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Your rancor isn't bad but a few things are off. CON: How does 4d6+42 average 26? Did you want 4d6+12 (26)or 4d6+42 (56) SIZ: 7.5d6? Anyway SIZ 34 is a bit too small. Wookiepedia lists them at 5m tall and 1650kg (over a ton and a half), that would be about SIZ 48 on the SIZ table. Assuming the same STR, this would bump it's db up to 5D6. Yes, bad new for the players. Hit Points: suggests that your wanted 4d6+12 for CON. Stomp: Most creatures that can stomp usually only add half their db to the damage, which should still be enough to flatten a PC.

That's kinda true with most adventures. You just swap out the opposition, or apply modifiers to skill rolls. RQ3: Vikings really pioneered this with their Orm, adventure. A neighbor shows up claiming that a monster wiped out his stead. When the PC investigate the monster can be an Orm (Wyrm), Dragon, Draugr (big blue-black barrow dweller out on a rampage) or whatever.

Yes. The easy out would be that it blocks damage equal to the skill roll, or all the damage on a critical. But only a few characters wield lightsabers. What about the smugglers, princes, and Wookiees? I think we'd need to introduce a Dodge skill, and probably something like Force Points/Character points to ensure that PCs can survive. But there is no way to defend against blaster attacks in Pendragon,, as written. We'd need to add something so that the PCs don't get killed in the first firefight. Probably Dodge per WEG. I think that would fit best with how Pendragon and BRP games work. Yup. That would solve a lot of it. As would returning to the old armor and shield values (half and twice the Pendragon values). Pendragon deliberately stresses armor over shields to bias the game in the knights favor. We would need to change that bias to favor rebel heroes. So we need to stress a defense for unarmored characters. Actually I think Pendragon will give you less epic fights. More like Tink Boom. As written any hit against an unarmored opponent tends to be a major wound and incapacitates them. So rather than epic sword duels you get one hit fights. D6 has the same problem, at least since 2E. TO deal with those issues I'd suggest: Allow characters to dodge blaster attacks. Make this a Dodge skill that starts at DEX. Medpacs would need to be pretty good. Something like 3d6 healing and the ability to offset the stat loss from major wounds. Yes I know, lots of Jedi lose hands, but the average attack in Pendragon will be a major wound, and we dont want Star Wars heroes to be loosing attributes every time they get hit. For a Lightsaber Duel, instead of doing damage, the Jedi would fight for advantage, and when one side go a large enough advantage for an autowin, they would win the duel, killing or "disarming" their opponent. Most combatants' would try to break off the fight before it got to that point. I mean we could do a normal fight and give protection vales for a lightsaber, but we usually do see a lot of nicks in the films, and the ones we do see are deliberate displays of skill rather than what gets past the parry.

Pendragon has it's own hurdles though. Namely the fact that there is no way to block/absorb damage other than shields and armor. We'd need to change the focus of the system so that it wouldn't rely on armored warriors with shields. We don't want the PCs to need to get armored up just to survive. Oh, and we'd probably need to deal with the effective skill cap in some way. Two Jedi masters with Lightsaber at 50 sort of breaks Pendragon. We'd probably need some sort of bump down rule. It could be interesting though.

LOL! I was going to dig out RQ stats for a deinonychus, but the T-Rex/Allosaur stats would work for a dragon! It would proba by eat a couple of new PKs though. Okay, no chicken. Maybe an Aurochs? Well there are a couple of Celtic birds that cause trouble. Some came out of a cave, and others were a type of griffin that obeyed commands, literary. But a I think a griffin is a bit much for begging knights.

Yup, although the difference between head hit points and a major wound isn't all that much, 1/3 HP vs. 1/2 HP. I think the real "problem" here lies with the fact that the game mechanics for bonus dice do not increase the impale and critical chances they way they would be increased in earlier BRP related games. In regards to hidden content, I had a relative that did the same and messed it up. He survived but I wouldn't say that he lived. But that is also true of many other forms of injury that just get glossed over with "hit points".

You forgot the giant chicken. It seems silly, but it is very Celtic. There could be some interesting ramifications of a SIZ 20 chicken, or a flock of them.

Maybe she just targets Christians and leaves "good pagans" alone?

Forest Perdue? Maybe instead of a bear it should be a giant chicken?

I'm a big fan of WEG's (actually Chaoisum's) D6 system. It has a few bugs, and doesn't handle the Force , Lightsaber duels or Starships that well, but it mostly works. Ironically 1st edtion actually handled the force and lightsabers better than the later editions, Also D6 suffered from being written before a lot of details were worked out (indeed WEG actually did a lot of the filling in), and some things, such as lightsaber forms hadn't been invented yet, but overall it is a good system for Star Wars. As for stats, I'd be inclined to learn towards a conversion from D6, as it would give us a nice shortcut to statting everything up. Maybe tap into D20 to fill out details that D6 doesn't cover (like mass so we can get SIZ stats). Perhaps something streamlined like CoC7 rules might be better than standard BRP for this?

I'm a bit confused about the glory that comes with holding a manor in Book of the Estate, and have a few questions. According the KAP 5.2 p.236 a manor grants glory equal to it's standard income. Does this mean that a manor with a dairy would be worth 12 glory/year instead of 10, because the dairy provides £2 in come? According to the Book of the Estate page 79, glory is gained equal to the DV of the fortifications.Now the Manorial Hall all have a DV, and most have a glory award. For example a Large Stone Hall is DV 3 and 1 glory. Does this mean that the knight gets 4 glory for the hall (DV 3+1) or just 1 and the DV doesn't count?

So then they do get the Woman's Gift, too. Ouch. Yeah. Admittedly it doesn't do them much good, as we've mentioned before., but with 3d6+5, and another +10 that means it is pooisble to roll a 33 at the start, 35 for a Roman. They make a comeback, but not as something a woman can make every year in exchange for an aging roll. But I think the old method made women better potion brewers than magician characters, who had to use a lot more lifeforce and to get the same effects. I wouldn't mind seeing characters able to brew minor potions will a skill roll, it adds to women characters. But we don't know what the new system for magicians is like yet, only that it is different than the one in KAP4. IMO, the one is KAP4 wasn't bad, but could have been streamlined. Say replace all those multiple d20s for lifeforce with 1d20 and a multiplier, or even just use the casting die as the d20.

I don't know why but that gives me a sense of accomplishment. I tend to agree except that they way it was worded in KAP3 states the opposite, but in a somewhat self contradictory way. When I'm writing up NPLs I will use any of the tables depending on what sort of character I am looking for. I've even pulled out the old tables from KAP1 when I wanted a potion brewer, and even went "off the board" for one woman who could make cakes that improved healing rate but made the eater sleepy (after watching Excalibur one time too many). I suspect the removal of the women gift tables might have been because of the magician rules. With KAP4 the potion brewers didn't quite fit with the magic system. Also the +1d10 APP meant that a PL could outdo Gwen in the APP department.

The Womans Gift table seems to have been replaced with the :"Lady's Luck" table, K&L Pp. 65, which is in addition to the family characteristic. So they get something a little extra, which IMO they probsabyl need. That's pretty close to how I run it. I let the player choose which skill list (male or female) and which Luck Table to roll on. Generally the trade off is in skills and starting equipment. We have a Saxon Shiedlmaiden in the group, and the player opted to take the female skills, so she could have Nordic Charm (she took Sword as he free skill at 15 so she could fight), and then took the male Luck table and got the mark of the hammer, and male starting gear. This gave the player a shield maiden who was playable as a warrior.

K&L Specifcally mentions pn Page 58 that: "This is now for both Knights and Ladies". Which clearly indicates that Ladies get the family characterstic in KAP5+. But it also suggests that they didn't before, despite what was written in KAP3. Personally, I say let them have it, they get shortchanged everywhere else.

When introduced in KAP 3: "A family characteristic IS some unusual feature which everyone in the family has"' "This feature is transferred through the male line, and is give to all children of all men of this line." The above would support the notion that women get the family characteristic. But is also states: "Thus your brothers and sons will also have this characteristic." Now the omission of sisters and daughters in the above could mean that they were to be excluded but it could also just be due to the focus of the game being on male knights, for player characters.

My prices were for a larger book that was good enough to give a die roll modifier, and represents hundreds of pages, and so aren't really that far off from Morien's. So at 5d per page, a 100 page book would cost around £2. Well the base prices are in the Price Lists in Pendragon. Namely 5d per page or 25d if illuminated. We can probably break that down a bit: Historically, it seems that about a third of the price of a book was the cost of the parchment. Lets assume quills , ink, leather for the cover, candles and other materials raise the total material cost up to about 40-50%, or about 2-2½d/day Now per Book of the Entourage, Estate and elsewhere a Clerk costs £1 per year to keep on the payroll, or 20d per month. Let's assume that said clerk actually only gets to copy stuff about 20 days per month, too, as he'd have other duties to perform, plus he wouldn't be copying on Sundays or holidays (and in the Middle Ages ages they observed a lot more holidays than today).But this is the cost to keep him on permanent staff, so hiring him out for just a job would probably be around twice that, esepcially if he had to drop whatever else he was doing to copy that document immediately, so 2d per day. This gets us up to 4-4½d/day, and we can assume that the reaming ½d-1d is either spent on rework (fixing errors or re-copying pages that get ink spilled on them, etc.), transportation (delivering the books), or is kept either as profit by the church or to offset the expense of times where no one ends up paying for the copy. Or maybe it was just a markup on the upper classes. Nobles always ended up paying more for things. So that's about a 10-20% markup. Note that this assumes the clerk can copy a single page per day, and I think a scribe could actually do 4 or 5 pages per day, so that would increase the profit margin by 1-1½d or so per day, but that assumes that the clerk is kept constantly busy, rather than waiting for customers. Now with Illuminated works require more types of ink, in more colors, and use a greater quantity (so increased material costs), take more time to produce (about 1 page per day was the upper limit), and probably require someone with some artistic talent to draw the illumination, as well as being able to read and write (so probably twice the pay). Also, as illuminated works would take longer to produce, there is more of of an upfront expense, a greater risk of not getting paid (the knight dies before the book is finished), and the greater time investiture presents the clerk from doing other jobs. He cano illuminate one book instead of copying four or five books. Which means other customers either have to wait, go elsewhere (lost customers), or that the church must maintain extra clerks to cover such "lesser" assignments. So the illuminated stuff probably has a higher markup. Say 20-40%. At least that is how it looks like it would break down, in game terms.

I suppose the same case could be made for any of the new rules introduced over the years. The all tend to expand upon the core rules and go into more detail.

I've done that for some battles. I tend to use a one rou8nd battle resolution for the backup characters where they fight one round to see who their best opponent is, and then get generic glory for the reaming rounds. It really depends on how epic I want to make the battle. There are also some non-Pendragon methods of handling battles that work, and couple be adapted for Pendragon. Some of them just had the player roll to see if they had any special events during the round, otherwise they got standard battle awards. BoB is great when the GM wants to play up the battle as the major event of the year, but not so hot when he doesn't want to do that. It all depends on what the GM wants to do, and that can change from case to case.

I don't know if it is more fun per say, but I might be more satisfactory and rewarding to the players. In the core battle system the players don't have any effect on the battle and are really just trying to survive it, avoid being captured, and maybe capture a knight for ransom. What makes BOB more satisfactory is that by adding and tracking Battle Intensity the players get an indication of how the overall battle is going -if they are winning, or losing and by what degree. Secondly, since the player's actions can adjust the intensity the players get a feeling for how their actions affected the battle, or how they didn't. Usually the 1 or 2 point differences to intensity that the players contribute gets lost in the overall shuffle, and that makes sense. Occasionally the players will do very well and their actions will have more of an impact, such as when the battle events tend to zero out and it is the -1s and -2s that bring the intensity down to the point where the enemy withdraws. The times when the PK get a shot at enemy commandeers is also nice, as it gives the players a real feeling that they could win a battle. Then there is the fact that the maneuvers allow players to use some tactics on the battlefield. Last battle I ran, the Battle of Lincoln in 446, the Unit Commander actually deliberately maneuvered into he 8th rank so he could attempt to "Attack the Rear" of the enemy army. This was a triumph, and the 10 point shift in Battle Intensity turned what was an orderly withdrawal into a rout. That sort of stuff is far more rewarding to the players than just fighting a random foe with no effect on the battle. This is also reflected in the glory, since the glory won is based partially on the foes encountered. It depends. At it's heart BoB is similar to the core battle rules, but adding in Battle Intensity and tracking the PK location on the battlefield help to give a better image of what is going on, both from the knights viewpoint as well as the big picture. The maneuvers help too, since they give the players a better idea of what they were doing other than "fighting". BoB is also open to more customization of battles and factoring in special events. Things like taking key positions on the battlefield, assaulting a fort, or committing the reserves, can all be implemented, giving the GM more options as to how to use battles. Still the majority to the battle in Pendragon are scripted, and a good deal of the narrative information comes from the script. Oh, also, while the BoB doesn't do or mention this, I have adjusted the battle intensity according tot he script, rather than using the 3d6-10 roll. So if a Battle has Arthur draw Excalibur, inspiring the Britons, who charge forward to great effect, I shift the intensity. Typically what would have been a +5 modifier to the core system becomes +-4 Intensity in BoB. If an enemy withdraws or routes during a scripted battle, then I note the intensity for that round, and control the random intensity rolls to fit the narrative. Also BoB integrated better with Book of Armies, which makes missile unit more significant. A lot of the time the knights fail to accomplish much in a battle round, despite being highly skilled, is when they get double or tripled teamed and get peppered by arrows. Anyone not named Lancelot is hard pressed to win against three opponents at once. This often adds drama to the battle rounds, as the players need a certain number of wins to achieve (or avoid) a particular result. For instance in the Battle of Lincoln where the Unit Commander was trying to maneuver to the rear, he succeed in part because one PK split his skill 3 ways an won all three fights, including rolling a 1 when needed. It can. It's not automatic, but it can. Just how much it adds depends a lot on the situation, how the GM presents the battle, and how well the players can deal with the situation. Sometimes things can be truly epic, such as one battle where the players were broken down into two units. One managed to capture an enemy Battalion Commander, and the next round the other group captured the enemy Army Commander. As the PKs were oversees working on an alliance for the King, they did a great job impressing their potential ally, General Flavius Aetius, and they got a lot of prestige and recognition both in Rome and back in Britain with their King. Something like that couldn't happen with the core battle system. Well, actually it could, if a GM were to add intensity to the core rules and let the PKs actions adjust it by +/- 1 or 2 points per round, and apply an adjustment for the 3d6 events roll used in the core system. That little change would give a GM a good chunk of the BoB's features for very little added complexity. Yes the Core system does hold up. It works, and is easy to grasp and run. What it does well is provide a quick and easy way to simulate the scale and chaos of a battle, and does so without having to move beyond the "personal scale" of the player knights. You don't need to track individual units, or roll for a bunch of NPCs. It's all player centric. Yes it is worth it.. Not that the core rules are bad, it just that BoB adds more to things, much like how expanded chargen has always added more to top the game beyond the standard knight from Salisbury. It added a lot more to what the players are doing, what effect it has, and how the overall battle is going. Where in the core rules the players would only know that they fought another round and whatever the current random events were, in BoB there is a much greater feel of where the PKs are, what they are doing, and how the overall battle is going. If a battle doesn't have a scripted outcome, BoB can actually be used to resolve the outcome in play, and even give the players a chance of winning the battle! It's not a good chance, as they are only a handful of knights on the battlefield, but it is there. The core battle system can't do that. At least not without modifications. Also much of the complexity of BoB is for unusual cases -for instance most of the maneuvers don't get used, and most of the time the PKs will alternate between a handful of maneuvers such as Charge, Withdraw, Push Deeper, Stand, Stand against Two, Attack, Attack With Another, and Attack vs. Two. Most of the other maneuvers are for special situations. And some things in BoB could be streamlined, simplified or ignored. For instance there is a d6 table that determines if enemy archers shoot at the PKs or not if ignored, and since it comes up a lot, it means the GM has to reference that table a lot. I suggest either printing the table out, writing the numbers on the Battlezone Sheet (which is what I did, maybe I should post that) , or replace the d6 roll with a d20 roll against 2 x the Battle Zone (the percentages are close). That said, the BoB isn't required and might not be for everyone. It does add complexity, makes battle the focus for an entire session, and does have a few drawbacks. For instance the rule where the enemy army routs if the PKs get to the camp, doesn't quite hold up, and encourages the PKS to do everything they can do do so (especially since they get triple loot for doing so). While I understand the intent of the rule, I just do seen an army that has a battle nearly won turn and route because a half dozen knights got to their camp. If it worked that way the French would have won at Agrincourt, where some French troops actually managed to do it. Also increasing the Battle Intensity based upon the size of the battle doesn't work. It leads to the PKs tending to loose more battle just because the battle are larger, and is impossible to adjudicate if the players have units on both sides. Plus it can lead to situations where the Intensity goes up (gets worse) because of having more allies. I suggest ignoring that part of the calculation and just go with a 20, adjusted by odds, terrain, etc. I hope that helps.

First off, do you have the Book of Uther? It specifically covers the time in question and might help to give you ideas. Likewise the Book of the Warlord, although not to the same extent as the Book of Uther. Note that neither book gives adventures, but they do fgive lots of information that can help you come up with adventures. As for the older supplements, yes, most of the older supplements contained several short adventures broken down by Phase (prior to KAP5+, the Pendragon timeline was divided into five 15 year phases. The Anarchy Period was Phase 1, Boy King Period Phase 2, and so on). This is similar to what you get at the end of each Period in the GPC, in fact some of the adventure are the same. One problem, in regards to your situation, is that most of the supplements were by region or culture, not by Phase/Period. So if you were to buy one of them, you might get a half dozen adventures., but none that you can use now, or maybe one or two. Perilous Forest is one that might best fit your needs. It has 15 short adventures (most are a couple of paragraphs, similar to what you see in the GPC), of which about half are free to be run at anytime. Still, the bulk of Perilous Forest is information and adventures set in the North, including some longer adventures, but you won't be able to use a lot of it for another 30 years or so. It is available on DrivethruRPG as a PDF for $8. Many of the other 3rd and 4th edition supplements are similar in layout, but don't have as many short adventures in them. Again, most are about a specific region and/or culture so you'd wind up buying a book for maybe 6 pages that are relevant to what you are doing now. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of great stuff in those supplements, just that most of it won't be relevant to what you are doing now.

There was probably a difference between what could be done and what would be done. For instance if a woman really hated her new potential husband, I suspect most fathers would at least try to find her a more suitable match, if they could. Especially the second or third time around. As fro the fourth time, well, most of PKs in my games seem to think that such women are jinxed, and that marrying them is to invite death. I'm not saying they are right, just that they think that way. I had one player avoid such a widow despite the fact that she held two manors in Salisbury.

Yes, but it probably drops off with the watseland. Historically the climate cooled off during the middle ages, and that is what lead to chinmeys. Prior to that they could run a firpit and leave a door or roof often for a draft. Once it got colder they needed to keep more of the heat in.

Based on what Greg said in the old forums you can probably drop the whole Lineage men thing anyway. People tend to use them as a sort of personal army, and they weren't supposed to work that way. More like a measure of the size and influence of the knight's family.

Well you have a lot of leeway here. Basically the Liege will want to have someone running the place. Partly because it is his, and partly because he owes the PKs father to see that the manor is there for his son (the PK) to inherit. So you can feel free to pick. Maybe mix and match. A couple of PKs could have Mom watching it, some a male relative, and some see to by someone the Liege appoints. Or just say the Liege or the family are seeing to it. Well , as the GM you can certainly go that route with one PK, if you want to. Don't do it will all of them, though. I suggest that if you want to go down that rabbit hole have two PKS who have esquire uncles managing their manors for them. Perhaps they don't get along with those uncles either? One turns out to be a real jerk who tries to do away with the PK so he can inherit, while the other sticks by his nephew (another PK) but just doesn't get along with him. The problems with such a story line, especially at the start of the game are: that the scheming uncle could actually succeed and that you'd need to start up a new family or let the PK play the bad uncle. In order for the plot the be viable, the PK can't have any younger brothers or else they would inherit instead.