Birthright For Pathfinder for HL

[Silveras]

Honestly, I would not worry about doing Realm Magic at all in HeroLab.

HeroLab's focus is the character and small-scale combat, not campaign-level magic.

Paizo has done Mass Combat in Ultimate Campaign. I would look at Occult Rituals in Occult Adventures as the basis for Realm-scale magic.

I would also look at what Legendary Games has done with their "Ultimate" plug-ins line (Ultimate Rulership, Ultimate War, Ultimate Battle, and the recent Ultimate Factions) to extend the basic Kingdom rules from Ultimate Campaign (unfortunately, this would be a lot of work.. many of them are more "alternate rules" than "expansion rules").

[Sarelth]

I am more looking for a way to keep track of the Realm Level spells on the sheet easily.

I think I may have been mildly overthinking. I see exactly what you mean and it makes sense. Rituals would make sense as a Realm Spell takes a month to cast (a realm round).

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by Sarelth

I am more looking for a way to keep track of the Realm Level spells on the sheet easily.

I think I may have been mildly overthinking. I see exactly what you mean and it makes sense. Rituals would make sense as a Realm Spell takes a month to cast (a realm round).

Yes... exactly. I would also think about leveraging the existing Kingdom and Mass Combat materials for as much as possible. Using Kingdom BP (Build Points) as the replacement for GB (Gold Bars), and using Downtime Organizations & Buildings as replacements for un-landed Domains -- especially the 3PP Treatment of Factions in Legendary Games' "Ultimate Factions". The main thing that is missing is a means to have the Factions take actions. I had hoped that a treatment of Militias (in the "Lands of Conflict" sourcebook) would open that kind of mechanic up for use, but LWD has not implemented it.

Kingdoms are already a "hero type" in HeroLab, but the Organizations are not; they're anchored to a character as auxiliary data.

[Sarelth]

I would have to figure out how to make the kingdom stuff work better for a Birthright theme. Or rather make Birthright work for the Kingdom system.

BP and Downtime stuff is okay the way it's done in PF.

The militia stuff would be nice to see implemented, it will get there eventually I am sure.

What I need to do is figure out how to implement Bloodlines properly as well as Awnsheghlien and Ersheghlien, though they could be just custom monsters that are up to the DM to make, I would like a bit of a system to make them.

I think Bloodline would be easiest as a simple Template that just adds some notes. So a Template to select strength (Tainted, Minor, Major, Great and True), then a selector for the bloodline power (1 - 100 ish). As that info really only matters for the Realm level stuff.

Blood abilities could be a special type of selector linked to the template.

[Ualaa]

Birthright was such a fun setting... didn't get to play it enough. Our group had a campaign where we ended in Birthright, as non-regents... from Planescape, and got to experience the strange cultures and the attentions of an Awnsheglien.

We started a campaign as regents, and were a few turns into it when some of the players had to leave the group... so we never really got that far.
I believe I have all of the books, minus two of the kingdom specific domain books for the Khinasi region.
They're in a water proof container, under the house (crawl space).

[Sarelth]

Birthright was always one of my favorite settings.
Much more suited for Politics and Intrigue than for hack and slash.
I believe I have most of the books myself, though any I am missing in paper format, I have as digital, but it's just not the same.

I have run a couple games in the setting, we played it like a variant on Risk to a degree. I have also played in several games, though mostly of the PBEM variety. 1 or 2 were in the main setting and a couple more in custom worlds. They each were fun, though some were sadly cut short by life.

One PBEM variant was set in an earth-like world and I played as a country based off Greece and had a separate character that was based in Cappadocia. The Cappadocian was an Undead Ruler that favored conquest and war, hiring himself and his unliving army to the highest bidder, which turned out to be a vindictive Elven king that wished to remove humans from the surrounding lands. The game came to a halt before the war went into full swing, but the undead army was able to take out several provinces before the game died.

In another PBEM game, we set up a new continent and had a similar idea as the Kingmaker AP, with settlers from the old world coming in and trying to set up a foothold. The local inhabitants were semi-friendly, depending on which ones you met. I played a local tribespeople that followed a Sun goddess, they sought to push the newcomers back to where they came from due to an ancient prophecy but were not overly hostile, to begin with. It had a very Europeans finding North America feel to it, with some of the settlers seeking to force their ways on the natives while others were much more peaceful about things.

[Silveras]

Bloodlines are a problem in a few ways.

First, as originally implemented, they suffer from the same problem as 1st/2nd Edition Psionics -- too random and dependent upon lucky rolls. That makes party balance really "swingy" with a single good or bad roll. 3rd Ed and Pathfinder have refused to continue this.. 3rd Ed Psionics (which became Dreamscarred Press' Pathfinder Psionics) re-worked everything into classes and disciplines, and that is the route bloodline powers would need to follow in Pathfinder as well. An archetype that allows someone to "swap" a regular class ability for a bloodline power (as the Qinggong does for Monks) is probably the cleanest approach, but that would mean a lot of specific archetypes, or one very complex one available to all classes.

Second, the bloodline strength as a limiter on the resources and actions of the kingdom does not fit with the Kingdom rules in Pathfinder. The kingdoms already have their own limiters. The ability to "spend" bloodline to influence the outcome of die rolls.. and the bidding wars that come from it... have no parallel in the Kingdom rules. I am not sure that working to add it in would contribute that much more to the system already in place. I would look first at rules for allowing interactive participation between Domains (landed and not) as opposed checks of some kind, then look at how to add modifiers for the influence of other interested parties (perhaps an "Aid Another" type of action). The use of Capital (Goods, Influence, Labor, Magic, and/or Gold; or BP) to affect the die roll would probably be more effective and smoother to implement than trying to create bloodline influence.

Bloodtheft promotes Player-vs-Player (PvP) conflict, which is not to everyone's liking. Advancing the bloodline power through Realm Actions is more peaceful, but is still a net power-up for PCs compared to another character of the same class and level. For these elements, a Prestige Class of "Regent" or "Ruler" might be appropriate.. one that requires killing another blooded individual as a requirement for each level taken (Bloodthieves) or the expenditure of Kingdom resources (BP) to advance. This would be a mutually-exclusive approach with the Archetype I mentioned above.

Ultimately, I think it is more important to work with the established structure as much as possible and to add the elements of political interaction (or analogous ones) that are missing, rather than to try to re-create elements of an old rules system within a greatly different new one.

[Sarelth]

That is true, while I liked the way things worked in 2nd edition. It does not really work how things are in Pathfinder.

I never really used the random aspect in 2nd edition, we would roll for power and strength, but usually picked the abilities to suit the character. Or followed a bloodline tree for a specific family.

A possibility is using something similar to Dragonmarks from Eberon. That could cause balance issues also though. Setting up a series of archetypes might be a good way of doing things, though with HL that would mean one for each power, for each class.

I think an archetype that adds a couple Bonus feats from a special feat list for Blood Abilities might work. With the Different levels of abilities being available at certain character levels. then you just have to set a Bloodline archetype for each of the different gods and set the feats for each one. Being dependent on level makes them more in line with pathfinder balance I think.

[Silveras]

Hmm.. I am thinking the dedicated class or classes are more suitable overall.

So.. one for Regents, and another for non-Regents with bloodline power. The two have a "bloodline" ability like a Sorcerer's, which has a specific "flavor" and which provides periodic choices of "Bloodline spell-like abilities" from a pool defined for that bloodline. In between those, the Regent one may add to Kingdom effects .. such as a bonus to Kingdom roles for specific jobs.

Perhaps classes that, like Prestige Classes, add to spellcasting abilities that you select which class to improve each level?

The main point would be to integrate bloodline effect increases with regular level progression, so all choices are a trade-off and MOSTLY equivalent (we can't really hope for them to be exactly equal).

At this point, all of my specific suggestions are just brainstorming, so please keep that in mind.

[Sarelth]

Brainstorming is perfect, gives me ideas on how to work with it and a perspective outside my own. That is a good thing as without an outside perspective you can get a little too focused on details you think are great that other people find completely insane.