Holding attack/defense Holding system

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 4th Edition
21

Right.

The reason I mentioned RP is the fact that no one had done it earlier.

The discussion was along the lines of a flat out defense number based on character level, bloodline, etc. But no mention of any circumstance modifier (i.e., RP) which is really a core concept in being a regent in BR.

There should be a way to handle it, most likely easily. But it should not be merely dismissed as a “relic” and something that should be thrown away becasue it goes against the 4th ed concepts. I feel that it can fit in with those concepts as long as someone wants it to.

22

Right you are there Thelandrin (I just checked the wiki).

We “solved” this problem in another way: sources generate “magic income” that can be used to cast spells (Alchemy for example). And population doesn’t reduce source level, but reduce that magic income (so no need to Rule the source back if the population goes down among other things). So Wizards don’t have to spend their RP to get income and they continue to have problems with high level populations but not so hard.

23

Totally understand where you are coming from. We are just looking at the same problem with two seperate points of view. I certainly would never sacrifice much of what makes Birthright unique just to shove it into 4th edition, but what I have always said if 4th edition mechanics CAN be used and it doesn’t mess up the original intent of Birthright … then we should.

Seems you aren’t too far off from that opinion. I just get scared when people offer up solutions for 4th edition by create new rule sets to go along with 4th edition rules. Too many of those and we might as well not even be using 4th edition at all.

-BB

24

Good old Ben Franklin.

25

For bookkeeping purposes and especially the PBEM community (which we could devise a separate rules set for, but it would be nice if we didn’t have to), I prefer to keep the domain actions simple. That’s a driving focus of 4e, as well: reduce unnecessary math and die rolls.

So I would like to keep the current Contestation system rather than introducing per-holding calculations of attack and defense and possibly introducing an additional die roll (making it opposed). You could introduce Blood powers and/or feats or assets that provide a bonus to Contest or Resist Contestation, if you wish, but the current system is actually pretty straightforward: base DC = 10+target holding level; you add your own holding level to your action, and then there’s RP bidding.

If you’d like to make it a little easier to defend, skill and feat adjustments (if we still have any in 4e) could apply to the defender’s side as well. If you want to write down the attack/defend numbers ahead of time for each holding, that’s fine, but I’d rather not do that bookkeeping myself.

I also would like to retain the term “Contest” (and, by extension, resisting contestation), because this is a real world term that better applies to the situation and can be explained in any number of ways. “Attack/Defend” takes us out of the political realm and is a distraction making us think of tabletop metagame terms rather than story terms.

As an additional note, in general I think that we should avoid factoring in level or bloodline score into regular calculations. It gives far too much of an advantage to powerful scions. Even using Domain Power (an under-utilized number, IMO) solely as a bonus would give an advantage to large realms and discount the agility factor in smaller ones.

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.

I would let Source levels apply against Rule Province; the more strongly the magic of the land is controlled, the harder it will be to Rule. However, this works best if Rule Province is made easier and is explained in terms of administrative reforms and divine connection to the land rather (among other things) rather than in population. We’ve been over those things before in another thread, and I’ve put forth ideas about making things work within those explanations better.

26

I’ve just checked the Birthright Campaign Setting at home and any holding can contest any other holding, they don’t have to be of the same type, this was changed in the BRCS 3e.

27

Interesting it doesn’t specifically state that they have to be the same type - although there is evidence to support that in the color text and other places.

BRRB pg 52
Contest

“A regent can neutralize another regent’s holding by contesting his influence.” Emphasis on influence.

pg 82 BRRB

“Sources gain the advantage that they are immune to being contested by military force. They can be contested only through the contest action.”

Book of Magecraft pg 18

“If another wizard already controls a source within the province, or if the province’s ruler objects to the wizard establishing a presence, the wizard may meet opposition in trying to create a holding. (See “Domain, Character, and Free Actions” in the BRRB.”

pg 16 of the BoM talks about locating sources. Pretty much only wizards or those with a strong tie to the land in the area itself can locate a source. So if a regent can’t locate it how can he “contest” it? Especially since it is immune to being contested by force.

BRRB has an interesting note on barred actions for source regents (pg 82)

A source regent with a 0 level source can only perform the Rule domain action (he can’t even contest other sources).

28

Probably this is my problem as not been a native english speaker, but I don’t see anything in the color text supporting that interpretation :S

I don’t see anything here that supports the same holding type. Why a law regent can’t contest the temple regent influence? Can’t she deem that religion ilegal for example? (seems a good “contest”).

I think this was related to military occupation of a province (when you conquest an enemy province you can contest/raze everything there, but I’ll check when I get home). Again nothing here supports they can’t be contested by another holding type.

If the province ruler can oppose the create holding or rule actions, then that seems to support that she will be able also to contest the source later on if she wishes.

“Those with a strong tie to the land” can easily mean the province ruler or other regents in that province (they are tied to the province more than anyone). But it would make normal people living there incapable of stumbling upon the source (except by chance).

I don’t think this is related, it just means several actions are prohibited to source regents because they don’t have enough political weight (another problem for the poor guys).

Again, I don’t think this rule change is a bad change at all (although I would only make it for source holdings, I would let the rest holdings contest each other).

Also, the problem it could be also the understanding of what a contest action means. While in the BRCS 3e says contest is nearly the same as a war declaration, I don’t understand contest as such a terrible thing. It’s more political infighting behind the curtains trying to gain more influence over a subject than other regents. If contest is like a war declaration, then create holding or rule is the same most times, and I understand them also as political moves more than war moves.

29

well, to a degree we are stuck in that we are trying to create rules to model the interaction of domains, and 4e is built on the interaction of people - some stuff will jar.

But using a skills approach to determining action success seems fine for 4e - if you want to have it level/2 rather than points based it would be easy enough to keep point based as an optional system for more experienced players - saying that ‘you can spend RP up to your ability modifier on any domain action to improve the chance of success’ should make it too hard for anyone. Unless 4e has done away completely with opposed rolls I’d keep it as an opposed roll is easy to handle than tables for defense values.

Bloodline modelled on an ability score worked fine in 3e and that should translate without a problem

Bloodline powers can fit around feats/abilities for combat powers or be ‘per action, seasonal, yearly’ for domain affecting powers - with the latter being add-ons not swaps to retain adventure level parity.

Domain income should be 3e non-random rather than 2e dice based, but perhaps updated by going decimal to simplify the book-keeping.

RP generation could stay skill focused - if you choose the rule province and rule law’ skills on your ‘ruler class’ then you get RP from them, you can get feats to get up to your bloodline score modifier from other holdings, etc.

Our 4e additions therefore are:

  • a new ability score
  • a new class - with no adventure level impact, just a choice of 2 or 5 skills
  • some new adventure abilities and feats
  • some domain abilities and feats
  • domain ruleset

None of these require a new mechanic, only the last would take more than a few minutes to understand how to use.

  • class to monster conversion (I haven’t checked this area of 4e yet, it may be easy enough) for awnies
  • opposed rolls (Can’t actually see anything in phb stopping this at the moment anyway)

Possibly new but again fairly simple.

The book-keeping is:

  • track regency
  • track domain gold
  • track domain expenses

Anyone who can track hitpoints and gp can track these. Anyone who can’t must have someone in their group able to handle primary school math and a spreadsheet who can.

The alternative to domain GB book-keeping is to have ‘wealth levels’ for realms to avoid tracking gold at all but this in my view causes more problems than it solves.

Overall we don’t have much new that doesn’t need to be done anyway - the ‘outside combat’ skills, interactions and economics basically. Frankly if we get new 4e players coming along and saying ‘hmm, this is all 4e’ I’d be disappointed, 4e is at best the start of a game, if it was the be-all-and-end-all then I’d be converting to herosystem, earthdawn, etc.

30

Quite possibly.

I don’t see anything here that supports the same holding type. Why a law regent can’t contest the temple regent influence? Can’t she deem that religion ilegal for example? (seems a good “contest”).

This is where I think knowledge of English language usage comes into play.

Influence in general refers to influence over something.

A temple regent has influence over the religious beliefs of the population.

A guild holding has influence over the economic patterns of the population.

A law holding has influence over the “behavior” of the population. As in “safety” and “order”. Taxes also frequently fall under this category.

Sources have influence over no one. They are independent of population and a source holding is really a measure of the regent’s influence over the “land” itself.

Now this opinion is reinforced by the ruling in 2nd ed that uses the difference between holding levels as a modifier for the contest action.

In a level 4 province there can be a level 4 law, level 4 guild and a level 4 temple holding, but the source holding level is not based on the same number. It depends on the pravince land type and subtracts the province rating to dtermine what is left.

It is clear that all holding of the same type are on a similar footing and competing for the same resources while holdings of different types are not competing for the same resources.

Regents are competing for influence over these resources (those of a similar type) and not over the total province (that is under the contest province action, which is vastly different).

I think this was related to military occupation of a province (when you conquest an enemy province you can contest/raze everything there, but I’ll check when I get home). Again nothing here supports they can’t be contested by another holding type.

Right - but a regent can use troops (could in 2nd ed) to target specific holdings. This emphasizes that sources are quite different than other holdings in the fact that there is generally nothing physical to destroy, no buildings, no assets, no population to disperse, etc.

If the province ruler can oppose the create holding or rule actions, then that seems to support that she will be able also to contest the source later on if she wishes.

Note that the BRCS has the word “generally” in the description of contest actions. It does not say only similar types.

“Those with a strong tie to the land” can easily mean the province ruler or other regents in that province (they are tied to the province more than anyone). But it would make normal people living there incapable of stumbling upon the source (except by chance).

Have you read the Book of Magecraft?

I recommend it strongly as it contains lots of description of what a source holding really is. It is a “manifestation” of the magic potential. This marks a distinction in understanding what the holding represents as compared to a guild or temple.

Landed regents still have a means of “contesting” source holdings.

The rule province action effectively lowers the magic potential of the land and while a specific manifestation can’t be targeted - all source holders are penalized by this action.

Only landed regents can use this action.

I don’t think this is related, it just means several actions are prohibited to source regents because they don’t have enough political weight (another problem for the poor guys).

But if you are using the words as written in the BRRB as a basis without comparing other text, then the words as written here are very specific and do not address interactions with other holding types but all domain actions in general.

Also, the problem it could be also the understanding of what a contest action means. While in the BRCS 3e says contest is nearly the same as a war declaration, I don’t understand contest as such a terrible thing. It’s more political infighting behind the curtains trying to gain more influence over a subject than other regents. If contest is like a war declaration, then create holding or rule is the same most times, and I understand them also as political moves more than war moves.

Yes and no.

This topic has been around for a long time.

Contesting is like attacking someone’s assets. This very action is similar to declaring war since a regent is using his influence against someone. Different holding regents view “war” as different things. Temple regents view religious contests as a war against their god and beliefs, guild regents view it as “stealing” from them, while law regents (and landed ones) tend to view war in the more traditional terms.

Creating a 0-level holding is viewed quite differently.

A 0-level holding (other than sources) allows a regent to establish a place to conduct political dealings - an embassy if you will. What the regent does with that base is something else.

So creating a holding can (and usually would be) viewed with suspician.

31

I know regents compete for influence over one type of resource, but nothing says that they can’t try to deny other regents their influences. I think it’s very easy to imagine a law regent trying to contest a guild (raid warehouses, declare some types of trade ilegal, putting too high taxes,…). It’s not strange either to imagine a law regent (and province owner) contesting an opposing temple regent to allow his own puppet temple to grow in the province.

I think sources are harder to imagine because we don’t have sources in real life so we can’t make paralels with real life examples (where economic, politic and religious powers have clashed a lot with each other).

Yeah, agreed, but a contest doesn’t have to mean only actions over physical properties. Debates in a senate where you ridicule an enemy faction could mean a contest over law for example. Nothing physical was involved. A price war is also an explanation for a contest between guilds. A temple denying the right to rule to the owner of the province could be another contest.

Making sources inmune to direct military actions is just an inmunity they have given their “no physical assets” status, but it’s not related to the contest action.

Yeah, you are right, but to be honest the current wording in the BRCS 3e is pretty bad:

“Generally, holdings can only be contested by other holdings of the same type. Law holdings are also able to contest guild and temple holdings (but not source holdings).”

Rules should be concise and clear.

I only browsed over it. I got it much later than the time I got the Campaign Setting, so the game was already heavily modified by that time.

I have no problems either with a temple starting a witch hunt against a wizard regent (another contest). Or guilds stopping the trade with the wizard so she won’t be able to get those expensive and rare materials needed for her nice realm spells.

If by assets you mean physical things I disagree, contest can have many more representations than a physical attack.

To establish an embassy you could send also a lieutenant or any other agent to the kingdom court. Creating a new holding means you want a part of the cake, not that you want to have nice relations.

But again, I think that the BRCS 2e is pretty clear in that anyone can contest anyone. And I also agree that changing this for wizard regents is a good move (as they need it badly).

32

War is politics by other means. I’m not so sure is any worse than political infighting, most of the time. The question is, is most war total, drawing on the full resources of the nation, or is most war fight for limited purposes? Cerilia is supposed to be at war a lot, and that requires mostly limited wars in which the scope and size of the war is limited. Supposedly, for example, Ghoere tests its boundary with Roesone quite a bit. I imagine its mostly a single unit, or so, to literally test the state of Roesone’s army. If they give better than they get in a series of encounters, then two things are established, a larger war will probably be successful and we both know it, and Ghoere’s already done a bit of hurt to Roesone.

33

Vicente’s right, this does sound like guilds can only contest guilds. Which would be silly.

34

Good aclaration, I was referring more to total war as you say, where you just come fight, conquer, plunder and destroy a lot of assets and infrastructures in the whole process (as reflected by contesting all the physical based holdings). I agree that total war is the rare extreme and that small tests (may it be politics, raids/incursions, covert operations,…) are the norm around Cerilia.

35

A half-way-house would be to allow contests between the various landed holdings, but only allow the bonus from your holding size to affect holdings of similar types. So temple 6 vs Guild 4 is not at +2, but at -4. Law holdings which have a more pervasive impact get to apply their size bonus against any other landed holding type.

We could allow temples of at least Azrai, Erik, Ruornil and Moradin to contest source holdings, possibly at 1/2 size impact, but otherwise keep sources impervious. In this case I’d want to give the wizards some way of striking back - say by denying the priests access to magic on a successful contest…

Sources should otherwise only impact the various landed types to remove various random events (such as natural disaster and magical event). and possibly to oppose province rule actions.

36

Except for sources.

See the rule I referenced earlier.

0-level sources can only rule but not contest.

This restriction does not apply to any other holding type.

37

That’s an exception for level 0 sources, that’s it, no more, no less. The 2e rule continues to be pretty clear. What I fail to see if you like the 2e version, you like more the new 3e not so clear wording, you would change anything or what is your opinion about the subject in general :slight_smile:

38

I have to admit, until quite recently it never occurred to me that anyone would even consider trying to contest a source holding with a landed holding or vice versa - the two types of holding appeared so fundamentally incompatible that the question could never arise.

The 2e rule that only a wizard could do anything with a source beyond simply hold it seemed to make specifically prohibiting cross-influences fairly redundant - how could a regent contest a wizards influence over something (mebhaighl) that was fundamentally beyond the first regents influence?

The BoM makes reference to the impotence of non-wizard regents in respect of sources, the only suggestion made that non-wizards can affect the sources is temporary reduction via force, as a result various spells allowed the source manifestation to be protected. The BoM never even seems to consider the possibility of a wizard vs non-wizard series of actions, a fairly significant omission in my view. Particularly when added to comments in many sources about regents hostile to wizards (Firosk Slecktra being a notable example) being unable to do anything about the wizard; comments are also made that other regents don’t even know about the wizard until the wizard acts against the (Mour El-Sirad, etc) I’d definitely read the rules as treated sources as a holding apart from other types.

Overall I’d say that reading ‘landed holdings can affect source’ as taking a ‘mechanic over story’ approach to an unhealthy extreme. What justification is there for saying that rocks, trees, rivers etc are swayed by oratory or force of arms? King Canute springs to mind! (In both actual and mythical sense.) I’d note that even the regent’s ‘tie to the land’ seems far more a ‘tie to the people’ than it is to the land - including the ‘land’s choice’.

One point I note is that 2e in general seems to have assumed that everyone stuck to their class role - fighters ruled, priests preached, thieves traded, wizards mediated on the cosmos. With such an underlying assumption there would be no need to specifically say that holdings could only contest similar holdings etc - it would hold true for all holding types unless stated otherwise. That said re-reading the 2e create holding and rule actions they specifically mention that only regents with a ‘similar holding’ can oppose the actions and these are comparable actions to contest which makes no such statement (although the example is guild:guild) indeed contest talks about the province ruler using the province rating to contest other holdings so I can see where the confusion arises.

39

From the BRCS 2e (page 82).

"Sources and Actions

In addition to providing a wizard with the power to cast realm spells, a source also stands for the wizard’s ability to affect the events in a province and his connection to the powers of that area. Unlike other characters, wizards may be prohibited from some undertakings if they have insufficient presence in a province."

That’s not about rocks and springs, it’s about political influence and connections. That’s what get contested. That’s why until they get a level 4 source they can’t agitate, because the population doesn’t recognize them as a political figure until they have gained a high level enough source. When they do, everyone whispers about the old mage that lives on the dark forest who appeared in front of the castle and announced that the king was cursed, making people more reluctant to follow him (agitate).

It’s pretty clear in the BRCS and it makes a lot of sense (witch hunt again for example, it’s not like is new for humans to be superstitious and things like that…).

40

The province’s ruler can always try to oppose to the wizards source holding creation. She may even not allow a wizard to tap into source. Example: Savanne of Mhoried is Prince Fhileraene’s consort (in Tuarhievel) and is invested with his blood. She “controls” the sources, but she cannot use them since she’s not a wizard. If she permits, the Sidhe wizards can tap into sources and do their thing.

Regents are connected to the land and the sources are too. So, like a ruler can oppose the wizard trying to create a holding or tapping into, the wizard should be able to oppose him through the power of the land (when he has created a holding). Since the wizard may not be native to the province or a domain, he should suffer some penalties, like the ruler of more provinces should have a bonus based on his widespread power.

Other holdings are more “physical” so they can more easily influence each other. Guilds would always try to earn some extra money by bending the law and churches will preach against the lord or a ruler if he works against the people. It’s something we see in a modern world. The law is passed that there shall be a death penalty for heavy crimes, and moralists (usually churches) will try to oppose this, just like a ruler will try to ban a faith that does not concur with hers and her people’s beliefs.

From this point of view, the ruler has his hands full with holdings trying to sway her rule and take charge of the province. This is where diplomacy comes to play.