Draft 0.0 Birthright skills and feats

[ConjurerDragon]

Something that bothered me about the Birthright Skills and Feats:

A core character has only a certain amount of skillpoints and feats to spend.
And he spends them on feats that he can choose, e.g. a fighter on Cleave or
such.

Birthright characters, at least those that rule a domain, can now get feats
and skills that help them to be more effective at the domain level of play -
but these domainlevel feats, like Regent Focus (domain action) have no
effect or advantage for the adventure level.

That means, that Birthright regents will be weaker than core characters when
it comes to personal skills and feats e.g. in an adventure, or compared to
characters of other worlds.

That could be seen as o.k., as they gain more power on the domain level by
forsaking power on the personal/adventure/dungeon level.

However e.g. Kings and rulers of other worlds where no "domain level" of
play exists, only the adventure level these Kings and rulers rule their
"domains" as good as their Birthright counterparts, and still are able to
use their "feat slots" for personal feats.

A regent character taken from Aebrynnis to the Forgotten Realms, where his
"domain level" feats are useless, as the land has not been infused with the
blood of the gods, so that he can´t bond with it has in effect a lot of
useless skills and feats.

In my personal opinion, Birthright characters should be as different from
core characters as Aebrynnis is from Forgotten Realms. Birthright regents
who have to compete to others on the domain level should be able to use
their normal skill and feat slots to spend on normal skills and feats.

And the domain level abilities, like Regent Focus feat, should be additional
feats, available and usable only by Birthright Characters in the Birthright
setting.

This would produce characters, who could be identical to their counterparts
of other worlds (and so a created character could easily be used by the
player, should he play in another world), but due to their divine blood and
bond with the land have advantages in their own world on the domain level.

Of course in their setting these characters would be more powerful than
other worlds characters - but as Aebrynnis is so secluded from other worlds
that does not really matter.
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[Shade]

I strongly agree with Michael, IN PRINCIPLE. I hate the fact that you have
to be weaker than a normal adventurer in order to be a better regent. 2e
Birthright did not have that tradeoff, and "hero-king" was a viable
character concept.

I have been thinking about this for some time, and the implementation is
what is bothering me.

At 07:27 AM 2/22/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Something that bothered me about the Birthright Skills and Feats:
>
>A core character has only a certain amount of skillpoints and feats to spend.
>And he spends them on feats that he can choose, e.g. a fighter on Cleave or
>such.
>
>Birthright characters, at least those that rule a domain, can now get feats
>and skills that help them to be more effective at the domain level of play -
>but these domainlevel feats, like Regent Focus (domain action) have no
>effect or advantage for the adventure level.
>
>That means, that Birthright regents will be weaker than core characters when
>it comes to personal skills and feats e.g. in an adventure, or compared to
>characters of other worlds.
>
>That could be seen as o.k., as they gain more power on the domain level by
>forsaking power on the personal/adventure/dungeon level.
>
>However e.g. Kings and rulers of other worlds where no "domain level" of
>play exists, only the adventure level these Kings and rulers rule their
>"domains" as good as their Birthright counterparts, and still are able to
>use their "feat slots" for personal feats.
>
>A regent character taken from Aebrynnis to the Forgotten Realms, where his
>"domain level" feats are useless, as the land has not been infused with the
>blood of the gods, so that he can´t bond with it has in effect a lot of
>useless skills and feats.
>
>In my personal opinion, Birthright characters should be as different from
>core characters as Aebrynnis is from Forgotten Realms. Birthright regents
>who have to compete to others on the domain level should be able to use
>their normal skill and feat slots to spend on normal skills and feats.
>
>And the domain level abilities, like Regent Focus feat, should be additional
>feats, available and usable only by Birthright Characters in the Birthright
>setting.
>
>This would produce characters, who could be identical to their counterparts
>of other worlds (and so a created character could easily be used by the
>player, should he play in another world), but due to their divine blood and
>bond with the land have advantages in their own world on the domain level.
>
>Of course in their setting these characters would be more powerful than
>other worlds characters - but as Aebrynnis is so secluded from other worlds
>that does not really matter.
>bye
>Michael Romes
>
>************************************************** **************************
>The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
>Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
>To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
>with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
>

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[DanMcSorley]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
> However e.g. Kings and rulers of other worlds where no "domain level" of
> play exists, only the adventure level these Kings and rulers rule their
> "domains" as good as their Birthright counterparts, and still are able to
> use their "feat slots" for personal feats.
>
> A regent character taken from Aebrynnis to the Forgotten Realms, where his
> "domain level" feats are useless, as the land has not been infused with the
> blood of the gods, so that he can´t bond with it has in effect a lot of
> useless skills and feats.

/snip/

> Of course in their setting these characters would be more powerful than
> other worlds characters - but as Aebrynnis is so secluded from other worlds
> that does not really matter.

You directly contradict yourself there. If they`re so separate and
secluded that it doesn`t matter if BR characters are more powerful, then
it is equally unimportant if BR regent characters are `less powerful` than
equivalent levelled characters who haven`t taken regent feats. So your
argument collapses to being for more powergamable regent characters.

The other thing you said, about how other lands haven`t been imbued with
divine blood, is up to the DM to decide, but I always figured that Cerilia
wasn`t all that different from Toril or Oerth. The blooded characters are
the only ones who got changed at Deismaar. If a character with a
bloodline went to Oerth, he could certainly set up a domain in my opinion.

If a big group of blooded characters went to Oerth, within a thousand
years their descendants would probably be the only kings, because being
blooded is that much of an edge in ruling. I`d set up the lords of
greyhawk and Urnst and whatever as unblooded kings, and they wouldn`t have
much of a chance compared to RP using people. Their domain actions are
much less likely to succeed without RP to spend on them, for instance.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[ConjurerDragon]

daniel mcsorley wrote:

>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
>
...

>You directly contradict yourself there. If they`re so separate and
>secluded that it doesn`t matter if BR characters are more powerful, then
>it is equally unimportant if BR regent characters are `less powerful` than
>equivalent levelled characters who haven`t taken regent feats. So your
>argument collapses to being for more powergamable regent characters.
>
Some players (not I, as the only world I play in is currently
Birthright) use a character they created in more than one world or
campaign. Having the "domain-level-abilities" of Birthright characters
added upon a normal character who spends his normal skills and feats
normally, would allow an easy use of that character elsewhere.

Another argument would be that Birthright is actually two games. One
normal adventure/dungeon crawl game and a strategical and tactical
wargame with economical parts. For me it is less fun to have a character
who either does the one or the other or is mediocre at both because he
has feats that are only useful for one game, but not the other -
especially now that 3E and other books come up with as it seems to me as
a score of feats that look interesting and a dozen I would like my
character to have. Chosing the feats/skills for a normal character is
already difficult, but giving up a number of feat-slots for feats that
another worlds character would have to spend none on and that are
useless in adventuring?

>The other thing you said, about how other lands haven`t been imbued with
>divine blood, is up to the DM to decide, but I always figured that Cerilia
>wasn`t all that different from Toril or Oerth. The blooded characters are
>the only ones who got changed at Deismaar. If a character with a
>bloodline went to Oerth, he could certainly set up a domain in my opinion.
>
Mmmh, if the land has not changed at Deismaar, then how do you explain
"the land´s choice"?
In my opinion the land in Aebrynnis (not Cerilia! that is only ONE
continent on Aebrynnis) became semi-sentient itself after Deismaar - how
else could it choose who inherits the bloodline and who is best suited
for the job of regent?

>If a big group of blooded characters went to Oerth, within a thousand
>years their descendants would probably be the only kings, because being
>blooded is that much of an edge in ruling. I`d set up the lords of
>greyhawk and Urnst and whatever as unblooded kings, and they wouldn`t have
>much of a chance compared to RP using people. Their domain actions are
>much less likely to succeed without RP to spend on them, for instance.
>
Why? RP are only a measure of several things of which one could be
political power/influence or similar.
President Bush certainly is not able to spend RP but still manages his
domain - somehow at least ;-)
So even IF you allow Birthright characters to travel to other worlds
(what should be really difficult and a rare occurance), and even IF you
allow their bloodabilities to work on other worlds (why should they?
There are other gods that decide what happens in other worlds and
bloodabilites could be tied to the land of Aebrynnis as the world where
the old gods died) and even IF you allow them to bond with the land in
Oerth or Toril (why? This land has nothing to do with divine bloodlines
of gods that do not belong to this world) - why should rulers native to
that setting not be able to have political power and influence to use
against them?
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[DanMcSorley]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Lord Shade wrote:
> I strongly agree with Michael, IN PRINCIPLE. I hate the fact that you have
> to be weaker than a normal adventurer in order to be a better regent. 2e
> Birthright did not have that tradeoff, and "hero-king" was a viable
> character concept.

Yes it did. Unblooded people got a bonus to experience.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[ConjurerDragon]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003 13:49:49 -0500, daniel mcsorley
<mcsorley@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU> wrote:

>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Lord Shade wrote:
>> I strongly agree with Michael, IN PRINCIPLE. I hate the fact that you have
>> to be weaker than a normal adventurer in order to be a better regent. 2e
>> Birthright did not have that tradeoff, and "hero-king" was a viable
>> character concept.
>
>Yes it did. Unblooded people got a bonus to experience.

Not exactly. Unblooded people of AEBRYNNIS got a bonus of 10% to their
experience to balance them with the blooded scions of Aebrynnis.

People of OTHER worlds did not get that bonus (at least I never have heard
that characters of the Forgotten Realms or other worlds earn 10% more
experience because there are blooded scions on Aebrynnis ;-)), so even if an
unblooded Birthright character (without any domain-level feats/skills) and
no bloodline would somehow be transported to other worlds would be
personally more powerful than the characters of other worlds.

Now if even a commoner from Birthright is personally (not overall, as anyone
from Birthright lacks the abundance of magical items in other worlds) more
powerful than characters of other worlds, then I fail to see why a blooded
scion or even regent should not be.

If for example a vile Wizard in the service of Aeric Boeruine would
transport the Prince of Avanil to Toril - would then this Prince be only a
weak fighter, as he certainly has spend several of his feat-slots for feats
that allow him to rule better a Birthright-Domain that is bonded to him by
blood, but has because of this less normal feats?

Or would this Prince (who normally never should be in another place!) be a
character like anyone from Toril and have abilites in addition to theirs,
that -however the DM decideds- might be great or useless in other worlds?
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[irdeggman]

Seems to me that no matter how you cut it if a DM "allows" a player to use his character in more than one campaign setting that the DM will have to deal with each occurance on an individual basis.

I don't really see how we, any of us, can come up with a set of rules (or guidelines even) to address all the possibilities. Going to a Dark Sun or Planescape setting with a Birthright character, or vice versa, would be extremely difficult.

The only time I had ever allowed characters access to more than one DM was when they were "generic" campaigns and not specific campaign settings. This is the same with every DM I have played under. This is just too difficult otherwise, this isn't the RPGA with a "set of standards" to accomplish this intertwining.

[DanMcSorley]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
> Some players (not I, as the only world I play in is currently
> Birthright) use a character they created in more than one world or
> campaign. Having the "domain-level-abilities" of Birthright characters
> added upon a normal character who spends his normal skills and feats
> normally, would allow an easy use of that character elsewhere.

I don`t think it`s our responsibility to support this mechanically. If
people want to do this, they`re perfectly capable of negotiating with the
DM that `my Baron Ghoere has these domain feats which aren`t used in
Greyhawk, so when I play him in Greyhawk I want to put them into Great
Cleave and Expertise`.

> Another argument would be that Birthright is actually two games. One
> normal adventure/dungeon crawl game and a strategical and tactical
> wargame with economical parts. For me it is less fun to have a character
> who either does the one or the other or is mediocre at both because he
> has feats that are only useful for one game, but not the other -
> especially now that 3E and other books come up with as it seems to me as
> a score of feats that look interesting and a dozen I would like my
> character to have. Chosing the feats/skills for a normal character is
> already difficult, but giving up a number of feat-slots for feats that
> another worlds character would have to spend none on and that are
> useless in adventuring?

They don`t have to buy the domain feats. Those didn`t even exist in 2nd
edition, and regents ruled effectively without them. But it`s perfectly
reasonable that a person who puts so much focus into ruling that they get
a bonus to certain domain actions would have less time to expend training
for hand-to-hand combat.

> >The other thing you said, about how other lands haven`t been imbued with
> >divine blood, is up to the DM to decide, but I always figured that Cerilia
> >wasn`t all that different from Toril or Oerth. The blooded characters are
> >the only ones who got changed at Deismaar. If a character with a
> >bloodline went to Oerth, he could certainly set up a domain in my opinion.
>
> Mmmh, if the land has not changed at Deismaar, then how do you explain
> "the land´s choice"?

Regency is equivalent to the D&D concept of gods. Gods get power from
being worshipped, regents get power from ruling people. What is
euphemistically called the `land`s choice` makes more sense if it
represents the collective will of the people, similar to a Great Captain
event or something.

> So even IF you allow Birthright characters to travel to other worlds
> (what should be really difficult and a rare occurance),

You`re the one that brought it up. :)

> and even IF you allow their bloodabilities to work on other worlds
> (why should they? There are other gods that decide what happens in
> other worlds and bloodabilites could be tied to the land of Aebrynnis
> as the world where the old gods died)

The land has nothing to do with it. It`s divine blood in their veins.
That doesn`t disappear because they travel, or go to sea, or plane hop, or
anything.

> and even IF you allow them to bond with the land in Oerth or Toril
> (why? This land has nothing to do with divine bloodlines of gods that
> do not belong to this world)

`The land` is pretty much the same everywhere. Gods everywhere in D&D
draw power the same way from worshippers. Actually, some of the same gods
are in BR as are elsewhere, Moradin for example. A character with a
bloodline could operate the same everywhere; the unblooded people they
ruled would be the same.

> - why should rulers native to that setting not be able to have
> political power and influence to use against them?

They`d have money, but not RP, since the ability to manipulate belief and
power that way is derived from being partly divine. The same way a king
who was worshipped couldn`t grant spells to clerics like a god, because he
wasn`t one.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[ConjurerDragon]

daniel mcsorley wrote:

>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
>
...

>>and even IF you allow them to bond with the land in Oerth or Toril
>>(why? This land has nothing to do with divine bloodlines of gods that
>>do not belong to this world)
>>
>
>`The land` is pretty much the same everywhere. Gods everywhere in D&D
>draw power the same way from worshippers. Actually, some of the same gods
>are in BR as are elsewhere, Moradin for example. A character with a
>bloodline could operate the same everywhere; the unblooded people they
>ruled would be the same.
>
There are not bloodlines or bloodabilites of Moradin, as Moradin did not
die at Deismaar. Dwarves could for example have bloodlines of Anduiras
who died at Deismaar.

>>- why should rulers native to that setting not be able to have
>>political power and influence to use against them?
>>
>
>They`d have money, but not RP, since the ability to manipulate belief and
>power that way is derived from being partly divine. The same way a king
>who was worshipped couldn`t grant spells to clerics like a god, because he
>wasn`t one.
>
Which could also lead to a witchhunt: In a world, where OTHER gods are
prayed to, would not every cleric see the claim to have divine blood see
as heresy?
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[geeman]

At 01:53 PM 2/23/2003 +0100, Michael Romes wrote:

>>Gods everywhere in D&D draw power the same way from
>>worshippers. Actually, some of the same gods are in BR as are elsewhere,
>>Moradin for example. A character with a bloodline could operate the same
>>everywhere; the unblooded people they ruled would be the same.
>
>There are not bloodlines or bloodabilites of Moradin, as Moradin did not
>die at Deismaar. Dwarves could for example have bloodlines of Anduiras who
>died at Deismaar.

In other campaign settings one could come up with all kinds of explanations
for the equivalent of bloodlines. Proxies, for instance, could be very
much like blooded characters and could have blood abilities of any derivation.

Gary

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[Ryegar]

Well let me say that ive been gone for a while moving and such so this is the first post for me since the playtest was put out. My group has come up with this as a house rule so that Regents are not overly powerful yet can meet a standard character in battle and not be to weak to fight due to not having certain feats and skills. 1) feats no matter what class a regent gains an extra one every 2 levels to spend towards the domain feats only. 2) skills no matter what class a regent gains 4 bonus pts per level to spend on domain related skills only. Now maybe this is something that can be worked into the next draft as a house rule. This is something we just started testing so it may be to powerful or to weak not sure yet but it may be something you may want to ask your dm about Oh yah the playtest and other d&d books state they are guidelines not rules set in stone they can be changed to fit campaigns. The end and by no means am I trying to hack any one by pointing out the last sentence just a reminder.([_]

[DanMcSorley]

On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
> >`The land` is pretty much the same everywhere. Gods everywhere in D&D
> >draw power the same way from worshippers. Actually, some of the same gods
> >are in BR as are elsewhere, Moradin for example. A character with a
> >bloodline could operate the same everywhere; the unblooded people they
> >ruled would be the same.
>
> There are not bloodlines or bloodabilites of Moradin, as Moradin did not
> die at Deismaar. Dwarves could for example have bloodlines of Anduiras
> who died at Deismaar.

Obviously. My point was that divinity was the same in other worlds as in
BR, because some gods exist in both places. So bloodlines could probably
work the same too.

> Which could also lead to a witchhunt: In a world, where OTHER gods are
> prayed to, would not every cleric see the claim to have divine blood see
> as heresy?

No. Do clerics see the claim that other gods exist as heresy? No,
because it`s easily demonstrable, those clerics get spells too. People
with a divine bloodline have powers as well.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[Shade]

At 01:49 PM 2/22/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Lord Shade wrote:
>> I strongly agree with Michael, IN PRINCIPLE. I hate the fact that you have
>> to be weaker than a normal adventurer in order to be a better regent. 2e
>> Birthright did not have that tradeoff, and "hero-king" was a viable
>> character concept.
>
>Yes it did. Unblooded people got a bonus to experience.

That`s true. But it was a pittance - what, +5% or something? Very different
from a +1-4 ECL, for instance.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Romes" <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 2:51 PM


> Or would this Prince (who normally never should be in another place!) be a
> character like anyone from Toril and have abilites in addition to theirs,
> that -however the DM decideds- might be great or useless in other worlds?

Well they lack the tails and dorsal spikes that exist on other words.
Character development in BR should be internally consistant, and consistant
with the mechanics. There is no reason that because one word has all these
skills for dealing with firearms, and another has additional survival
skills, and a third has additional stuff for governing realms, that
characters in a fourth need access to all of them for the price of one.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Romes" <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 9:27 AM


> In my personal opinion, Birthright characters should be as
> different from core characters as Aebrynnis is from Forgotten
> Realms. Birthright regents who have to compete to others on
> the domain level should be able to use their normal skill and
> feat slots to spend on normal skills and feats.
>
> And the domain level abilities, like Regent Focus feat, should
> be additional feats, available and usable only by Birthright
> Characters in the Birthright setting.

Here is why I oppose this. In the BR world, the character who choses to be
a good ruler ought to be weaker than the charcter living over the hill who
is the pure version of the same character class. Keeping class strictly the
same, consider Rhobher Nichaleir, a 13th level cleric. If we postulate a
13th level priest elsewhere, who is no regent, and never was. How should
they differ? If regent feats are additional, then Rhobher Nichaleir is more
powerful as a character than they other guy. Note, I pick a high level
character to illustrate how the choices play themselves out over time. If a
character wants to be a better ruler than the guy off the street, he should
sacrifice in terms of what his peer would be able to take.

Prince Avanil should be less of a fighter than someone who has no cares of
state to distract him from cutting down his enemies. Rulers should have to
choose just how much they will attend to issues of state and how much they
will be exemplars of their class.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[Azrai]

Cerilia should have his own macrocosmos like in the new Forgotten Realms 3. Edition. Maybe one could travel to the outer planes, but not to different worlds.

Abilities like Bloodlines and RP, the essence of the gods, should not directly be connected to the "land", so a planeshift will not change them.

[Raedwald]

IMO it's all about choice. If you are a regent concerned about your domain you might takes feats to help you do this. If you are always running around to dungeons or battles you will probably take other feats. From a roleplaying and game mechanics standpoint it makes sense to have limited options.

Birthright is hard enough on non-blooded characters! Give the peasants a break!:)

[ConjurerDragon]

Raedwald wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1369
>
> Raedwald wrote:
> IMO it`s all about choice. If you are a regent concerned about your domain you might takes feats to help you do this. If you are always running around to dungeons or battles you will probably take other feats. From a roleplaying and game mechanics standpoint it makes sense to have limited options.
>
>Birthright is hard enough on non-blooded characters! Give the peasants a break!:)
>
As I know nothing about other worlds of D&D: How do kings rule kingdoms
there?
Have they to spend feats to better rule as well? Or is it just assumed
that a highlevel character can be a king (e.g. as in old times when at
level 9 or so a fighter became a lord) and rule like a king? Or is
Birthright the only world with a "domain-level" so that
rulership-enhancing feats are non-existant elsewhere?
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[irdeggman]

Birthright was the only TSR (now WotC) campaign that had anything akin to domain actions and domain style rule. That was one of the things that made it "special" and why so many of us love it so. It wasn't just a forgotten realms campaign with blood abilities added it was designed to be a blend of wargaming and role-playing. I have always described it as a blend of "Diplomacy" (if you know the game, if not I've just caused even more confusion) and "Highlander".

So in other campaign settings there were (and are) no domain rule actions.

[ConjurerDragon]

irdeggman wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1369
>
> irdeggman wrote:
> Birthright was the only TSR (now WotC) campaign that had anything akin to domain actions and domain style rule. That was one of the things that made it "special" and why so many of us love it so. It wasn`t just a forgotten realms campaign with blood abilities added it was designed to be a blend of wargaming and role-playing. I have always described it as a blend of "Diplomacy" (if you know the game, if not I`ve just caused even more confusion) and "Highlander".
>
>So in other campaign settings there were (and are) no domain rule actions.
>
Does that mean, that Kings in other settings rule their kingdoms good
and wise, while retaining all their personal
abilities and spending all their feats on things like Cleave and Weapon
Focus?

So the rulers of Birthright, who are assumed to be above normal
characters, even above normal kings, having divine blood unlike most
other mortals and being rulers far superior to other non-blooded kings -
THEY have to spend feats from their personal feat-slots to make them
able to rule better - while making them less impressive figures
personally without their realm and bloodline?
bye
Michael Romes

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[DanMcSorley]

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Michael Romes wrote:
> Does that mean, that Kings in other settings rule their kingdoms good
> and wise, while retaining all their personal abilities and spending
> all their feats on things like Cleave and Weapon Focus?
>
> So the rulers of Birthright, who are assumed to be above normal
> characters, even above normal kings, having divine blood unlike most
> other mortals and being rulers far superior to other non-blooded kings
> - THEY have to spend feats from their personal feat-slots to make them
> able to rule better - while making them less impressive figures
> personally without their realm and bloodline?

No, again, no one has to buy rulership feats, and they didn`t even exist
in 2e, so I don`t quite understand your objection to them.

Non-BR kings are less effective, by the way, because they can`t increase
the tax base of their kingdom once per season like in BR. I actually
think Rule Province should have an RP cost to reflect that nondivine kings
can`t influence the population this way, and are at the mercy of
demographic growth :)

In other worlds, there are no real rules for ruling, so effectiveness is
totally an out-of-game DM`s fiat kind of thing. If you back-engineered
the BR rules onto Cormyr or Urnst, you`d make them extremely large by BR
standards, but no bloodline or RP use.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[Raedwald]

>So the rulers of Birthright, who are assumed to be above normal
>characters, even above normal kings, having divine blood unlike most
>other mortals and being rulers far superior to other non-blooded kings -
>THEY have to spend feats from their personal feat-slots to make them
>able to rule better - while making them less impressive figures
>personally without their realm and bloodline?

Yup. Of course they don't have to take the feats to improve their raw talent for rule (as mentioned in other posts). If you want to be an effective ruler and devote feats to it, your a more effective ruler and a less effective adventurer.

There are ways around this - cohorts. Have your cohorts take some of the feats (if DM allows). Regent: I'm off to battle the Gorgon. Henchy while I'm gone do something about X, Y, Z. If the cohort is faced with having to do a lot of the domain work, they may take some of the domain feats.

Besides what they do makes them impressive, not what their abilities/statistics are.

[Shade]

At 09:56 PM 2/24/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1369
>
> irdeggman wrote:
> Birthright was the only TSR (now WotC) campaign that had anything akin to
domain actions and domain style rule. That was one of the things that made
it "special" and why so many of us love it so. It wasn`t just a
forgotten realms campaign with blood abilities added it was designed to be
a blend of wargaming and role-playing. I have always described it as a
blend of "Diplomacy" (if you know the game, if not I`ve just caused even
more confusion) and "Highlander".

That`s exactly how I think of it - a roleplaying game mixed with Diplomacy,
with a touch of Highlander. A really fun mix if you ask me :)

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.

[irdeggman]

Does that mean, that Kings in other settings rule their kingdoms good
and wise, while retaining all their personal
abilities and spending all their feats on things like Cleave and Weapon
Focus?

So the rulers of Birthright, who are assumed to be above normal
characters, even above normal kings, having divine blood unlike most
other mortals and being rulers far superior to other non-blooded kings -
THEY have to spend feats from their personal feat-slots to make them
able to rule better - while making them less impressive figures
personally without their realm and bloodline?
bye
Michael Romes



Actually this is similar to taking the Skill Focus (Diplomacy) feat, if a character is not involved in diplomatic issues then this is a relatively useless feat. If a character is involved in more combat oriented actions than personnal interaction ones it is also mostly useless. But it was the player's option to choose which way he wanted his character to develop, he could have chosen more combat orented feats like Improved Initiative or Weapon Focus if that was the way he wanted to play it.

[Athos69]

In my humble opinion, Birthright is less a campaign about going on a dungeon crawl, and more about political intrigue. Developing a character that is more suited to the social skills as opposed to becoming a combat machine fits the campaign better.

I will not go so far as to say that anyone who runs a combat-intensive BR campaing is doing it all wrong, but it isn't the impression I get as to the nature of the setting.

all of the BR campaigns I have been in or run have had intrigue, skullduggery and only the occasional quest in them. Straight-up and honest fighting have always been a very minor element of my games, and usually occur either at the end of a chapter (i.e. up against the bosses that have been making the regents' lives miserable), or to punctuate long periods of thought and planning.... usually leaving clues behind as to who was behind *this* plot....

Just my two cents worth, YMMV

-Mike

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Romes" <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE>
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 3:13 PM


> Does that mean, that Kings in other settings rule their kingdoms good
> and wise, while retaining all their personal abilities and spending all
> their feats on things like Cleave and Weapon Focus?
>
> So the rulers of Birthright, who are assumed to be above normal
> characters, even above normal kings, having divine blood unlike most
> other mortals and being rulers far superior to other non-blooded kings -
> THEY have to spend feats from their personal feat-slots to make them
> able to rule better - while making them less impressive figures
> personally without their realm and bloodline?

Yes, because in other campiagns, they just assume that all that realm stuff
just happens. It all takes care of itself. No GB`s and RP`s come in, no
effort is required to maintain it, no time (what BR ruler has much time to
adventure in things unconnected to their realm?) required, and no skills are
required. These other campaigns aren`t about governence. If those
characters were actually asked to do something in governance, they`d fall on
their face. They don`t have the administration skill, and IMC, since I`ve
split "diplomacy" into three skills, (private interactions- Barter, public
interactions- Diplomacy, and public address- Perform: Oratory), they can`t
engage in state interaction. Games only include the skills that are
meaningful to the setting. Since other settings don`t have the political
componants, they don`t include the skills. If my game was focused more on
routine commercial activity, I`d use Barter for that, and have a different
skill for other kinds of personal interactions. Since noble folks don`t
quibble over the price in the market much I don`t bother with seperate
skills for getting the best price on swords, ale, or horses.

And, as has been mentioned, no one has to take these skills or feats. So
you could be just as dungeon ready, and realm unready as a FR character.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.