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Well, what if the target had cast a Heal spell on an ally and then moved out and presented himself? If you didn't account for the delay, Gabby's attack might go off before the Heal spell.

Me too, and I'm the one stuck driving. It does, but probably not as much as we think. I've often seen GMs disagree about something, yet in the end they were both dealing with the same problem but approaching it in different ways.Sometimes their solutions would be very similar.

Yeah. I actually had this crop in in game too. A PK captured a knight, whose leige lord didn't want to pay the ransom. The PK ended up releasing the knight, as he had been a decent fellow who he had met before, and the PK was swimming in money from previous adventures and tourney's anyway. A couple years later, the PK was pleasantly surprised when the ransom showed up. It actually came back to help the NPK too, as the PK then trusted the guy and brought him along for some adventueres and missions, which increased the NPK's gorly, status and wealth. Breuse sans pity.

Now you got me drooling all over my keyboard.

Oh yeah. I agree. I was just showing what happens and what it means. If Cerdic wants punish someone for defiance, or wants to make a example of somebody so that everyone else will keep in line and pay up then plunder is certainly on the table.

Fair enough. LOL! The reason why I don't rate is higher is that it wouldn't get used all that much. It gets used during the first session when the players write up their characters and then gets put away. Since the game follows family lines, the players merely need to add their own deeds to the backstory for the next generation. It might get used a couple of times for alternate characters or new players but each family only gets one history per campaign. I can't see rating that higher than the GPC. The group will play through the book of Uther in four months realtime, and the GM will be left to wing it, but the GPC gives an outline for the entire campaign. I'm not saying BoU isn't a great book, but if I didn't already have all the books, I'd get the GPC first. Yeah, pretty much, although I'd add in what the GM likes to that list and play styles in there too. Case in point, most of my player LOVE the Book of the Manor, yet I HATE running with it. My last campaign had sessions where we spent more time doing land management with the BoM that we did playing the rest of the game. There were several reasons for this, mostly with the players, rather than with BoM, but the end result was very unpleasant to run. This campaign I am using Estate for land management (with a few things from Manor being available), made one change to K&L and things are running much better. Everybody is having a better time too.

Yes, accepting his word or Parole. You can even let him go on the condistion that he won't take up arms against you again until he pays up. Its a bit trusting though, as once he's free he might reneg. That's a different situation. An evil knight who is bing brought to justice is not at all like a a knight who is captured in battle. The latter did no wrong and committed no crime. It's like comparing someone on the most wanted list to a POW.

If I were to Prioritize the supplements the order I'd pick, (and the reasons why) would probably be: Great Pendradon Campaign (Because it gives you the timeline, framework, and adventures; it's about as close to a "must have' supplement as anything for KAP) Book of Knights & Ladies (Because it expands upon chargen and gives chargen for character from other lands) The Book of Uther (Because it expands upon the timeline in the GPC, giving you another decade or so to game in.) Book of the Estate (Because it gives the PKs some libra to spend, so they can take advantage of virtually everything else; it also has what the fornication rules currently exist) Book of the Entourage (It gives details on squires, wives, marriages, and anybody else the PKs want to have working for them) Book of Armies (Because it gives you lots of different armies that the PKs can fight against, and despite being designed for the Book of Battle, the tables can be used with the Battle System in the core rules. Mind you some of the units are a bit overpowered, but it's still gives a good idea of what armies for Point A or Point B would look like) Book of Battle (Because it turns Battles into a real event) Book of Feasts (Because it turns feats into a real even; and it a lot of fun) Book of Sires (Because it gives more detailed family history; it also can be used to expand the timeline to before the reign of Uther) Book of the Warlord (Although very useful and gives a good insight into the forces available, it not something that will really impact the typical the player knights much.) Book of the Manor (Because it is the most time intensive of the lot and require the most bookkeeping, plus Estate and Entourage let you do 85% of what Manor does in a lot less time with a lot less bookkeeping) 12. Book of Record Vol 1 (Because while the sheets are nice, you can print off a character sheet, so other things take priority) 12. Book of Records Vol 2 (As above only moreso as Battle sheets are a one per Battle thing.) And that's just keeping things in within the KAP5 line. If I were to open it up to earlier editions it would get a lot more complicated.

It like the Forest Savauge or the Perlious Forest- a Faerie Land. Works too. He doesn't even need a reason to change them. Loook up the stories about Geriant and Cador of Cornwall to find some of the roots of this.

Yes but the trade off there is that the more mlicious/severe forms of rainding (pillaging, plundering,etc) actuallyinflict more permantment damage, which will reduce thier income and make it harder for them to be able to pay. So if you want tribute, you don't want to reduce their income. "Cuz he's the Sax-man, yeeahh he the Sax-man, and your working for no one but he --SAX-MAN!" Ow, I think I hurt myself with that one.

I doubt he could afford it. At around 2d per day for a spearman, and higher amounts for those of higher station, even a band of 100 raiders is going to cost £1/day. That';s just to feed them. He's probably have to double or triple that to make up for raiding. Ransoms, are where the real money is won or lost, but the Saxons didn't seem to get in on that idea so much at first. But they would have to raid, both to feed themselves and do do any sort of damage to the defenders. It doesn't take them any more time to kill the livestock,burn down the grain, and then forage for food, as it does to eat the livestock and grain and skip foraging.

Ooh, ambitious project. Summerland is basically Faeirland, the Otherwise, annd/or like Logres during the Enchantment of Britain. He's a sidhe, elf, fae, etc. That's why he is ageless, and why Uther couldn't defeat him in conventional battle. He's based in part o\n a legendary king and warrior from the Welsh sources. Beyond that he's hard to pin down because most of the information is about an actual historical king, Sir Cador of Cornwall, or a legendary king similar to Arthur. The version in KAP seems to follow the Welsh version of the hero Cador, and the Fae elements are probably there to help smooth over some timeline problems with the character who is younger or older than Arthur depending on which version of the stories you read. Bath was an old Roman settlement. Some legends of Cadwry claim he was of Roman stock. So he could have been a Roman who went fae. It is very fae. In the early years Summerland is basically a faerie kingdom. As for why he's so Christ Friendly. Well, in most cases paganism is open to new gods, because it is polytheistic. If someone shows up and says their god is powerful and that people should pray or make sacrifices to him to prevent something bad from happening, most pagans will probably do so as something of an insurance policy. Best not to anger the gods. It's usually the monotheistic religion that has problems with the pagan ones because by definition monotheism has but one god. Its when a monotheistic religion tries to eliminate the other gods/religions that the troubles start. Now in KAP Christianity had been a cult, and one that had been outlawed for centuries and only recently became the state religion of Rome, and a major religion in Britian. It is also still very fragmented with different sects with different beliefs, which have been influenced by their local cultures, and so lacks the central authoity an unfied beliefs necessary to really get anti-anybody lyet. They are too busy working out the details of their own religion and arguing amongst themselves. In Britain the religion has been heavily influenced by Celtic pagan beliefs, which is why the game has British Christianity alongside Roman Christianity. Look up Pelagius to see something about this. But in a nutshell, at this time Christianity isn't quite as anti-fae as it will be in the later medieval period, and even has some pagan elements to it. Now you do seem to get the "one god drives out the many gods, " aspect to it, but that's a bit more complicated and most legends of the fae have them essentially exiled from the land to begin with. He already had his Kingdom before Aurelius and Uther arrived, and they respected the strength of his position where they got there. Just like how the various kings who were kings before Aurelius arrived were still kings. Now once in power somebody could have tried to strip him of his rank and titles, but that's pretty much a declaration of war, and for the most part undesirable. Aurelius being prudent, realized that it wasn't worth the trouble and let things be. Uther being somewhat more rash, figured he could ovwerwhelm Cadwry and get him to submit, and, well, that didn;t work out so good. I don't think he did, but if he had, maybe. Not every part of Britian ia\s feudal yet, and not every King a knight. Some parts of Britian never really adopt Chivalry. Maybe he'll post and let us know. Seriously, it was possible for any knight to knight someone else. Early on this was how it was generally done. As time went by, the practice was frowned upon because it was felt that if someone made a knight they should provide for their upkeep, so as to prevent the land from being over run with landless knights. Since the nobles were the ones with the means to support knights, they started to view the ability to make a knight as their own prerogative, or even their right, and knights (mostly) stopped doing it. In fact, If I recall correctly, in Mallory Arthur himself got knighted by the "Best Knight" or "Best Man" there, not by a King. So in game Morien could have been knighted by any knight. In game, in the later Periods this would probably be restricted to nobles, but there woudl be rare exceptions for Knights with tons of glory. If Sir So & SO, with 100,000 Glory knights you, your a knight. Yes, but what does that mean? Does the forest "act" differently? I don't think so. I just think that the people from the west, being more pagan, have a better idea as to the nature of the place. There are a couple of possibilities, but I'll suggest the simplest. He didn't change his coat of arms! OK, now generally Kings and other high nobles often have more than one coat of arm. For instance Arthur is both King of Logres and High King of Britain and has the arms of both. Plus a closet full or others from the various kingdoms he conquered throughout the campaign. Cadwyr is both a King in his own right, and an (honorary) Count so he has both coats of arms. The Sword is the Kingly one, and the Cup/Grail the one as a Count. If you don't like that reason he could have decided to change his arms (people did that), perhaps because of an experience with the Grail. That would make sense too, as the Grail is one of the major ties between celtic Paganism and British Christianity.

Yea that works. It's just tougher to get the troops to do it. Lotting and plunder is really the main reason for them to want to do this, and not taking stuff would place a finacial harship on But for the logistics of of things, it takes a day or two for a rider to reach Sarum from anywhere in the county. Then it takes a minimum of two days for the Count to raise any sort of sizable force. THen anaother day or two to get to the place that reported the raiders. So that's a minimum of four to six days, and that's with the minimum effective force under idea circumstances. According the the Book of the Estate p. 44 it takes about four days days to raid and a week to pillage , assuming you have about twice as many men as the defender, with the time being reduced with a greater numerical superiority. So a large force of Saxons could come through, split up into groups and raid and pillage several manors in a day for three days or so, and be out of the area long before any help could arrive. Now the reading probably wouldn't be equal. Some manors close to Sarum might not get raided at all, and one on the border might get hit multiple times, or suffer more severe results, but not much could be done to prevent it.

Yup. Typically its come in quick with a force too large for a local knight to resist, grab what you can, burn what you can't take with you (if you want to be nasty about it) and then get out again quick before the reinforcements show up. If they don't show up, or are delayed elsewhere raid some more.

Wasn't Jason supposed to post something like that?

Typically it's the knight who captured them. In some cases knights might share a ransom if they felt that more than one was responsible or if they are especially friendly or generous with each other. You could have the Marshall kinda pull rank here, if he had a hand in it, but generally that's not such a great thing, and even if you do he should share some of it or get a selfish check. Ransoms were a big incentive for knights to want to ride into battle and also one of the major reason why they would often break ranks, charge when they weren't supposed to and become so difficult to control. Taking one average prisoner is like hitting a lottery, with several years of income and goods.

The Book of the Manor is probably the one you want to avoid then.It's nice but is all about managing the knight manor. Ironically, Estate, despite being about bigger areas of land is actually, or maybe because of that, handles things in a simpler faster way. It mostly comes down to the manor providing £10/year to the knight of which £9 is spent to maintain himself, squire, wife, some spearmen, a chaplain, and so on, leaving the knight £1 to spend as he likes every year. Much simpler than rolling for the harvest each year. Estate does have some land improvements and fornications, but what it probably is best for is showing you just how much money (or how little) and how many knights a given area can support. Basically it works out to 1 manor = 10 =1 knight and two foot soldiers (with a third footsoldier serving the king). Sounds like you got a handle on things. I used to have a bandit leader that could shapershift into a large wolf that did something similar-until the knights killed him. It took them years to finally get the guy though, wolves run pretty fast. Bandits can be good sword fodder , just be careful with numbers. Pendragon fights tend to go quickly, too.

I wouldn't have then raid all the manors. Not unless Salisbury was so weak that they could pull it off. I'd probably start with the border manors and see what happens from there. If the knights all hole up in their manors then there are less people to defend and their forces are spread out too. That would allow the Saxons to push deeper in. There there is something of a time to react issue and a wearing down issue here. If the Saxons attack from two directions at roughly the same time, with a large force, then it would take the Countess a few days to get up a force large enough to drive them off. Plus a few more days to get to them. By that time those Saxons would probably be back over the border, and the knights would find out about the second group and have to spend a few days riding to get to them. And while they are doing that, the first group could come back, or a third group show up. Oh, and if they do go through Silchester, I'd probably have Ulfius send someone to Salisbury to alert them that the raiders were coming. In an indirect way. He's allied with them only out of necessity.

No, I doubt that. I could be wrong though. If they can avoid failure whenever they would like to, then they don;t run any risk of failure, so whats to keep them interested? I get where your coming from, but you need failure, or at least sell the players on the illusion of failure YOu got an infinite number of options of how to do that, but if they know that they can't fail anything important then the game becomes predicable and the players will know that they won't fail, when it matter, and their victories will ring hollow because they will;know that the outcome was a forgone conclusion. That fine as long as the players get the feeling that they have more things that they want to spend Hero Points on that they have Hero Point to spend. If you don't used HP for character advancement then you will need to work out how Hero Points get awarded and how many. There is nothing wrong with that, but you will have to figure out what the right amount of points to hand out in order to allow the [players enough points to have fun and also keep enough in reserve for the big fights. Why restrict the players? For the greater good of the game. It much like when a character dies or a group gets wiped out or some other really bad happens. Dos that suck? Yup! Would the players want things to work out differently , definitely. But is the chance that something like that could happen that keeps things exciting. Once that chance goes away so does the excitement. In my current group the old DM (tells you what game he was running) used to fudge things to ensure a desired outcome. Eventually the players caught on and realized that their decisions and actions didn't matter because in the end the DM would just fix things to work out the way he wanted them to. That pretty much took all the fun out it for them. However you house rule it, just be sure to avoid that type of mess. Max game fun is a good rule, it the fundamental principle behind all gaming. Just be sure you don't kill it with too many Hero Points. Now just how many are too many? You will have to figure that out, but I'd advise you to go easy at first because it will be harder for you to backtrack the amount later than it will be to increase it. Player hate it when the GM takes stuff away, but rarely complain when the GM gives them more stuff. I don't know if you are familiar with the archaic term "Monty Haul Dungeon" but it what I'm trying to warn you about.

There used to be rules for that in a previous supplement, but they haven't been updated to 5th edition, yet. Basically to do this sort of thing requires that a horse be specially trained, and most wouldn't do it normally and the most likely outcome is that the boar gets underneath the horse and rips it up. The way it used to work is that the horse has to be "attack trained" as opposed to just combat trained, by a one of Horsemasters from a great city such as London, which is rare, especially in the early Periods. This gave the horse a Bash Attack at 1d6+7, which cannot be raised. In order to Bash the horse had to first make it's attack roll, which would usually be opposed by the target, and then roll under it's SIZ, subtracting the sise of the target. If the horse succees the target has to make a DEX roll or fall down. On a critical success the target is knocked down automatically and take 1d6 damge. On a failure the horse falls down, taking it own damage roll, and throws the rider. On a fumble it falls on the rider who must make a horsemanship roll to "only" fall for 1d6, otherwise getting trapped underneath his horse and takes it's damage dice from the crush. They would probably be better off with the Hoof/Trample from the same supplement. But generally the reason why there are no rules for it is becuase warhorses haven't been developed to the point where they can do that sort of stuff yet. There is a obstacle table in the hunting rules with stuff like that on page 223, or page 195 for KAP5. Not really, but there is a lot of errata worth looking up. Whoever did the proofreading or editing on KAP 5 messed a lot of stuff up. For instance, Stat increases from Glory points can break any other rule or limitation, meaning that a character can have STR 30, Sword 27, Loyalty (Lord) 22, or some such if he gets enough glory and want to spend it that way. Also if a character splits his skill when fighting multiple opponents he can do damage to more than one opponent if he wins. Here is a link to the official errata, which I think covers most of it: http://www.gspendragon.com/totalerrata.html Also 5.1 and 5.2 have made a push towards starting during the reign of King Uther, and there is even a supplement (actually, more than one) dedicated around that time. The real differences in the rules comes in the "Book of..." line of supplements. Generally each one of these takes some aspect of the game and expands upon it. It still the same game, and the game mechanics don't change all that much but they go into more detail about certain aspects. For example, The Book of the Entourage has information detailing squires, wives and other followers. Now of these books are required to play the game, but they can be used to enhance the game. The Book of Battle provides a more detailed battle system, where the PKs can actually sway the course of the battle somewhat with their actions. Now a GM is free to use either Battle System or even both depending on how he wants to present a particular battle.That's pretty much ow the line works. You don't need any of it, but you might like to have and use it. Oh, and do you have the Great Pendragon Campaign?

Plus the fact that in most cases you don't have to divert too much from the core BRP rules to emulate a particular setting, making it much easier to adapt it to lots of different settings. For instance if you wanted to run something like a TV or film Western using BRP, you'd could use most of the rules as written. Stat up a few weapons, add in some sort of Quick Draw rules, and and devote most of your time and effort on setting and adventures. It's not like. say, D&D where, by RAW, where two gunfighters in a shootout, could empty their revolvers into each other, and then have to reload so they could finish it. That would probably require a few rule changes to adapt the system to reflect the setting.

I think your missing the fact that the land is the "Widow's Portion" That's land that the Wife gets to maintain herself that reverts back to her former husband's heirs upon her death. The actual holding is probably three times that, too. So a Knight who gets the "21: Widow of a rich vassal knight. Dowry: £6d6 treasure.2 Widow's Portion: £1d6+7 land (see p. 18)." result only has that land for the life of his wife, and can't pass it on. That actually works out to the wife maintaining herself on a portion of an a holding with a total income of around £24-39, with the other £16-26 going to the heris of her former husband upon maturity and the remain portion going to them upon her death. You need to get the 25+ results to bag a heiress, and then hope she doesn't have any sisters to divide the land among. So it still can happen on the table, but it's pretty rare, and it probably harder to achieve randomly that by roleplaying it, since when you RP it you know what you are going to get out of the match before you go into it.

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of withheld blows? For instance if a Knight with 8 points of armor and 24 hit points take a hit for 34 damage. That would bring his hit points down to -2 and check his chiruguery needed box.Or do you assume the damage is non lethal and the knight is just knocked unconscious for awhile?

If you really want to have fun with it. Make them roll child survival each year and if they fail the roll, then say, "Oh, that's right, you were blessed. You live." Decisions, decision....

How legendary? I wrote up the "Black Boar of Camelot Forest" , a huge Faerie Boar that inhabits the Camelot Forest for my campaign. "It's hide is as tough as mail, and it's vitality such that it wounds close almost as quickly as they are inflicted". My PKs had to go questing for a magical weapon to defeat it, and had to dig up trufflesin order to to lure it to a spot where they could find it. It's viciously nasty stats were: The Black Boar of Camelot Forest Glory Won 150; SIZ 25, DEX 13, STR 35, CON 25; Move 8; Armor 10; Unconscious 11; Major Wound 25; Knockdown 25; Hit Points 50; Healing Rate 6 (per round); Damage 7d6. Combat Skills: Tusks 18. Skills: Avoidance 10. Ferocity: A boar attacks normally for 1 round after taking damage that would incapacitate most other creatures (i.e., even after its current hit points reach or drop below its Unconscious threshold, or after it receives a Major Wound, for example).