Back to Reworking Birthright
In my opinion the D&D system is not especially well suited to modelling nobles, high priests, arch-wizards and other personalities that are normally played in a Birthright campaign that is centred around regents and rulership. If, however, you are seeking to play adventurers in Cerilia then I suggest that you might have more luck with Dungeons & Dragons, or Ars Magica, or HeroQuest, or your choice of heroic adventure RPG.
There are only a few statistics for each character in this method.
All characters have a number of descriptive traits that aid in characterisation and also provide bonuses in circumstances that are appropriate (for example: "Brave, +1" characters might have a bonus when leading troops into dangerous battles). Most characters will only have a few descriptive traits and rarely more than three. It is possible for some descriptive traits to be rated negatively, these traits provide penalties in appropriate circumstances. Any trait with a negative number associated with it is considered to be a penalty, a cowardly character could have "Brave, -2" or "Cowardly, -2", the mechanical effect is the same it is simply a different manner of describing an, effectively, identical trait.
All characters also possess ratings in six skills that describe the areas of expertise that a regent can have. Each of these skills is rated numerically and provides a bonus, or a penalty, to certain actions. Within each of the broad skill areas a character can also possess more specific advantages. These sub-skills add additional modifiers, or penalties, to a narrower category of activities. The six skills, and some possible sub-skills, are listed below:
Administration
- usury, specific kinds of guilds, accquisition, expansion, temples of a specific realm...
Intrigue
- diplomacy, spying, assasination, theft, intimidation, courtly graces...
Government
- oratory, inspiring loyalty, inspiring terror, justice, gentry of a specific realm...
Theurgy
- ceremonies, theology, specific realm invocations, specific invocations...
Warfare
- leadership, swordsmanship, horsemanship, tactics, logistics, siege engineering...
Wizardry
- occult knowledge, artificing, specific realm spells, specific spells...
These skills are given a numerical rating which is used as a bonus - or, in rare cases, a penalty - to realm actions and whenever else they become neccessary.
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