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Not always, but it is pretty common. Not really. At least not if the GM remembers the downside. Often the Loyalty (group) will pull the PKs to act in ways contrary to other Loyalties such as Loyalty (Lord). In my campaign the younger members of the group suffered somewhat because they were known for Loyalty to the group, but not for their loyalty to the Count (their liege). So the second generation of PKs never had the strong connection to the Count that their fathers did, didn't get the same perks, got more of the lousy duties and so on. A high loyalty to someone else is always a concern for a liege, especially if it is between a group of knights. The possibility always exists that should the liege act against one member of the group for some reason, the rest of the group might side with him and even oppose the liege. Another thing to remember is that the inspiration bonus is free. It requires a roll, that could lead to a character becoming disheartened or mad, and is tied to accomplishing a specfic goalic goal that the player has to state, and this can cresict the PKS actions and even lead to shock and a loss of attributes. I've seen PKS save their friends before their liege on the battlefield, stick around in a hopeless situation to try and rescue a group member, go on adventures that they didn't want to, get inspired to protect someone who got killed by an arrow on the next round, go mad and charge the enemy singlehanded, and countless other mishaps. So it's a double edged sword. In onbe extreme case the group's holding got attacked by a faerie army mostly because one PK wanted to marry a faerie woman and Loyaty (Group) drew the rest of the PKs and then the Group into the adventure, escalating the conflict from single combat to army vs. army. The Count had to bail them out and they still haven't made up for that fiasco. If their fathers weren't trusted officers those PKs would still be on garrison duty.

Yes it does. Just go with 3d6 or so. Something like having you father murdered by Saxons at Long Knives is only worth 3d6+6, so +6 for being kinsmen seems a bit much, and also somewhat reducndant, since Love (family) would already cover that. I'd say go with a flat 3d6, maybe 2d6+6 or 4d6 if there is some sort of reason for the group forming together besides mutual self interest. I'd advise against raising it automatically each year or after adventures as it will quickly get to very high levles and be passed on downthrought he generations. When Loyaty (Group) is the highest passion of the PKS it has major ramifications. Yes. In my campaign very early on the players formed the Order of the Knights of the Griffon, after an adventure where they had to fight two griffins. The passion started at 3d6, and over time the PKS all worked on increasing it. SOme of the things I've noticed about it: The players will put the effort into raising it if they plan on trying to use it for inspiration. So any automatic increase just turns them into fanatics. With sons inheriting passions, either direction or at the 1d6 per 4 points, you can pretty much expect that once a PK has Loyalty (Group) at a high rating, so with all that character's descendants. You could easily wind up with all new PKs coming into the game with Loyalty (Group) 22 thanks to the glory bonus. The passion and group are very helpful in protecting the other members, as the passion can inspire knights, and the group does try to look after its own. Because the players are all part of the same gaming group, chances to roll the passion will come up fairly frequently. You can just about count on the players getting it up to 20 (to avoid madness) and then looking to use it every session. They won't be able to (some uses are a stretch- my advise to to ask them what they are trying to accomplish and how it helps the order), but they will try. The passion and group can also work against the PKs interests at times, either forcing them to stay and try to recuse a fellow member in a situation where they should move on, or lead to conflicting loyalties especially against Loyalty (Lord). In one instance a PKs liege was unhorsed but passion forced the PK to go assist a fellow KotG instead. Such actions can build suspicion and mistrust against the order. The passion/group has also resulted in other knights in Salisbury banding together in groups to both do the same thing the PKs are doing and to have a force powerful enough to be able to stop the PKs from running roughshod over them. Sop now the order has rivals. The order has at times been recognized by a king and rewarded (so now members get 25 glory for joining), and has even been granted a manor and an old hill fort castle (ruins inhabited by a redcap), some statues and other treasure over the years. Count Salisbury granted the Order a manor in part to give him actual influence over the order. The Order has also manged to escalate some situations as it is in some ways, it's own political entity. At times the Count has forbidden the PKS from using the order or it's banner in battle so that he can remain neutral. The Order is also a great way to bleed excess wealth from the PKs. For example, after one adventure the King rewarded them with statues. Over time the PKs have had to spend a good amount of libra to get to statues transported from one manor to another, and eventually to the Order's own Hall (post redcap). In the end of the day they are paying good money to move around rocks.

Ooh, definately intesting. And I beleive $25 is less than they would have cost at cover price back in the day! How often does something like that happen!

Nice art. Has a bit of a tarot card look to it. BTW, does this mean the text is completed?

You are remembering wrong, in fact the game specfically states the opposite. Dame for Female Knight sounds like something from GURPS Harkwood. Pendragon never gave female knights a sepcfic title, and no female knights exist in any of the supplements. The closes we ever get to that are the guidelines for female characters and non-tradtional roles. In KAP5.2 page 33 we get the following (bold italics are mine for emphasis): Dame for a female knight is a more of a modern thing, to facilitate the modern practice of knighting people who have done some sort of humanitarian service or advanced culture in some way. SO now that authors, musicians and actors can earn knighthoods, they wanted a title to give to women who distinguish themselves in those fields. Traditionally Dame usually was another way to address a baroness. For Pendragon it would probably be "Sir". It's certainly very clear in it's meaning.

Kind of. As you probably know by now, I pushed my start date back quite a bit, so in one of the adventure the PKs had a hand in helping move Aurelius and Uther to Brittany in 443. Becuase of the way it played out some of the main PKs were injured earlier trying to protect Constans, and half of the group consisted of back up PKs - namely younger brothers. Once the group got to Brittany, Budec offered them positions at his court as bodyguards to the princes (after all, if they weren't loyal they could have sold the kids out to Vortigern rather than take them to Brittany). I had expected the PKs to return home to Salisbury, or possibly see a good thing, and stay with the princes, but they surprised me. THey passed the buck to Count Salisbury. Thinking as the Count I decided that he'd want the landed PKs back as he had too much vested in them and thier loyalty to lose them, but as for the second sons went, the Count considered that the contacts he would get with Budec and the princes would certinaly be worth loosing two household knights, and probably earn him the gratitude of those knights should they ever advance. So I ended up splitting the group. THe Salsibury knights were still the main PKs but the knights in Briitany formed the core of the backup characters. This did complicate things somewhat, as it made it harder to just use one backup character. But, since Aurelius and Uther were so important o the storyline,the split made it easier to come up with excuses to send the main PKs over to Brittany. The split alos allowed me to run a sperate adventure for the backups when real life cricmstances would leave us short a (key) player at just the wrong time. I ended up using the book of Sires and some quick rolling to help ensure the back up characters had enough "screen time" glory and skill checks to remain relevant and to present bits of story that happen overseas. Eventually the main PKs made a name for themselves during Vortimer's first rebellion and they decided to go into exile in 458 after hearing rumours that Vortigern was going to make them the scapegoats for the rebellion, and that put the group back together again.

Yes but it is intentional. Basically the knights of Logres are the cream of chilvary and the closest to Arthur. It works. I wouldn't do that though. In KAP there is really very little incentive not to put the best stats into SIZ, CON and then STR.. Sorry but you math is off. The chance of a 19 or higher on a single roll of 3d6+4 is 4.63%. The chance of a 17 or better is 9.26%. No, it would be worse. The chance of a 19 or higher on 2d6+8 is 5.56%, greater than with 3d6+4. I plugged the the formulas into anydice 3d6+4 # % 7 0.46 8 1.39 9 2.78 10 4.63 11 6.94 12 9.72 13 11.57 14 12.50 15 12.50 16 11.57 17 9.72 18 6.94 19 4.63 20 2.78 21 1.39 22 0.46 output 2d6+8 # % 10 2.78 11 5.56 12 8.33 13 11.11 14 13.89 15 16.67 16 13.89 17 11.11 18 8.33 19 5.56 20 2.78 1d6 per 4 points, rounded tot he nearest, accomplishes the same thing. A 14-17 will end up as 4d6 and that averages 14. Passions below a certain point usually don't factor in much anymore.

+3 valous would help. What was hurting my old group was the 3 points during rolling, plus raising one trait to a 16 and 6 more points later in section D. Dropping the 16 and the 6 points helped, but Valor ended up a bit low. It shopuldn't. An extra +1 or +2 shouldn't make that much of a difference. I assume you roll 3d6+1 and then add 3 more to whatever number is put into SIZ? That seems very unlikely, statistically. To get a 19 is a less than a 5% chance and a 20 is less than a 3% chance. Even with four passions to roll it doesn't seem all that likely. I've never had that happen with starting characters. Inherited passions, however, can be problematic. I'd advise against allow sons to inherit their father's passions at the same score,or else GMs could see grandsons with starting passions of 20 (or more). The random method of 1d6 per4 points seems better to me, since it means that sons will usually end up with a passion a couple of points lower than their father, as maybe a cap of 20 should apply to that too.

I think maybe a table of complications, random bad situations that the group would have to deal with might be better. Stuff like stand vs. two plus some of the surprise and opportunity things but against the PKs. That would give things a little more variety. I'll work on a table.

Oh, as a further update we rolled up a new PK yesterday and, as written, it's not quite as bad as I first thought. Per K&L page 46, Random character do not get Individual differences, despite section D being labled "D. Modfiers to Standard & Random Traits" indicating otherwise. But that leave random character with only 3 trait points to play with and a much lower valor than the standard 15, so something still doesn't seem quite right. So Valor 15 and 3 points or 6 discorinary points seems better to me.

Partially. Being able to pull it off repeatedly required several factors to line up just right. First off the group's Unit leader needed a very high battle skill in order to get enough freedom to maneuver consistently on the battlefield. Secondly he need luck to get the proper surprise and opportunity results to let he maneuver the group repeatedly back to Zone 8. This was no easy task. The chances of getting a surprise (both Unit Commander and Intensity critical) was around 25%, but rolling the 11-13 or so needed to get into postion brought the odds down to around 4%, and we rolled that 11-13 result three or four times during the battle. The one time this didn't happen the group got a result where they could still maneuver to zone 8. Lastly the rest of the PKS had to have to weapon skills to keep pulling this off. So it was more of a "perfect storm" situation rather than figuring out a strategy that could be repeated. Oh, and since that time fate has caught up with the knights, and they have lost several PKS, including their high skilled unit commander, and they now lack both the battle skill and combat skills to even think of trying this again. One thing that I do have some misgiving about, concerning the BoB is that due to the higher Unit Intensity, a Unit Commander really needs a Battele skill over 20 (25-30) to avoid a lot of "Attack vs. Two" results. With the typical Battle Intensity starting off at 20, and the Zone Modifier being +5 or +10, the PKs are typically facing a unit Intensity of 25-30 in the second and third rounds, leading to a lot of Unit Intensity critical. This leads to a lot of automatic "Attack vs. Two" results or, if the Unit Commander is good (or lucky) a Surprise. True, but Greg points out in several places that the PKs probably won't have much effect on the overall course of a battle, being but a handful of knights out of hundred or thousands.

Yea the whole thing does tie itself up neatly in some ways, as long as you are selective about what bits to take in an exclude. That's pretty close to what I did. One suggestion I'll make is don't come out and tell your players the sword's history.. Instead just leave breadcrumbs for them to follow and hints of things that they might or might not find out more about later. If you drop hints and odd stories it give s the weapon a feeling of history and depth and helps to make it more than just the magical sword that Arthur has. But, on the other hand, if you go into too much detail about it it becomes less real because the players have an unrealistically comprehensive overview of it. The goal is to suggest that there is more going on with the sword, and in the world, than the PKs are involved in or even aware of. I played around with the history of Rhongomiant (Arthur's spear) and Caernweena (Arthur's dagger, which could/probably is another name/version of Excalibur), as well.

I'd have to look it up again, But I recall some version of the tale having a Celtic warrior getting it and having it buried with him. I remember that since I used that as where Maximus got it in my campaign. In my campaign Maximums brought it with him to Rome, it got lost in 410 when the Alaric sacked Rome, and in 465 Aurelius will dig it up as part of the treasure that Alaric buried near Ravenna (Aurelius uses the treasure to hire all those mercenaries before invading Britain), but that's just my campaign. Also just in my campaign the sword was not supposed to leave the British Isles and that caused problems.

No I don't believe it is, but..some sources on Arthur use other names for his sword including Caledfwlch, which could be another name for Caladbolg the sword of Fergus MacRoy. and might in fact be the same as Answer, the Sword of Lugh. If fact many Celtic legends of magical weapons could in fact be about the same weapons, just under a new name with a new owner. Generally the appearance and powers of the weapons tend to be the same or similar and only vary in degree from tale to tale, typically becomes less powerful and more believable as time goes by and/or as the hero linked to it becomes more mortal and less larger than life. In the GPC/Pendragon it comes down to if Excalibur is specific sword of King Arthur or the Sword of Kings that has been passed down from various Celtic Kings down the ages. That will be something for each GM to decide. Over the years Greg has changed his mind about Exaclibur. Orginally it was just one of Arthur's swords and not the Sword in the Stone (it isn't in Mallory), and he even wrote an article trying to explain some of the various magical sword associated with Arthur that most people aren't aware of. Then, in the GPC Greg seemed to change his mind and combine them all into one Sword. In my own campaign I have Excalibur/Caliburnus as the Sword of Julius Ceasar, Crocea Mors (and one of the reasons why he invaded twice) the Sword of Macsen Wledig/Magnus Maxiumus, Fergus MacRoy and probably a few others, making it a weapon with a history.

Yes, often fairly easily. While the Giant has a good skill, armor, does a lot of damage, and benefits from a height bonus against the knights, he isn't that difficult for a group to defeat. In Pendragon melee comba tis opposed, so unless the giant does and uncontrolled attack he will have to beat a PK's roll to infict any damage at all. If the giant splits his skill the PKs typically have it outclassed and it probably won't beat anybody. If it doesn't split it's skill then the PK it's focusing on will tend to fight defensively and rely of the remaining player knights to dispatch the giant. An uncontrolled attack by the giant can cause the knights to pnaic and has the best chance of killing a PK, but is suicidal for the giant. So the giant works out not so much as a tough fight, but as a fight that can turn very badly very quickly if the PKs roll badly or the GM gets in a lucky critical. The Nuckelevee is even less of a threat and almost anticlimactic. Basically it can almost fight two knights evenly but is under armored. Any group that can handle the giant can take out the Nuckelevee easily (baring bad die rolls). Which makes sense as the giant was a test. Honestly an equal number of ordinary knights is more likely to drop a PK. More like gang up on it so it divides it skill, or fight defensively if if decides to focus on you. Mostly a cakewalk for the PKs. Most knights will make the valor rolls and attack the monsters, overwhelming them. Yes, there is a slight chance of either monster getting a critical and probably killing a PK outright, but that can happen at any time, and past a certain point the number of damage dice become academic. It doesn't matter all that much if a knight is knocked by one blow down to -10 or to -100, except maybe to determine if the funeral service will be open or closed casket. But...dice are fickle and things can get very bad very quickly, especially with the giant. Should it get down to even odds or even a 2 vs 1 it can start taking out PKs much more frequently.

Or that Sarum is the City of (Count/Earl) Salisbury. Unless his progress had him somewhere else at the time. Remember feudal lords do not stay at their home, but instead travel throughout their realm both the spread the burden of maintenance, and to keep an eye on their vassals. He probably does arrive with "all" of his knights either. A few would probably be left at the various castles, someone might have been injured or ill, etc.

Or that Sarum is the City of (Count/Earl) Salisbury. Unless his progress had him somewhere else at the time. Remember feudal lords do not stay at their home, but instead travel throughout their realm both the spread the burden of maintenance, and to keep an eye on their vassals. He probably does arrive with "all" of his knights either. A few would probably be left at the various castles, someone might have been injured or ill, etc.

Yeah it does look like it matches the description from Year 547 with the 2 gates plus postern. Oh and the rules are not in agreement with BoE, although the DV scores aren't far off. BoE seems to have dropped AREA (thankfully) and lists structures with some real word dimensions, which makes it much easier to figure out the stats for an existing structure. But the DV values listed look to be pretty close to BOE. .

Well rerolling would be about the same as 2d6+6, and bumping 3-7 up to an 8 would mean that over 25% of characters would have been SIZ 8. Neither would seem to me to be a better solution. Or 2d6+3, or even 2d8+2, which wouldn't have. But, 2d6+6 also allowed them to use a SIZ to mass formula that help up with human and animal stats. I find it very helpful for statting up new cratures, and scienstists actually use it to estimate things like the mass and relative strength of extinct species. It's not exact, but it gives you a good ballpark figure. Since STR is tied to muscles, then a creature that weights more will tend to have more muscle mass and tend to be stronger. THat's just it, man ins't the measure of all things. In old D&D 3d6 for everything worked because the attributes were on a human scale. Animals and monsters didn't have STR, CON and SIZ scores, just AC hit dice and such. So any attribute was only compare to other humans, elves, dwarves, and other creatures on the same scale. In RQ, cretures, animals and monsters used the same attributes as humans, and and the scale for attributes needed to reflect that. With RQ2 SIZ was better tied to mass (and weight) making it easier to rate things relative to each other. It is actually less clumsy that the 3d6 for all things approach-which is why it was changed, but, IMO they should have adjusted the damage bonus forumal to refect the fact the average STR+SIZ total was now 23.5 instead of 21. Glad you liked it. Ultimately it probably isn't that big a deal. With most characters the extra damage tends to be offset by the slightly raised armor values at the high end, and the removal of the upper caps for battle magic. For big creatures/monsters the stats didn't change much, and the change in Attack bonus really helped by capping how much STR factored in.

LOL! I hope not. In theory the people who do this for a living should know more that we do. Unfortunately, when it comes to fantasy and science fiction the people who do this for aliving often don't understand the genres and mess things up. Sure. It all comes down to how well the can act, and look the part. That's not surprising. From what I've read and seen, stage actors have to learn to tone things down a bit for TV or film. The stage teaches them to "project' and exaggerate their motions and expressions in order to convey them to the people sitting at the back of the theater. That looks like overacting (which it is) to the camera. It was more of an issue in the early days of film, than now, but it still exists.

Yes, plus if they cast young they can use the actor for longer. If I were doing this, and I'm not, I'd look for a good actor in their early 20s, either from TV or the stage who had the right look and the acting chops to pull it off. Assuming I could find someone like that.

Except that he did so for so long already. I agree although... Plus he might have thought that Lancelot would finish him off. It's not a bad assumption either. Lance could have done it. He was either invincible or nearly so, depending on what sources you use, and there are several times when Arthur comes across him on the battlefield and Lance refuses to fight him. If it were not for that, it was quite likely that Lance would have killed Arthur in battle, or taken him prisoner. Either of which would have opened the way for Mordred. There are also some sources that claim that Arthur was supposed to pass on the throne to Mordred previously but delayed from doing so. These mostly paint Arthur in a bad light, but Malory did draw on multiple sources. My standard method for such situations is to just muddy the water and leave most of the details unknown. There is very little in Le Morte to prove if Morded jumped the gun or was misinformed. Yes, Malory claims that Mordred faked it, but that isn't something the PKs are likely to find out about. I'll just run them though the stuff they see and find out about, and let them draw their own conclusions (and hear rumors) after events are set into motion.

Yeah, even if using the Book of Battle. I've only seen the player knights alter the course of a battle once, and that was a combination of high skills (Battle 29 and most of the PKS main weapon skills in the 25-30 range), tactics (repeatedly attacking the enemy from the rear) and luck (repeatedly getting an opportunity or surprise result that allowed them to maneuver back to Zone 8 in order to attack the enemy rear again). True. And that is hard to pull off. Even harder to do so and survive it. I'll second that. The Boy King Period is the time with the most battles and a very inexperienced Arthur who has yet to establish himself. In the early years, he has several battles per year, and it takes everything he, Merlin,Ulfius, and Leodegrance can do just to secure him as King of Logres and High King of Britain. The he has Badon a few years later, so he probably doesn't have the time, or men to go and invade Cambria.

I think, I'm the guy who posted that, and it wasn't the regional modifiers but the individual differences that shouldn't apply to the random method. It's doubel dipping. With the standard method raising a trait to a16 and spending 6 points allows the players to individualize their knights' personalities. But if combined with the random method it's overkill, and player that rolls his traits, adjusts them by 3 points, raises one trait to a 16 and then add 6 more points gets too much, and can start with one or more of the religious or chivalry bonuses (old 80+ value) pretty easily. Four 16s are within reach. However, since playing this way, I have given the PKs a 15 Valorous per KAP 5, and 6 points to adjust with (total). That's pretty much the old (KAP 1-4) random method with a 15 Valorous tossed in to blend with KAP 5.. The regional modifiers aren't so bad, as they tend to be a +1 to certain specific traits.

The thing with the damage bonus is that it jumps in d6 increments. Now each d6 does represent a 400% increase in force, so it's not too unrealistic, especially as animals and monsters in BRP tend to be much stronger than humans. A bear really does have several times the strength and size of a man, and so can really rip someone apart with a swipe from a claw. But... ...in real life animals don't always attack with their full strength. That is usually overkill, ans either wastes energy, or is counterproductive to what the animal was trying to do. For instance, if hunting a predator generally wants to take down prey with the east amount of effort so that it can gain more food that it expends in the hunt. Likewise if an animal just wants to drive off another animal, it might not want to commit to a full force attack. It is part of it. Generally the average character's damage when from unmodified to a 50% chance of +1d4. A more gradual, smoother db progression, that started at say, +1d2, and then stepped up the die every 5 or 6 points would be similar to the official progression, but probably work a bit better. There is also a bit of a problem with using multiple d6s. Thanks to the bell curve the db becomes less variable than it probably should be. Stepping up the die size could help with that, too. Something like 3d10s as opposed to 5d6. It was done not only to avoid unrealistically small characters, but to allow for animals and creatures that were smaller than humans. With 3d6 you only had SIZ 1 and 2 to work with if you wanted to stat up a dog, deer or cat. Realistically most people are relatively weak compared to their size. Most men can't lift their own body weight. Also, thanks to something know as the cube-square law, in general, strength increases a a lower rate than mass does. This is why ants can lift or drag ten times their body weight (or more) while elephants cannot.