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We haven't even toughed upon how well it is put together, the quality of the mortar, how much the mason skimmed off the top, or how thick the wall is.. So we could probably assume a wide variance from one wall to the next. It's almost like asking how sturdy is a tank. Depends on the tank.

I think that was how it was meant to work, otherwise high glory PKs could just ddraw a bunch of cards and play the safest card and still out glory the other characters. So I've always took it to mean the glory is gained as the cards are played.

LOL! Yup. Although that is one of the things about armor, especially later period armor, is that is hides the face. Hence the rise and need of/for Heraldry, and why knights who wanted to remain anonymous would carry a blank shield.Of course in Mallory, he tells us that Sir so&so is really the one carrying the blank shield, so the story would get out. In my own campaigns there have been times where the PKS have gotten into more trouble because of something they did, and the fame that accompanied it, and also times where they didn't get glory for something because they kept it a secret - at least for a time.

Generally speaking I only give character glory for t hings that they are kn own to do. Stuff that happens in secret doesn't warrant glory, at least until the full story is revealed. If a lady were travelling in disguise as a knight errant, I'd probably give the Knight personna it's own glory score, assuming that someone knows the knight is doing stuff.

Oh, I agree that there was a shift in cultures in KAP5. It's one of t he reasons why I was su\o surprised that people got upset with the idea of basing skills off of APP/2 and DEX/2. If you look at KAP1, 3-4, and 5 you can see that very little has stayed the same from culture to culture regarding starting skills.

In multiple ways. There is a bit of familiarity breeding contempt going on. If someone is running into a Mythos horrors every week, they tend to lose their effect. Also if people are encountering nasty things and surviving each week, then the horrors start to look incompetent. It's why T V shows that have investigators into into supernatural monsters every week tend not to last.

I started early and just went through the Battle of Chalons and the Seige of Aquileia, so I I had alot of Huns in the game recently. Except that Huns tend to attack in groups, per the GPC. So the Huns you don't attack pepper you with arrows. Fortunately most Huns don't have Pony Defense at 20.

Scary. It was Pendragon, and the young Prince was off on a hunt. The idea was for the ambush to go sour and the PK bodyguards to hold off the attackers long enough for everyone to die back to the ruins of Joyeuse Guarde and old Roman ruin in the Landern Forest that they were using as abase camp. But Aurelius, Uther and two PKs fumbled their horsemanship rolls to wheel a bout and ride off, falling off their horses and giving me quite a scare as the GM. Turned out the PKs fought off the attackers and then retreated to the ruins before the other people out looking for the princes (this was during the Bacaduae peasant uprising) got together and attacked. I didn't plan on it being that close.

Pony Defense: In such circumstances a Critical or Win indicates the Hun is not harmed, though neither is he capable of doing any damage to his opponent. A Loss or Tie indicates that the horse takes the damage instead of the rider. A fumble indicates the horse stumbled and fell upon the rider, and it does its damage to itself and the rider. So a Hun with Pony Defense 20 is unhittable. At best the opponent can kill his horse. Then maybe go after the Hun before he can remount. Now K&K does point out that a Hun only has a limited number of Horses to try this with, and we have to allow for circumstances, but basically if a Hun with Pony Defense 20 is astride a Steppe Pony, you can't hit the Hun with one attack.

No it isn't. People have gone and counted the deaths and it turns out that the reason why more red shirts die in TOS is because more people wore red, so only about 10% of redshirts die as opposed to 13% of those wearing gold. It seems that most of the red-shirt deaths are those in security, who have the most dangerous job on the ship with about a 60% of dying in any episode they appear in(no surprise there). The other red shirts having pretty good survival rate with only an 8% chance of dying. But if you got a choice, wear Blue, they only have a 5% chance of dying. Probably because medics and scientists aren't as much of a threat so they are not the logical targets, compared to those holding a phaser..

First off, yes ambushes will tend to wipe out player characters, and you should generally avoid running successful ambushes against PCs. In D&D the PCs just lose a few hit points and the fight continues. In BRP PCs just lose a few limbs and the fight is over. That said: As has been previously mentioned you can put in some "red shirts" to draw enemy fire for the first round or so. That way you "Ambush" the group but don't really ambush the PCs. At least no so badly that they can't defend themselves. Unsuccessful ambushes, however aren't so bad. In my Pen dragon campaign I ran one with the target being Prince Aurelius, who is actually an important NPC and so I didn't really want to kill him off as he plays an important role in the story. So I had the enemy mess up the ambush with one guy mistaking another well dress rider as the prince and jumping the gun. This essentially surprised everybody, as his allies didn't expect him to attack yet, because the prince wasn't in position. This lead to a melee where the PCs and allies were further way that they were supposed to be, and the ambushers had to spend a couple of rounds running across afield to try and catch them. Since the players were on horseback they should have been able to ride away, but three characters fumbled and it turned into a fight. But had this gone as planned then Aurelius would have been hit by a dozen javelins and probably be dead before he hit the ground.

I agree, but I guess some people have a problem with them. I'll admit to having a bit of an issue with Pony Defense, as a Hun with a 20 is unhittable (you can kill his horse though), but it doesn't come up all that often in a typical KAP campaign.

Not really. It is more a matter of knowing where the traffic would be and if there is or isn't another way to cross and if it is more convenient or not. Now there really isn't a way to know that without working up routes for every river in Britain. So I left it up to the GM.A As a general rule, I'd suspect that the closer to a city and/or the larger the river the more useful and profitable the ferry would be, but also the greater the chance that a way to cross already exists. Conversely the further away one is from a city (or town) and/or he smaller the river, the less useful or profitable the ferry would be, but the lower the chance that another way to cross already exists. But that is hard to quantify in game terms without turning Pendragon into Merchant Prince, so I left it to the GM. But, a little common sense and a random die roll would give us... Very High Traffic Area ( Near Great City): Availability: 20 on 1d20; Income: £2 (it's a bustling trade center). High Traffic Area (Near a City): Availability: 18-20 on 1d20; Income: £1, £2 id you roll a 20. Medium Traffic Area (Near a town): Availability: 16-20 on 1d20; Income: £1, £2 id you roll a 20. Low Traffic Area (Near a Village, the typical country manor): Availability: 11-20 on 1d20; Income: £1, £2 id you roll a 20. Where? ( Not near anyplace, "You can't get there from here?"): Availability: 2-20 on 1d20; Income: £0 (but it breaks even and saves you some time), £1 id you roll a 20 (somebody else actually uses it as a shortcut). Oh, and you could probably build a ferry even if you fail the availability roll, but you'd either get no income (because everyone uses the other route) or maybe partial income (say if you fail by 2 points or so), and are probably taking customers away from the other ferry., with all the fun and role playing potential that could cause. Maybe your neighbor raids your lands to destroy your ferry?

In K&L each culture gets a special cutlural skill, directed trait or passion. These usually replace two or three standard skills in the game. For instance Cymric characters get Spear Expertise, which they can use in place of Spear, Greatspear and Lance. Saxon characters get 2H Weapon, which works for Axe, Greatsword and Great Mace. Romans get Law which covers Courtesy, Intrigue and Folklore. PIcts get Stalk which covers Awareness and Hunting. I assumed that KungFuFenris is commenting on how these work in the game and how some are far better than others, especially in regards to knighthood or for a given culture. The Pony Defense of the Huns, for example is very powerful as they can use it in an opposed roll to avoid damage in a fight.

Mazinger Z?

I'll second that. It has always been the hardest part to play out. It doesn't help that according tot he literature, you can't find it if you are looking for it and pretty much everybody without the (Christian? maybe one type of Christian?) religious bonus isn't going to have a chance. The Quest is important, but not really all that suited for play.

Well it's easier when it is a correspondence by mail. It's not a bad take or idea. IMO, the Mythos, as presented by Lovecraft is pretty much unplayable as a RPG campaign. A One shot sure, but not as a campaign. The heroes in the stories go through one adventure, and barely get through that. Some don't even make it. For instance the author in Call of Cthulhu is pretty much toast after he writes down the story. So any attempt to really run a campaign sort of necessitates weakening the Mythos. If you play it strictly as Lovecraft wrote it, investigators would not even last as long as they do now. Well, based upon what we've been told, he probably would just reform after such weapons. Now if radiation bothers him or not could be an issue. If not he becomes a walking Chernobyl. If it does bother him, then he might not be able to reform or go into a sleep until the radiation decayed enough for him to withstand it. Which, for him, might not be a serious issue. Now maybe advanced technology would be effective against the more powerful Mythos beings, but that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing for humanity. It would be pretty easy for any of the space travelling races to chuck bit rocks at us from space and make us go the way of the dinosaurs. In fact, it would be very Lovecraftian if the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs was really some conflict between Mythos beings. So you can pull it in any direction you want.

Hmm, maybe: Seating, APP, (modified or unmodified?) and then Glory?

Yeah, it what happens when you have a century of escalation. Generally, over time, something that seemed shocking and outrageous becomes more tolerable and writers have to push the envelope further to get the reaction they wanted. Plus there is the advances in technology to consider. When mankind can wipe out an entire city, or even an entire country in under an hour then superbeings need to get bumped up to that scale. Yes. I think in terms of a story it's great and in terms of an RPG it terrible. Nihilism in fiction can be scary and entertaining, but it just turns a game into an exercise in futility. Ultimately it doesn't matter what the investigators do because once Cthlulhu gets the wake up call, or some other power entity decides to flex it muscles on Earth, it's all over. THe only reason why the investigators many to defeat the Mythos at all is because they are beneath notice. I think that is a good reason why a lot of CoC campaigns do not focus so much on the Mythos.

That's a good point. Part of the thing about Lovecraft was that he had a somewhat sheltered upbringing and was reclusive, and a lot of the Mythos lore seemed to have been inspired by his inability to cope with New York City. So a case could be made that many of these Mythos horrors are not as SAN busting as they seem to be, since Lovecraft would have lost SAN to stuff that most of us wouldn't even be bothered by, like who is riding in the same streetcar.

Yeah, it's keep flexible now. But even assuming a 3 second round 8 yards is quite reasonable. In f act, I'm inclined to think that CoC, as with most RPGs, has the characters moving too slowly. Even a mouse can run at nearly 4 yards/second.

BTW, this came up at my last feast: How do you handle ties? Do the winners split the glory, does the feast continue for another round to determine a clear winner?

Not really. A man can job at around 6 mph, which is 3 yards per second, and can run faster. So 8 yards in a melee round isn't all that unreasonable. Plus people in combat, despite how it looks in most RPGs don't actually stand in the same spot but move around a lot.

I think occult could be useful if the Keeper uses horrors that are not from the Mythos like an "ordinary" vampire of werewolf.

Here are some of the improvements from the Book of the Manor updated to Book of Estate format. My thanks to Morien for his invaluable assistance. If anyone has any questions or spots and problems please let me know. Winery A winery processes grapes into wine. It needs both specialized material and a wine expert to be successful. If the owner has a vineyard then he may use his own grapes instead of buying them, increasing the profitability. Cost: £30 Income: £1 or £3 if you have a vineyard, includes the maintenance for the vintner Grants: Check to Indulgent Timeline Notes: Wineries would probably be more common during the Uther Period (when there are still a few old ones left over from the Romans) and from the Romance Period onward, after Arthur has conquered Rome and brought the knowledge and experts required back to Britain. ______________________________ Scriptorium A scriptorium is a workshop for making books. Scribes carefully copy old texts onto sheets of vellum, and bind the pages together into books with expert care. Most scriptoriums are run by monks, but the nobility may choose to finance their own. The books may be sold, reflecting the income below, given away as gifts, which earns glory, or saved as treasure. Cost: £20 Income: £1 in books in treasure, income includes maintenance for the scribe. Grants: Roll for Read (Latin) Note: The Scriptorium is probably not common until the Conquest Period or later, when the land is more settled, and civilized. _______________________________ Olive Grove Olive Groves are more suited to a Mediterranean climate, ad are only included in Britain due to references of the same during the Grail Quest. The high costs reflects the difficulty in importing and planing a grove. Due to the colder climate olives in Britain may die off. Income also reflects the novelty and and exotic nature of native olives. Cost: £20 Income: £-1 for 5 years then £5 including maintenance and the oliver. In a more suitable climate reduce the income to £3 Complication: Each year, including maturation, roll 1d20. On a result of 20, the olives die. This roll is not required in a more suitable climate. Note: Requires space (see p. 76) _______________________________ Jeweler, Goldsmith or Silversmith The are craftsmen who work by making jewelry, in silver, or in gold, respectively. They make rings, torcs, pendants, necklaces, diadems, inlays in armor, set gemstones, and other such fine work. These businesses are expensive to set up and maintain as they require a great deal of precious metals and gems to work with, but they are quite profitable. Income can be kept as treasure. Cost: £20 Income: £2 in treasure. Profits include maintenance and a jeweler/smith Grants: Check to Proud (Vanity) _______________________________ Ferry, Small A small boar or raft designed to help move people and goods across a river. Note that many rivers have bridges or larger ferries, so this might not be an option for all manors near a river. The income is a share of the fees charged to ferry people and goods across the river. Cost: £5 Income: £1 (including Ferryman) Note: Not available for all manors. Check with the GM.