Birthright Comparison with Empire

[Silveras]

This thread is a spin-off from the "AEG Empire, How is it" thread.

How did birthright handle multiclass characters? Say an elven cleric/fighter/mage?

In 3e there are more opportunities for multiclassing and diverging from the class archetypes, so basing ruling power on class seems a bit misplaced

The reason this answer is so long is because that goes to the heart of the rules in BR, and I will need to summarize many of them to make the answer meaningful.

Birthright divided political power into five types. Land, which any character type could draw on, and one type suited to each of the Meta-class groups: Warrior, Priest, Rogue, and Wizard.

Each character class was able to draw 0, 1/2, or 1 "regency point" from some combination of these power bases, proportional to the size (expressed as levels) of the power base. All classes drew 1 point per level of the province from land. Warriors (Fighter, Ranger) drew 1 point per holding level from Law (military or order-keeping forces & institutions); Priests (Cleric, Druid) drew 1 point per holding level from Temples (religious institutions and people's faith); Rogues (Thieves, Guilders) drew 1 point per holding level from Guilds (legal or illegal, all trade/mercantile activity); Wizards drew 1 point per holding level from Sources (magical power points); Rangers drew 1/2 point per holding level from Guilds; Paladins drew 1/2 point per holding level from Temples and from Law.

It is important to note also that, while some characters could not earn regency points from some types of holdings, it was still sometimes valuable to own them anyway -- Guilds provided Gold no matter what class owned them, as did Temples; owning Law meant that you could suppress some popular resentment no latter what class you were; and access to Sources could be traded to Wizards for favors. Also, Law holdings were required to muster troops; you could "borrow" someone's Law holding for this purpose, but the other was under no obligation to allow you to do so.

Multi-classed characters got the best of both worlds, a half-elf Fighter/Cleric could expect to draw 1 point from Law and 1 point from Temples. However, Cerilia was not so open to some of this as you might think. The elves did not have any Clerics or Druids, and did not have Temples. Most active regents were humans, and could not be multi-classed (although they could be double-classed).

Birthright worked hard to make character level irrelevant to how effective a regent your character was. All of the mechanics were tied to your Bloodline strength, a numeric score that acted as a cap on the regency coming in, among other things. A 1st level Fighter and a 20th level Wizard, with the same bloodline, were almost equally effective in leading any given domain -- the only flaw in this was that the number of free actions you were allowed was tied to your character level, so the Wizard would get more.

Birthright domains were most efficient when a band of allies of the appropriate classes divided the power bases in a realm among them: the Rogue controlling the Guild holdings, the Cleric or Druid controlling the Temple holdings, the Fighter controlling the land and Law holdings, and the Wizard controlling the Source holdings. That gave everyone in the party "something to do" in the overall government, an opportunity to be involved. Dividing the power that way was the most efficient arrangement, as no one was paying support costs for things they could not benefit from fully; but it was not required.

 

[DanMcS]

Also, Law holdings were required to muster troops; you could "borrow" someone's Law holding for this purpose, but the other was under no obligation to allow you to do so.

Provinces let you muster troops. Sufficient law holdings (and sometimes guilds and temples) let you muster troops without the permission of the province owner. /nitpick

Birthright domains were most efficient when a band of allies of the appropriate classes divided the power bases in a realm among them: the Rogue controlling the Guild holdings, the Cleric or Druid controlling the Temple holdings, the Fighter controlling the land and Law holdings, and the Wizard controlling the Source holdings. That gave everyone in the party "something to do" in the overall government, an opportunity to be involved. Dividing the power that way was the most efficient arrangement, as no one was paying support costs for things they could not benefit from fully; but it was not required.

This was definitely a conscious design decision by the original writers, to give the "standard D&D party" a well-defined role in the setting. It has proven very difficult to maintain this look-and-feel in a 3e version of the setting.

 

[Silveras]

My approach in adapting BR

My approach in adapting Birthright was to remove some of the world-specific elements of the design. Magic, for example, was decreased as the level of civilization in a region increased. That did not work for my homebrew, but was a perfectly good model for some other worlds. As such, I think that would make a better variant than standard arrangement.

To some degree, I agree with Joe B. that there is little difference among the classes when it comes to the day-to-day tasks of administering a domain. So I envisioned a 5-level Prestige Class, called the Regent, that embodied those shared mechanics.

My Regent class was easy to qualify for. The only requirements were a noble bloodline and some domain to rule. The Regent could use his/her class level as a modifier on performing Domain Actions; thus, the higher level Regent you were, the more likely it was that you could get something accomplished.

Also, the "scale" idea of Empire was here, too -- I envisioned level 1 Regents as being minor nobles with a local regional base (or a crimelord in one ward of a city), level 2 Regents as wielding power within a province (across multiple cities, for example, but still localized), a level 3 regent wielding power over the equivalent a Birthright domain, and so on. Those were more NPC design notions in my head than hard-and-fast rules I wrote in, though.

Regents began their career with a "Regency Focus". I wanted to preserve the types of power bases that had been in Birthright, but I also wanted to separate them from the classes, precisely because in 3rd Edition D&D multi-classing is so much more common. So, I created a range of Regency Focus choices, includng Urban, Rural, Trade, Criminal, Military, Religious, and Arcane. Birthright had rolled both legal and illegal economic activities into the Guilds; I separated them, as I saw potential for better use that way. All Regents, at 1st level, chose either Urban or Rural, and got their choice of any 1 other additional focus.

Urban, in my modified rules, was equivalent to Birthright's Provinces. I disliked the way Birthright handled tribes, however, so Rural was my answer to that. I made the tribe a self-contained, small, mobile pseudo-province. A Barbarian regent would take Rural and probably Law, while a Fighter in more civilized land would probably choose Urban and Law. Still, a Cleric with a militaristic-minded player could choose to focus on Law instead of Temples, if s/he so wished.

Ultimately, that is why I disagreed with Joe B. on the ability to represent non-landed power bases without being setting specific. This arrangement allows the regent to combine land with any of the other power bases, and is usable in pretty much any setting. The trappings, the flavor elements, will differ from setting to setting, but the mechanics (should) translate to any with little or no effort.

 

[Silveras]

My approach in adapting BR

double post

 

[Silveras]

Man, that was quick !

Provinces let you muster troops. Sufficient law holdings (and sometimes guilds and temples) let you muster troops without the permission of the province owner. /nitpick

Quite correct. But that last is only for some unit types, not all.

This was definitely a conscious design decision by the original writers, to give the "standard D&D party" a well-defined role in the setting. It has proven very difficult to maintain this look-and-feel in a 3e version of the setting.

That's odd, considering that many of the adventure designs are geared around that same "standard D&D party" concept.

 

[Arnwyn]

Silveras, your summaries, analysis, and discussion of the different kingdom-management systems out there has been fantastic. I am voraciously reading every one of the related posts. It has gone a long way towards my goal of trying to decide what set of rules (or mish-mash combo of rules) to use. (So far, AEG's Empire looks like it's coming out on top, despite it's poor layout and inconsistencies, in conjunction with MMS:WE... though I do have hope for Fields of Blood. Nabbing stuff from Birthright also looks like a possibility. Bah. It looks like I'll have a mish-mash after all.)

Just thought I'd say thanks!

 

[Silveras]

You mean my babbling was actually productive in some way ? Who would have guessed ? I'm glad it helped someone.

 

[DanMcS]

That's odd, considering that many of the adventure designs are geared around that same "standard D&D party" concept.

Yeah, but it's hard to keep that design up into the domain level, without making a 1-regent super-king possible and indeed, optimal.

Originally, a fighter collected full regency from Law holdings. If you keep that, then it's too easy for someone to multiclass a couple of times, and then instead of Law regents having allied Guilders and Temples and Source-holders, you have Lawers who are now fighter1/cleric1/rogue1/wizard1 ousting all competition, unifying church, state, commerce, and arcana into a single seamless whole, declaring that all birds must be shot on sight, and a golden, birdless age descends across Wyre. Er, Anuire.

If you make it skill-based, for instance, you need 4 ranks in Knowledge-religion and Diplomacy to get full regency from a temple, then an Expert-1 is the optimal regent class. But experts don't adventure, which breaks the adventurer-king mode of Birthright.

If you make a prestige class for each type of holding, you break the mode where a fighter-1 is as effective a king as a fighter-20.

It's a hard balance to strike, and we've been butting our heads up against it working on the 3e BRCS for quite a while. I'm getting tired of the noise my forehead makes on that wall.

 

[Silveras]

Yeah, but it's hard to keep that design up into the domain level, without making a 1-regent super-king possible and indeed, optimal.

--snip--

If you make it skill-based, for instance, you need 4 ranks in Knowledge-religion and Diplomacy to get full regency from a temple, then an Expert-1 is the optimal regent class. But experts don't adventure, which breaks the adventurer-king mode of Birthright.

If you make a prestige class for each type of holding, you break the mode where a fighter-1 is as effective a king as a fighter-20.

It's a hard balance to strike, and we've been butting our heads up against it working on the 3e BRCS for quite a while. I'm getting tired of the noise my forehead makes on that wall.

I understand. That's why my solution was a 5-level Regent PrC. The Regent class selects 2 Foci at 1st level. One must be Urban or Rural (which, in my altered system, translates to Provinces or Tribes), the other is the player's choice (Law, Temple, Guild, Source, and some mixed {1/2 Law + 1/2 Guild, or 1/2 Law + 1/2 Temple}). That allows the PCs to multi-class as often as they like without that "breaking the bank". The Regent PrC allows a Regent to select 1 additional Focus at each of 3rd and 5th levels.

Of course, my solution is not a true 3E conversion of Birthright, either. I was looking for a solution to produce a "generic" rules set instead.