Post
by TH - The Hunt » Wed Jun 17, 2020 7:58 pm
Warriors
Only trainers have armies, it's not possible to train an army and then give it away. Flagging units to someone else doesn't provide the perks of leading those units. For example, someone who has units flagged to them still can't use them to remove level 0 holdings from their own provinces--the units don't count as theirs for that purpose. This could be taken further if flagged units also continued to have the same permissions as their true owner, so that, for example, a realm that receives units from a faraway land can't move them through an ally's territory without declaring war on that ally. Or more to the point, a 'team' of players that has a 'trainer' and a 'commander' would be forced to give the trainer the same diplomatic status as the commander, shifting the balance of power back toward the true owner of the troops and away from their nominal war-leader. Mm, feudalism!
I'd like more ways for fighters to use their NWPs in warfare. Other classes can still have those NWPs, so it's not a hard restriction, it's just a nice guideway.
I think fighters should have +1 starting unit (or more!), not +1 lieutenants. Lieutenants are too useful for adventuring. A higher-tier starting unit works too.
Rogues
I think giving thief characters a free espionage action would still be a good idea. That, on its own, is enough to balance thief with guilder. Espionage actions are fairly limited, and can do more harm than good to the player performing them, unless they're just used for intelligence gathering. And we desperately need more intelligence gathering to keep things lubricated.
Uses for free espionage actions not already clearly defined by the rules shouldn't be allowed, otherwise players would have an incentive to come up with a new one when in doubt, instead of reverting to type as should be the result of a class-specific bonus.
I don't think trade routes should be counted separately from guilds, but I think guild (or 'all') events should sometimes have suspension or disruption of trade be one of the likely consequences of failing to resolve them appropriately.
Intrigue events and trade matter events could be blended together, if that's easier than having two categories.
Wizards
Alchemy was very useful for me in Taelshore. I think the only reason it seems 'unbalanced' to us in the last two games is because in these two games we had to create all our own holdings and the games didn't go on long enough for us to create the the many high-level source holdings a wizard regent would rule in a normal, stable Birthright game setting. If the next game is not like that, or it can be addressed, Alchemy should be a good way to 'poof' dozens of RP into as many GB as the wizard wants, whenever they need it. And those in more dire straits can do the same thing with Coffer Credit, and pay it back later... but, using that is a terrible pain when we have to spend an action to research every spell we cast.
Priests
The issue with Improved Bless is that anyone without it is giving up on being a major faith in the long term. If we have it, it should be restricted to a 'supreme' deity and/or god of agriculture, so that the religion with it is either dominant or supplemental and there's no direct competition. It's hard enough to build a temple (or to play any spellcasting character) that doesn't make the local regents rich as it is.
"The Hunt rides. The Hunt protects."