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Morien

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Everything posted by Morien

  1. I'd recommend going with a younger son of the previous go-getter. That way you have the same family line going. Of course, if the nephew's father was a PK as well, it is a different thing.
  2. Happy to help! 🙂 It is pretty easy to expand the Whispering Path a bit. I disliked the grave-robbing aspect of it, and instead made it into the reason for the haunting: the previous lord of Grantham had, at his chaplain's urging, robbed the graves of their grave goods. As the result, the ghosts and their dogs had come for him, slaughtering everyone in the manor house, which was then left alone with the treasure inside it. The dogs continued haunting the village, killing people who were caught outside after dark, and all that sort of stuff. It added a nice 'mystery' aspect to it, and kept the ~£100 worth of treasure away from the PKs, too, unless they wished to take a chance with the ghosts. I agree the Red Blade is best once Chivalry is a thing, but it is not strictly speaking needed, IMHO. The Red Blade has been around since before the Uther Period, after all. So the setup works well enough even earlier. Nice to see someone availing themselves to the archives! 🙂
  3. Mark GMing the Tournament with Asterius as one of the player-characters was hilarious, as I already mentioned in my OP. 🙂
  4. Very nice little extended adventure! While it makes a reference to Arthur's justice, it could be used with very little adjustment in earlier periods as well. Even during the Anarchy. Death of a child/spouse: Pretty much my number one advice to new GMs is to fix those darn Childbirth and Child Survival tables. My experience has been the same that you don't need to cripple the generational play in order to motivate the Players to engage in adventure. Indeed, I'd say that it achieves the opposite, in a way, as the Players become more anxious to gain loot in order to keep their families healthy, which is detrimental to the ethos, IMHO. That being said, personally I would not remove the chance completely, as everyone eventually dies in Pendragon. However, if someone at the table has indicated that they'd rather not deal with it, their comfort trumps my simulationist urges, and I'd just adjust the childbirth table a bit to get the same expected family sizes. As for mourning, I'd probably use the Passion Crisis rules from 6e to give some oomph to that, especially in the case of Famous Passions, and the point about letting it show in Christmas and Easter Feasts is well made. But as I said, because I toned down the Childbirth and Child Survival A LOT, this is less of an issue in our game. Off the top of my mind, there was one extremely unlucky PK, who lost I think one or two wives to death by childbirth and at least one to accident/illness. He was starting to get a reputation for it, as he was on his fourth marriage when he died in a duel against Prince Marhaus. There have been some children who died young, but the vast majority again have made it to adulthood and contributed to a wonderful tangle of family trees. As for the death by childbirth, the 10% chance per year is not only ahistorical, but also detrimental to the story, IMHO. It makes the NPC wives even lesser characters, since they are dropping like mayflies, and distances the Players from them. In our earlier campaign, a player-knight romanced Ahvielle through the years and finally won her hand, only to have her die in childbirth (this was before I fixed the table). It was a very unsatisfying end to that love story. In the current campaign, the wives of the PKs are much more likely to become widows, and get to have storylines of their own, as they survive longer. Also, it helps with the Glory inflation, as the PKs can't just keep marrying yet another lady and gain the marriage glory (and dowry) all over again. Gender: I am somewhat less in agreement of which parent takes the risk of childbirth. In the document, this is explicitly in the case of two Player-characters who are a couple, regardless of their actual sex. Now, first of all, as mentioned above I tone down the risks by a lot. Secondly, when it comes to the active player-characters, I don't kill them 'off-screen'. Retired ones are NPCs and hence free game for family events, but since I don't roll for random accidents or illnesses either, I don't impose the death by childbirth on player-characters. Instead, it is a major wound, and it is a way less common than 10% per year, which together make the risk factor much less. That being said, while magic does exist in KAP, my default is that it is quite rare and usually more of an environmental hazard via curses, enchantments, faeries, monsters... It is not something that the PKs control or even have that much access to. Now, as above, if this would be something a player or two felt strongly about, I'd probably have some faerie magic or a magical item that could get the job done, and let the PKs go on a quest to achieve it. But it wouldn't be the default condition, in my campaign, that they could just switch around at will. As for female/gay/lesbian/bi/non-binary knights, not a problem. We already have a bunch of female knights (usually due to no sons to inherit, and yes, they use the same chargen system as the male knights), and while we don't have any out-and-proud non-cis PKs, it would not change things. I'd certainly not send the inquisition after them. If KAP can have Pagans and Christians living happily together under Arthur, I can tone down the historical intolerances in other areas as well. The Active/Passive Noble is somewhat used in a sense that the female knights often marry esquire stewards, meaning that the steward husband stays home to look after the manor while the knight wife is out campaigning/adventuring for Duty & Glory.
  5. Sure. The GPC could go even harder on this angle. At the same time, it should also highlight more of Uther's more admirable aspects, which it doesn't always do. Granted, the default Salisbury PKs are not really in Uther's orbit, but it would certainly make them appreciate Uther somewhat more if at the Sword Feast, rather than just getting a pat on the head, Uther rewards them with something more. Perhaps not quite a manor each (although that would be an option), but something like a decorated sword and swordbelt each (obviously he hasn't those ready right now, but by Easter Court) and declares that henceforth, in any royal feast, these knights will always be seated above the salt as a sign of Royal Favor. Show off Uther's generous, gregarious side, too. My Uther follows Sulla's personal motto: "No better friend, no worse enemy."
  6. Udy mentioned in Discord his house-rule of Reckless Attack being -5 skill of the Reckless Attacker, rather than +5 skill of the defender. This changes the odds a bit (~60/25 with 15% mutual misses and ties), but the general analysis of the above stays the same. It does make Reckless attacking a bit more survivable when the opponent is not as likely to land an hit (on a partial, too, in my house-rule) or a critical, without that +5. So it probably would combine well with my other two changes.
  7. I think that the Reckless Attack in 6e is too strong. It mainly comes down to it not only giving +2d6 extra damage, but it also robs the opponent the shield bonus, so it is in effect +4d6 damage. Sure, you suffer the penalty the opponent getting +5 to skill, but if you land a hit, it is almost guaranteed to be a fight ender. And if you are using a two-handed weapon to begin with, it is another +2d6, you don't have a shield bonus to discard, so in effect you are more than critting ever hit (base damage + 6d6) over a 1H weapon option. This is... too much. It makes Reckless Attack the de facto default attack option for the Great Weapon wielders, save when they are up against someone who has a significant advantage of skill already. So, first thing we do is return the shield to the opponent (on a partial success). The damage bonus from Reckless is there to help you to get past the shield already, no need to further penalize the 1H weapon users. This lowers the damage bonus to a 'mere' +2d6 (+4d6 over the 1H weapon user). It still hurts a lot, when you are facing someone rolling 9d6+, but at least you will have 16+ armor (hopefully). I was thinking of allowing the defender to hit on a partial success, but the +5 is already tilting the playing field in the defender's favor, assuming equal skills of 15 (about 70/30). (More about this later.) So how does this stack up now? Let's assume two knights of 5d6, one with a sword and a shield, the other with a great axe. Let's give them Armor 10. This results in: A: Armor 10+6 on a partial, 5d6 damage. B: Armor 10, 7d6+1d6 damage if A rolls a partial. So on a level playing field, A is doing on average of 7.5 pts of damage on B, who is doing 14.5 points (A fail) or 12 points (A partial, more likely). Advantage is clearly B's, in this situation, even without considering knockdown. B will likely take A out on two average strikes, while A needs at least three. On the other hand, one tie and the advantage shifts dramatically, or if the two have some arrows flying at them as well. So this is probably more or less OK. At higher base damage, the knockdown becomes almost certain for both, but B's damage is probably enough to one-shot A (Major Wound), while A likely needs three average hits to take B down (two might not quite be enough to get below UNC). At lower base damage, the knockdown advantage becomes bigger, and A's damage through B's armor starts to become minor. B's one-shot potential diminishes as well, but the damage/hit is still more than enough to make up for it. Now if B switches to Reckless Attacks... he will one-shot A. The extra +2d6 is enough to make any average hit into a Major Wound. However, he needs to be able to land that hit, and the probabilities are that A will land a couple of hits before that. Still, this is likely not enough for A. Note that this ignores the Knockdown, which might alter things, depending on SIZ and DEX. If B is a big fella (SIZ 17) with a decent DEX (10), then the chance that he falls from two hits is only about 25% (half of the hits cause a Knockdown roll and half of those fail). Advantage is still B's. Regular-sized knights (SIZ 14) would have more to fear as they would be testing DEX with almost every hit (80%). Hmm. Now, if A gets a hit in on a partial as well, then the Reckless Attack becomes more dangerous. B needs to trust that he gets that one hit in before A gets three hits in. In short, he needs to win either first or the second round. This would change the odds to about 50/50. Which would make the Reckless Attack suboptimal, compared to B's 2 vs 3 strikes advantage with normal attacks, unless time is of the essence. I am actually fine with this. Reckless Attack shouldn't be the go-to option for Great Weapon users, but more of a province of those who are either skilled, lucky, or suicidal. Or have the positional advantage, like attacking a guy who has been knocked down. Of course, another thing to keep in mind is that Defend cancels out Reckless Attack. So if all Great Weapon users are doing Reckless Attacks, time to anticipate that and do a Defend at least now and again. And vice versa, if you need to crack that Defend. So in the end, I think these would be my changes: 1. The Opponent does still get the shield armor bonus on a partial success. 2. The Opponent actually lands a hit as well on a partial success. And if two guys with great axes are declaring a Reckless Attack on each other... +5 skill and +2d6 damage to each, both hit on any successful roll, and the cleaning crew will come over in a moment. Comments? Am I being too harsh on Reckless Attack? Has it been too powerful in your games?
  8. Read the Cambrian War in the Savage Mountains. It seems pretty close to what you are wanting. GPC's Roman War offers a couple of suitable Battles, and of course if the PKs are glorious enough and high enough in the pecking order, they might lead a battalion/wing of a larger battle, too. Also, the start of the Roman War, the pacification of France, offers loads of chances for relatively small size battles over individual castles or counties. GPC abstracts those into a simple roll in the French War Events table, but you could very easily write it out into a small campaign of its own. In our campaign, after the PKs returned from the Roman War, rather than the Lady Elyzabel being the reason for the new French War during Romance, it was the new French King not recognizing the conquests Arthur had given to his knights, and unjustly seized those territories. The PKs joined Sir Kay in reclaiming his Duchy (Normandy as in the GPC rather than Anjou as in HRB). After landing, Kay's army spread out to try and defeat the local Norman lords before the French Royal army could interfere. Thus, the Battle of Mortain was fought mostly under PK control, about 40 knights and hundred footmen per side. As you pointed out, GPC does offer chances in Romance and later for the PKs to take a lead in fighting in various wars in Ireland and Ganis. However, personally I think those are distractions from the main draw of the Romance Period. Instead, I think you are on the right track to rather give the PKs a chance to lead. You can even give them a small army and fight an action against a portion of the Roman army to prevent them from escaping to Italy, away from Arthur's army, and hence have to stand at Saussy to fight. And that makes all the difference. Or if you wish to be more HRB compliant, maybe they slow down the Roman army enough that Arthur gets to Saussy first to prepare the battlefield, even if they end up losing that smaller battle. It is very easy to make up these various smaller actions and tie the results to the events of the larger campaign. Arthur assigning commanders to various battalions of his army, before the Battle of Saussy (in HRB): "Disposing his men in companies as he thought best, he posted one legion close by under the command of Morvid, Earl of Gloucester, so that, if need were, he would know whither to betake him to rally his broken companies and again give battle to the enemy. The rest of his force he divided into seven battalions, and in each battalion placed five thousand five hundred and fifty-five men, all fully armed. One division of each consisted of horse and the remainder of foot, and order was passed amongst them that when the infantry advanced to the attack, the cavalry advancing in close line slantwise on their flanks should do their best to scatter the enemy. The infantry divisions, British fashion, were drawn up in a square with a right and left wing. One of these was commanded by Angusel, King of Albany, and Cador, Duke of Cornwall, the one in the right wing and the other in the left. Another was in command of two earls of renown, to wit, Guerin of Chartres, and Boso of Rhedicen, which in the tongue of the Saxons is called Oxford. A third was commanded by Aschil, King of the Danskers, and Lot, King of the Norwegians. The fourth by Hoel, Duke of Armorica, and Gawain, the King's nephew. After these four were four others stationed in the rear, one of which was in the command of Kay the Seneschal and Bedevere the Butler. Holdin, Duke of the Ruteni, and Guitard, Duke of the Poitevins, commanded the second; Vigenis of Leicester, Jonathal of Dorchester, and Carsalem of Caistor the third, and Urbgenius of Bath the fourth. To the rear of all these he made. choice of a position for himself and one legion that he designed to be his bodyguard, and here he set up the golden dragon he had for standard, whereunto, if need should be, the wounded and weary might repair as unto a camp. In that legion which was in attendance upon himself were six thousand six hundred and sixty-six men."
  9. You can add Perilous Forest, and Savage Mountains, and Tales of Mystic Tournaments to the list, too. Romance is one of the easiest Periods to GM in a sense that you have all those published adventures to draw from. Very easy to run an adventure per year and just let the Players enjoy being knights erranting all over the place.
  10. I don't think this is a big issue... there are enough levers in the GPC to get the story back on track. 1. It is unlikely that the PKs are even aware what is going on until after Gorlois and Ygraine escape. If they kill Uther after that, maybe he already had his way with Ygraine and that was the reason for Gorlois whisking her away. (I believe this happened in one of the campaigns I have heard about.) 2. If for some reason the PKs kill Uther prior to Uther meeting with Ygraine, maybe Madoc can step in, and then the subsequent legends got it wrong: Arthur is Uther's grandson, not son. The bigger issue would be the ick of having Uther deceive Ygraine or taking her by force/threats. This could be triggering for some players. But it would be simplicity itself just to remove that from the narrative. Either by making it a love-match even pre-rebellion (as Udy suggested), or simply taking away the sneaking into Tintagel part (or taking away Uther sleeping with Ygraine while in disguise). Uther marries Ygraine, she becomes pregnant via normal means, and Arthur is born a bit later. Additional bonus is that you get a slightly younger Arthur for the Boy King. I do not think that Uther entering Tintagel disguised as Gorlois is necessary. It is a canon event, but if it causes issues at your table, why include it?
  11. Book of the Warlord, p. 101, addresses this very thing. As for your other comments about the best period to start from, I am in agreement: Uther: Best if you want to do a real deep dive and have an extra generation. Boy King: Best all-around. Romance: Best if all you are interested in is the high adventure, courtly amour and knight errantry.
  12. Obviously, feel free to add your own thoughts and experiences or further questions here. 🙂
  13. Since I got asked the question... Here are some disjointed thoughts on GMing the various periods in the GPC. 0. General Stuff https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/11000-helpful-suggestionsadvice-for-new-playersgms-what-books-etc/ 1. UTHER I have written about starting in 480, and it has a lot of my thoughts what the Uther Period is for: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/13822-if-you-start-the-campaign-in-480-for-gms/ I also like to lean more towards the idea that Uther checks out after 493 or so, meaning that his favorites get to run a bit roughshod over less favored nobles. For instance, rather than having the three brothers as the Rydychan Usurpers, I'd use the Trio, who straight-up just take over the castles under the pretense of reassessing the honour and simply never give them back to the rightful heiress. This being the case, I would be inclined to ditch the 493 Embassy to Malahaut completely, and move the Estregales Embassy to earlier, while Uther still trusted the PKs and they likely trusted him. Instead, 493 - 494 should see this kind of corruption take over, heralding the Anarchy to come. 2. ANARCHY My original GM advice for the Anarchy led to the question of the other periods, and here is the link to that old post: https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2589.html I'll mention here in addition that one of the BIG questions the GM ought to have been asking from the start of the campaign onwards: what is the power-level I want the PKs to have in this campaign? Will they be influential nobles with estates and honours, or will they just be very famous knights? If you want to push the PKs to the ranks of the higher nobility, Anarchy is your first good opportunity to do it, as if you are skilled, wealthy and ruthless enough, land is there for the taking. There ought to be consequences, but possession is nine tenths of the law, especially when there is no king to reinforce the laws... 3. BOY KING The Boy King is a rather busy period with all the big battles already, so I don't have much to add there save that this is the time when the PKs are likely to earn a lot of Glory and goodwill from Arthur. I did make this post about old Saxon kings at Badon Hill: https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2617.html And answered this one about what Aelle might be up to during the Boy King Period, since he is so passive in the GPC: https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2582.html Saxons! has a nice section on how the Badon Hill looks from the Saxon eyes, and it has several 'opportunities' that can be used with some tweaking on the Cymric side, too. I am very much AGAINST the idea of slating 50% of the PKs for the chop at the Badon Hill. It depends on the GM's plans (see the next paragraph), of course, and how old the PKs are. In our first playthrough, I ended up TPKing the PKs, since the campaign was going to go on an indefinite hiatus due to my move to the other end of the country from my university rpg buddies. It worked very well. However, if you started with the Starter Set in 510, the PKs have been played just 8 years or so. I'd be looking for a generational shift at the end of the Conquest, instead. However, I am VERY much in favor of killing off several named characters from Anarchy and even Boy King period. Time for those mentors and other extraneous NPKs to eat a Saxon axe! Post-Badon comes the Great Landgrab. All those Saxon Kingdoms are conquered (well, in Logres anyway), and that means there is suddenly a lot of land to be returned to their rightful owners, or to be used to reward the surviving heroes. Heiresses with landclaims to those regions are suddenly back in vogue, and Arthur is also encouraging knights to marry Saxon widows/heiresses in order to make the reconquest a bit more palatable to the Saxons, who in some cases have spent three generations in Britain already. Obviously, Anglia, with its Vengeful Duke Hervis, will not be assimilated back that easily, and atrocities will occur. In any case, this is probably the best time in the campaign for a bunch of PKs to get an estate or even a honour/barony. 4. CONQUEST The Early Conquest would be a good time to go adventuring, for example if the PKs skipped the Forest Sauvage earlier, now they have time to explore its mysteries. The adventures in the Savage Mountains in particular seems to be geared towards this time period, Tournament of Dreams (from Tales of Mystic Tournaments) is another good adventure. I'd likely save the Cambrian War a bit later... While it fits to the ethos of Conquest Period, we have just finished one period with one war following another, and the Roman War is in the Horizon. It would also give Maelgwn some time to cement his control of Gomeret and be more difficult to dislodge, if he has taken over after Pellinore's death and Arthur doesn't have time to react until mid-530s. The Adventure of the Circlet of Gold (ToMT again) is a good one to start at this time, too, and it has a lot of replay value. As a prelude to the Adventure of the Heart Blade (actually a mini-campaign spanning years, in the excellent Blood & Lust book), the PKs ought to attend the Contest of the Queen's Knights and interact with Sir Amren, a Round Table Knight and the wielder of the Heart Blade. As for the Roman War, I wrote a couple of things about it and the Franks: https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2612.html https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2613.html 5. ROMANCE The Adventure of the Heart Blade and romancing the fair maiden Ahvielle, the daughter of Sir Amren, is pretty much a must here. I ended up having two PKs vying for her attention, which admittedly distracted a bit from the 'love at first sight', but did fit well with the idea of the ladies having more than one suitor trying to prove their worthiness. If no other PK is available for this, I would be inclined to put in an NPK, just to keep the player on their game. I also sped up the romancing a bit more, having the challenges issued at Pentecostal Court and then another one at the Grand Tourney of Logres (see below). Oh, I also allowed the PKs to find Sir Amren's body and spoil the kidnapping of Ahvielle a few years before as a prelude, just to tie them more firmly to the plot rather than just hear about it after the fact. The Grand Tourney of Logres is another good adventure (The Spectre King, 3e, NOT Tales of the Spectre Kings!), with multi-year replay value. My players got so eager for this that I had to give the poor Sir Lupin a heart attack to stop this tournament happening every year. It was also a way to show off the Orkney-de Gales strife. The Cambrian War is another one that the PKs can get involved in, and it could even lead to a PK becoming a petty king in Cambria, if they play their cards right! It can also highlight the Orkney - de Gales feud, when Maelgwn is not ousted from Gomeret but allowed to keep his crown, rather than replaced by Aglovale or another of Pellinore's sons. Blood & Lust has an Adventure of the Castle of Tears, which is another good adventure in Romance Period. Obviously, the Adventure of the Circlet of Gold is a gift that keeps on giving, and the Tales of Chivalry & Romance fit well here, too. The Adventure of the Horned Boar (The Spectre King or Tales of the Spectre Kings) is another good one that is set in this period, although I also keep saying that with some minor adjustments, it can be played all the way back in Uther Period, too. There is less in the GPC for the PKs to get involved in. It is mainly Tristram and Lancelot doing great things and the PKs hearing about them. I did get my Cornish PKs involved in some of Tristram's shenanigans, including picking up Isolde for King Mark, and Tristram and Isolde falling in love instead. And there is of course the Camille Rebellion in Anglia for the PKs to contribute in. Which is another one of those big events that you can reward the PKs with lots of lands. You can easily have Camille even kill Duke Hervis, thus leaving the Duchy open for a PK to get (or split between several heiresses whom the PKs may marry, as thanks from grateful King Arthur). However, as you can see from the previous, where GPC slacks off, there is more than enough published adventures for you to stuff this Period full of excitement. I don't really like getting the PKs involved in wars in France nor in Ireland; there was enough of that in Conquest. This is also why I don't really like giving the PKs lands in France/Ganis or in Ireland, since it gets them out of Britain and adventuring. I used the Treacherous Pict (from Beyond the Wall) to tie in Guenever's kidnapping to the kidnapping of a couple of PKs' wives, who were held by the Dal Riada Irish and the Picts, respectively. Obviously that took some tweaking, but it worked well enough. 6. TOURNAMENT Tournament follows the Romance in that there is even less in the GPC proper for the PKs to get involved in. I tend to go harder for Faerie adventures in early Tournament, Castle of Joy is a good one (from GPC), and obviously the Tales of Magic & Miracles works, too. Tales of Chivalry & Romance is another good source for adventures to keep the PKs busy. But there is the shade that is creeping in. The Orkney - de Gales feud comes more to the front, with the death of Margawse and then Lamorak. I like to kill off Tristram and Isolde by 548, too, and have 548 as an Annus Horribilis, when everything comes crashing down, the Yellow Pestilence expanding the Wasteland suddenly to cover all of Logres (having been mainly confined to Cumbria until that time, the PKs potentially having seen its effects there if they have traveled through it). Yellow Pestilence, by the way, is an excellent way to prune down those family trees. The Late Tournament is miserable time in my campaigns, resembling more the Grail period in the GPC. This is a good time for the religious adventures in the Tales of Magic & Miracles, to get the PKs more prepped up for the Grail, and obviously the Stone House adventure from the GPC is useful to herald the Engine. I also have more banditry and unrest, although it doesn't explode fully until later. I tend to tamp down on the tournaments: when there is pestilence everywhere and crop failures and the like, it seems somewhat offputting to put on great shows of pageantry. YPWV. 7. GRAIL Alas, the GPC doesn't really give you a Grail Quest. There are several adventures in the Wastelands and you can use them, let the PKs try and then bounce off. With all the knights off questing, the peasant unrest explodes here and there, Saxon revolts, Cornish Invasion... There is a lot of stuff for the PKs to do back home. Also, there is always the possibility of a liegelord being captured and needing ransom/rescue, etc. With Arthur sick and the famous knights gone, and the plague and the peasant revolts, it is a mini-Anarchy, only now you are starving and getting sick, too. Not a fun time. With the death toll amongst the RTKs and other nobility due to the Yellow Pestilence and especially the Grail Quest, there are definitely seats at the table for any surviving PKs, who have distinguished themselves. And I wouldn't put it past Mordred to be trying to befriend them and grease their ascension to the Round Table and maybe even to a barony (or their heir to marry an heiress of one), if they look like they could be useful to him (and that being the game style that the GM wants). 8. TWILIGHT While the Grail Period ends up with this promise of a new dawn, it is a false dawn. Twilight is all show and no substance. The best of the Round Table are mostly dead, and Mordred's politicking ensures that the replacements are mainly his allies. When we played through this period, I got somewhat fed-up with how useless Arthur and his knights were in the face of Brian's invasions. And while they are narrative reasons for that (see an answer I got in the following thread), I resolved to rewrite that a bit: https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2648.html In our campaign, the highest-glory PKs ended up in the corridor for the Lancelot's arrest scene, and it did not go well for them. On hindsight, I made a GMing mistake, as it pretty much took the high-Glory PKs off the board exactly when their voices would have been most useful. So I doubt I would do it again, or if I did, I would try to make sure that there was a good healer standing nearby to patch them up again and hope that Lance didn't crit too much. Anyway, I do feel that it kinda stole the wind from the sails of those players (and hence some momentum from the campaign), even though I did like the final couple of years to Camlann, and Camlann itself ending very nicely, IMHO. Here is a link to our first playthrough, starting in early years of 2000s, and ending in 2016 (covering 4e 503 - 518 with Warren Mockett's campaign outline I managed to find on the internet for 503-509 + The Boy King, and then the rest with 5e and GPC): https://greathall.chaosium.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2829.html
  14. What I am currently using is 5e battle rolls, but I include at least one major event in each battle, which is resolved like normal combat. I might transition to 6e battle rules once the full rules are out; based on what I have seen, I like them better than 5e, but I might drop the morale system as a complication that I don't want to deal with. I find BoB2 to be way too mechanical for my liking.
  15. Looking over some of my old Paladin posts, the page table in the character generation is something worth stealing, too.
  16. So someone asked in Discord what things I'd consider worth taking from Paladin rulebook and incorporating in KAP. As 6e is not out yet, these are more in context of 5.2e, but still. WINTER PHASE STUFF Personal Events, p. 177-179 Family Events, p. 180 Granted, both need some reworking to fit a KAP campaign, but they are definitely better than what KAP 5.2 has. Alas, the family events suffer still from the rolling of a totally random Family Member who had not been in existence before the roll. I much prefer rcvan's (?) method of listing out 20 family members in a 1d20 roll sheet and keeping that updated. Fief management and the maintenance tables are better in Paladin than in KAP 5.2, IMHO. (That is in the basic 5.2 rulebook. I still prefer the BotE system overall.) NPC survival as well. Alas, the childbirth table is still murderous as heck, and would need to be changed. PASSIONS AND TRAITS And this is somewhat controversial, but I do like that in judicial combat (p. 167), the party in the right will actually get a divine bonus to help to win their case. It might not be enough, but it is there. Oaths (p. 81) are interesting, too. Family Patron Saints (p. 27). Obviously, in KAP, one should introduce patron pagan gods, too. COMBAT Aiming with bows (p. 126) would address some of the complaints of missile combat in 6e, although I would only let it apply to cancel out penalties, not increase the base skill (need to keep those criticals rare). Penalties for being wounded (p. 130). I keep going back and forth on this one, since I dislike too much bookkeeping and I am a bit worried about a death spiral. Making it a bit less impactful at -5 at below half HP might be a good way to signal to the Player that maybe his knight ought to consider yielding rather than risk death in this encounter. If I'd introduce this, I might allow some extenuating circumstances, such as it not applying if you are already inspired/impassioned.
  17. You should be able to do Sword in the Stone in 4h con game. Great Hunt or Red Blade as well. Most KAP adventures are possible in 4h if you keep things moving, although I'd say Heart Blade and Perilous Forest and Castle of Joy are exceptions. You can't waste time in chargen when doing a con game. Also, it depends on the number of players too. I'd be inclined to limit the intake to 4 players for 4h. But it depends on the GMing style as well. One nice thing about a con game is that you don't have to worry about the Winter Phase.
  18. Previous editions were mostly set in 510-531, which is why there is so little for Uther, which became the new start time only with 5th edition. White Horse is easy to transport to Uther. Indeed, I like to rerun it every 21 years or so. Horned Boar is another one that would be easy enough to run, with some minimal tweaking of armor, horses and some background info. Dragon's Hoard (Dragons of Britain #4) can be tweaked to Uther. Nothing prevents you from running the Whispering Path from GPC early. Those would be four that easily came to mind. Oh, The Deceitful Fae is easy to run in Summerland adjacent counties even im Uther Period. Red Blade needs very minimal tweaking to work in Uther Period, too.
  19. Not a problem, that is exactly what I said. You generate the fief by adding together the lands that scale with the number of knights AND the personal demesne that depends on your title. So in the case of Sir Lanceor, he is a banneret (3d6) who has 25 knights, terrain type open lands (3d6 + 1d6 + 3d6 per 10 knights). The GM does 25/10 = 2.5, which he generously rounds to 3, so 9d6 + 3d6 + 9d6 = 55. Then the GM rolls the banneret personal demesne, 3d6 = 14. And since the GM is feeling generous, he adds Other Sources of Income: 10+1d6. Thus, the total fief is 55+14+10+1d6 = 79+1d6. Sir Lanceor is a very powerful Banneret and probably should be a Baron already... Note that the 55L would not have been enough to support Sir Lanceor as a banneret (personal expense 10L) and 25 knights (2L each = 50L); he would have been 5L short. But it doesn't matter since there is still the personal demesne and Other Sources as well.
  20. Sorry, this fell off my radar. I checked p. 43, and you are combining two things here. The minimum requirements and then the fief generation. 3d6 is not on top of the minimum, but part of generating that minimum. If we look at the Settled Lands, we see that the generation of the fief is 4d6 hydes and 4d6 town pop for every 10 knights. If our minimalistic banneret has just three knights (in addition to himself, though), that is 4 knights in total, or 40%. That comes roughly to about 2d6 hydes and 1d6+1 town pop, or an average of 6d6+1 in total = average of 22 (21 if you drop the +1), which is well enough to support the banneret in comfort. Now, if he rolls less than 16 (~ 6% chance to roll 15 or less), then as the GM I would just adjust it to the minimum of 16.
  21. I don't think there was any guidance until BotE/W, Greg just had some values that he thought were OK. There is also the fact that pretty much until BotE, there was 'money you don't see', and all that was being tracked was the knightly expenses. Thus, in order for a higher noble to really live up well (pay for tournaments, the larger court of retainers and hangers on), he needed to have more lands proportionally than a mere bachelor knight. We can go through the Baron: Personal minimum expense 26 L, and since 1 hide = 1 L, this is 26 hides. Supporting 9 bachelor knights at 2 hides each = 18 hides. 26 + 18 = 44 hides, the minimum. The same minimum calculation holds for a King: 216 L personal expense + 200 L for 100 knights = 416 hides minimum. So it is not the lands per knight that changes, but the overhead to support the nobleman, his family and retainers. Where did you get the 3d6 personal? All I am seeing in the Noble's Book is that the Banneret is spending 10 L on personal expense, and while he must lead at least 3 other knights on the battlefield. Given that the ransom is 16L, I think it should have said that the Banneret's minimum holding needs to be 16 hides (10L personal + 3 other knights at 2L each), since then it matches with the other ransom minimums.
  22. I think that is what it is trying to say. If we look at the normal Knight, Move 15 or so, it takes about 6 rounds to cover 90 yards, roughly right for getting from 200 yards to 100 yards. Obviously, once you are galloping, I'd say that you cover the Medium and Short in a single round. Those numbers are obviously for quick convenience. Your horse, merrily galloping 100 yards per round (I assume, from the Long), doesn't suddenly stop at the 30 yard line because the range band changes!
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