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That's fine in that context. But Chelegagne, the forthcoming Ancient Greece Game and forthcoming Samurai game are not Pendragon or suppsed ot be. They are other games based on the Pendragon game mechanics. Some of us have tossed around the idea of using Pendragon for a Robin Hood tpye of RPG, and adapting the rules towards that purpose. But the point is that the rules are being addapted to the setting/genre to be played, whatever it might happen to be. Not alterting Pendragon isself to make it more reasltic. It doesn't make the rules any more realistic. In fact it does the opposite. What the GPC does, combat wise, is to give the game an entirely unrealistically accelerated progression of weapons technology. It essentially condense around 500 years of weapons and armor tech into 50 years, all well before it would have actually happened. It does so since, King Arthur historians and artists in the Middle Ages tended to depict Arthur and his knights with the arms and armor of the day. Thus the Knights of the round table are riding around on unrealistically big horses capable of supporting knights in unrealistically advanced full plate armor nearly a thousand year before it could have occurred. It's not realistic at all. Even the alterations required by the newer weapons aren't all that realistic. Longbows were not super weapons that pieced plate armor as easy as in the GPC, and plate was actually made that was bullet proof yet that isn't realistically represented in the GPC. The GPC isn't about realism, it about story, setting and genre. Realism, such as it exists in the GPC, does so only to help reinforce the setting and focus of the game. Yes, that is what it is, and what any addition or change to it should remain loyal to. At least as long as it is going to remain Pendragon. I someone wants to adapt the game for another setting, then the priories change. If someone were to use it for Robin Hood, or the Knights Templar, Camelot 3000, a Superhero RPG, or Star Wars, then the rules would need to be adapted.for the setting. That's all good. But any rules for an alternate setting really should be noted as such, and not necessarily ported back to the core setting.

It doesn't rock the boat, more like it misses the boat. I think the +1d6 vs leather, combined with the two handed weapon bonus is overkill, since the guys wearing leather are probably going down pretty quickly anyway. I can't really see a reason for someone to prefer that over some other weapon that gets a bonus that would be more useful. Now if Brigadine counted as a form of leather it would be more useful. I agree it should get the foot vs. mounted bonus, and probably a hook with a bonus to pulling someone down from horseback. Not sure how to implement the latter but it was certainly a thing with such weapons.

It's a tough problem to crack without cauing othe rproblems. I'd say they are about equally unlikely. Medieval (and modern weapons) did and do break but not quite so often as in game. The fumble rule is fairly easy to get around too, just get your skill to 20 or better. THe tie rule isn't. The really sticking point to me is that a crticals are 20s so the chance of a tie increases at higher skill levels. That was like I kinda like either saying that it has to be a natural tie (like with the fail on a 1), or the weapon Quality/saving throw idea, where the weapon breaking isn't automatic. You should hesitate. The idea is to simulate the world of Arthurian literature, not the real world. Quite a few of the KAP rules do not make sense to me, at least as far a how things actually work, or how the dark ages really were. But those rules make sense to me in the context of the game. The whole knight bias runes deep throughout the game. If someone rewrote the game to make it more realistic it would greatly alter the play style and tone of the game. Try experimenting with a shilitron, swiss pikemen, or longbowmen/arquebusers/arbaliisters screened by men with greatspears or halbards and see how quickly knights become not worth the trouble. It's more accurate, but it would completely ruin the tone and style of the game.

It's certainly a major point, and in reality a telling one. Check out Lindybeige's vidoes on Spear vs. Sword on youtube to get an idea of just how much of an advatage a spear really has. But in the game the spear ends up being the worst weapon. It has no special benefit like the other weapons do. Yes, the dagger is worse, at -1d6, but at least the dagger has the benefit of being ubiquitous. The fighting defensively thing is a neat theory but in practice I think it would just bog the game down for a round. It not hard to beat most spearmen if you have a +10. It's ridiculously easy at +15 (defensive & mounted). I'd say for the closing requirement to be viable in game, the guy without a spear shouldn't be able to get the +10. Something like the withdraw from combat tactic might mirror it better. More the non-durability of other weapons. It's the "sword breaks non sword on a tie" that really kills the other weapons, especially as characters get better. The higher the skill, the greater the chance of your weapon breaking on a tied critical. Go for it. Half the good ideas around here and more than half of the interesting ones, come from tangents. Honest, I don't buy swords breaking other weapons. It just doesn't happen all that much in real life. At least not much more often than swords themselves breaking. Hitting metal with a long lever isn't usually all that good for the long lever. Khanwulf an I have toyed around with the idea adapting the Weapon Quality rules from Harn, and I even got some rules for it somewhere, but I'm not sure if it is worth the trouble. The game's sword bias is deliberate and is one of several ways the system is biased towards the player knights. If GMs started to do things to "fix" that, the game would become that much tougher for the players.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. The original company could/would protect the rights to their product. In addition, Mongoose no longer has the rights to Elric or any of the other Eternal Champion characters and can't sell pdfs of the old Strombringer line. If they could, they would probably have made the PDFs available long ago. That's one of the drawback to a licensed product line. All anyone can do, legally, is sell any back stock they may or may not have, at whatever price they can get for it and feel comfortable accepting. You can probably find a copy on EBay or some online story that specializes in out of print stock, but the prices for stuff that way can get absurd.

Yes, but only on a charge, and not all the time (At least not in the Book of Battle, personally I'm all for stacking the charge bonus for opposing horsemen). In the game anyway. Everything else has tradeoffs. The spear gets shortchanged though, unlike every other combat weapon it doesn't have any sort of perk. Maybe it should get something, say +2 vs. mounted?

Well, there is also that this is a game about knights and so it's probably not going to matter for most games. That and the fact that it's only 466 AD. No warbows yet, and no imported Yew to allow for warbow performance. But otherwise, yeah, she should be limited more by the limits of what the bowyers can make. Still, once Aurelius becomes High King and secures Britain (spoliers!), he will reward the character with a somewhat more powerful composite bow. It is saying exaclty that. Bows allow characters to sidestep thier Damage stat. For characters where combat glory isn't a major goal, this can lead to some sillyness, such as ladies porting around arbalests. Yup, plus the needs/uses for the bow. When bows were primairly hunting weapons, they didn't need massive draw weights or range. When they were primary battlefield weapons then they did need heavier draw weights. Maybe. But keep in mind that skill progression slows down past 15. After that it doesn't improve much faster than STR. Good point. As I've got the table statted out now, which is still subject to change as I read up more on the subject, a little old lady with STR 4 could wield a 185 pound warbow, if she had skill 24. That's probably high enough to make it a non-starter, but...capping the skill bonus to STR would seem sensible to me. So little old lady with STR 4 would be limited to a STR 8 (28 lb) bow. Yeah, I've been thinking about SIZ being a factor, at least with longbows. There were reasons why a longbow wasn't (much) longer that the archer was tall. Someone 4' tall would have difficulties with a 6' longbow, and probably couldn't draw it back all the way. Maybe something like: Damage based upon the bow using STR+Skill, but cannot be higher than normal damage stat. So to draw back a heavy warbow that did 5d6 or 6d6 damage a character will need to have a high damage stat (STR+SIZ) and a high skill.

Perhaps, I'm fond of STR+Skill, since it people have to work their way up to more powerful bows. For istance peopel today migth stand with a 25 pound bow and work up to a 50 or 70 pound bow over time as they get experience and build up the muscles needed for archery. There are some skeletons of medival archers and thier bodies didn't developenormally. Adds on any weapon don't make sense to me, even the ones for crossbows Yeah, it matched up better with how bows were used. I could possibly see give an increase to damage at very shot range, too. Of course most of this is probably too detailed for standard KAP, as it would never come up. Maybe helpful for a Robin Hood type of campaign though. I only started putting some real though to it when somebody decided to buy a scorpion to take with him on a Griffin hunt. And then again when a player running a skjaldmaer got a hold of a composite bow,, Between the bow, the wotanic religious bonus and the mark of the hammer she is a considerable threat at range.

Quite a lot of the stuff on username's document are things he made up- not that that is a bad thing, just that a lot of it is house ruled stuff. Yeah, it is the one with the infamous compound bow. I think a lot of the KAP 5 books needed to be better edited. The original KAP5 book is probably the worst Pendragon book ever. The editor didn't seem to understand the game and messed up the glory rules, and a bunch of other stuff. Lets see.. officially: Sword (breaks no swords on a tie, dropped on a fumble) also Gladius and probably Long Knife and Scimitar Axe (shields protect 1d6 against, breaks on a fumble) , Mace (+1d6 vs opponents in mail, breaks on a fumble) Club (from the GPC, as mace but without the extra d6 against mail) Dagger (-1d6, breaks on a fumble) Spear (Breaks on a fumble) Lance (does horse damage on a charge, used for horseback, breaks on a fumble and on odd damage roll) Great Lance/Kontos (does horse damage +1d6 on a charge, used for horseback, two handed, breaks on a fumble and on odd damage roll) Greatspear (negates the penalty for attacking a higher opponent, breaks on a fumble, two handed) Boarspear (greatspear with a crossbar to hold off prey, breaks on a fumble) Greatsword (+1d6 damage, breaks non-swords on a tie, dropped on a fumble, two handed) Greataxe (+1d6 damage,shields protect 1d6 against,,breaks on a fumble, two handed) Morning Star/Great Mace (+1d6 damage,+1d6 vs opponents in mail, breaks on a fumble, two handed) Flail (ignores shields, +1d6 damage vs opponents in mail, breaks on a fumble, hits wielder on a natural 1) Halberd/Croiseach (+1d6 damage, negates the penalty for attacking a higher opponent, breaks on a fumble, two handed) (Military) Hammer (+1d6 damage vs any plate, breaks on a fumble) Warflail ( ignores shields+1d6 damage, , +1d6 damage vs opponents in mail, breaks on a fumble, hits wielder on a natural 1, two handed) Tool/2H Hoe, shovel rake, Ccythe, Axe or Hammer (normal damage, breaks on a fumble) Javelin/Dart (-2d6 damage, range 30) Heavy Javelin (-2d6 damage then add 3, range isn't given but not more than a javelin.) Bow (3d6 damage, range 150) Composite Bow [there were no compound bows in the 5th and 6th centuries!]( Damage 3d6+8 in K&L range 180, but based on how Longbow was scaled down in Book of Entourage I'd suggest scaling this down to 3d6+3 damage) Longbow (4d6+10 damage in K&L, later reduced to 3d6+6 in Book of Entourage, range 300) Light Crossbow (1d6+10 damage, range 150 , 1 shot per round) Medium Crossbow (1d6+13 damage, range 200 , 1 shot per 2 rounds) Heavy Crossbow (1d6+16 damage, range 250 , 1 shot per 4 rounds) Arbalest (1d6+20 damage in GPC, range 250, 1 shot per 5 rounds) Ballista (8d6 damage, range and reloading time not given) Arquebus (3d6+10 damage in the GPC, range not given rate of fire not given) I think that covers everything that's officially in KAP5. A couple of weapons, such as rocks, big ol' two handed club, sling, scimitar, cane, and long knives are hard to nail down exactly due to limited info on the wielders damage stat. Several of us have added an extra weapon or three to that list, filled in some missing stats

That bring us up to four. Four and a half if I add in my email. Of coruse it is the weekend. I suspect that is is, it's just that the steps between the bow seem odd. Per K&L Bow: Damage 3d6, Range 150 yard "Compound" Bow: Damage 3d6+8, Range 180 yards Longbow: Damage 4d6+10 (later reduced to 3d6+6), Range 300 yards Considering where the "Compound" (Composite) bow lies in terms of damage, I'd have expected it range to be around 250-270 yards. Maybe Username is onto something with the idea that the range might have been reduced for horseback? I do. Admittly it's becuase of reral world phycis but the only way this works out realisitcally if is the composite bow is fairly weak and firing a much heavier arrow than the two other bows. It seems logical if we expand bows beyond bows and crossbows listed. It also helps to ensure that weak characters don't just grab the biggest bow they can find. Admittedly the stigma and lower glory associated with missile weapons keep this from being a problem with PKS. Because STR is already factored into the effectiveness of other weapons, along with SIZ. With a bow the user is limited to some extent by the draw weight of the bow. A giant with a STR of 25 is only going to be able to get so much damage out of a 30 pound bow. Conversely a STR 5 character probably shouldn't be able to pick up a longbow and do 4d6+10 (or 3d6+6) with it.

Well...it's a little more complicated than that, but not much. In the real world archers have to practice to build up the particular muscles required to draw back a heavy bow. So I was thinking of using a STR+Skill requirement. That way archers could move up to heavier bows as they got more experienced, much like in real life. So, an archer who got older could, in theroy, offset a loss of STR will skill. At least up to a point. For example, I was putting a 185# longbow at around STR+Skill 28. No they aren't. The Steppe Pony is slower than a Charger. Not a lot slower, but still, slower. But, if the archer is trying to shoot, the knight should be closing. At least until his horse gets shot out from under him. Not really. For starters that flat featureless plane with all that room to maneuver probably doesn't exist. THat's kind of why horse archers are so overpowered in RPGs. They can just drop back an infite distance and keep shooting. Realsitically terrian limits thier mobiliy, and retreating just causes them to leave the battlefield. The Battle of Chalons is a good example. Then there is the matter of how many arrows the archer has on hand, and that once they run out he is useless as an archer. The lower range of 60/120/180 is still more that twice the distance a knight can charge, at minimum, so it's a non-penalty. Now in a battle, using one of the battle systems for Pendragon, the range advantage is pretty much non-existent since it's assumed that the knight can fight back. This makes sense historically as knights aren't all that vulnerable to arrows at a distance. I think there are a couple of better ways to reflect that. The first would be a peanlty for firing at a gallop, and the second would be to drop damage dice at range. An arrow at 100 yards isn't moving as fast as it was at 10 yards, and is less likely to get through armor.

From what I've been reading pretty much all archers fought at closer ranges. Arrow won't penetrate armor at long range.The fights where archers are firing at foes hundred of yards away are usually instances of massed fire against lightly armored opponents. No there isn't. I was thinking of giving Bows a STR (or STR+skill) requirement. Being mounted could raise the requirement, as it is harder to draw back the bow and hold it steady while mounted, and this in turn could force archers into useing less powerful bows from horseback. But..it doesn't really apply here. Are you suggesting that mounted troops range would be reduced somewhat? say 25% or so? We could, but I think it would be unfair/unjustifed to single out horse archers when Saxons can weild great axes from horseback. There are peanlties for moving targets. Mostly due to Pony Defense. Horse archers tend to be very powerful in RPGs, more so that they were in reality, due to a lot of little things that don't translate well in game terms. Logistics for one thing- those arrows don't last very long.

I know. I said, it might be entertaining, it wasn't. At least not beyond the initial idea. In a RPG it's even worse. You have a group of PCs running amok until they either get bored of it all, or the government pulls out something powerful enough to defeat them, probably fairly quickly. I disagree, somewhat. It's the powers that make him interesting. If he didn't have them he wouldn't be all that interesting or popular. That's why there are tons of Superman stories. If it were his humanity, some real world humanitarian would be an entertainment sensation. The humanity bit was added over time as the character evolved. Superman didn't even consider himself "human" until the 80s reboot. Prior to that he was a Kryptonian who lived among humans. But the powers alone won't keep the character interesting. Thats where stories, conflicts and challenges come in. It's the hero's moral code, and willingness to risk life and limb to back it up that keeps the readers involves and the character entertaining. In fact, most of the good stories present problmes that the hero cannot easily solve with his powers. At least not anymore. Early Superman did do that, but at that time the novelty of the character kept him interesting. If character with superpowers can just go out and do what he wants the story shifts into just how it alters the status quo and if something will stop the character. But that's a difficult sort of adventure to RPG, since it will mostly be a series of surprises.

Yes there are but not in Pendragon. Wind on the Steppes for BRP (and other RPGs) did that for Mongols. Typically people can't draw back as powerful a bow while on horse. But in Pendragon there is only one Composite Bow, actually K&L lists a "compound bow" but that was a obvious oops, unless the Huns were more advanced than we thought. . My problem, is that the game list the ranges as Bow 150 yards, Compound (sic) Bow 180 yards, Longbow 300 yards. Now with the sufficiency of bows, a composite bow of a given draw weight should shoot further than a self bow or long bow. I can see the 300 yard range of the longbow as being a 150+ pound bow, and the damages listed for the weapon compared to the other bows support this-even after being adjusted in Book on Entourage. But considering that the composite bow does more damage than a common bow, it would probably have a greater range than it does, due to it's greater efficiency. About the only way the listed stats would makes sense would be if the Huns were using a very heavy war arrow-something heavier than expected for the draw weight.

Yes somewhat. There is also the fact that things in the comics don't work quite the way they do in the real wolrd. For instance, with one notable exception, catching someone while the are falling saves them. Realstically Lois Lane should have died from the impact of being caught by Superman many times over. Somewhat, although the Superworld boxed set did make combat much less lethal than standard BRP. Injuries that might knock a person unconscious in Superwould would probably kill them in BRP. Or more likely that the laws of physics don't quite work the same way. Dc has acknowledged that with stuff like the "Speedforce" that can be used to justify most of the reality defying stuff their super speeders do. It's a part of accepting all super heroes to some extent-even with accepting fictional non-super heroes. The readers/audience have to make some allowances just for the characters to exist and do what they do. Maybe, but I think it would be a challenging game to run. The GM would have to work out just what laws of physics to ignore or tone down and when, and then get the players to understand it well enough so that everyone is one the same page. A player might not be happy with his character taking off into he air and accidentally going supersonic and knocking out all the windows in the city. The Wild Cards series, at times, touched on how Superpowers could actually work if they had to obey the laws of physics. Things like inertia and conservation of momentum cause cause some surprises. Comics have long toyed with the concept of heroes being a real or potential menace. I'm not sure that it's a great approach for a RPG group though. Without some sort of goals, purpose and morality I think the players would be lost for things to do, and the game would devolve to a sort of superpowered tyrants battling for control. It might be interesting, but probably not along lasting campaign. It's like how amovie about a bad superman might be entertaining as a horror film and as a concept, but probably wouldn't be all that great to play as an RPG.

That shouldn't affect the range though. Possibly the accuracy, but not the range. At least not negatively. The added height might improve the range slightly, but probably not significantly. There are three range bands in K&L. Short, Medium (-5) and Long (-10) per K&L p. 118. No, I don't think you are. Pendragon tends to ignore such thing as they would work against knights. In RuneQuest most skilled while mounted are capped at a character Ride skill. This requires characters have a high ride to be effective on horseback. But, if Pendragon did something like that, the mounted bonus would mean less. Thanks for the thoughts. Any speculation helps.

Okay, will do. I just registered for the free version, and am trying to figure out how to do some stuff. I'm really interested in finding something to track the various NPCs I've introduced as well as possible handle the player knights manors and wealth.

How is Kanka? I've been looking for some way to help me track all the various NPCs that come up over the years, but not sure what works out best as far as work required to set up vs. the utility.

That's a good sign. I'll cross another pair of fingers.

I've been working on some sort of unified system for bows and crossbows that rates bows by draw weight according to Strength and so forth. The idea would be to allow for more variance in bow and crossbow ranges and damages. One thing I can't figure out is why the "compound" (i.e. composite or reflex) bow in K&L has such poor range compared to the longbow. It doesn't work that way in the real world. Is this a British bias, or some other factor at work? The fact that Greg misidentified composite bows (the types of bows constructed by the Huns in the game) as compound bows (a modern invention that Attila would have given a kingdom for) raise some more doubts about the comp bow stats. Basically it really looks like the composite bow listed in K&L about the same draw weight as a typical bow. The range stats match up for that. Now I realize that bows are non-knightly and that few players are going to care all that much until/unless their knights are on the receiving end of high powered missile weapons, but does anybody have an idea why the comp bow ranges are so low?

I'll keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately Arthurian movies usually aren't very good. Monty Python and the Holy Grail is probably one of the top five Arthurian films despite being a comedy.

That's probably true with any unorthodox player character in any RPG. Making sure that everyone is on the same page and what their expectations are, and if they are viable for the game.

In my current campaign I have a female player, and I had a talk with her beforehand to make sure she understood the focus and limitations of the setting. She did have to play a male knight, but we could open things up a bit with backup characters. That's who the shieldmaiden character happened. Later on she might run a girl disguised as a boy to try and keep the family manor. So there are possibilities but they take a little more work. Especially if trying to remain true to the setting.

Credit that to Greg. It's in some of the older KAP stuff. I also tend to use madness to help discoruage frivousl passion rolls. My reasoning is someone who goes made over a frivolous thing is probably on shakier mental ground to begin with. Yes, she isn't the most forgiving. Still, she's not the evil villain you see in modern retellings.

LOL! Do worry, it orongally was how I remembered my PINN number for my ATM card (back when they had 3 digits). I've kept it as a ID because it is usally unique, as opposed to something like Steve#1147 or Fred#921 Yeah, although it isn't entirely on your behalf. The situation could come up in other games, including my own, and some of us have been kicking around ideas on how to improve the situation for female characters. I we can figure out a way to adjust a the feast cards it would help. And if I look at it now, I won't have to do so in a panic, on the fly, during an acutal game session. Yeah, but unless you are printing all your own cards you need to make any new cards blend in with the existing ones. IMO it would be much easier to try and minimize the changes to try and keep it all as compatible as possible with the existing text.. I'm much easier to keep a cheat sheet with alterate rules for a half dozen cards than to try and print up a whole new deck or to introduce 20 or so female specific cards. As a off the head rule, I'd say if you can't make sesne of the card for a female character, let the player draw a new one. Somewhat. Arthurian literature is what it is. It was never supposed to be a modern setting fair to everyone with gender equality and freedom of religion and such. It a mythical, sprobably fedual setting that is patriarchal. It's King Arthur Pendragon, not Freely Elected Governor Arthur Pendragon, And that's fine. It's a game and no one actually thinks socieity shoudl work this way, anymore than D&D players think that everyone should walk around carrying a sword. GMs and players need to accept the setting for what it is. The game might not be the right fit for all groups or all players. And that's not just a gender thing. The game greatest strength is also it's greatest drawback-it's all about knights. Anything else is going to need extra attention to make it work. In my current campaign one of the players is running a Saxon Shieldmaiden and I had to make some adjustments to keep the character interesting and relevant in a world of knights. Last session everyone discovered just how useful the Wotanic relgios bonus (+1d6 damage), mark of the hammer (+2 damage), can be a sea with a Composite Bow( 3d6+3 damage), especially when none of the knights have bothered to learn how to use a missle weapon. But the Shield maiden is a backup to the character's main character, who is a squire, and she also has a knight character as well. So I've got options when working up adventures to keep her involved and interested. The seems basically sound. The key sticking point is as Morien already mentioned, combat. Knights tend to deal with alot of situations through might of arms, and that doesn't give the lady much to do. Now that is alright, as long as they player has something to do during the session and if the fights aren't too long. What you might want to consider is to give the player an NPC, either a knight or family retainer to roll for, especially if the retainer has some non knightly skills that could be useful.. Maybe even let the player roll for any NPK to whom she has given her favor. That way the player still gets to remain involved and the character is also involved. Some of us have talked about a lady getting some glory for deeds done in her name. Well to to clarify things the key points, IMO are: Land/Rank/Rare Item all help to give the lady more status and make her desirable as a wife, which allows the GM to introduce more NPKs, jealous ladies and so forth. It also allows you to set up some sort of long term important goal for her to strive towards, ideally with the willing support of the other players. This also make her "more equal" to the other player characters and less window dressing. The Lady character makes it harder for you, the GM, as you cannot rely as much on combat when designing or running adventures. You no longer have the luxury of just tossing in a bandit encounter to liven up a slow adventure. Plus you need to sell that idea to the other players. You want to make sure the players don't yiew court the same way old dungeron crawlers used to view being in town. Try this: What is there is someone else with a claim on the land, that threatens to take some or all of it away? They could show up either before the PL get posession of the estate or afterwards. Then you could run some adventures where the group discovers just who this new person actually is and how legit their claim is (or isn't). Thanks. We try. This is a pretty good gaming site. We have our disagreements and fights, but for the most part we get along and try to be helpful.