I’m not sure I see the need for a floater. If you take the standard array or point buy your stats in the first place the only advantage of a floater is to more easily build a min-max character outside the cultural norms (since racial ability adjustments are assigned after assigning scores). I think min-maxing should be easier within those norms. Either way you can may the normal range pf powerful characters, its really just about getting that 18 at a more reasonable price.
Politics is 10% planning and 90% negotiating. Charisma is the core skill.
The trouble I see it dundjin is you’re taking the notion that many Anuireans are warriors and giving them Strength because it’s the best stat for Fighters. This doesn’t really follow.
A racial bonus exists to illustrate the needs and the development of a society. You can view the stats the races have by this point in the timeline as a form of Darwinism.
Anuirean leaders are often warriors, certainly - but the core stats they need to survive in their highly evolved and involved society aren’t physical ones. This is a not a society where the physically strong inherently wins out over or preys upon the weak. Their cultural norm favors diplomacy, trade, negotiation - and the majority of power to be found within the Anuirean lands is found in the boardroom or the vestry, not the battlefield.
Two more points on the subject:
First, given 4th ed classes, I’d argue Warlord, not Fighter would the core Anuirean regent class.
Second, giving Anuireans (or anyone else, for that matter), a +2 to Str is essentially saying “they are as strong as the Vos”. The Vos as a culture are stronger than the other humans on the continent. There’s not much way to avoid that.
I’m not sure I see the need for a floater.
There isn’t necessarily one. But they’re fun, imo, and give players more of an opportunity to flavor their characters. It also still gives the impression of versatility re: Humans that many players have come to expect out of them. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and imo lets us appease both sides - those that see humans as flexible, and those that see Birthright humans as distinctive races.
In many ways, I think the floater is even more valuable in BR as it emphasizes the core stat for each race - and then allows the player to develop the character in the way they deem fit. Player Characters by their nature tend to sit slightly outside the norm for their race - and very few settings separate players as much from “normal people” as BR does.
Anuireans follow the god of “noble” war, “rulership” and “law”.
The god of war in the way you are viewing things is Cuircean.
Diplomacy is the skill most accurately associated with lawful rulership (hence Charisma).
Strength is the ability most associated with forceful coercion (there have been variations that had Intimidate be tied to Str for this specific purpose).
All human races in Cerilia have been associated with war at one time or another. The Brecht went for the more “stealthful” version via absorbing the cultures and being the economic power behind the throne - but even they have a long history of war. So saying that because a race is associated with war they should have an ability bonus to Str is an oversimplification (and hence all human races should have it).
I agree with this.
There isn’t necessarily one. But they’re fun, imo, and give players more of an opportunity to flavor their characters. It also still gives the impression of versatility re: Humans that many players have come to expect out of them. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and imo lets us appease both sides - those that see humans as flexible, and those that see Birthright humans as distinctive races.
Hmm that is the point of assigning abilities scores where you wish them. And the base mechanic in 4th ed is not the random dice roll method of generating ability scores anymore.
In many ways, I think the floater is even more valuable in BR as it emphasizes the core stat for each race - and then allows the player to develop the character in the way they deem fit. Player Characters by their nature tend to sit slightly outside the norm for their race - and very few settings separate players as much from “normal people” as BR does.
I see it as a way to minimize the core stat for each race. Because players will invariably min-max their way around that by using the floater to makie up for a score they minimized to keep things balanced.
Players are going to min/max their way around things anyway.
Keeping the floater plus the original stat mod from 2nd edition lets us keep true to both the spirit of the original game and the 4th ed representation of Humans. I like that, and I don’t think it hurts Birthright in the slightest.
Not opposed to going the route of assigned stats though, see earlier post with how I see those.
This is my first time to post on these forums but I love BR and I have a lot of ideas on 4E BR that I want to share. As I read through the 4E core setting it reminded me so much of Birthright that I’ve decided to start running a 4E home game set in Birthright soon. I am very interested in any conversion ideas. Allow me to suggest some ideas I had.
-
Sidhelien are divided up into to Elves and Eladrin. After much thought I think the best explanation would be to say all Sidhe in the Aelvinnwode are Eladrin and all others (like Rhoube or the inhabitants of the Sielwode) are elves. The Eladrin/Elf split in 4E is based around the Eladrin’s proximity to the Feywild or portals to the Feywild. I think the story of Torele Anviras going into the Aelvinnwode and returning a century later not a day older could be explained by saying he wandered into the Feywild.
-
Humans don’t need to be changed mechanically based on their subrace. I think the way the FRPG does character backgrounds is best. Give a free minor ability to each region in addition to racial features. Little things, like a +2 to diplomacy skills for Anuireans, don’t change the outcome of fights and will maintain balance yet add flavor to the regional differences.
-
Blood abilities could be modeled after the FRPG’s Spellscarred. It’s a multi-class only class. You spend a feat at first level to become blooded and receive a minor ability based on the bloodline. After that you can spend a feat to swap a class power with a blood power (for a max of 3 swapped powers at 10th level). Then you have a paragon path just for blooded characters who’ve taken all the feats to that point. Each bloodline would have their own set of powers and at each level you can choose from a physical power based off of str, dex or con, or a mental power based off of int, wis, or cha. In all cases you would choose your highest stat of the choices.
-
Aduria was never described in detail. It would be possible to place Tieflings and/or Dragonborn on that continent and not conflict with existing canon. GMs or players would have to give a reason why the two races are suddenly showing up in other parts of the world, but I have a lot of faith in creative GMs and players to come up with something that works for them. Dropping them completely won’t exactly hurt my feelings however.
-
I think you should give halflings the choice on racial features. I don’t think they should have to choose the shadow walk ability since not all halflings in BR can open portals to the shadow world. Allowing them to pick the luck ability or the shadow ability means more choices for halfling players which is good IMO.
-
Realm spells would pretty much be more expensive and more time consuming rituals that require sources as part of their components.
Reading through the posts so far, it seems there are 2 ways to do the conversion. Change the setting to fit the new edition, or change the edition to fit the setting. I personally think the 2 fit close enough the few changes would need to be made at all. My personal preference is to add choices to the existing rules that fit the BR flavor, and then say most of the characters in the BR use those new choices. This is why I don’t think it necessary to change the Human races to fit flavor. You can get flavor in other ways that don’t involve changing the rules. Why create more work then necessary?
Derek
Some people are okay with just the minor flavor changes to the edition to make it feel like the setting while other people are not. I haven’t updated anything because I haven’t been able to work on it but I started the project because I wasn’t trying to jam Birthright in 4e which I could have done as you outlined above but I was trying to adapt 4e to Birthright. Some people are even more touchy about it then me and feel that Birthright should remain its own unique setting within the fourth edition and therefore the edition needs to be altered to fit the setting.
Except for the fact that there is only 1 race of dragons and their number is extremely limited - so a history for the race of dragonborn is lacking.
Tieflings are the result of a human pact with the devils - and devils and demons didn’t exist in BR. {See the 2nd ed rulebook AD&D monsters in Cerilia (pg 89}
- I think you should give halflings the choice on racial features. I don’t think they should have to choose the shadow walk ability since not all halflings in BR can open portals to the shadow world. Allowing them to pick the luck ability or the shadow ability means more choices for halfling players which is good IMO.
Actually in 2nd ed all halflings had that ability - see 2nd ed rulebook pg 8.
Now the ability to open up portals large enough for armies to pass through was written in the first novel but never in any of the 2nd ed rules. The BRCS (3.5 rulesset) added it based on the novel and that people in general thought it fit as an optional feat.
The question is do you go back to the 2nd ed original rules and materials in order to make any conversion or do you go to the BRCS and convert a conversion?
I would always go back to the source myself.
I have definitely been trying to use the 2e Birthright material for conversion but alot of the BRCS is good for adding the fluff to it.
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 4:22 PM, irdeggman <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> Except for the fact that there is only 1 race of dragons and their number is extremely limited - so a history for the race of dragonborn
> is lacking.
Oh, come on. If somebody wants to add a given race to their setting,
it`s fairly trivial. I like orcs, I added them to my game.
Let`s see, dragonborn. At the battle of Deismaar, a number of dragons
are recorded as fighting, on both sides. Smouldering Ponaren, an old
but not especially wise dragon, fought for Azrai, and mighty was his
wrath. Some accounts place him as the steed of Azrai for at least
part of the battle, others claim he bore Belinik on his back.
When the Deis got Maared, Ponaren was too close, and unable to flee
like most of his cousins. A contingent of warriors, both Azraite and
not, were partially shielded from the cataclysm by his bulk. The
overwhelming surge of magical energy did not empower Ponaren (and
indeed, no dragon seems to have received a bloodline at Deismaar;
there are competing theories as to why), but was altered by its
passage through his powerful soul. Those troops behind Ponaren
received some of his essence, and have bred true over the centuries.
Dragonborn are most common in Aduria, where they are known as tough
mercenaries. Occasionally some hero arises from them and tries to
forge a nation of dragonfolk, but perhaps the jealous nature of their
dragon ancestors prevent them from joining together- no such kingdom
has outlived its founder.
–
Daniel McSorley
I don’t have any problem with people adding Dragonborn to their campaign … but I wouldn’t include it in the offical rules … if they ever get created. I would actually think it would be smart to address the races that aren’t offical as alternate rules and maybe lend advice on how to add them if you so desire.
-BB
Fair enough.
Let’s see 1 race of Cerilian Dragons with breath weapon of fire/acid (called venom in 2nd ed).
Dragonborn get a breath weapon of either acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison {player’s choice at creation}.
If following 2nd ed material at all then the race needs to be rewritten such that cold, lightning and poison are not options.
Now if all you want to do is apply bloodlines and domain actions to a generic 4th ed game - feel free, but that is not the same as a “BR setting” game. It may be a BR-like game but that is like saying a heavily house-ruled game is RAW-like.
Somethings are essential to keeping the “feel” of the original setting. There are things that are completely different, like classes that didn’t exist in 2nd ed (the BRCS addressed how to handle barbarians and sorcerers because of this).
I gave a quick scan of the subjects and a couple of ideas sprung to mind. Hope nobody minds a newb butting in.
For humans; The heart and soul of the setting, balenced yet often second or third best in a class in 4th edition. I would add a +2 to a defined stat based on culture and a floating +2 to any other stat. Add the +2 skill bonus’ by culture and leave the rest as is. Makes 'em a tiny bit more powerfull, makes humans a good choice for all roles, possibly most popular and still leaves other options viable for those who want the others.
Humans a touch more powerfull, more popular, still balanced.
In another thread I saw a worry about how to handle Magicians. Magicians can just be any class, or NPC that use rituals, right?
what about other derivation ..
playing further with the idea of eladrin and elves beeing different sect of the sidhelin ..
What about Thifelings beeing Azrai tainted ?
Dragonborn the other half of it (don´t have it at the top of my mind)
u can play the thiefling horns and appearance a bit down .. or do what you like with it .. but explain it all as it beeing tainted with the blood of Azrai.
but whatever you do both should be rare, as BR is mainly human world.
regards,
Arkanuz,
I’d relegate additional races (Tieflings, Dragonborn) to Aduria, tainted as you say by Azrai. They would be virtually unknown in Cerilia, then, and you wouldn’t need to worry about them. But they would help populate Aduria, if you want to expand play to there, without having to come up with a bunch of new Adurian races.
I’ve decided to change focus because I wanted to get a few things finished up for my own tabletop birthright 4e game that I want to start in January but I am not to concerned about stock character classes/races at this time since it is my own game. I will be working on atleast two multiclasses (Scion and Regent) along with updating the Domain system.
On another note I removed the Anuireans because I agreed with making humans just slightly more powerful in Birthright and thus leaving them as is but giving each subrace an additional +2 to an ability score based on their 2e ability score benefits.
Anuirean: +2 Wis
Brecht: +2 Dex
Khinasi: +2 Int
Rjurik: +2 Con
Vos: +2 Str
I figured out how I am going to do Bloodline Abilities. I am going to model it as a multi-class only class but have additional non-common abilities be picked up with feats like Channel Divinity (where you need to be a worshipper of a certain deity to get a Channel Divinity ability but in this case you have to be of a certain Bloodline derivation).
This strikes me as a very good way of dealing with the Bloodline abilities issue. Modelling it on Channel Divinity in terms of power would be a great way of giving players options, rather than raw power.
Plus, you could then extrapolate this by supplying several Paragon Paths depending on the various Bloodlines, which then lead into (possibly) additional feat choices.
Ultimately what I would love to see done with Bloodlines would be done the following way.
Scion Multiclass (Feudal Lords campaign setting did an excellent Noble Multi-class that I would consider using for this purpose!)
== Bloodline Feats (ala Channel Divinity)
== Paragon Path (One for Each Bloodline? One just called Great Scion, maybe?)
== Epic Destinies (True Scion? Awnsheghlien & Ehrsheghlien?)