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A good part of the difficulty is that not everyone has the same level of prior knowledge on any given topic, so it's not always easy to know if someone will be a spoiler for someone or not. Especially with something that has been around awhile. Films and TV are somewhat protected in that the specific story being told is secret and only known to the creators. But an RPG is more problematic. There is more communcation between the creators and the fanbase, and a greater overlap than with most other forms of creative expression, or hobbies. And things that have been around for years might be "new" to a player who hasn't been exposed to it before. I remember joining a D&D campaing where everyone was warning me about some new monster called Broo and quickly shocked everybody when I knew a lot about them. More than the GM. It seems the D&D players were not aware that Broo came from Glorantha or about an RPG called RuneQuest. I've gamed with people who would wistfully say that it was a shame that some popular setting or other didn't have an RPG, and then surprised them when I pulled out a long out of print RPG for that setting. I still run into gamers who are surprised than you can play a duck in RuneQuest. The big problem with spoilers and trying to self censor them is that It's difficult to tell if a given piece of advice is a spoiler or not. Really recent stuff, you can be confident about, but some bit of info that's been floating around for decades. might be news to somebody. So I think we just have to make an hoest effort and be tolerant of when someone lets the cat out of the bag-especially for the old stuff.

I'd say 10 (the qualifying amount) is the minimum for a competent young PK, but 15 is far more common, and makes a better example. The current generation of player characters started as squires and look to hit hit 20 before being knighted! Exactly. And that's why I'm hesitate about upping spears. If the PKS get bogged down for a round, that's another round where the GM can kill one with a critical.It's not much but it adds up. In my last session the PKS were assaulting a breech during a siege, and at one point had to face three greatspearmen each. Several PKS took crticals. Fortunately some of the PKS rolled crticals at the same time (scratch another greatspear), and others were able to take the relatively low 6d6 crtical damage. Were going through the MArch of Aruelius right now, with a lot of battles (Aurelius has been battle training his armor for the last 15 years) -almost as many as the Boy King Period. One thing we've realized is that with five PK in the players' eschille, they take a crtical from a NPK about once every four rounds. Highly skill/inspired opponents are worse, but in general, even against the dregs, there is still a 5% chance of a critand so the players can expect to take two or three crits in a battle, and similar results in skirmishes and adventures. So, depending on the size of my group, anything that give the opponents another round of battle essentially means a 20-30% chance of a PK taking a critical We've lost one or two to greatspearmen, and that's in a game where we've only lost six PKs in over a year of play. With one of those PKS being killed off retired in his 70s by the player, and two others victims at Long Knives. So that's about half of the legitimate combat casualties. Despite the fairly low fatality rate (we went from 510 to 557 without a PK death), major wounds have been common in the game, but I attribute much of that to the lower starting armor (8-10). Even now the best armor to be purchased is 11 point improved mail. I suspect some of the reduced mortiality rate is also due to a PKs getting the natural healer family characteristic and having a First Aid over 20. I think your houserules do change the math quite a bit though. Not that that is bad, just different. I agree that the PKS do need to think about being swarmed, although I disagree that the really become untouchable. Double teams and missile troops can bring them down to Earth (in more ways than one). Certinaly. And I'll also point out that I don't mind your houserule as much as some others. It helps the spearmen but doesn't shift things a lot. Yeah, most of my PKs do the same, although it does touch on another weapon that I think needs a little more love, the Lance. My players would much rather use sword. In old KAP chargers had higher damage stat (6d6) than the average knight (4d6). In KAP 5, chargers are still at 6d6, but the average knight is at 5d6 and powerful PKs can easily hit 6d6, negating the bonus from the horse. Combine this with the expense of quality horses and their short lifespan in KAP5, and Lance becomes pointless (sorry, sorry). The sword does almost as much or as much damage as the lance, doesn't break, and gets all the same benefits. I think that Lance and or the horse damage stat need to be revised, at at least the charge bonus more restrictive so that it favors lance.

It's anice shield, obviously made from Uther's. I kinda like the Red Wyveryn shield often attributed to Arthur too. I just started to introduce Heraldry in my campaign, and think I will give Aurelius the Red Welsh Dragon (which is from the story of Vortigern's tower, and often identified with Aurelius) on a White Field. Of course, like many rulers, he could have multiple coats of arms- Arthur has a half dozen denoting his status as High King, King of Logres, etc. We use paper minis printed on cardstock, and digitally edit the images with details like coat of arms to help customize them for given PKS and NPKs, and with the backup PKs members of the Princes' bodyguard, and a main PK currently serving as Uther's squire, I thought it was a good time to get custom minis for them.

But adding realism isn't necessarily an improvement. I'ts also a matter of degree. Why? Increasing the potential of killing to NPCs isn't an issue. You don't have to worry if the NPCs will bother to show up for the next game session. The players on the other hand, you have to make an effort to keep. RPGs aren't about being fair. IF GMs ran things "fair" the player characters would die off a lot faster, considering the sort of things they do. RPgs are intensitcally "unfair" but, unfair in the players favor in order to keep the game interesting. Yes, but that means that there is nothing wrong with a knigth using one, not that it is a weapon exclusive to knights. Spears were the most common weapon on the battlefield until the introduction of firearms. It's not a contest between the NPCs and the PCs. It's a game where the players get to play knights. If half the PCs and NPCs kill each other off every game session that is not "fair", that's trouble for the GM. I'm not asking you to change how you run or to not consider rule changes. What I am asking to to do is think about the effects of those rule changes and if they will actually improve the gaming experience or not. The goal of Pendragon isn't to be realsitic or simulate the real world -it is the play in an Arthurian world. Yup. The got a few other advantages, such as being able to break up a lance charge (horses are generally too smart to run into a spear point), are fast, don't need much space to operate, and can help to assist allies easier than most other weapons. THere is nothing wrong with thinking of new ideas orexploring possible rule changes. There is nothing wrong with There is nothing wrong with tinkering. There is something wrong with doing so without considering the consequences of doing so. A GM should always look at the pros and cons of any change they are considering. And not just your or mine but that of the players. You see if you up the capability of spears they are the ones who will suffer from it. Any NPCs the PCs will kill with spears would probably get killed by sword or axe, and besides the NPCs don't have to come back next game session. The players, on the other hand are a different story. You want them to come back and keep playing. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't change anything, but you should consider the pros and cons of doing so. As far as I can tell the big pro is to give more love to the spear at the risk of increased PK injury and death. Definitely, but that doesn't mean than any and every proposed change is necessarily an improvement. It you have the Book of Battle or the Book of Armies you will see a few times where Greg mentions combat tactics that he states were not detailed in the game, despite being historical, because they were the sort of thing that ended the knights dominance on the battlefield. Most of those things involve firearms, longbows, and/or spears. No. Verisimilitude is the willing suspension of disbelief. That is it is the ability of the audience to go along with something that they know isn't real because it seems or feels real enough to work for the story. And it can be, if realism is the goal. But Arthurian fiction isn't striving for realism. Now if you make spears, and thus footmen, better against horsemen, you will find that you players will soon be feeling realistically dead. And that's just it. Game reality isn't the same as actual reality. Thus a knight or horseback fighting righteously will defeat some dirty commoner wielding a spear. Yes, and those things are quite risky. What I'm trying to say is upping the risk might not be the best thing for your game. And if are things are not equal, if they are ordered to charge they should charge. Knights are expected to obey thier leige lord. Than 99% of liege lords are idiots. Look at medieval battles. Charging spearmen was a thing. Successfully doing it, less so. You mean insubordination, cowardice and treason? Much like with the example of the "peasants can be trusted to govern themselves" belief, chivalry is based upon obedience and a belief that knight will prevail if they are true enough. The French knights blamed their losses at Crecy and Agincourt on a lack of courage and chivalry rather than bad tactics. Yes I am expecting that, because that is what knights did and would do, and be obligated to do. It's not like they can avoid confronting spearmen. . Yes but it's not the same person doing it. It's another young knight who has every reason to do what all the other knights are expected to do. Okay, let's try mathematics and statistics. Under normal circumstances a NPC has a 5% chance of scoring a critical on any given round of fighting. It can be higher if the NPC has a very high skill or some good modfiers, but normally, assuming the NPC has a chance of success, there is a 5% chance of a critical. Critical hits do double damage and are thus far more likely to inflict a major wound or even kill a player knight. Most rank and file type footsoldiers only last a round or two in normal combat. Now if a GM introduces something that extends the fight just one more round, on average, that's significantly increases the amount of rolls that those NPCs get, and thus increases how dangerous they are. There isn't all that much the players can really do about it, either. The nature of the game limits their options, much of the time. Yes, except that in the real world things are not as cut and dried as in the game. Forinstance, is it better to wear an extra layer of mail or upgrade to partial plate? Does a facemask protect significant better than an open helm? It is worth going into debt to get armor that has a close fit? Now in real life those are things that aren't easily answered, but in the game players can work it out just by looking at the protection given. The same hold true with weapons. Is a 70 pound bow better than a 65 pound bow or a 60 pound bow. Possibly. But the differences might not be all that signficant in the real world. In game terms however it's all spelled out. Why does it have to be implemented across the board? Typically it wasn't. The rich and powerful usually get the good stuff before everyone else. GMing ins't about striking a fail balance between the PCs and the NPCs. The potential problem here is the possible escalation when characters start to stack armor to the point where armor wins the contest against weapons. Weapon damages only go up so high and new weapons only appear so quickly. But layering armor is easy. And generally was done. Yes it is.But the underlying reason as to why it might not be a good idea is relevant to this one.

No problem. By the way, you need milk.

It seems like a sound concept. RE: Fatigue Point I always thought the objection to Fatigue was the hassle of dealing with 1% incremental penalties to skills, not the Fatigue Points. I had considered just tracking the penalties in 10% increments at CON intervals. So every time a character accrued their CON in Fatigue they suffered another -10%.

Okay, now remember 4d6+10 isn't my doing, but what was in K&L and the GPC. 3d6+6 is the revised damages in Book Of Entourage. And 4d6+10 bothers me and seems to have bothered Greg based on a post he left on the old forum, and the revsion to 3d6+6 (almost indetial to the 5d6 in KAP4) Now what I've got in the works lines up with 3d6+6 or 5d6 for a longbow, maybe 3d6+9 or 6d6 for a very heavy one that only the strongest and best archers might be able to draw back (i.e. Robin Hood). And with that I'm suggesting dropping the damage down 3 points or 1 die per range band, which the game doesn't do now. So I don't think capping bow damage to the character's damage stat would lead to overpowered bows. It just keeps STR 4 granny from grabbing a Longbow.

But the more force behind an arrow the greater the lethality. Also, keep in mind that this isn't actually increasing the damage. As it stands now a longbow does 4d6+10 (K&L and GPC) or 3d6+6 (Entourage). That 7d6 and 5d6 respectively, which is going to take a character with a higher damage stat to be able to use in the firest place. Then, with damage dropping off over distance the net effect will be to actually reduce the lethality and of bows- unless the archer has a high damage stat, a high skill, a powerful bow, and is right on top of the opponent.

How do you think spears, swords and axes kill? Most deaths from battle injuries happen after the battle. Especially with the level of medical care available in Pendragon. But based on modern testing, a longbow arrow has more energy and a higher change of penetrating metal armor than most melee weapons, in large part becuase it it a piecing weapon instead of a cutting one.

Does anybody know if there is any desciption of what arms Aruelius bears upon his shield?I could see the two dragons that Uther later carries, or maybe a red dragon (the Cymric Dragon) per his Pendragon Banner. Anybody know if his arms are described somewhere?

LOL! I think I prefer the Book of the Warlord/Estate version, but IMO it doesn't really matter much, since that is all "above" the player characters, especially early on. Double so since (**spoiler**) all the nobles are going to die soon anyway. As GM you mostly get to decide how much the player knights get to rub elbows with anyone other than Count Roderick. So the political breakdown is only as important ans you want to make it. As vassal knights, they mostly have to go along with the Count. Later, as they get more experienced they might start to know stuff and be asked to give consul to the count of various matters, but new players will probably be kept busy figuring out the "roll high, but not too high" game mechanic. I'd advise that early on you should focus on the relationship with the Count. Especially if you and you players are new to Pendragon. Most players don't really understand how everything their knights have comes from their liege lords. I've got players who've played for years, and even they were not really aware of how it really worked, and were surprised by the problems they encounter when they fled into exile to avoid a king's wrath.

And I say that's bad for the game. Running Pendragon, or any RPG realstically will just kill off the player characters. All RPGs are biased to some extent in order to allow the player characters the ability to do what they do every session and survive. This is true in games, movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, etc. Run things realstically and the PCs go down just from the laws of probability. No, the spear is a common weapon. Knights use spear. Everybody does. It is the most common weapon on the battlefield. No if you make spears signficantly better then that increases the chances of PKs dropping to spear wielding opponents. Probably yes. Histroically knights didn't go for sowrds until spear was no longer a viable option. If you watch the fight between Lancelot and Arthur in Excalibur, you can see just how much of an advantage Lance had on horse with a spear. They are about as effective as most other 1H weapons, expect that they don't get and sort of special bonus. In game is really comes down more to the wielder's skill and damage stat. Someone with Spear (25) with Damage 7d6 is going to be quite effective, unless he ties with a sword. They are not modeled authentically/historically, and are not really intended to be. Pendragon isn't a historical game, but romantic one. Oh, I mean by the older definition of Romance as opposed to the modern (love story) definition. Let me try to explain this in another way. In the comic books, super strong characters sometimes fall from great heights and hit the ground, breaking the ground. This is realistic, even if you account for super strength, or bulletproof skin or the like. But in the world of super hero comics, that is how reality works. Now Pendragon is similar in that the rules are designed to mimic the reality of the setting, rather than actual reality. For instance, in the real world 5% or so of the enemy on the battlefield don't flip out and go insane because of a hate passion when on the battlefield. But rules like that are in the game to reflect how things work in the setting. Greg put in a bit from in Malory, that shows the idea of commoners ruling themselves is bad and leads to evil things. Obviously this isn't historically accurate (we hope), and simily a case of medieval bias on the part of Malory. But it does illustrate how the game reality different for actual reality. Would they? How? And what makes you think they'd be allowed to? When their liege lord says "Charge!" they are expected to charge. Look at World War I. Armies took hooredous casualties because they didn't adapt (and didn't want to adapt) to the changes to warfare brought about by weapons such as the machine gun. Would wiping out the PKS on a regular basis kill off a campaign? Probably. That's why you need to be careful with any improvements -especially to weapons that are going to be used against the PKS a lot. Yes it does. But: The jupon is pretty light, and appears to have been well worth the trade off The DEX penalty in game isn't much of a penalty. Let me explain that. Players generally try to avoid failing. To that end, they avoid making rolls that they have low rating in, as low rating means a greater chance of failure. Now the average DEX in the game is about 10-12, and the DEX penalty for mail armor is -10. So, by the time a knight is in mail, his DEX penalty has either already "zerod out" his DEX or reduced to so low that it might as well be zero. Armored knight in Pendragon do do much jumping. BTW, this is one of those unrealistic things I think does need to be addressed, you can actually do backflips and such in armor. But anyway in the game once your DEX is at zero then it doesn't matter how big the penalty gets. So the penalty becomes a non-penalty. It's like if you forgot your wallet you usually really care which pair of paints you left it in at home.I think the DEX penalty needs to be revised to make it an actual penalty that matters. The way it works now, knights have every incentive to tack on more weight and increase the penalty, since their DEX is already 0. I've got an idea of how to do that, but I'll save it for another thread. No it doesn't last long, but it might last "long enough in game". Chances are, in any Period of the game, if the GM offers the players a chance to increase their armor protection by 1 point by paying double what their current armor costs, they will do it. In fact, they have already done it. A couple of my PKs got some Cataphracti armor (12 point Light Scale) while abroad and everyone else has been hunting for more ever since. One PK just spent around £100 to get some light barding for his Byzantine charger. In game terms it's worth it. In real life, maybe not. I like the options and being able to customize a suit of armor (heck, I'm the one who started writing up the rules to do so, so I obviously liked the idea), but I can see my players just trying to max out their armor all the time. So if I introduce Double Mail at 12 points in the Boy King Period, all my players will upgrade, even if Reinforced Mail is right around the corner. Likewise if I introduce a Jupon (+1) to wear over armor, all the players will do so and keep doing so until there is a reason to stop. So far the Facemask that comes with the Light Scale has worked as far as a deterrent. I ruled that the armor was 11 point, 12 with the mask, but that the mask imposes a -3 to Awareness, so the players are always a bit conflicted about using it. Now this is a thing because I started my campaign early (410) and am up to 467, with Improved Mail (11 point) just starting to show up. But my players will spend a lot for an extra point of armor.

Yeah, but keep in mind that by RAW no one takes damage (or, by the GPC, both take 1d3) on a critical, so in a normal game at high skills ratings swords start breaking non swords left and right. Now thats an Idea. In my campaign I use spear for 1H spear and Greatspear for 2H spear (per boarspear). But I could definitely see the Pike getting an extra die damage like the other 2H weapons. .

A bit of an over generalization there. It actually depends on the kind of armor and the weapon. But in general not much will get through a good set of plate. That's why knights wore it, and also why men fighting knights attacked the joints and other weak points. I don't think we need to worry about nerfing sword, it's by far the best weapon in the game. Okay. Just making sure. In that case my only objection is to the term "point blank". It's both inaccurate and anachronistic, referring to how far a projectile from a cannon before you have to account for drop. I'll try to find a term more something more "archery appropriate" That is precisely how I'd do it. For several reasons, including keeping the formula simpler, and not having to redo the formula on the tables (not that the latter would take long). Maybe give the archer a +5 up close, too.

No to represent the fact that it actually takes time for archers to develop the particular sets of muscles and techniques requires to draw back (and hold back) a heavy bow. In real life someone doesn't just pick up a 70 pound bow, but instead starts with a 25-30 pound bow and works up from there. A few years back, when the reproductions of the Mary Rose bows were built and discovered to have draw weights in thr 100-185 pound range, pretty much nobody could draw them back, and no one could do it repeatedly. Now there are a few guys who can do it. No, but an arrow fired from a bow should.

You're welcome, it's what we're here for.

No, it's actually a bit larger than the norm. Salisbury is actually on par with some Dukes and even King Cadwy, becuase Salsubry is a fertile plain. Roderick has about 14 eschilles (units) of knights under his command which vary from around 5-10 knights each over the course of the campaign. The way it works out is that each manor in a holding produces about £10 for the knight holding it (it produces more to feed the peasants, pay taxes run the courts and so on) is expected to support one knight and two footmen for the liege lords army (plus a third footman for the king, but we don't need to worry about him). In Uther's time the entire army of Logres is around 2600 knight, and if I recall correctly, that's about a third of the knights in Britain. Yes, because 80% of the knights are going to be "household" knights. It might be worth mentioning that a good portion of these are probably younger sons of vassal knights, especially second sons.

Okay, here is roughly how things work. A liege lord has to keep around 80% of his manors in order to keep all the glory and status associated with his title. So if a Early has 75 knights, then 60 of them would be "household knights" (more of that later) and the remaining 15 would be landed knights with their own manors. That 15 is sort of the upper limit to landed knights. At any given time he might have fewer landed knights, due to knights dying without a male heir. Now back to those household knights. All 60 are not following the Count/Earl around all the time. For both logistical reasons (mouths to feed) and for security, these knights will often be assigned duties away from the Earl such as border patrol, garrisoning a fort or castle, or even overseeing one of the many manors that comprise the Earl's personal holding. With only 15 or so manors to "give away" it is unlikely that Count Roderick would have any bannerets, as just one would gobble up the majority of the available manors that could be used to reward loyal household knights. It comes down to if it is better for the Liege to make one knight extremely happy or a dozen knights very happy. Plus a bannerte knight (or estate holder in latter books) would be one of the most powerful men in the county, and thus the Count would need to be esecpially sure of his loyalty. If there were any banneretts in the county, then their knights would be counted as part of the army. Basically that's the whole point of having vassal knights-they are part of your army. Note also that depending on the book, and what Peroid you are in the number of manors and knights has changed somewhat, but usually falls between 75-150. Some of this was due to some rethinking spawned by better economic models in latter supplements, and the rest due to the population increasing over time, leading to more serfs available to work more land. That's a quick overview of this. Basically, just being a landed knight is a big deal, and being able to pass a manor down to a son is an even bigger deal. The landed knight is essentially set for life-as long as his liege lord is still around. Which is/was the whole point.

So you nerf it so that the most common weapon of the battlefield doesn't show up anymore? First off that goes against your '"more realism" reason for improving spears, and secondly if you what the point of upping the spear if it's not going to be used? So the'd let the riff raff get battle axes, maces and swords instead. Weapons which were better at hurting armored opponents, and which cost a whole lot more? Spears were common because they were cheap, easy to make, effective, and didn't have much of a learning curve. When used effectively by disciplined troops spears and stop cavalry charges, and for a long time dominated the battlefield. It's still in use by soldiers today in the form of the bayonet. That's because it works. Exactly. And it goes beyond weapons but to any kind of rule change. In my experience, house rules have unintended consequences, and most tend to cause worse issues than the things they were created to fix. So a GM should be careful. Also, changes made mid-campaign are especially dangerous, as the players can only react to them after the fact. If spearmen suddenly become highly effective it's not just going to make things tougher for the players, it will probably kill off several of them. This in a game where characters do not bounce back from the dead. I'll give you an example from my current campaign. I've been working on some rules for introducing new types of armor and allow people to built suits of armor from pieces. What I've got so far mostly works and I'm tweaking the numbers here and there to get values that seem right, and it's mostly going on good, but... ...players being players and RPGs being RPGs, everybody is going to jump on every potential incremental improvement owner one shows up. In real life this would be less of an issue as marginal improvements are not as concrete and dependable as game stats. Barring special weapon bonuses, 13 point armor, in the game, is always better than 12 point armor, and it always stops 1 more point of damage. Now since in real life most armors could be, and generally were layered, it is quite possible to wear some extra mail, or padding with a full suit of armor for added protection. That's not just gaming, knights actually did that sort of thing in real life. So if I introduce a Jupon, or a double mail hauberk, I know every player character is going to spend the money to get one if they can, because in the logic of the game, it makes total sense to do so. This means that either everyone ends up with an extra point of armor, or the improvement doesn't last long and gets replaced by something better (partial plate), or I don't bother introducing the Jupon in the first place. So, any new bits of armor I do introduce, will need to be integrated with the existing one is such a way as to blend in and not cause armor escalation. That's a lot easier with some things (like proofed armor) than with others (a simple Jupon).

I'm not so sure. Generally arrow do better than swords against armor. Plus I think a STR+Skill of 33 for a longbow (5d6 or 3d6+6) might be too high. I'd be much more inclined to agree if we adding another range band, and dropped off damage dice over distance.

Yeah,m it's both a matter of indiviual taste/chhoice and of tailoring the system to fit the setting. It depends on the tweaking. Making spear better against knights is very dangerous because: Its the most common weapon for footmen to use. Greatspears and Halbards are already the best weapons for footmen to wield against mounted opponents. An effective use of those weapons, combined with decent missile troops is what lead to the downfall of the knight. For several reasons: First off it might help to contribute to setting. It will help with certiain non-knight player characters in my current campaign. It could porve useful in other setting using the same basic game mechanics. Keep in mind that I typed that a GM should hesitate before making changes, not that a GM should't explore alternatives or consider changing things. Greg himself tinkered with stuff all the time. Perhaps a bit too much. Some of the discrepancies between supplements are due to ideas that either didn't pan out or were improved upon later. Pendragon is and hopefully will continue to be an evolving, growing game. But that grow and change should be carefully considered, and the pros and cons tallied up. For instance, using my Bow thread as an example, would the game really benefit from a table that gave different damage and range stats for bows and crossbows by draw weight in 10% increments. Or would we be better off with a handful of three to five examples. Maybe add in a lighter or heavier bow or two? I've got some notes for more horse breeds, horse training, and expanded armors, with some new and alternate ideas but I won't throw them all into my ongoing campaign anytime soon. I'll test out some stuff, see what works, revise it, maybe even post something here or send it in for a supplement.

It has been used in other settings. It's just that normally such stuff is of what used to be termed "direct to video" quality. King Arthur doesn't tend to do all that well in film. There are some good films, but a lot more bad ones.

I have some houserules for wielding two weapons and let the quarterstaff benefit from that.

Sort of makes sense. Every other two handed weapon does an extra d6. I'd be inclided to let spears vs. calvary use the oppoent's mount's damage stat. Yeah, or even if the warrior with the spear is useing a shield (loss of reach). Wouldn't it be easier to just use the t eh actual die result (19 and 13) to determine ties. That makes sense if skills get that high. Fortunately, I've manged to murder off the PKs, keep the skill scores from getting that high. Seriously, weapon skills in the 30s are much more of a thing in KAP5 than before. Probably due to the removal of the requirements to getting knighted that existed in previous editions. In the old days a good percentage of character had to spend several years to get the skill and Loyalty (Lord) scores to acceptable levels.

And that's prefectly fine. My point is that much of the unrealstic stuff in the game works that way deliberately. and that any changes should be considered. Note that back when we went down this path, I said a Gm should be hesitant to change things. Not that a GM shouldn't change things. Greater realism isn't always a good thing. It dpends upon what the goals are. Yup. No but the fact that plate armor rarely stops bullets does mean that. It is. And that's why GMs should stop and think about what they are trying to do and why before they actually do it. Sorry but your understanding is wrong. The setting is Arthurian. It's not really Dark Ages, Medieval or historical. The game pretty much rejects a lot of actual history in favor of the HRB. I think the key thing here is when you mentioned that you "were not particular ed to the genre". The thing is the majority of Pendragon GMs and players are. They expect and want Pendragon to be about King Arthur and his knights and have chivalry and all that sort of stuff, and that is more important that realism.It's a romanticized setting not a realistic one. Now coming up with rule changes, alternate concepts, setting, and all that is just great, but a GM should always be hesitant about changing anything as the end results could do more harm than good. It's much easier to mess a campaign up than it is to fix one after it's been messed up .This is especially true in a generational game like Pendragon, where the campaign is going to run for several years Player Knights have to live long earn stuff and sire a heir to pass it down to or the game loses a lot.