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Anyone have Strongholds and Dynasties or Empires?
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<blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1198580" data-attributes="member: 6271"><p>MoM's improvements and enchantments impressed me less for D&D play than adapting Civ. On the other hand, City-wide spells *might* be a nice addition to the Urbanmancy spells (from CityWorks). </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> They are phased in at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20 for each class. To be honest, I don't see it being worthwhile to add the abilities to existing classes -- that means every attempt to integrate other materials requires yet more thought/attention/work. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Apparently, you missed Birthright. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes :rolleyes:" data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> </p><p>Birthright was an attempt to add wargame elements to the AD&D 2nd Edition RPG. Rulership of landed realms, with or without ownership of religious temple networks, criminal/mercantile trade organizations, troops/courts/brigands, and/or magical nexii and ley lines were the core of Birthright. Add some mystical "divine blood gives special powers" and you have a potent combination. Domain management was covered pretty well (though more abstractly than some liked) and Priests and Mages could wield powerful Realm Spells -- magic that affected hundreds of square miles for months (sometimes years) at a time. </p><p></p><p>Birthright's weakness was that it tried to be insulate the RPG parts from the wargame parts to some degree. It tried to be a simple wargame that RPG-ers would not mind playing occasionally in between adventures, while still being enough of a wargame that wargamers might get to like RPGs through it. </p><p></p><p>The combat system was card-based. You had a card that represented the unit, for example, with the stats printed on it. Each unit could take up to 4 "Hits", each of which reduced its effectiveness. A battle was set up on a 3x5 grid of spaces, with additional spaces at the back of each side's position representing reserve pool, killed/routed, etc. Units moves were 1 space for foot, 2 for cavalry. Almost all actions were resolved by drawing the next card from the deck; when exhausted, the deck was re-shuffled. Skills could give you an advantage, but not much. </p><p></p><p>Strategy involved "Where do I need to fortify ?". You could fortify and/or garrison just about any type of holding (Law, Temple, Guild, Source, or Province), but a Castle (fortification for a Province) was most effective. </p><p></p><p>Politically, Regents could spend "Regency Points" (a pool of personal power) and/or gold to influence the success of actions (their own and others). Religions were especially good at improving/eroding the loyalty of the people to the ruler; merchant rogues were good at making money; mages had nasty realm spells, and any of them could raise armies with enough gold and/or land. All of them could also steal power from each other. Vassalage was handled (although more could have been done with it). </p><p></p><p>All-in-all, except for the a) lack of scalability, b) tight ties to the campaign setting, and c) sometimes unbalanced "free powers", the Birthright rules were a very good basis for building a campaign just like you described. If the 3rd Edition converted BR rules were a) OGC, b) scalable, c) not tied so tightly to the campaign setting, and d) not tied to "blood abilities", those would be an excellent system to adapt to ANY genre or setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silveras, post: 1198580, member: 6271"] MoM's improvements and enchantments impressed me less for D&D play than adapting Civ. On the other hand, City-wide spells *might* be a nice addition to the Urbanmancy spells (from CityWorks). They are phased in at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20 for each class. To be honest, I don't see it being worthwhile to add the abilities to existing classes -- that means every attempt to integrate other materials requires yet more thought/attention/work. Apparently, you missed Birthright. :rolleyes: Birthright was an attempt to add wargame elements to the AD&D 2nd Edition RPG. Rulership of landed realms, with or without ownership of religious temple networks, criminal/mercantile trade organizations, troops/courts/brigands, and/or magical nexii and ley lines were the core of Birthright. Add some mystical "divine blood gives special powers" and you have a potent combination. Domain management was covered pretty well (though more abstractly than some liked) and Priests and Mages could wield powerful Realm Spells -- magic that affected hundreds of square miles for months (sometimes years) at a time. Birthright's weakness was that it tried to be insulate the RPG parts from the wargame parts to some degree. It tried to be a simple wargame that RPG-ers would not mind playing occasionally in between adventures, while still being enough of a wargame that wargamers might get to like RPGs through it. The combat system was card-based. You had a card that represented the unit, for example, with the stats printed on it. Each unit could take up to 4 "Hits", each of which reduced its effectiveness. A battle was set up on a 3x5 grid of spaces, with additional spaces at the back of each side's position representing reserve pool, killed/routed, etc. Units moves were 1 space for foot, 2 for cavalry. Almost all actions were resolved by drawing the next card from the deck; when exhausted, the deck was re-shuffled. Skills could give you an advantage, but not much. Strategy involved "Where do I need to fortify ?". You could fortify and/or garrison just about any type of holding (Law, Temple, Guild, Source, or Province), but a Castle (fortification for a Province) was most effective. Politically, Regents could spend "Regency Points" (a pool of personal power) and/or gold to influence the success of actions (their own and others). Religions were especially good at improving/eroding the loyalty of the people to the ruler; merchant rogues were good at making money; mages had nasty realm spells, and any of them could raise armies with enough gold and/or land. All of them could also steal power from each other. Vassalage was handled (although more could have been done with it). All-in-all, except for the a) lack of scalability, b) tight ties to the campaign setting, and c) sometimes unbalanced "free powers", the Birthright rules were a very good basis for building a campaign just like you described. If the 3rd Edition converted BR rules were a) OGC, b) scalable, c) not tied so tightly to the campaign setting, and d) not tied to "blood abilities", those would be an excellent system to adapt to ANY genre or setting. [/QUOTE]
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