Holding attack/defense Holding system

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 4th Edition
1

I was looking rules and I thought up a new system that might work well in a 4th edition Birthright setting. If people seem even somewhat interested I can expand the idea.

4th edition has a pretty solid system of attack and defense. I was thinking we could apply this to a realm level for the success of actions. Here are my thoughts.

Each holding would have an attack and defense number.

Law (half bloodline score + Law holding + class modifier)
Guild (half boodline score + Guild holding level + class modifier)
Temple (half bloodline score + Temple holding level + class modifer)
Source (half bloodline score + Source holding level + class modifer)
Province (half bloodline score + Province level + half character level)

Defense of each holding would follow a similer pattern

Law (10 + half bloodline score + law holding + class modifier)

  • you can follow the pattern for the rest.

Certain classes are better prepared to defend certain holding types. If the class favors the holding type they get a +5 to both attack and defense. If they are neutral to the holding it is 0 modifier. Some classes are ill prepared to handle certain types of holdings and receive a -5 modifier.

Warrior - Favored - Law, Neutral - guild, No relation - Source, Temple
Priest - Favored - Temple, Neutral - Law, No relation - Source, guild
Rogue - Favored - Guild, Neutral - Law, No relation - Source Temple
Wizard - Favored - Source, Neutral - nothing, No relation -Temple, Guild, Law

Many of the domain actions use attack and defense values for success.

Contest Holding - Holding attack vs. Holding defense
Contest Trade route - Holding attack vs. guild defense
Create Holding - Holding attack vs. Base DC
Create Leyline - Source attack vs. Province Defense
Create Trade Route - Guild attack vs. Base DC
Espionage - Guild or holding attack vs. various defense
Rule Holding - Hold Attack vs. Same holding defense
Rule Province - Province Attack vs. Province defense

Regency battle - Once per month a regent can call a regency battle on one of their actions. One that single action they can spend regency to effect the outcome of the roll. Once declared any regent in the area can spend for or against the action. The regent can only focus all of his personal energy to one action. If the regent is doing an action that is effecting multiple provinces then he can choose one province to declare regency battle.

If a regent declares a regency battle against you … this doesn’t count against your decleration and you can spend freely against or for the other regent.

Each of the domain actions would cost a base amount of regency. This should be a static amount. Every time the regent wants to contest holding it will cost 5 regency.

Certainly a much different way to go about it. The numbers above aren’t really balanced but wanted to give you a feel for what I was thinking.

-BB

2

How are you calculating Bloodline score? By my reckoning Darien Avan has a 70, which gives him a 10 + 35 + 2 + 5 = 52 to defend his law holding in Portage. against attacks from Aeric Boeruine 30 + 0 + 5 =35, 17 required for effect.

Darien is 42 in attack against Aeric’s Portage holding, which defends at a 45, 3 for effect. Never mind Alamie or Tournen.

Are you using some other method of calculating Bloodscore?

3

In the case of Rule Holding/Rule Province, if your attack rating = your defense rating there is no need to roll. As any # rolled will = success.

Create Leyline is an action that should not be opposable (IMO that is why there are spells to detect leylines.)

Otherwise, I think these rules for contest holdings are good. I like the -5 penalty, specifically as it makes wizard/source regents depend more on other regents.

Steve

4

I assumed (I know, my bad) that he was planning on using the 3e/3.5 system for Bloodline scores. (normally 3-18) And that he meant to use the Bloodline Score Modifier in his calculations. (+1,+2, etc…)

For the 4ed are people looking at returning to the 2ed way for computing Bloodline Scores?

5

This system was already changed in the 3.5 system.

The sanctioned version of Chapter 2 (the one on the wiki too) went back to the old values.

This switch was done over a year ago, closer to 2.

Chapter 1 was likewise "revised " and sanctioned.

So both are different than what appears in the “playtest” version.

6

Actually if you noticed the defense score is 10+ all of the other modifiers. So in an equal world you would have a 50/50 shot. Now we can include other modifiers to help boost your attack so you are more likely to succeed.

7

Yeah I believe there are two verisons at the moment. I do think bloodline modifier makes the most sense after I slept on it. So an incredibly powerful bloodline will certainly have an advantage over a weak one. But a powerful holding but a weak bloodline might be able to hold its own.

8

Other quick thoughts

There are all types of modifiers we could apply here.

Holding type vs. same holding type would have no modifier. But if law attacks something isn’t another law they would have a -2 (or another number) to succeed.

We could include modifiers that others have mentioned. Racial modifier to succeed or even bloodline type modifier. Best part is if you don’t want bloodline type modifier don’t include it in your campaign.

just tossing out other ideas I thought of …

Have powers that can interact more with holdings.

  • Once per season you can boost an attack of one of your holdings by +5.
  • Once per year you can save one of your holdings from attack. (Think Tournen trying to defend law holdings vs Avanil. Knowing full well that Avanil can steamroll Tournen’s law holdings the regent of Tournen once could auto succeed in defense just once.)
  • Once per season you can attack one other holding as a court action instead of a standard action.

-BB

9

You’re talking about Contest actions? What is deficient about the current system? What are you trying to correct or improve?

10

While not 100% related, Contest and Rule were too asymmetric in power in 2e (and they continue to be in 3e, why not reducing 1 level instead of 1d3? Ruling is nor cheap nor automatic).

About this system, I did some tests for something similar in my homemade campaign. It’s not balanced as there are other things that affect the power of holdings in general.

Law: = vs Law, + vs Temple, + vs Guild, can’t vs Source.
Temple: - vs Law, = vs Temple, - vs Guild, – vs Source.
Guild: - vs Law, - vs Temple, = vs Guild, can’t vs Source.
Source: can’t vs Law, can’t vs Temple, can’t vs Guild, = vs Source.

11

Reducing 1 level seems a good fix, though perhaps not very enticing. I haven’t played many games where holdings are contested because it’s just too costly.

I think anyone should be able to contest any holding. You just can’t apply your own holding levels against holdings not of your type, except for Law holdings.

12

First I was just reading 4th edition and thinking of a way to have Birthright 4th edition match it. Once I thought of this I started to realize the possibilities.

  1. For people that have read 4th edition and come to our site, the idea of attack and defense will be instantly familer. They will understand the concept of attack and defense and how to apply it to other holdings. (Need to contest another holding an attack roll vs. a defense roll fits nicely)

  2. Having a single number for a holding actions will speed up the game. Need to do a contest … well my attack is a blah blah. Need to rule … my attack is blah blah vs. a base defense.

  3. Feats and powers can now be applied to those numbers for attack and defense.

There are other reason but that is what I can think of on the top of my head. Certainly the old system wasn’t broke at all, but it certain has a 3rd edition feel to it.

-BB

13

I agree on this. But on our campaign we changed that rule to force interactions between different regents.

14

Don’t forget to account for RP expenditures - thus it is no longer a “set number”.

IMO RP is not accounted for then there is no point in having holdings at all.

15

RP is part of it being an opposed roll - personally I don’t see the difficulty in opposed rolls - ‘her roll is your DC’ sort of thing.

The question is how you deal with RP bidding - silent bids? Refundable deposits? One/Two/etc round only bids? Max bid equal to bloodline modifier per round? Etc.

Without RP bids you get holdings flipping rapidly, not good when they represent certain faction types. Book-keeping vs Simulation maybe a recurrent them e in a 4e conversion…

16

4E is specifically about balance in all its glorious and flawed aspects. If you really want a “balanced” 4E Birthright, why are you perpetuating the “wizards are useless” stereotype that has hounded them since at least the BRCS?

17

I had a big long rant I was about to post but figured I would keep most of it to myself. Just a bit too negative.

I really respect everyone’s opinion and look forward to helping this transition going forward.

My only thought for everyone is that if we are going to make a 4th edition verison of our beloved Birthright lets go for it. If we can fit Birthright mechanics into the new 4th edition system we should be trying to do that first, and not adding layers of different rules and systems. If you don’t like the 4th edition mechanics … well there is always 3.5 edition that will not go away.

I am just afraid that we are going to create a 4th edition system that resembles 4th edition on the outside but the guts will be a mix of 2nd/3rd/3.5/homebrew. Not a single person outside of our group will be interested in it because it will be too unfamiler, and 3-4 years down the road when the only real set of rules is 4th edition, we will look at our bastard edition and realized we missed the boat.

18

RP bids on offensive: you just say how many RP you intend to spend and that’s it.

RP bids on defensive: in his turn each player states his RP pool to bid and how much she is going to spend in a single action at most. Easy and neutral :slight_smile: She can make exceptions for some actions, provinces,… but usually the simple rule works very well.

About the useless wizards, not allowing everyone contesting them is a first step to give them more protection (although Rule Province and no-income continue screwing them pretty fast :frowning: ).

19

That’s just status quo, Vicente. The wizards couldn’t be contested or even seen except by other wizards, yet they had minimal (if any) income and were completely hosed by Rule Province.

If you wanted to throw wizards a bone, you could allow sources to generate income like laws and allow them to bid regency (but not source levels) against Rule Province.

20

First we have to look at what is setting material versus what is flavor material.

Here is a thread with that subject:

Flavor versus game mechanics:
http://www.dndworlds.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1884&highlight=flavor

Now if you want to only play 4th ed and wave your hand over it and say it is Birthright - feel free.

But IMO you will be making a huge mistake.

One of the good things about 2nd ed that was watered down tremendously in 3.5 was the notion of “settings”.

In 2nd ed each setting was distinctly different (well a most of them were in any event). Each had componets that defined the setting in a way that separated it from the others.

In 3.5 this line was deliberately blurred due to economics (and IMO this will continue with 4th ed and anything subsequent). The idea being that any book or product created could be used in any setting. This was in direct contrast to the 2nd ed philosophy.

So IMO define what is and what is not Brithright and then work towards using the 4th ed mechancs to explain it. Not do it the other way.