Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MythMage 08-24-05, 01:07 AM	What is the point of the Affinity built into every Bloodline? The way those social skills are designed, they are not affected by race anyway. (With situation-specific exceptions in the form of circumstance modifiers) After a single Affinity, the creature with the bloodline may well be better at fitting in with his bloodline race than a true member of that race! What's up with that? Does anyone know what is the reason Affinities were incorporated into Bloodlines, and not any similar mechanics, such as half-templates? Or why Affinity was created at all, when the skills it modifies might not even be affected by race?
MythMage 09-02-05, 04:13 AM	:bump:
MythMage 10-04-05, 05:15 PM	:bump:
Cynlas 10-04-05, 06:41 PM	Not sure what to say, but I'll give it an apologetic shot. :) Yes, in a pure mechanical fashion, the affinity bonuses for bloodlines give distant relatives better dimplomacy abilities than closer ones, which is therefore an unrealistic/unfair/unbalanced bonus. However, as a DM, it is just a different mechanic to give a warranted bonus to a character due to their distant, but nevertheless present, association. See, to me, it goes without saying that an Orc will have a better time convincing another Orc of something, no matter the glibness or charm of the human trying to accompish the same. But how this difference is mechanically implemented (in my game) is by the base DC. What may be a DC 20 check for a human, will be a DC 5 or 10 for an Orc, when trying to deal with an Orc. Therefore, the bonus given to a human with an Orc bloodline would be used to counter the base DC that, as a human, they have to defeat. A half-orc, otoh, will not get the actual bonuses to write down on his character sheet like the blooded human does, but the effective bonus will be there for them in the form of a lower DC than the human gets. Regardless of the level of bloodline (major, minor, whatnot), the character is still human, and therefore the base DCs for the action are going to be set by that, not their bloodline. Not perfect, and I agree that the eventual affinity bonuses are too high. As a pre-UA, core, "precident" however, look at Lycanthropes as they are a core "race" that probably gave the UA authors their idea to incorporate it into other things.
Cynlas 10-04-05, 06:49 PM	Admittedly, my way of handling it is not official, and tends to "relativize" the values of character statistics in a way that is not strictly desired by the mechanical rules (for instance, in the scenarios above, just what is the value of humans having a higher Charisma than an Orc, if an orc with half the Cha of a Human can actually accomplish more than the human base? None, except in a human society, where the orc would be even more severely penalized than the rules already consider) Yes, I agree that the universal affinity bonuses are problematical in a more "pure" D&D game, but then, the whole bloodline thing is pretty silly in some of the cases it provides for, and while a "neat" idea, its not very freindly to the overall system to begin with. All we are missing is the Major Zombie Bloodline to complete the collection :D
MythMage 10-04-05, 08:38 PM	I really don't see any good way to use affinity, especially with its silly-high bonuses at the highest levels. Any suggestions for what could be fair to replace it? I was thinking maybe a skill bonus that mirrors the bonus already in the bloodline...
Cynlas 10-06-05, 12:25 AM	Not that I can readily think of. frankly, given the aamount of benefit that most of the bloodlines give in comparison to their "cost", I think you could safely limit the Affinity to a +2 (the equiv of a Circumstance bonus), and not replace the higher level benefits with anything. Sure, this will reduce the overall power level of the Bloodline as written, but it does not really lessen the overal power gain granted by the bloodline, "nerfing" it to a point that there is no reason for a PC to select it. Still, if you must replace it with something, I'd stick to other "circumstance" type bonuses of a +2 max that are associated with other aspects of the bloodline, such as knowledge and/or survival checks to represent an instinctive knowledge (or insight) of the race that allows for a slight bonus to tracking or whatnot. For the final bonus, the +6 that comes with the Major lines, perhaps a +2 circumstance mod to attacks (or less powerful, damage) against races that the affinity applies to (or in some cases, to AC or saves instead, to defend against the special attacks of the related races) Forexample, instead of a 17th level Major Vampire blooded character getting that +6 affinity bonus, they might instead get a +2 circumstance bonus to all saves to resist a vampire's special attacks, like Domination or spell-like stuff. Just a thought or two :)