piersb

Will do! There's a Wiki/Campaign Journal at https://the-liminal-blade.obsidianportal.com which (right now) is just full of Me Setting Things Up, but should soon be filled with my players telling their stories about the stories... Next week will be the first actual session, and we are all excite.

Eh, no worries! Seemed likely we were talking about different editions-slash-options...

Going with a Saxon Chieftain from the main book as I don't have Saxons!

(I've also decided to go for an all-or-nothing Chivalry Bonus at 96.)

The singular event for 463 specifically mentions your Grandfather dying, and mentions your Father not at all. And then says in the very same event "Your father rolls on every further event," which I took to mean "Not including this one." I am absolutely happy for you to tell me that's not RAI and the Father was supposed to get 3d6; I suspected as much. But it is RAW. And I've chosen to go that way. My Pendragon Is Varying.

May well be intended, but not RAW. 5.2 says the 3d6 from ordinary chargen should be ignored if you're using Family History and any Hate (Saxons) Passion taken from there instead; and your grandfather doesn't get to roll on the Night of the Long Knives table if he's already dead. As it turns out I actually quite like the idea that not all PKs get a Hate (Saxons) unless they want one. I think it'll play well with my group that some have it and some don't. (Also, if they change their minds later, it's not like they'll be short of opportunities to pick it up.)

Oh, and one of them made it all the way to the battle of Mount Damen!

So my players did chargen last night for the GPC, and unless I'm missing something (which I don't think I am) it's possible to get through the family history version of character generation with Hate (Saxons) at 0 if your ancestors manage to avoid all the major Saxon battles. (Mostly by dying young.) I offered anyone who didn't have it at 2d6+6 for general anti-Saxon purposes (on reflection should've been 3d6) but no-one took it. So about half my PKs now are all "Well, yeah, I suppose the Saxons did murder a lot of people - but they never did any harm to me or mine." Gonna let it ride. Should be interesting.

One Energetic and one Vengeful in the winter phase each year? Until they die? Or only in a year in which they own or wield the sword? (Either way "Here try my sword!" "Nice sword!" Repeat until everyone who wants extra Energetic/Vengeful this year has got some.)

Ta!

Further on the Melee Events roll - it seems like that modifier only holds for Battle and Weapon rolls. So if my PK's unit is engaged at a -10, I could certainly try Fleeing. Although that would put me Alone and give me a Cowardly check, that might still be a better bet than facing off against a nasty Saxon at -10/+10

Also, I'm currently working on the assumption that the Modifiers from the Melee Events roll are reflexive for combat rolls; though this seems like it could be extremely deadly on a 3-5...

It seems from reading the Battle System that the Battle Modifiers (eg +5/-5 if your troops outnumber the opponents 2:1, or any given in the GPC for a particular battle) only apply to the Army Commander's tactics roll, and not to any other rolls (eg Battalion Commander's roll, Unit Commander's roll, Weapons rolls). Am I reading this correctly?

Makes sense. Was wondering if there might be stats from an earlier edition that got missed off this table, or some errata somewhere. Also, I guess no need for a separate thegn entry as you get a free thegn with every heorthgeneats roll.

So in the Battle Enemy - Saxons table in the back of the main rulebook, it says that any unit listed as heorthgeneats has a thegn or berserker as a leader. The notes also imply that you can roll a thegn on that very table. Buggered if I can find stats for a thegn anywhere though. Am I missing something obvious?

For un-named opponents I'm planning to go a step further and have one of those rolls automatically fail to speed things up - so as soon as a bad guy gets an MW they're either down or running away, depending on which I feel like.

...actually p6 of the Book of Armies says "MW: Major Wound value, useful to calculate whether a foe was knocked down and out." So I'm going to rule that for anything non-magical at least, a Major Wound takes an NPC out of the battle.

Trying to get my head around the combat system and it seems like Major Wounds is more of a PC facing thing - especially "Roll to see if you get Attribute Loss, that happens right now." Currently considering dropping that particular point for NPCs, as it feels like a lot of hassle and tracking for very little usefulness; does anyone here bother with it for NPCs, or is this just a thing to quietly ignore for them?

Sure, the Pendragon's life is saved for now; but there's lots of battles coming up and plenty of time for him to die in them. Or perhaps that meddling monk will try again later, a different way. Maybe the only thing that stopped lots of Aurelius Ambrosius's court dying the first time round was the fact that there was no easy route to the High King directly, and otherwise said monk might have had to attempt to poison all of the nobles in court? You could foreshadow events to come if he doesn't get away with it this time because of PK intervention. (Or heck, even if he does succeed but this time it's small-scale, giving him ideas for later...) I think you should roll with it and let us know how history diverges...

There are two different options for the Battle of Camlann, one presented in the Book of Armies, and one in the Great Pendragon Campaign. I was just wondering which (for those of you who have run the battle) you used, and how it went? I'm assuming no-one has run both versions and can give us a definitive answer as to which worked best...

I'm planning to start a GPC up soon in 5.2, and am trying to get my head around the Battle system before my players start to break it in interesting ways. Most Battle System rolls are one-per-hour - find the opponent, make the checks, get the glory. But in the Special Events section for when a Unit Commander rolls a critical on their Battle skill, there's a chance for the PKs to engage with an enemy batallion commander or hero, plus their bodyguards. But I can't see any way to work out the number of bodyguards. My gut feeling is to try one bodyguard per PK + the relevant battalion commander or hero, but I'd be interested in knowing what anyone else does in this situation. (I'm imagining this might also come into play if a PK spots their hated enemy on the battlefield and his PK knights want to help him out - or do you just say "Roll Valorous, everyone knows the correct way to do that is one-on-one against them?")