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Okay, but does that make any difference in play? Do they lose APP or anything? No, although they do keep growing until age 25. At least modern people do. What I do to keep SIZ in check is consider the horses. Realistically, a horse can carry 30% of it's weight. That's pretty much the pper limit and represents a warhorse for a relative short term. For all day riding the limit is close to 20%. Now if game terms there would be some adjustments for STR (which is appropriated with the 30% rule) but even so that means that a SIZ 18 character really needs a SIZ 30 horse. A SIZ 25 PK (the same SIZ as a small giant, btw) would need a SIZ 37 ish horse, and so would have to find something like a larger charger just to serve as a rouncy. That right there will force PKS to keep their SIZ within the bounds of what a horse can carry. The math seems to work out to a horse being able to carry a rider of a SIZ equal to or less than it's average damage roll.

Works for me. He works in mysterious ways, etc.

Thanks. I'll look it over. One thing I noticed though is that Greg didn't write it, Matthew DeForest did.So it's basically an add on.

Or above 20 and increase the chance of of a critical. Personally I think three adjustments are required: First off the cost to improve APP with clothing or jewelry should not be a fixed value but should increase. Secondly, "the bar" for what gives a plus should depend on where you are. A dress that is worth +1 APP at home should not be worth as much at Camelot. There probably should be an upper cap based on the original APP score. For instance in RQ3, APP could be improved up to 1.5xAPP normally. After that it took magic and the character who no longer recognizable as the same person. Something like that would help in Pendragon. That way a beautiful damsel with APP 20 could up her APP by 10 with bling, while a plain on with a 10 could get up to 15, and a hideous hag with APP 3 is limited to a 5 -no amount of clothing and makeup can make her pretty. That true of just about any rule though. But I probably dos need a penalty for failure,. Passions have all sorts of kickers (spacing out/melancholy. reduction in rating, madness, aging rolls) that keep them in check.

Yup, and it even works well with 4dF dice from Fudge/Fate.

That's pretty much what I thought, except the GC is in some ways absorbed into BC with the link to the Grail and Joe of A. If GC officially still exist as a distinct version of Christianity I would love to know about it., but I just thought that the idea was replaced and expanded upon with BC-which has historical roots.

Well these sections from KAP5.2 strongly suggest that it is. The above indicates that there are two forms of Christianty in Brtian, not three, and that Bristish Chsristian was established by Joseph of Arimathea, the keeper of the Grail. And the above really back that all up. Now KAP3, Knight's Adventurous did note differences between Celtic Christianity and Grail Christianity, but the latter isn't mentioned in KAP5 (possibly not even in KAP4). But it seems odd that Josepha of Arimathea would establish two versions of Christianity, and KAP5 seems to indicate that Grail Christianity either doesn't exist or is a sect of Celtic (British) Christianity.

I think it is. British Christianity = Grail Christianity. I think what happened was that Greg introduced Grail Christianity back in KAP 3/4 for Merlin when he shifted him from Pagan to Christian, and ended up blending Paganism and Christianity into a sort of middle ground -- which is pretty much what happened historically. BTW, I wonder why the British Christian religious bonus is +3 hit points, +2 damage? It would seem to me that +3 hit points, +1 healing rate would be a better fit.

I have both played it and ran it and it's fast, easy and fun. The nice bit is that it doesn't take much to get going. In a lot of ways it's simplicity helps the GM do more with it. For example it's much easier to write up an NPC on the fly. It hold up much better in for campaign play than you might think. Keep in mind that in many ways the Prince Valiant comic was sort of the template for the Pendragon RPG. I ran a campaign for months that only ended because of a scheduling conflict with work. The long term elements play out well. The only real things to worry about are players maxing out thier arms skill early, and is the advance rule for allowing fame to boost attributes. But the former sort of balances itself out in other ways, and the latter is slow and comes at the expense of skills. Read the strips if you can. The style is less gonzo/Conan and more 40's movie. That is stylistically the way it is drawn and written is much like a good Hollywood adventure movie. The way the characters are drawn is reminiscence of the lighting and close up shots of old movies, and the morality is much more Mid 20th century than Medieval. If anything PV is probably more down to earth and less gonzo than Pendragon. There isn't a much magic and true monsters are rare. In most cases such things turn out to be superstition and tricks. The monstrous breathing dragon that scares everyone off, usually turns out to be a fake being used to manipulate and trick people. Occasionally, however, there is some substance to the menace. All at once, typically in cupped hands, or in a dice cup if one is available (plastic/Styrofoam cups work too). I think my biggest gripe with PV is that coins have a greater tenancy to roll onto the floor, or into hard to reach places than dice. Something like those tiny of those plastic boxes with a lid that you can get 3 for $1 at a dollar store would be ideal.

We may be crossing wires here. I have no problem with using a passion to bump up a trait or attribute. I'm more concerned with using a trait for inspiration on something else, partly because it makes traits much better than passions, or someone stacking modifiers to either get a bigger boost or to improve his chances of making an inspiration roll. But something like a knight using his Loyalty (Lord) to boost his CON so that he can remain conscious and fighting at his liege lord side during a battle? Sure!

That's what I think, and was worried about. I don't think inspiration from traits is a good idea, as it will minimize the benefits of passions, but I could see how a traits might help in some cases, and could consider letting a PK average his trait with his passion (or applying trait>15 to his passion) under certain circumstances. I have occasionally allowed a character to add a skill to a attribute for certain roll (i.e. CON+Boating to avoiding becoming seasick).

Yes, but you don't ususally increase a skill 1 or 2 points and just leave it. For example let's take a look at a young character who puts 5 points into DEX for a 15. That gives him a 8 in his weapon skills.Now if he was a squire that's a nice boost. If he is older, then But with the points/picks that normally go into Sword, Horsemanship and Lance/Spear Expertise, he had a 13. make it is much easier and faster for him to get those skills up to 15. Yes but the chances of that happening are practically nil. In order for a character to loose out this way, he would need to raise the attribute faster than he is raising the skill, and that seems unlikely. No, I just think it will spread it out more, but at least it will be a different attribute. As the game stands now, from a strategic standpoint players should raise SIZ when then can and CON and possibly STR when they can't raise SIZ. This rule does't make raise skills less important, it just makes SIZ and CON a little less important. But then, I value high skill much more than some other here. I'd rather have a PK with Sword 25 than SIZ 25 or CON 25. And there is a easy fix for characters with high SIZ too.

Thats partially because the various sources contradict each other in several places. For example some sources have Constantin rein for 10 years, with Vortigern taking over in around 427-429 while others have Vortigern taking over later. And many other events are linked to Vortigern's reign, which can mean a 15 year"shift " or so in the established dates. One of the things that I really like about SIRES is that it sorts out one official version of the timeline instead of us having to try and reconcile the various versions. I suspect that SIRES changed that because it seemed really stupid for Constans to have Pict bodyguards if a Pict bodyguard murdered his father. It was one of the things in the HRB that had me wonder just how stupid everyone else would have to be to allow that. The more roundabout approach, fallguy or not makes more sense. As to the princes escape, while SIRES gives credit to Aldroen for the rescue, the HRB give credit to the people responsible for raising the princes. Apparently the put 2+2 together and decided not to risk it. But, the Archbishop of London, in whose care the princes were in, (conveniently) died before Constans was made High King, although it this was part of a plot, or just a coincidence remains to be seen. One of the reason why I suspect something was wrong with Constans was that, according to the HRB, none of the clergy will willing to perform the coronation ceremony. Another thing mentioned in the HRBe things that is mentioned in that most of the older nobles died off at around the same time. Now I doubt Vortigern could have eliminated that many nobles without being caught out (it he could do that, he could have gotten to the princes), but there seems to have been an outbreak of plague at about that time.I suspect that Vortigern might have originally been loyal, but when all the older noblemen started to die off he saw an opportunity. Of course, the cool thing is, we do not need to really know what actually happened and just what Vortigern's plans really were and what was just dumb luck, we just need to know what everybody thinks happened. Which gives us all sorts of room for gossip and intrigue.

BINGO! I had something in the works with the PKs escaping with the Princes from London, but the canal escape seems to much better! My current theory is for a particular reoccurring wine merchant to show up with a boat full of wine, which he transported up through the canal (water is the easiest way to move heavy loads) to a door in the buttery. The PKs (or one of the NPCs at the villa if the PKS don't think of it first) decide to sneak the princes out through the canals, and Vortigern's flunkies burn the villa down, and think everyone died because no one came out the door. Mostly. But as far as the normal timeline goes, it's possible than a PKs ancestor would be remembered by Aurelius and/or Uther for their part in the matter, and be praised for it, leading to more glory for them and their decedents, and a PK might be given a little more attention or trust by Aurelius or Uther because of it. The PK is just some random knight, but the son of the man who saved their lives when they were young. So it could be more than just flavor text and glory. There is also a battle between Aurelius and Vortigern that take place in Salisbury that might be worth noting too, for similar reasons.

The HRB is somewhat interesting in how it set it up. basically Vortigern acts sympathetic towards the bodyguards and says that if he were the king he would treat them better than Constans did. So the bodyguards got together and decided to kill Constans and make Vortigern king so he could do so. But the first thing Vorigern does is have the guard executed. This gets followed by a Pict uprising in the north. So there is enough wiggle room to interpret Vorigern's actions. In fact the British leaders seem to be split on the subject. Some believed that Vortigern was behind it all, and other thought that he was just being opportunistic. He even seems to start off as a competent leader. It's not until later when he starts sleeping with his own daughter and then marries Rowena and lets Hengest get away with too much when his reputation really drops. One of the things in Vortigern's favor as far as his not being behind the murder plot is that he fails to act to secure the other two princes. If he had planned for the assassination, then you would expect him to get to the other two children in order to secure his grip on the throne. But maybe he had a plan, but something went wrong. One version of the tale I've been trying to dig up more info on is the supposed "canal escape" of the two princes. from one of Aldroen's villas in Britiain It also seems that a large villa in Dover (which had canals) burned down at around that time. So it's possible that Vortigern had made arrangements for some sort of "accidental fire" to kill off the princes, but somebody managed to escape through some secret entrance to the canals, and Vortigern didn't realize the princes had survived until they were safely in Brittany.

You forgot Germanus "other visit" in 429 (part the infamous dating controversy in the 400s.) What it looks like is British Christianity is Pelaganism, and although officially defeated, it seems to have mostly continued on. Well, since KAP has the Joseph of Arimathea story as true, then at the death of Jesus. As Kahnwulf and I found out when researching some of this, there is some tentative links between Joe of A and the legend of Longinius and the Holy Lance/Spear of Destiny. Both seemed to have arrived in Britain during or before the 43AD invasion.

Yes, plus I think a point or so in some skill a PK never improves isn't a problem as they probably haven't used it that much anyway. Prince Valiant might help too. In PV DEXTERITY is a skill and is used for all sorts of stunts in combat (trips, throws, called shots). Maybe some of that could be ported over to KAP? I was thinking of trying to revive the double feint with some changes. Basically, a character could half armor up to his DEX, but take a penalty to his combat roll (either a flat -5 or equal to the armor's DEX penalty).

There are a couple of documented exceptions though. In the Adventure of the Perilous Chapel PKs can use Spiritual to get divine aid after a fashion, and there are a few other spiritual type encounters that do something similar. I'm curious as to the frequency, limits and how that fits with passion based inspiration? For instance can a character use a trait and a passion to inspire the same ability? Or could the use a trait to inspire a passion which turn is used to inspire something else? For example someone with Proud 18, Honor 15 is called a coward and fights a duel to save his Honor. He uses his Pride 18 to inspire his Honor (up to 20) ensuring that he can't blow the passion roll (and go mad) and that he can then use his Honor to Inspire his Sword skill. It makes sense logically, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea.

Attribute increases after chargen do increase the increases do raise the base, but only the base. Otherwise I don't think the attributes would be worth it, as the skill points gained from APP or DEX aren't equal to the benefits of the SIZ and CON lost. It's quality vs. Quality. For example, Let's say Lady Elaine has APP 20, and Courtesy 10, Intrigue 10, and Romance 10, all due to her high APP> Now a few years go by and she raises Courtesy to 13 and Romance to 16, but intrigue stays the same. She meets and marries the Knight of her dreams gains 1000 glory points, and uses her bonus point to raise her APP to 21. Now, with standard rounding, her default for Courtly skills goes up to 11. This would raise her Intrigue to 11, but would not affect her Courtesy or Romance, as they are already higher than 11. Now 30 years go by and time starts to catch up with her and her looks fade a little back down to 20. But all her courtly skills would remain where they were, with her lowest ones at least at 11 as she had gotten them that high, and probably learned a little something over the years. Yeah, but that's what they tend to do now, isn't it? It's a great combo with the family characteristic too. For instance in my current campaign I had a PK who got the "Never Forest a Face" family characteristic who raised Recognize to 15 and ended up with a 25. Another PK got a Greatsword off of a Faerie opponent long before such weapons would normally exist, and when he wrote up his son he used the "raise to 15" rule to bump up greatsword to 15. What has changed, thanks to Morien, is that the skills that would normally start at 10 in KAP now are considered to have been increased with points (of, if using K&L picks) to get to that value, and those points will affect the new base scores. That means: Someone with DEX 16, would have a base of 8 in sword, which with picks/points would be 13 instead of 10. A Roman PK with DEX 20 would, if he spent his points the same way (one for each of the skills at 10) would now have a 15 in Sword, Lance, and Horsemanship, freeing up his other points for something else. That might just make putting the points into DEX instead of SIZ or CON worth it. I think it probably is worth it if the player is going to start as a squire.

It sure did. Ultimately one of the ways that Christianity spread was to adopt local deities and then reinvent them as "Saints". Then years later, when Christianity was established they might drop them or keep them. Some are still "Saint's today.Since the goal was to "save the souls" of the converted, just about any means of doing so were acceptable. The problem with discussing this is that as many of those local deities are still considered saints you risk ruffing some peoples feathers if you question the validity of a popular saint. And then there are a lot of local hero type Saints whose resistance and actions are not really well documented or contradictory or otherwise on shaky ground. But, ultimately as this is a matter of faith, people will often choose to believe in something even if there is little or no evidence to support it. The Holy Grail is a prime example. Sources all indicate that it was based on old Celtic beliefs and that Joseph of Arimathea, if he existed, had nothing to do with it. Yet to the people of Britain and Medieval Europe (and even some people today) it is considered to be a real artifact of Christianity, which might have been kept by the Knights Templar.

My pet theory was that there was something wrong with Constans (the eldest son). I figured Constatin got married and eight years later he has a son. The son is put into the care of the church, to be raised until he is ready to be squired, but there was something wrong with the boy. Something that made him suitable as an heir. Maybe he had some sort of mental defect, or a physical one or other health issue. Perhaps he was prone to seizure or something? Perhaps a combination of things. Whatever it was, it was something that would make him unsuitable to be a King, if it were known -especially in the British Isles, where the king was considered to have a symbolic tie with the land and any defects in the king would be reflected in the land. Anyway, when Aurelius is born ten years later, and then Uther in 436, Constaintin knew he has two other sons, and so had Constans become a monk. Probably with some cover story about how devout he is and so forth. This gets him out of the picture, and lets the church take care of him, with the idea that Aurelius would be the heir. The other sons might have been raised by the church just in case one of them had the same "defect" that Constans had. Then Constatin is murdered and Vortigern uses his influence to had Constans made king. Now those who knew the boy was unfit were probably sworn to reveal it, and the general public (and probably most of the nobles) were unaware that Constans was unfit and so saw no problem wit the situation. Vortigern then is able to do pretty much whatever he wanted as, according to the sources , Costains was just happy to be the king and didn't want to be bothered with the running of the kingdom. I suspect Aurelius and Uther would have been squired off to someone, probably King Aldren in Brittany, once they were the right age, but Constantin died before it got to that point, and then Constans as well. Remember Aurelius was only around 10 years old when Vortgern took over, and wouldn't be ready to become a squire for several more years.

But apparently not much more civilized.

So to summarize: Courtly Skills: Default to APP/2 Dancing, and Weapon Skills default to DEX/2 Some skills (Battle, Religion) default to (5). A character gets to pick 4 non-combat skills to add 5 to (instead of just raising to 10) The starting scores from Battle, Sword, Lance and Horsemanship covert into and extra 5 points or 1 "pick", each (depending on if you use K&L or not) Special Cultural skills (Spear Expertise, 2H Weapons, etc) that stat at 10 also are assumed to be worth 5 points or a pick. That looks simple and playable. PK Squires will start off slightly better than before in weapon skills (5 vs a 3) but it's not much of a difference, and that might not be a bads thing. Bringing in a 14 year old squire with a 18 DEX and focusing on weapon skills suddenly starts to look like a viable strategy, with both benefits and drawbacks.

Yeah, as I said earlier it makes aging even worse than it is now, and hurts high attribute characters much more than it helps them, as the difference between 3 and 6 isn't as significant as the difference between 23 and 26 (or even between 13 and 16). Yes, but easier just to ignore it. I like the 15 extra points-or maybe 3 extra picks, pick normal chargen. Probably need to do the same with First Aid, too. So we could give each character a few more picks, but probably suggest the 10's in the relevant knight skills, or just bring back qualification. Yup, althpough I think these could be treated just like a few more "picks" in standard KAP5 chargen. I agree. From what I've seen players quite reasonably don't rely on a skill or try to use if if the value is below 10, as they will normally fail. They might roll some skills when they are "freebies" to get a skill check here and there (like Recognize) , but generally speaking a 2-3 skill is practically useless. For example, nobody dives into the ocean to try and swim in rough seas if they have Swimming 2. Not unless their boat is sinking or something.

Yes it would deviate. The idea was to make APP and DEX more useful than they are currently, especially for female characters, as APP is thier highest attribute but has little merit in game. Greg had a rule where APP over 15 added to social skills, which most of us considered to be more of a deviation, but ultimately I think some sort of devation/chanfge is required to make APP work. Yup, but a 5 isn't much different than a 3. Neither is a skill I would want to rely on. A second thing about it is that by the RAW if a PK picks up a weapon that he has no training in, such as an axe, he has to chance of hurting someone else, barring modifiers. If that were the case then practically nobody would get killed by axes, lead pipes and knives today, as relatively few people are skilled in using them. For example, I've never trained with a spear, but I'd be willing to bet you money that if I fought someone else who had to training either, one of us would get hit. I don't think it would. It would be much simpler just to look at the Attribute/2 as the "floor" for such skills, and only as the floor. That way it would only need to be worried about if and when players improved thier DEX or APP, and only for those skills that hadn't been improved above Attribute/2. Yes. That's just it. As things stand now SIZ is the most important attribute, CON is the runner up, and STR puts in a good show. DEX is nearly useless to PKs -it's major uses for PKs is in Move rate, where it might be worth a difference of 1 point, maybe 2 if someone goes all in on DEX, and Knockdown where it is partially replaced by Horsemanship, and is still outclassed by SIZ (it's better to be bigger and not to have to make a DEX roll in the first place). DEX used to be somewhat more useful, with the double feint, but that's gone. APP is even less useful tthan DEX.. So the goal is to find ways to make DEX and APP more useful and worth improving. Just what ways, and how useful are the questions.