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When you're daily task is to save people within you realm, from close to everything, leading men into battles, defeating armies...the need of a new experience chart becomes more and more prevalent.

pblackcrow wrote:When you're daily task is to save people within you realm, from close to everything, leading men into battles, defeating armies...the need of a new experience chart becomes more and more prevalent.

I don't follow?
Especially since the nobles in Palladium are not really the same beast as Nobles in our history. Most Nobles will not lead men into battles, because the Palladium world doesnt work like our Fudel world did. There are basically professional national militaries with a professional officer corps who do almost all the leading. The few who do tend to be Knight OCC instead.

eliakon wrote:

pblackcrow wrote:When you're daily task is to save people within you realm, from close to everything, leading men into battles, defeating armies...the need of a new experience chart becomes more and more prevalent.

I don't follow?
Especially since the nobles in Palladium are not really the same beast as Nobles in our history. Most Nobles will not lead men into battles, because the Palladium world doesnt work like our Fudel world did. There are basically professional national militaries with a professional officer corps who do almost all the leading. The few who do tend to be Knight OCC instead.

I'd say it depends on the region. Many of the member states of the Dominion are feudal societies, and they're small enough that they don't have their own professional standing armies. In the Western Empire, you have your regional and imperial armies, but small-scale conflicts between local lords seem to be common, so nobles might be expected and required to lead fighting bands of men-at-arms. In Bizantium, land conflict isn't much of a thing (except when the Iceborn invade) and ships are a main source of power, so the more martial noblemen might take the Mariner O.C.C. or focus their skill selections along those lines. Timiro's slave society probably requires many if not most nobles to be ready to fight.

As presented, the Noble class seems to be a diplomat and political player with enough skill options to be versatile. It might be interesting to group O.C.C.'s according to class for the more feudal societies in Palladium, but I don't think that a major change is needed to the Noble O.C.C. or its experience table.

Bear in mind: Nobles are just as effective of combatants as Soldiers.... combat-wise, Soldiers get one more WP as an OCC skill, plus slightly higher strength (due to Body Building), but they have identical Hand to Hand options, and Nobles have more skills to work with. Nobles have what 2e Palladium tends to note as the true mark of a Man-at-Arms... the ability to wear any armor.

I do wish Palladium had made "Family and Background skills" a general part of character creation, not just for Knights, Palladins, Nobles, and the like.

Hotrod wrote:

eliakon wrote:

pblackcrow wrote:When you're daily task is to save people within you realm, from close to everything, leading men into battles, defeating armies...the need of a new experience chart becomes more and more prevalent.

I don't follow?
Especially since the nobles in Palladium are not really the same beast as Nobles in our history. Most Nobles will not lead men into battles, because the Palladium world doesnt work like our Fudel world did. There are basically professional national militaries with a professional officer corps who do almost all the leading. The few who do tend to be Knight OCC instead.

I'd say it depends on the region. Many of the member states of the Dominion are feudal societies,

More of pseudo-feudal. They have some of the trappings of feudalism, but with the typical palladium rose tinting and they sort of cherry pick out just the most romantic and game interesting parts and disregarding the parts that are boring, uninteresting, or might make the game not as romantic.

Hotrod wrote:and they're small enough that they don't have their own professional standing armies.

Um which ones?
Because seriously, every single entry I could see on a quick check had massive standing armies. As in easily 5% of the population as standing armies! Which is huge considering that most nations on our earth consider 1-2% to be a 'heavily militarized populace'...

Hotrod wrote:In the Western Empire, you have your regional and imperial armies, but small-scale conflicts between local lords seem to be common, so nobles might be expected and required to lead fighting bands of men-at-arms.

And the houses all have standing forces of their own. Which are used to make up the various forces. The local lord conflicts use those military forces. Which again tend to be huge when considered against the population

Hotrod wrote:In Bizantium, land conflict isn't much of a thing (except when the Iceborn invade) and ships are a main source of power, so the more martial noblemen might take the Mariner O.C.C. or focus their skill selections along those lines. Timiro's slave society probably requires many if not most nobles to be ready to fight.

Or again, use the vast standing military?

Hotrod wrote:As presented, the Noble class seems to be a diplomat and political player with enough skill options to be versatile. It might be interesting to group O.C.C.'s according to class for the more feudal societies in Palladium, but I don't think that a major change is needed to the Noble O.C.C. or its experience table.

The Noble is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist.

Hotrod wrote:As presented, the Noble class seems to be a diplomat and political player with enough skill options to be versatile. It might be interesting to group O.C.C.'s according to class for the more feudal societies in Palladium, but I don't think that a major change is needed to the Noble O.C.C. or its experience table.

I wasn't talking about changing the experience table, but how one earns points. Ie: when leading a force of men a noble can earn 10% of the total of experience of the men under his command. Enhancing his land with practical things is worth 500. Bettering his men is worth 5 per man. Bettering the production of his towns is worth 250. etc.

eliakon wrote:The Noble is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist.

The books are full of examples of spell casting nobles.

I wouldn't give xp for a lot of that because it's just spending money that the noble inherited, unless he was the person doing the things specified like being the drill sergeant and leading his men in drills and then going out to the fields to pick up the rocks and all the things that nobles generally don't do due to being able to pay someone else to do it (unless they were good ideas behind them, not just standard things you do).
The Noble could use his skills in say plant/farm lore to help plan planting for the year and would get xp for that for example, and whatever other practical skills he has to help.
And the %10 that his men makes would be a no unless he was there doing what they were doing, otherwise the emperor of the western empire would be level 100 by now for example.

pblackcrow wrote:

eliakon wrote:The Noble is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist.

The books are full of examples of spell casting nobles.

But not Nobles O.C.C. that can cast spells. There are, to my knowledge, no Noble O.C.C. characters who have spell casting abilities that are not gained from a different O.C.C. or are racial or otherwise not intrinsic to their O.C.C.
So I guess I should have said
The Noble O.C.C. is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist (unless your a female in the Seven Sisters).

pblackcrow wrote:

Hotrod wrote:As presented, the Noble class seems to be a diplomat and political player with enough skill options to be versatile. It might be interesting to group O.C.C.'s according to class for the more feudal societies in Palladium, but I don't think that a major change is needed to the Noble O.C.C. or its experience table.

I wasn't talking about changing the experience table, but how one earns points. Ie: when leading a force of men a noble can earn 10% of the total of experience of the men under his command. Enhancing his land with practical things is worth 500. Bettering his men is worth 5 per man. Bettering the production of his towns is worth 250. etc.

All of that is already in the game.
"Cleaver Idea"
"Playing in Character"
"Using a Skill"
"Deductive Reasoning"
"Act of Compassion"
"Good Judgement"
"Defeating a menace"
Et multiple cetera.

Example: A crop shortage affecting your country so you arrange a better farm rotation? That's a major menace right there...that is an Act of Compassion oh yeah, its also a Cleaver idea (and probably a few futile false starts) from your Deductive Reasoning, that you then use your Good Judgement on how to properly implement this. Oh yeah, and a boat load of skill rolls along the way


People forget sometimes that this isn't D&D where you have to get your XP by going out and whacking monsters.

eliakon wrote:"Cleaver Idea"
"snip"
People forget sometimes that this isn't D&D where you have to get your XP by going out and whacking monsters.

A lot of people tend to be attached to their cleaver Ideas

pblackcrow wrote:

eliakon wrote:The Noble is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist.

The books are full of examples of spell casting nobles.

One of my regrets is how MOM changed my skills-driven acquisition of minor spellcasting into a separate OCC.

Mark Hall wrote:

pblackcrow wrote:

eliakon wrote:The Noble is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist.

The books are full of examples of spell casting nobles.

One of my regrets is how MOM changed my skills-driven acquisition of minor spellcasting into a separate OCC.

To be honest I can't say that I am. To me it ruins the suspension of belief that it takes years and years of work and study to become a mage... when someone else can do the exact same thing by just dropping a skill slot or three.

eliakon wrote:

Mark Hall wrote:

pblackcrow wrote:

eliakon wrote:The Noble is basically the everyman. It can be pretty much whatever it wants to be as long as you don't want to be a spell caster, or a longbow specialist.

The books are full of examples of spell casting nobles.

One of my regrets is how MOM changed my skills-driven acquisition of minor spellcasting into a separate OCC.

To be honest I can't say that I am. To me it ruins the suspension of belief that it takes years and years of work and study to become a mage... when someone else can do the exact same thing by just dropping a skill slot or three.

My rationale is that you can already do that as a warrior. A Men at Arms OCC has a lot of advantages over a priest who decides they want to fight, but if every priest can choose to become a warrior, I don't have a problem with a palladin devoting a fair number of skill slots to learning the basics of magic, or becoming a minor priest, or developing the warlock talent that wasn't quite enough to go full OCC... especially since Palladium, as a system, is pretty lousy for multiclassing.

Well, regarding nobles, I'd keep the experience mainly how it is. They receive experience for things THEY actually do. They receive no experience for their employees or subjects. If they watch a battle from a hill, 0 EXP. If they participate in a battle, then they receive EXP based on their actions. Now if they're involved in the planning and prosecution of the battle, I'm not sure how given the communication limitations, they could receive EXP. I also wouldn't give EXP for something like the rotating crops example. That's just telling people to do something that other communities have done before. Now, if the PC somehow invented crop rotation (without meta knowledge) then we're talking. But merely selecting from a set of available options doesn't merit experience.

-Vek
"Big EXP for planning the coup that gets one in power to begin."

Veknironth wrote:Well, regarding nobles, I'd keep the experience mainly how it is. They receive experience for things THEY actually do. They receive no experience for their employees or subjects. If they watch a battle from a hill, 0 EXP. If they participate in a battle, then they receive EXP based on their actions. Now if they're involved in the planning and prosecution of the battle, I'm not sure how given the communication limitations, they could receive EXP. I also wouldn't give EXP for something like the rotating crops example. That's just telling people to do something that other communities have done before. Now, if the PC somehow invented crop rotation (without meta knowledge) then we're talking. But merely selecting from a set of available options doesn't merit experience.

-Vek
"Big EXP for planning the coup that gets one in power to begin."

I'd take a different view towards having people do things that others have done before. That is the vast majority of what most people do. Knowing when to do it and applying that knowledge should still be worth something.

But I guess a big part of it for me is also how central is it to the game. If the PC is spending a bunch of game time actually playing out the process of getting people to rotate their crops, I'd definitely be awarding EXP. If he just gives an order and then runs off for a month with the Ladies' and Gentlemens' Society for the Exploration and Pacification of Loot-Filled Dungeons, then while I'd certainly give the in-game benefits, very little exp.

D&D's Rules Cyclopedia and Adventurer Conqueror King both have rules for gaining XP as a result of ruling your holding. If you want ruling the domain to be part of their XP, you might look to those for inspiration.

Veknironth wrote:Well, regarding nobles, I'd keep the experience mainly how it is. They receive experience for things THEY actually do.

^THIS^
To me experience points are based on... you learning from your experiences.
If you don't experience it then you don't learn from it and there is no growth.
In the same way that in a party of adventurers the fighter don't get XP points if the thief picks a lock... the noble doesn't get XP if someone else does something... that person though would. It is the doers experience after all.

Running a holding day to day though will still net you a decent amount of XP. You will use your skills regularly, you will need to make personal decisions and take personal actions. You have the opportunity to have good ideas, or even futile ones. You have plenty of opportunities for diplomacy which can solve things with out violence. You have great opportunities to do good, to help others, to act in character (good king is good. Evil king is evil. Etc) You can solve your peoples problems (menace). All of which is worth XP.

What is *not* worth XP is things other people do. No matter how many minions the Emperor has, he doesn't gain XP for the things they do unless they are doing things at his direction. THEN he gains XP on scale.
Thus if he sends in the Army to deal with a rampaging monster he gets "deals with a minor threat" XP. After all, the monster posed no threat to him or the army. But he did deal with it (by sending in the Army)
Now if he leads the troops who go deal with that rampaging monster... now he gets more XP because he is in personal danger.

also worth noting that you can build "real world" style medieval nobles in PFRPG while still using the Noble OCC..between the skills they get as OCC skills and the ones they can take as OCC related and secondary, they can do a fair job of replicating the core skillset of the Knight OCC, just not the special bonuses.

which actually mirrors how quite a few noble lineages worked out in real life.. starts off as a warrior who got rewarded with some land by their king/lord, but a few generations down the line their descendants learn how to fight, but are focused more on micromanaging their land or enjoying the luxuries their position allows.

You mean something like you did for the pirates game?

Capturing a ship gives each member 100-2000 exp.
Each member of the crew you capture 50-500 points.
Each member you convert to your crew, you get 75-750 exp.
For helping sinking an enemies ship each member gets 50-1000 exp...plus 25-300 for every life that died on board.
Running your ship according to character 200 exp.

And yeah, I get what you were saying about the players' daily task being to save the people within their realm from the playing with and GM'ing for you. Your ability to think outside the box amazes me.