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Ooohhh, interesting. I can find a use for some of those. In case I didn't mention it before, I print up minis on cardstock that we use when gaming. We use some stock figures for generic knights, Saxons, etc. but digitally customize figures for the PKS and significant NPKs. With Heraldry starting to appear, I can start to put some unlabeled minis out there and see if the PKS can recognize them by their shields. So something like the following for Aurelius for now:

They would probably get Homage to the Estate Holder, and not have any passion directed to the Earl/Count, but it depends on if they were knights before the estate holder got the estate or after. That's what makes being an estate holder such a big thing. Those knights are loyal to him, rather than some other lord and should stick by him. That's why estate holders (and all vassal knights) Are noted for loyalty. A liege lord thinks very carefully about elevating anyone to the status where they have men beneath them, as they always are a potential risk. That's why such men tend to be among the liege's most loyal vassals. It's also partly why such titles tend to be gifts rather than grants, as it is hard to tell if a knights son will be as loyal as the father was. Basically estate holders are bad for the liege lord, unless the prospective holder brings something to the table to make him worth the loss of estates and potential risk. Thus such postions are only given out the the most loyal battle lords, and rich realities who can be trusted to support the liege. This is also one of the reasons why latter in the campaign the nobles tie the right to knight others to themselves, as a knight always owns some level of fealty to the one who knights and supports him.

jeffjerwin, thanks for the images and info. I went with the red dragon as the legends state that it was the one that symbolized Aurelius in the story of Vortigern's tower. I'll probably have Aurelius use all of the shields, much like how Arthur has several coats of arms, denoting his various titles. So he'll start with Macsen's arms, the Double headed eagle displayed sable will be what he carries. (although that seems more Holy Roman Empire than Rome). The Three crows he'll pick up after being made high King. He'll adopt the Red Dragon after hearing of the story of Vortigern's tower and defeating Vortigern. Possible right before he sends for Merlin to move the Giant's Dance. I'll have to dig of the arms for King of Logres too.

Yeah, kinda. Homage is really just a sort of escape clause for if/when two loyalties come into conflict with each other. It allows a Knights to remain loyal to Lord A (Homange) despite loyalty to Lord B (Fealty) be pre-arranged agreement. Most knights would only have one liege lord so this wouldn't be an issue. Occasionally it can get more complicated if a knight inherits multiple holdings.

Note that while the Storm Bull must seek out Chaos, the rules don't say what particular form of Chaos. So I expect places like Snakepipe Hollow get a pass because the Storm Bulls are going after other forms of Chaos they encounter first. They will get to the bad places, eventually, but in the meantime they can't let the local chaos get away. "I was half way to Dorastor when I spotted a three-eyed rubble runner, and had to hunt it down before it spawned more chaos ilk."

Yeah, Homage is to one's liege lord, whoever that happens to be, and not necessarily to the King. Most Pks won't have a Homage (King) passion unless they are direct vassals to him - although the Round Table and such organizations does open that up a little more than normal. In reality it was never quite as cut & dried as stated in the rules though. A knight would usually back whichever noble best represented the knight's interests. This was even more true the higher one was up the social ladder. Some would even try to play on both sides to try and secure their status no matter which side won.

Or the AC breaks down (wish this was the Cthulhu forum for that one).

It's is unrealistic, and it is a bit unrealistic in context too. I think Greg wanted to make sword a bit better than the other weapons. It's only with the crtical = 20 rule shwere it becomes overpowerwing. Back in KAP1, when it was a bit more vauge, we used to assume the die rolls had to be a natural tie. Awhile back I did up a version of Harn's Weapon Quality rules. In that game when weapons might break you roll against the Weapon Quality of the lower quality weapon to see if it breaks, and if it doesn't you check for the higher quality weapon. Swords tend to have a higher WQ and so break less. It works, is nice, but adds another layer of complexity that players migth not like. I can post it if anyone is interested. Don't worry about it. That's what threads are for. I mena this is about weapons in the game so a variant weapon rule seems to fit the thread. Maybe but that could work both ways. But overall I don't think the benefit is all that great for the spearman. Yes, but it is a bit of a tradeoff. Something like reach rules would be more realistic, but would add to complexity. I'll look over the Close Combat rules from RuneQuest (Pendragon's parent system) and see if it could help. I get that. It's just modelling that in game terms. Between the effect modifiers have to crticals, the tie rules, and he fact than Pendragon combines attack and parry into a single roll, it gets complicated. Frankly, if you wanted to keep it simple and didn't mind changing the combat rules, just give an advantage modifier to the spearman. Say +2/-2 normally, or possibly +5/-5 if the opponent doesn't have a shield. But that will shift the balance of power towards the spear. Maybethe best way to mirror that would be to adapt the Evasion rules (page 145) and say that the closing character has to win to get in close instead of to escape, but negate the bonus to the spearman's roll if he can't or won't backpedal. Yes, but the fighting defenviely bit throws the odds towards the swordsman. If I were the spearman I wouldn't want to "bonus". Yes I think it's better not to force the tactic, since fighting defensively helps the "wrong" side. Using the Evasion rule to maneuver instead both sounds closer to what you want (the spearman is actually trying to prevent the closing), and favors the spearman more (he gets a +5/-5 advantage). Oh, I get what you are trying to model. I'm just saying that your proposed solution doesn't help the spearman. Plus, as Morien pointed out earlier, it does open a can of worms. Greatspear vs spear, for instance. I still think it's a bad thing to do , since if it works right, it will lead to be a lot of situations where it will be used against your players and ultimately kill more of them, but my concern here is just in terms of what will achieve the effect you desire. I think defensive fighting helps the swordsman too much, plus I don't think it makes all that sense in terms of the actual action. It's like I don't see someone charging "defensively" into combat. It would seem to me that if the swordman wants to close he is going to have to put himself at greater risk, not less.Without the +10 modifier the advantage shifts back to the spearman, as it essentially becomes an almost free attack. Yes, except the boarspear mechanic is designed to hold a skewered boar at bay, not beat the boar in the intial clash.. I think even if you tried it knights would just take the hit, and rely upon thier armor.

That's for a couple of reasons. First off Greg tries to avoid lighting a powder keg by getting into religious wars. It why under religion he leaves it all up to the GM. The second reason is that the Arthurian Legends comes from several sources, including non-Christian ones. Even the religious of some of the characters in the game have changed between editions. I can, in a game, provided it is view in the context of the time and place. Much like with racism, sexism or slavery. I'm don't support any of those beliefs, but if I were playing an RPG set in, say, ancient Rome, I'd expect and tolerate them, in game, as part of the setting. This is made worse, in some ways by religion, since it tells people that they are right and the other people wrong, and there isn't any room to negotiate or find a middle ground.I think to do otherwise cheapens and belittle the setting, and risks whitewashing some really horrible things. Of course people can always avoid a particular setting if it bothers them. Another thing to keep in mind when reading about things like that is the context, too. Often in history, extremely intolerant views happen after times of conflict, and people have a natural tendency to villainize and dehumanize an enemy during war.

I don't think woflpack's closing idea helps the spearman much at all. Shields and armor do change things considerably. One thing that I've allowed in the past is to let people with spears attack from the second rank. It doesn't come up open, but is very useful when defending a gate or some such, since now the closing swords/axman has to deal with multiple opponents, and, the way I ran it, couldn't reach the back rank guys.

Alright, but that is the key snag, as far as the game mechanics go. By RAW a swordsman fighting defenaviely has a greater chance of breaking the opponent's weapon. I don't like that, but it is how it works by RAW. Yup. Yes, if you ignore weapon breakage. THat isn't much of an advantage for the spearman though. Unless the spearman is very good his chance of a crtical is the same as his chance of a fumble, and most hits won't do much against an opponent with good armor and a shield. Plus if the opponent is well armored he could just run up with his shield in front and take the hit. Warriors in good armor actually did that against a single spearman Well the way you have it stated, that the opponent must close and the requirment to fight defensively eliminated the option. I think that the fighting defenatively thing should be optional for the swordman. Maybe he just can't do damage on the first turn or something would be better. Or maybe just have Spears trump DEX in determining the order of damage. So the spearman does damage before the opponent. In previous editions of Pendragon, a character who fought defensively did normal (not double) damage on a critical success. This was dropped because a character with 20+ skill might opt to fight defensively all the time, and end up being better offensively due to the increased chance of criticals. Fore example if two characters have a 20 skill then either has a 50% chance of winning a given round of combat. If one fought defensively, it would be a 30 vs a 20, ans the odds would shift to something like 55%/22.5% chance of either doing damage, greatly shifting the odds in favor of the guy fighting defensively. Combine that with inspriation or the hieght bonus and some players could be automatically getting a crit. Oh I get that. It's just that the way the game mechanics work, I don't think the rule change would actually benefit the spearman. The bonus his opponent gets from fighting defensively reduces the chance of the spearman winning, ensures the benefits of a shield for when the spearman does win (16-20 points of armor will make most hits bounce), and increases the chances of ties slightly (problematic against swords). Unless the spearman has a very high skill or does a lot of damage, this actually helps his opponent.

The Halbard does. As does KAP4's Coriseach. Yes, it could get that way, although it could be simplfied by categorizing the weapons. I don't think so, at least not by RAW, because of the increased chances of the swordman fightinbg defenaviely and lopping the speartrip off with tied rolls. I don't think Spears should be as good as Great spears or halbards as far a reach does. I'd probably just rule them as -2 or -3. Enough to help but not as good a reach as a greatspear.

I don't think that really helps the spearman, according to the game mechanics. Let's say you got a spearman and a swordsman both with skill 15. By RAW it's a even fight, with a slight edge tot he swordsman due to the breakage rules. Now if you force the swordmsn to fight defensively and close, it becomes 15 vs 25. This reduces the chances of the spearman scoring a win from 37.5% to 25% , slightly increases the chances of his spear getting broken on a tie, and eliminates the chances of the swordsman fumbling. All it all, I think it hurts the spearman more than it helps him. The ability to fight defensively while closing shifts things too much for the swordsman. Besides if he is trying to close, he's not exactly being defensive. And why couldn't some crazy berserk just run up the spear to attack the spearman? It was done. What if instead you just gave spearmen the old version of fighting defenativey as as option? That is the spearman could do damage on a critical when they fought defensively? Then the math would shift in favor of the spearman.

OH, so you mean just the -5 as per greatspear, not -5 reflexive. I misunderstood your intention, I thought you mean getting rid of the modifier entirely.

Excapt spears really don't extent reach unless you hold them far back, and that either requires two hands or makes them harder to wield. Plus it could lead to some odd situations like knight with lance not having an advage against footman with spear.

No it isn't. Look at the "What is an RPG section that is ususally part of the first chapter of an RPG. Look at the designer's notes. Look at how the games are structured, how chargen is done, etc. etc. Or just read the definition of a RPG online. Chances are it will be notes as a form of coperatibe storytelling where the players assume the roles of characters. I doubt realism or fairness will be part of the definition. Nowhere are RPGs set up as a contest between the players and the NPCs. That this is fact and not just an opinion can be proven by the existence of such things as diceless RPGs, Fate/Hero Points, and die rolling fudging as a legitimate GMing tool. No, this isn't about the proposed change, but the reasons why to make a change and the consequences of those changes. A GM should understand that the game is created and run to entertain the players, not to compete with them. Your whole argument is that making a game more realistic and more fair to the NPCs is intrinsically better, even though that is not neccearily the case. RPGs are centered around the player characters, and biased towards them. Again it's not the change that is the problem, but your underlying misconcentions that this is some sort of contest to be won or lost, and that it is a fair contest. You seem to think that the PKs in my campaigns are safe and pampered, and live risk free lives. They don't. I nor any other Pendragon GM needs to change the rules in order to challenge the players. The game is notably dangerous enough as is. It has something of a reputation for it. BTW, how long to PKS last in your campaign? Why not? You're not the one who will suffer for it. You can sit back and throw all sorts of stuff at your players citing "fairness" and "realism" as excuses to justify something that you didn't need to do. The thing about any change is what the pros and cons are, and if the change is worth the effort. You argument for the change her is to be fair to some NPCs who won't notice or appreciate the change (they aren't real). That's the benefit. If I were to aks someone like Morien why, he'd respond with how it would improve particluar situations in the game in a particular way, and not just give vague, general statements. As far as I can tell your goal seems to be just to up the bar and make things tougher for your players because you can, because making it tougher somehow makes it better automatically, as if we should all know that to be true. You seem to think that knights have it way too easy against spearmen, specifically, and that this is something that needs to be addressed to keep the game fair, and that this change will make the game more realistic and more fun for them, because you believe that the game is about realism and fairness and if I, or even the people who designed the game, think otherwise that's just our opinion. I've asked you to point out some examples of games adventures that are not biased towards the players, and you haven't even attempted to do so. Instead you adopt a condescending and mocking tone with references to juice boxes and coloring books. That was uncalled for. I attacked your beliefs and assumptions, I didn't attack you. If you want to convince someone else of something that you have to put together information that supports your view. If you don't wan't to convince someone, then you can just agree to disagree, but you shouldn't take smug pot shots about juice boxes. I find most of your core gaming beliefs to be unsound and unjustified. Player really don't earn most of their success in most, if not all RPGs, as the games are stacked in thier favor. The advice of how to write an adventure that comes with most RPGs points stuff like that out.

Except that he has claimed that gaming in a fair contest bettween the PKS and NPKS with the odds against the PKs.He seems to believe that an RPG is like a board game. Except that the NPK doesn't actually do that. He either has the better armor when created by the writer/GM or is upgraded off-screen. I'm perfectly fine with running NPKs with realstic behavior, and logical thinking. The NPCs do not act like they are fanatical suicidal pawns, except when they are, and can run away, surrender, gang up on PK and do all sort of other stuff to improve thier own situation as best as they can figure out how to and manage under the circumstances. But the deck is stacked against them. Certainly. Unless there is some other factor that would apply. Exactly. And the thing is all those NPC characters, even the 15 year old kid with 10d6 damage and Bash PK 30 exist to serve a game purpose. Your not doing it to ensurie fairness or parity between the PKs and the NPKs- you are doing it for story and adventure purposes. The thing with an RPG is that it is a form of interactive story. Adventures have beginning, middles and ends, and the elements of story telling apply. It's not a wargame where each side has X number of points to build thier army and have an even contest to see who wins. If the NPKswin, then generally everybody looses.

Exactly. If ever adventure were an even contest then the players would loose half the time and the campaign would become unsustainable. Even a simple adventure would become unsustainable. On the other hand, there are tasks and opponents that are supposed to be difficult, where the players could be overmatched. Young knights being a common example, since their skills aren't usually much better than their opponents. And of coruse there are black knights, giants, dragons and other such opponents that might outclass the PKS. But for an GM to think that an RPG is fair when things have been biased towards the players since charegen is silly. RPGs are unfair, by design. THey favor the players. Because the game is about the players.THe players are more important. There are games without NPCs, but no games without players.

Not it's not just my opion. It's a core foundation upon which RPGs are designed. If it were a contest all the battles wouldn't be scripted. It it were a contest then you wouldn't have advntures that were tests of worthiness No you can't. I'ts baised from the start. All RPGs focus upon the actions of the player characters. Mostof the situations are biased, towards the player characters too. An RPP has to be that way or the players would just died off due to the laws of probability. It like how in a TV show the heroes get into life threatneing situations every episode yet stillpull through and survive. THat wouldn't happen if the show was fair. But the situation has passed. It is neither fair not realistic to send an never ending stream of player characters at a problem until it is overcome. The Count can't afford to keep sending off his knights to get slaughter over and over by some menace. He'd run out of knights. But that isn't an RPG or what RPGs are about. Not in most RPGs or in most adventures. In most RPGs the adventure is balanced for (that means biased in favor of) the player characters. Some games, such as Pendragon, tend to use a more absolute scale where the opposition in the adventure is more or less set on a absolute scale and the player character are either up to a given challenge or not, or someone gets lucky. Can you cite some examples where the oods are against the players. If it is a general thing then there should be lots of them.I can only think of a haldful, and they are all infamous deathtraps that are deliberately known for being so. But it flies completely against your core concepts of fairness and realism. Becuase those are not key elemets of PEndragon. Yes it could. I once had the idea of letting one of the player characters draw the sword and turn out to really be prince Arthur, raised under a false name to protect him. THe the player would have to go through Arthur's early years and battles (good luck to Player King Arthur) with the other PKs in some of the major supporting roles (make that great luck to Player King Arthur). I mentioned the idea to some of my players and now they get antsy whenever we get to the sword in the stone. Yes, and both those statements show that NPCs are tools that serve functions. THey do not require things to be "fair" for them. Yes, but the players are real. Look if the NPC die off every game session, that's just the adventure. If the player characters die off every session, that's a one shot, not a campaing. And it will probably have no character development (no one lasts long enough to develop) nor much roleplaying (not much time to get a feel for the character). Oh they suffer consequences, but ultimately, it doesn't matter- or it only matters when it matters for story purposes. If some random spearman takes a major wound on the battlefield and drops, he is out of story and probably never going to show up again in the campaign. If a PK takes a major wound on the battlefield and drops, the other PKS might rescue him, the group will want to know if he survived or not, make first aid and chriguery rolls, and determine if he recovers or expires, and if they need to get the heir ready to play or not. The game is about and for the players, first and foremost. But the GM doesn't stop to write up a new NPC under those same circumstances. PCs are more important than NPCs. Hence the game is written is favor of the PCs. Not, it isn't It's a core foundation that RPGs are built on. With YAtzee risk, and monolpoly somebody wins and everybody else looses. With an RPG the game doesn't really have an end (although Pendragon is unsusal in that the campaing does end with Arthur) and there isn't a winneing player and a bunch of losers. It's a cooperative game where everybody can win. But the NPCs aren't on the board. King Lot can't beat the players and kill off Arthur. If he does, the players are dead and the campaign ended. How you you think the game is fair when the battles are scripted, and several things happen during the campaing that the players have little to no choice over? It's not a fair contest from the start, becuase the GM gets to create the NPCs as he sees fit. If the NPKs are built to exploit a PKS weakness then it's not something that happened fairly but instead was something deliberately chosen to make that NPK a more difficult opponent for that particular character. The whole thing is unfair, and is supposed to be. If the game were fair the NPCs would get roll for stats, skills improvement and get all the other breaks that the players get in the game. What what happens to your game if every NPK gets to roll on one of thre Luck tables from K&L.

Realism and risk are two separate things. Not if your bigger and stronger than he is. Generally speaking in Pendragon it is less about the weapon and more about the capabilities of the one wielding the weapon. That has nothing to do with fairness or realism. Hhave you played this game? There is never a sense of there being no risk. Weapons are deadly. About the only time something along those lines is ever a possibility is when someone ends up with a really really high skill score. None of your "make it fair for the NPC" stuff addressees or alters that. No it isn't. A competuion has winners and losers. It's a contest. An RPG is not a contest is a cooperative form of group entertainment. The goal is to tell a story, enterain each other, and have fun. It not about if the PCs beat the NPCs or not. All contests in a RPG are rigged to some degree or another. THereis nothing fair about it. The NPCs are written up according to the requirements ofthe adventure. You can't make it fair. Look, it's not like monooply when everybody starts off with the same amount of money, roll the dice and go around the board. It is a game where the GM sets challeges for the PKs to deal with, people for them to interact with, and so on. Adventures are not written up to be a contest where the players have a 50-50 chance of success against an equally skilled opponent. How can you keep trying if you don't survive? It sounds like you are running old syle D&D where the players keep rolling up new characters to go into the dungeon to fight the monsters that killed thier last group of characters. It sounds more like an obstacle course than a RPG. It assumes that the odds were against the PC in the first place, and that they did indeed earn their victory and didn't just get lucky. But, generally speaking, the odds aren't against the PCs most of the time in an adventure. If they were then the PCs wouldn't succeed at many adventures. Most adventures are biased in the favor of the players and need to be in order that the players can actually complete it and have a sense of sotry and accomplishment. If everything was "fair" then the laws of probabilities would make a successful adventure highly unlikely. That is a game mechanic applied to PCs and NPCs. The PCs get to go to London and try to draw the Sword from the stone. They get to roll and everything. And the contest is not "fair". The PKs fail because they are not Arthur. No it isn't. The NPCs are obstacles that serve a purpose-namely they are obstacles. That is their function. They aren't there to contest anything, and don't do anything when there isn't a PC to interact with. Their whole purpose is to provide a challenge. They don't really exist to win. Sure, that can happen, and the possibility of the players losing should be a real thing, but it's not a goal, just a necessary byproduct. It's not a wargame where the points on each side have to balance out. It's an interactive adventure. Consequences don't really apply to NPCs, they are not real. If a PC dies the player grabs a character sheet and goes to work writing up anew character. When a NPC dies the GM moves onto the next part of the adventure. If all the PCs die part way through the adventure then the adventure is over no matter what the NPCs have planned. An RPG isn't like Risk or monopoly or Yahtzee. The game, such as it is, is about story and role playing. The dice are there as randomizers to keep an air on uncertainty. But it isn't the primary focus of the game. In fact, from a GM's perspective the the fights tend to be a bit boring. Most of the time the outcome usually is forgone, for the GM. The GM wrote the adventure and picked/created the NPCs specifically for the adventure with an idea of what the PCs capabilities were. Those footmen with Spear 10 aren't really a challenge for a group of knights with Sword 19. Yes, dice can be fickle and a spearman can get lucky and kill off a PK, but that isn't a desirable result. You need an element of risk to keep the game exciting for the players but you don't need it to be fair to the NPCs. If it were fair to the NPCs they'd get a chance to have better skill scores and equipment, and the players would be rolling up new characters every other weak. That really eliminates player agency. And the reverse it true. If a PK challenges Lancelot to a joust he's probably getting his butt kicked because Lancelot has a 39 Lance skill, and the player knight probably doesn't. A GM needs to try to be fair and unbiased when dealing with the players. Give them all a chance to shine, make contributions, and do stuff. The GM doesn't have to be fair to the NPCs. No campaign has ever ran into trouble because the NPCs weren't getting a fair shake.

Okay, but why? Have the NPCs been complaining? Remember an RPG is for the benefit of the players. It's not any sort of fair competition between the PCs and the NPCs, it's rigged from the start in favor in the PCs. The NPCs do not need fair representation. Since the GM gets to create the NPCs they can have pretty much anything the GM wants to give them anyway. Sometimes they even have things the players can't get. For instance Arthur can draw the sword from the stone, but the PCs cannot. NPCs serve story and plot functions. RPGs are not any sort of fair contest between the GM and the players. It's not a wargame.

Yeah there is, sort of, and it's a little confusing. There have been several prices lists for the game over the years. A price list with prices for Towns and Cities, another for Great Cities, and yet another one for the latter periods of the game. Since the income for knights has shifted a bit over time, so have the prices. K&L does give prices for all the horses, as did Knight's Adventurous. But I don't think there was even official prices listed for plate or Gothic plate. Based upon the progression in earlier editions I suspect the price probably doublets per step, and probably increased by another 50% or so when the armor is new and in high demand, and probably drops off by about 50% when in low demand. I idea that I had was to consider fixing the prices of armor not by the armor but in terms of quality. That is the common armor worn by knights for a given period would cost £4 or £5, and then doubling/halving that price for each step up/down down there. The idea being that as time goes by and newer armors show up the older ones fall out of fashion and all that old armor can be bought and sold used at a lower price. Meanwhile advances in technology and economies of scale make the newer armor less expensive to produce over time. That way I'd only need one price table and then could just shift the default protection up on down by Period. It would also make is easier for PKs to upgrade armor by paying the difference to pick up the pieces to augment what they already have.

Yeah. It used to be a lot easier to rescue downed PKs. A simple squire roll. Now it's a fight. We could, except that there really is no order to rolling. Technically higher DEX goes off first, but generally the PKs are fighting rank & file types with the same DEX it works out to all the attacks happening at the same time. I supposed I could stagger the stats so that there is a Spearmen with a DEX of 10, one will and 11 a third with a 12 and so on, but that's a bit of a pain. Besides, it's not that much of an issue, and quite frankly, there is some realism to a guy taking a wound and being able to hit someone else before dropping. But it is something else that ups the danger of ganging up on a character. At 4d6 I would too. It still is the bounce off armor, minor scratch stage. Yeah, it probably got lost in the confusion but this all stemmed from my advice to be cautions about making changes without thinking them through. It's not that I'm against changing or houseruling stuff. I probably do that as much as anybody, and certainley have considered houseruling just about every aspect of the game at one time or another. Bows, horse, armor, shields, siege engines, saddles, Roman chargen. The grip isn't that much further back on a couched spear. Now the latter "lance" type lances, yes. But they would be closer to greatspears, being about 12' long. The thing is the game directly ties the advantage to the charge, not the lance. Otherwise it would be useful for knights to use it more. Lance certinaly has an advance with one against Arthur in Excalibur. Lance certinaly needed something. It was decent in olf KAP but has suffered as knights have bulked up since the 80s. Yeah, the realtive skill scores play a big factor. Most of the PKS in my group push sword over 20, and spear tends to lag as they only have so many glory points to spend. THe exception is the PK who is wielding Rhongomiant, but he won't have that for much longer. Yup. Plus Swords don't break and everything used against one does. IMO Spears do need a little something. It's just that whatever they get will end up coming at the expense of aPK. With us, since Glory Bonus Points break all the other rules, players tend to use them to get skills to 20 quickly, or over 20 to eliminate fumbling and increase the chance of getting a critical; go for a trait bonus; up a passion; and to improve attributes for a damage boost or to counteract aging. So GBPs typically have a greater impact than just one more skill point. The current fad is to play a squire and try to get Sword and Horse to 20 before getting knighted. But that sort of stuff is always a tradeoff.

Yes , it's nice. I went with: But something like this: would look good too The mini seems alright (reduced size/resolution since I use a commercial mini for the base figure)

Actually the PKS were mounted as they were trying to exploit a breech in the wall, and the greatspear only partially negates the mounted advantage (the riders still get the +5 for being above). But one aspect of the PKS facing more than one footman (common) is that not only do the enemy get more attacks, but they tend to stick around longer, leader to even more attack. So if one opponent normally lasts one round and gets one chance to crtical, two opponents probably means two rounds of fighting with three chances of a critical. Where the enemy spearman survive or not doesn't matter. Where or not the PKs have to stick around to face him for another round does. While you are correct about players going into extend melee against higher tier enemies (more glory and ransom) they often have to go into extend to save other knights who were injured or unhorsed. So increasing the effectiveness of the spearmen increases the chances of a PK needing to be rescued, which increases the chance of extended melee and a second PK going down, etc.etc. This is made even more likely if the opponents are inspired-something that is more of a group problem in battles than in adventures. So it does exist in Battle as well as normal combat. Yeah, it one of the things about Pendragon that is simple but doesn't quite work. Sequencing when fighting mutiple foes. All the mlee damage comes in and goes out at once. By RAW, certainly, as spear doesn't get an advantage against mounted by raw, greatspear does. I'm less bothered by your mod here (spear +5 vs mounted, greatspear +5 vs mounted +1d6 damage). I'm more concerned about any sort of closing rule that extends the fighting by a round or two. And again, as I mentioned to Wolfspack Six, It's not that I'm against upgrading the spear, only that I believe a GM should be hesitant about changing things and carefully consider a rule change and it's pros and cons. Based upon previous experience I'd say you pass that litmus test! But I have seen a lot of GM houserule stuff that has come back to bite them, and it was usually by causing some sort of intended side effect. Yes, in real life a spear is actually a really good weapon. In most RPGs it's a lower tier weapon that loses out to other weapons. Yes BoB did. Frankly I never really like the rule in standard KAP. Wielder a lance in a charge shoudl probably be more difficult, not easier. That sounds good. I've been thinking of altering mount db to (STR+SIZ)/8, or just add +1 point per die to the knights' damage. So a typical knight would do 5d6+6 for a charger. The problem is one of those things that crept in over the years as PKs have gotten tougher in latter editions. Average SIZ has gone from 3d6 to 2d6+6 to 3d6+4 with starting knights going from having to work to get 4d6 to starting on the cusp of 5d6. I remember when starting with 5d6 damage was a big thing. The journey to 6d6 isn't what it used to be. Lance charges, by reaimaing the same, have suffered. Generally, yes. In play knights get to use sword a lot more than they tend to get a lance charge off. Compound this with the breakage rules and most PKs focus on Sword, so it tends to be significantly higher than lance. Most PKs would much rather go with the risk of increasing the opponent's critical than risk failure/fumble and the "loss" of their shield. Most of my players wouldn't. They are more afraid of taking a hit or a critical without their shield than taking a critical with one. This is partially due to the lower protection provided by armor in the early periods. With the average knight having 10 point armor, a lance charge has about a 50-50 chance of inflicting major wound to someone without a shield. Now, yes statically, a 30% of 12d6 (ave 42) vs 16 should be worse than a 24% chance of 6d6 (21) vs 10 with a 1% chance of 12d6 vs 10, but my players are more worried about death through failure (something they feel thay have some control over) vs. death by critical (which they view at out of their hands, even when it isn't). But then they are more likely to have Sword 23 and Lance 18, which alters the math somewhat.