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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6121459" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 315: January 2004part 5/8Ancestor feats and martial arts styles: While Greyhawk is trying to put a little more emphasis on where you're from, Kara-tur remains firmly focused on who your ancestors were. And like the western Realms, the new feats are just that little bit more twinky than the generic D&D material. Rokugan? Bunch of pikers. Our courtiers are more refined, our nomads are tougher, our monks are more enlightened, and our traitors are more backstabbing. The new martial arts styles vary widely in power, with the 5 Stars one easily the most powerful, and the Southern Fist really deadly if you're willing to plough all your feats into it. So this definitely falls into the use with caution category of articles that are actually pretty rare these days. I suppose with the large number of settings they have to cover, they take what they can get. Cinnabar, red steel and the red curse: Oriental Adventures was pretty twinky even back in the 1e days. Red Steel, on the other hand, was curiously non twinky despite offering quite substantial extra abilities to players, because the price was high, ongoing, and continued to be an issue even if you left the savage coast and lost the powers you gained while there. And since they actually double the ability score cost for powers here, so each new legacy you gain comes with a concrete reduction in mundane capabilities, that continues to be the case in 3e. While somewhat abridged, this is a pretty straight conversion, giving rules for legacies, including becoming an inheritor (which is a lot less restrictive under 3e) or afflicted, and racial stats for Tortles for good measure. This manages to put the weird aspects of the setting front and centre, so I'm pretty happy with their treatment of it this time. Obviously I'd prefer it bigger, but oh well. That's just what you've got to live with here. Bloodlines for 3.5: Red Steel has fairly substantial balancing factors for the extra powers it gives characters. Birthright, on the other hand is very much built around the idea that some people are just better than others because of an accident of breeding, and to try and balance that out goes against the whole theme. They try though, playing up the idea that it is possible to work up your bloodline score by killing your way up the ladder, highlander style, and encouraging DM's to start everyone out at the same rating. So this is definitely one of their more frustrating update attempts, as the setting and the ruleset are even more in conflict than 2e. The highly limited list of bloodline powers also leaves me unsatisfied, with only 7 options to take, as unlike Red Steel, they have to scale each of them with bloodline strength as well. Needs more work.</blockquote>

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