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It's an either/or choice, meaning that the character can either escape death and lose the Birthright. Or die, and pass the Birthright as a free bonus to the new character.

zedturtle wrote:It's an either/or choice, meaning that the character can either escape death and lose the Birthright. Or die, and pass the Birthright as a free bonus to the new character.

Oh? I read it the other way: that you can only escape death once, but that doing so doesn't remove the Virtue, so the next time you die you can still pass it on.

I always interpreted it like Zed, yet this thread prompted me to reread it.
Now I'm persuaded that Elfcrusher's interpretation makes sense.

It's written "choose one between these two options", and it's written that you can use the "come back from death" option just once. Period. It's not written that you lose the other option as well.

Really, it makes sense to me. Even if it looks strong, the "skip death once or give it to your heir" always felt weak at me: there are virtues that let you win that fateful combat-and many others- while this one just cushion your fall once, and then it's gone. And saving it for the next generation is just metagame.
Now, with this other interpretation, it's a far more robust Virtue.

It's one of these skills that I read years ago and never checked again. Thank you Vilainn6 for bringing this up

If, during play, you receive a wound that would normally kill you (a coup de grâce or a killing blow) you can choose between the following options:

Help me see what y'all are seeing there that I am not; it seems fairly unambiguous.

zedturtle wrote:

If, during play, you receive a wound that would normally kill you (a coup de grâce or a killing blow) you can choose between the following options:

Help me see what y'all are seeing there that I am not; it seems fairly unambiguous.

Where do you see "one time only" in there?

zedturtle wrote:

If, during play, you receive a wound that would normally kill you (a coup de grâce or a killing blow) you can choose between the following options:

Help me see what y'all are seeing there that I am not; it seems fairly unambiguous.

The helpful bit is in the 'resurrection', 2nd option, of the Virtue:

"You can do this only once, and never again."

That applies to being miraculously saved. So, if you could only ever choose just once between the two available options then there would be no need to add the above statement to the second option.

The Virtue is an if statement - ie: if you ever receive a wound which would kill you then you can choose between the following two options but the second option can only ever be chosen once (which is effectively going to therefore be chosen on the first time your character receives such a wound).

The second time it happens then your character dies, but your next character's going to receive the Birthright virtue for free so will come into his inheritance announcing to the Bardings that he is the descendent of long lost Uncle Bob; he who disappeared while fishing off the coast of Crete! I'd personally interpret that as your new character getting all the Standing and Standard of Living bonuses of the virtue but not the second element of it - ie, not the resurrection bit. I read the 'you can only pick this option once' as referring to the 'you' as the player. That way the resurrection element can only ever be selected once by a player, across all his characters, but the rest of the virtue - ie, standing and standard of living inherited by your direct descendent is passed along to each of your characters (should you want it). Otherwise you'll get into a repeated loop of each character mysteriously dying/presumed dead and an heir turning up to reclaim his birthright which seems more than a bit daft and silly, at least for the themes and mood of my campaign.

Rich H wrote: I'd personally interpret that as your new character getting all the Standing and Standard of Living bonuses of the virtue but not the second element of it - ie, not the resurrection and passing onto his heir elements. I read the 'you can only pick this option once' as referring to the 'you' as the player. That way the resurrection element can only ever be selected once by a player, across all his characters, but the rest of the virtue - ie, standing and standard of living inherited by your direct descendent is passed along to each of your characters (should you want it).

That's the only part I disagree with. It doesn't say "You die, and let your direct descendant inherit a lesser version of the Birthright Virtue as an additional Cultural blessing..." It just says your new character gets the same virtue.

Elfcrusher wrote:

Rich H wrote: I'd personally interpret that as your new character getting all the Standing and Standard of Living bonuses of the virtue but not the second element of it - ie, not the resurrection and passing onto his heir elements. I read the 'you can only pick this option once' as referring to the 'you' as the player. That way the resurrection element can only ever be selected once by a player, across all his characters, but the rest of the virtue - ie, standing and standard of living inherited by your direct descendent is passed along to each of your characters (should you want it).

That's the only part I disagree with. It doesn't say "You die, and let your direct descendant inherit a lesser version of the Birthright Virtue as an additional Cultural blessing..." It just says your new character gets the same virtue.

Like I said, a repeated set of characters miraculously not dying but always being presumed dead then a descendent turning up is something I don't really want in my game as it comes across as incredibly contrived, silly, and at odds with the themes of the campaign.

See I take that to mean that you get a "get out of death" card but you have to turn it in after you use it. But your way makes for a better story; mayhap that's the way we will do it...

Since you've got to wait at least 16 years between generations, you can't pass Birthright on to too many direct descendants during a campaign. If you go by the suggestion for Adventuring Age, Bardings begin aged 16–30 years. You won't have a direct descendant ready to go adventuring until you're AT LEAST 32 years old, by which time you're probably ready for retirement anyway. I predict you won't see players killing off Bardings like they're going out of style. You'll have to wait until a whole new generation is ready to go adventuring before you can play your Barding's descendant.

Meanwhile, Birthright works like this:

If you receive a killing blow, you can choose ONE of these options:

1. You die. Your direct descendant gets Birthright for free.

2. You are miraculously saved but Wounded. Reset Standing to 0.

If you choose 2, cross 2 off the list of things you can do. The next time you receiving a killing blow, you can only choose 1, which means you must die.

There are, therefore, only two ways Birthright can be used.

Scenario 1: Your Barding receives his first killing blow. You choose to let him be saved. Later, your Barding receives a second killing blow. You have no choice but to let him die, and his direct descendant gets a free Birthright.

Scenario 2: Your Barding receives his first killing blow. You choose to let him die, and his direct descendant gets a free Birthright.

The Barding with a Birthright gets far more frequent use out of his Rich standard of living than he does this stuff dealing with killing blows.