincial regents.

I am sure there is much more, but if we start with these basics and see how these can be accomodated in 5ed, we will get somewhere a lot faster. Any changes to Birthright are exceptions which can be added later.

Remember, we are not trying to play Birthright in 5ed (i.e. modifying Birthright to fit in 5ed). We are trying to use 5ed for Birthright (i.e. modifying 5ed to work in Birthright). That is the distinction that this community has previously made and I recommend we keep on following it.

Sorontar

47

My Sidhelien elves were like so:
Sidhelien Elves have special bonuses per the Birthrights game, so i’ll remake the elves as such:
+2 Dex,
+1 Intelligence,
Unaging,
Perception as a trained skill,
Fey Ancestry
Darkvision 60 ft
Nature’s Stride - moving through natural difficult terrain does not cost an elf extra movement.
Pass Without Trace as a druid.

I run the point buy system and allow humans to choose optional or standard. I DO let them apply the +1 to their blood score stat if they choose to do so.

I let all blooded characters use their blood score stat modifier as a one time bonus to hit points at 1st level.
I use a modified version of the 3.5 blood score stat (that they bought with point buy costs, usually 40 points split over the 7 stats):

  • every even level is a power. 12 is a minor, 14 is a major, 16 is a great, repeat. I let them buy up to 16 if they’re a non-human so everyone could get 3 powers just like they could before in 3.5.
    Feedback on that?

How do you guys think Administrate, Warcraft, and Lead should be done in 5th ed? With such a limited number of skills, i’m unsure what to do. I believe I am going to grant additional proficiencies like the 2nd ed book states. Additional proficiencies can be spent on these skills.
I have been doing 3.5 conversion with my people, and we’re starting tomorrow with the conversion to 5e.

Also, I had done a static +4 to a stat with heightened ability as a blood power. Should I continue to do so? Should I do the 1d6 to any stat below 14? Should it still be maxed at a 20?

I’d love to hear some feedback.

Christian

48

Hi

Here is my suggestion for how to handle Birthright Races in D&D 5e.

The races generally follow the descriptions in the Birthright Rulebook, although their traits are changed as specified below.

Dwarf

A Cerilian dwarf has all the traits of the Dwarf race mentioned in the Player’s Handbook, plus the following:

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2 more. (For a total increase of 4.)

Ability Score Decrease. Your Dexterity score decreases by 2.

Dense. You have an exceptionally stocky build and thick, sturdy bones. You have resistance against bludgeoning weapons and crushing damage.

Favored enemy. You gain a +2 AC bonus against melee attacks made by Orogs and Ogres.

High endurance. You calculate your carrying capacity as if your Strength score is 4 higher than it actually is.

Anti-magical. Whenever you use a magical item or drink a magical potion it has a 20% chance of not working at all.

Rock Eater. You can eat rocks for food and drink mud for water. (DM’s option.)

Elf

A Cerilian elf has all the traits of the Elf race mentioned in the Player’s Handbook, plus the following:

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence increases by 1.

Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

Embraced by Nature. In natural settings, you /pass without trace/ (see spell description) and ignore difficult terrain when moving.

Halfling

A Cerilian halfling has all the traits of the Halfling race mentioned in the Player’s Handbook, plus the following:

Shadow World Affinity. By concentrating for one round you can detect evil (but not good), detect magic (necromancy only), and sense the presense of undead within 30 feet all at once. Also, you can sense the proximity of the Shadow World. If sufficiently close (DM’s option), you can enter (and leave) the Shadow World once between long rests at a cost of 5 feet of movement. While in the Shadow World, you must actually move from the point of entry to the point of exit. For obvious reasons, you’d normally want for your stay in the Shadow World to be as short as possible.

Human

A Cerilian human has all the traits of the Human race mentioned in the Player’s Handbook. This means that you as a player has the freedom to decide how well your character matches the sterotype of his human culture. To assist you in your choices, below is an overview of the favored ability score, skills and feats for each human culture.

Anuirean
Favored ability score: Wisdom.
Favored skills: Insight, History, Religion.
Favored feats: Great Weapon Master, Heavy Weapon Master, Inspiring Leader.

Brecht
Favored ability score: Dexterity.
Favored skills: Deception, Perception, Slight of Hand.
Favored feats: Defensive Duelist, Dual Wielder, Lucky.

Khinasi
Favored ability score: Intelligence.
Favored skills: Arcana, History, Medicine.
Favored feats: Linguist, Magic Initiate, Mounted Combatant.

Rjurik
Favored ability score: Constitution.
Favored skills: Nature, Religion, Survival.
Favored feats: Alert, Durable, Keen Mind.

Vos
Favored ability score: Strength.
Favored skills: Animal Handling, Intimidation, Survival.
Favored feats: Charger, Martial Adept, Mounted Combatant.

P.S. There is have a nicer formatting here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MCI8KrujUdo3rmcZOIJNC_bcfjwNYIRe4_HydgTIVQs/edit?usp=sharing. I will expand this document as I make my way through the Birthright Rulebook :slight_smile:

49

You mean the 2nd level spell, or the Land’s Stride feature? They both seem quite powerful.

I would go with:

Nature’s Stride - moving through natural difficult terrain does not cost an elf extra movement. Creature trying to track an elf always have disadvantage on their roll.

50

I still think Druid should just be something very distinct from a Cleric of Nature (Erik).

A bit like the distinction between Sorcerer and Wizard.

Druids get their power directly from Nature, from the World, from the mebhaighl (and would use Sources instead of Temples).

Clerics get their powers from their God, and share their love for a specific portfolio (Nature, in the case of Erik). They actively seek more followers, and use Temples.

51

New Subrace: Cerilian Halfling

See into the Shadow World. Cerilain halflings can cast the Detect Evil spell. Once they use this power, they must take a short rest before they can use it again.

Step into the Shadow World. Cerilian halflings can cast the Dimension Door spell. Once they use this power, they must take a long rest before they can use it again.

Non-magical. You have advantage on saving throws agains spells, but you cannot choose choose following classes / archetypes: Fighter (Eldritch Knight), Rogue (Arcane Trickster), Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard.

52

Yes, but 2ed Birthright IIRC used the term “Druid” as a title for Clerics of Erik. There was no Druid class unless the DM substituted the Druid class for the Druid cleric (though that substitution was player campaign-specific, not a canon option).

So the simplest way to convert is to treat Druids as the title of clerics/priests of Erik. The inclusion of the Druid class should not be any more than an optional alternative approach. No need to complicate things any more than we need to. Just like Monks are left out of 2ed, so too may Druids be.

Get the basics right before we start working out whether any new additions should also be added.

Sorontar,
who played in a 2ed BR campaign where the only druids were Druid class (ie. we chose to go non-canon), and Erik had not other cleric/priest (ie. we kept one main religious class per faith).
who also never liked the addition of Sorcerer to Birthright.

53

I guess it’s a matter of preferences… in any case, there’s no “conversion” needed, either one chooses to use Druids as priest of Erik, or he doesn’t. So better to not get stuck on this.

I would personally give the title Druid to the Clerics of Erik, and rename the druid class into something elvish, and only let elves take it.

Re: Sorcerers - the idea of a spell caster using the magical power of his blood is actually quite fitting for Birthright, don’t you think? :slight_smile:

Though I’d scrap Wild Magic and Draconic Blood, and their “origin” would be related to their bloodline derivation…

54

With regards to cleric/druid, what about not using either? We could create a new class called Priest, and have the subclasses be each of the specialty priests with their own name- Druid for the priest of Erik, maybe Stormlord for the priests of Cuiraecen, etc. This would be most in keeping with how they were handled in 2nd Ed, and remove this entire cleric/druid issue since they’d then all be on equal footing.

-Fizz

55

We’d want to be careful with terminology here. Halflings could Detect Evil etc, but it was an innate power- they weren’t casting a spell (ie no memorization or components required).

Some of the restrictions might be overdone- we’d also have to decide what classes are allowed. I don’t think Eldritch Knight or Trickster or Warlock are appropriate for anyone in Birthright, not just Halflings. (I suppose you could make a case for the first two if the character were blooded.)

Perhaps we should make a 5E subsection in the forums for such discussions?

-Fizz

56

The Eldritch Knight would be suitable for specific Fighter/Wizards from canon - Rhuobhe Manslayer, Prince Fhileraene, the Gorgon etc. The Chamberlain could be modelled simply by a few Fighter levels and the rest Wizard-Diviner.

57

All wizards are rare in BR, we’d need 1 wizard per realm, that’s all. And I don’t see how it impacts the flavour of the setting at all - the Karamhul (and Halflings following the same logic) go from disadvantaged compared to the other races to equal, that’s all. You could argue that it brings in the option to have much more Nordic-type Dwerger for some Karamhul realms but I don’t see a problem in that.

I’d take the standard 5e dwarf, and modify it to add the BR specifics that changed a standard 2e dwarf into a Birthright Karamhul - bone density and elemental ties; then consider whether the race should be expanded in the same way that sidhe were to make it less generic and more BR-specific, I wouldn’t lumber the race with defects that were removed 2 editions ago due to playability concerns.

Probably, which would be a slight issue for the Karamhul given relatively low levels of blooded characters - but open some interesting “whythat idiot? He’s the only wizard we’ve got” type issues. I would personally have the Karamhul as somewhere between huamns and sidhe in terms of “magical weirdness”

Not really, but I had the misfortune of getting into arguments with some of them back in the day and losing, then checking to source material and finding out some of Tolkein use of artistic licence. I recommend the Norse stuff to anyone who wants to use Karamhul in BR, you’ll never see them in the same light again.

Says the guy who confesses to creating a Shadow World equivalent of the karamhul who possibly weren’t particularly nice.

Interesting, we have “traditional” magic from the sidhe and copied by goblins and humans, Karamhul magic could then be a completely different tradition, same effect (under a KISS approach) but very different theme.

Indeed, I’d suggest focusing on what BR changed to 2e and mimicking such changes to 5e though, rather than assuming that 2e standard relics also had to be re-imported, of course then we get the question of what was standard and what was non-standard.

58

I suggest to do first a direct “translation” of the AD&D 2e material, and then add “variants”, something like:

Direct conversion: the class “druid” doesn’t exist, the Clerics of Erik have the Nature domain, and are called “druids”.

Variant: All priests of Erik are actually Druids, as per PHB.

In an eventual layout stage, we would put the variants in a coloured box or something.

59

Yep, that is the sort of approach I was meaning. Ultimately it is up to the DM and players to work out how they want to play it but this will allow consistency between editions.

Sorontar

60

I don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but Domain Turns are in the DMG.