What I did to change the Birthright System

The campaign as I envisioned it

I wanted everyone to be a ruler, but not absolutely. I knew that people would eventually want to turn on each other, and I didn't want in-game conflicts to exclude everyone else, or to extend into "real life".

To solve this, I made an NPC King over all the rulers. This gave me someone to partially "control" the elements that were getting out of hand and to give information as necessary. I was also able to give the players some freedom by making the King very laid back, listening to his advisors instead of making iron-fisted decisions and expecting everyone to live by them.

Specific Changes to the system

Character Creation

Basically, you have 25 dice to divide between the 6 attributes. Each attribute must have at least 3 dice, and can have no more than 6 dice. Then, choose 2 stats as your "primary stats". These are stats you really want a high number in, like Charisma for Paladins. Then, roll the number of dice assigned to the attribute and add up the best three. If the attribute is a "primary stat", add HALF of the total of the other dice to the score to a maximum of 18. Then, add any racial modfiers.

Example: I want to create an Elven Wizard.

Then I allowed people to split their stats into the two sub-stats given in the Player's Option: Skills and Powers (S&P for short). If you have the book, you can look up the needed information. Otherwise, just use the first stat given.

I also didn't allow people to divide their stats so that any would be above 18, barring racial bonuses. This kept the stats within managable level for me and my way of playing.

I also used the split stats to implement one of my most popular home rules: The ability to raise a stat each level. Once every level, the player may choose a stat. I then roll 3d6 against the stat. If my roll is higher than the stat, the character receives an addiontal point to the stat. Using the stat divisions made this less powerful, but still very interesting.

I forced all players to be blooded, but allowed Bloodline Derivation to be either random or chosen.

People were allowed their native language for "free" at level 20 of proficiency. They know most of what there is to know about their native tongue, unless other situations arise. This wasn't a problem since most people were of the educated-type.

I also allowed non-warriors to specialize in one and only one weapon. Specialization still costs 2 weapon proficiency slots, so mages have to wait a while before they are able to specialize in even one weapon. Most other classes also reduce their weapons selection by specializing. For a non-warrior, specialization allows a +1/+2 to hit and to damage rolls, and warrior attacks (as outlined in the Warrior description in the AD&D Players Handbook). Non-Fighter warriors (IE Paladins, Rangers) and multi-classed fighters can specialize in up to 3 weapons, with the benefits given to normal fighters. Normal, single-classed fighters are unlimited in their ability to specialize, and receive +2/+3 instead of the normal +1/+2.

Changes to character selections

And added benefit was that with different races of humans speaking different languages, you could have some fun role-playing the communication problems between different people. Since I made "common" more of a trade-tongue than a general language, it prevented everyone from just taking that to communicate. Obviously, different people will speak different languages.

Then I went about changing some of the classes. I changed Magicians to be more magical. I allowed them to learn Divination and Illusion spells without a percentage roll, but all other spells were at a -10% per spell level to learn. EG, a mage trying to learn a 4th level spell outside of Divination and Illusion had a -40% penalty to learn the spell. It allowed them a bit wider variety, but allowed the wizard to still be "king of the hill" for magic. I also allowed races that normally couldn't use magic to be Magicians, since it is more mind-based instead of magical-nature based.

Then I focused on Clerics. I never liked creating names for gods; Either they were too forced, or were a slightly changed version of a word related to the idea (which started 1,000,001 jokes about it). Instead, I chose to use "philosophies" as outlined in the Complete Priest's Handbook.

Basically, there is no physical god behind each of the spheres of control. They belief in the philosophy is enough for the devout to gain spells. There are various philosophies, and each of them have sub-divisions usually dependent on alignment. For an example, check out the Philosophy of Death. Other Philosophies might include: Leadership, Protection, Knowledge, Honor, Pacifism, War, Death, Life Cycle, Nature, Racial. Basically, if you can categorize it, you can worship it. :)

Then, I messed with Realm Magic. I made Wizards have a different "spell book" that they researched and kept Realm Spells in. I also doubled the level requirement for the spells since my games tend to advance quickly. I didn't want the mage eclipsing everyone else in power too rapidly. I also changed some of the spell descriptions accordingly.

I also changed the descriptions of the Realm Spell "Dispel Realm Magic" for Priests and Wizards. I really think the Priest would have the "protective" version over Wizards.

I never implemented it, but I came up with a table to help "randomly" determine if someone has blood power or not. I used the general guidelines in the Birthright setting for humans and demi-humans to have blood power. Generally, Humans have a better chance of being blooded, but demi-humans have a greater chance to have stronger blood power. It's pretty balanced. I had everyone be blooded (since they were rulers) and just used the table in the book; I'm posting these here in case anyone likes the idea and doesn't want to mess with the numbers themselves.

Changes to the system

First, I made Law holdings give an equivalent amount of money as Guild and Temple holdings less one GB. This makes them nifty, but not as nice as the other holdings.

Second, I allowed the Warrior types to pay minimal upkeep on their troops. It was assumed the King payed for all troops, except for a tax of one GB total per "domain turn". However, the Warrior types could not raise armies without the permission of the King, and had to pay any startup costs themselves. This worked rather well with the group.

Third, I adjusted Trade Route levels. They seemed to garner too much income (and too much regency for Thieves!) I halved the levels given in the book and rounded up. This gave a more reasonable amount of resources for everyone involved.

Fourth, I changed the table for figuring upkeep on holdings. To get your "maintanence number", you added all the levels of holdings except for source holdings that the player controls. Then you added one to that total for every fortification, trade route, source holding, and ley line the player controls. Then, you reference table 19 in the book for the upkeep costs. This worked nicely, keeping everything balanced.

Fifth, I changed the levels and maintenence for Courts. The levels are as such (amount paid = value on "older" chart):
0 = 0
1 = 1-2
2 = 3-5
3 = 6-8
4 = a +1 modifier to actions involving the court.
5 = 9+

This worked pretty well and allowed people kept people from changing their court level to gain an extra GB when needed.

Sixth, I changed how players gained regency. Here's a table that lists how each major class type gains regency in the system I created:

A few justifications

I also thought that a Magician could be blooded, but could choose not to learn the Magic of Wizardry, instead focusing on the Magic of the common people. I actually did have a player that wanted to do that, Chadrick. He used my optional rule to allow normally non-magic using races to play Magicians.

Magicians an also use source holdings. I allow them to increase their level by the level of one source holding for purposes of spell research. This assumes they preform the research in the area of the holding. Of course, Wizards may use this rule, too, but cannot use the source for any other purpose for that domain turn (IE casting realm spells).

I also thought that a lot of people might want trade routes. Fighters could run trade routes, and Wizards could run trade routes of magical items they had created. This allowed a lot of other people to get the nifty resources allowed by a trade route.

Changes I wanted but didn't accomplish

Leader-run combat

Basically, you assign some important stats on a marker on the card to indicate the strength of the leader. For example, a leader might be a 4th level Fighter with 30 hps. All spells and other effects would potentially harm him or her as well. If the leader were to fall in battle, the troops he/she lead suffer some kind of penalty. The benefit to this would be that you could target a leader with some of the non-area-effect spells (such as phantasmal killer) and not have to only rely on the invocation-type spells in large combat situations, as it always seemed to. The leader would have all the saves, etc as a normal person of his/her class. This would also allow there to be the "magical infantry" as I called them, the group of peons surrounding a spellcaster, allowing him or her to move without much fear of being smashed by a powerful force.

To balance this, you would have to reduce the value of some of the cards, and make damage a bit less drastic to the preformance of a group. Overall, this change would make the invocations spells MUCH less all-powerful and nasty in battle and allow for spell variety.

Customizable troops

I thought this would allow each player to have rather unique troops they could identify on the playfield, instead of everyone asking "Is that my group of scouts that's going to get eaten by the Elven Knights?"

Conclusion