Morien

So STR now would give you HP, Healing Rate, Movement and Damage? 🙂 STR was already at least the second most useful stat, after SIZ, and this would enhance STR more and do nothing for APP. At the same time, this would nerf SIZ too much, IMHO. I agree that DEX would definitely benefit from this change, though, even though I don't quite agree with it, either. I forget if these are already mentioned in the old thread Ringan linked (I would not be surprised), but some suggestions: Knockdown score = (SIZ+DEX)/2 [boosts DEX, weakens SIZ] Healing Rate = CON/5 [boosts CON, weakens STR] Both are rather easy changes, and you can justify them easily enough.

Camp is a bit of a special case. My reading of it is that each PK would meet 1d6 enemies during the pillaging of the camp, and each of these foes would be fought for one melee round, in succession. So this is more of a case of each PK going to pillage stuff, and running into individual enemies during that time, rather than a host of them jumping him all at once. Flanking makes it very plain that the normal rules for outnumbering apply. Read page 40. This implies very strongly to me that my initial reading of the Surprise is valid, too. Sorry, I remembered x2 wrong. I meant 'MM' units. No problem with hordes. In fact, there is no need for there to be 'MM' units. Just say that it is two guys, one chucking a javelin and the other fighting with a melee weapon, vs. each PK, and I would have no problem with it. Indeed, this is exactly like some x2 units are described, so there is no reason Wotan's Men would get special treatment save to make them more 'cool'.

Looking at my GM notes... I had 6 players, and it took 3 sessions of ~3-4h to complete. That being said, we tend to waffle a lot, and the bigger group you have, the more rolling and talking amongst the group to make a decision there is, and I was adding some stuff, too. With 2-3 players, especially if you keep things going, I think it is possible to do the adventure in a single session.

Can you give the page numbers? I am not that well-versed with BoB2 that I would be able to remember those instances based on your description. Edit: I am guessing this, from surprise table, p. 57: "Unit may either Run Away or Stand vs. Two, but against double the normal number of enemies from each unit (i.e. versus four opponents each)." However, it says very clearly in p. 68: "More than one opponent may attack a character at a time: up to three footmen; two mounted men; or one mounted man and two on foot. Any number of missile units can shoot at a single unit." So if in the surprise case the PK is attacked by two melee units on foot (for a total of 4 men on foot), only 3 of those opponents can engage him. If both units are horsed, only 2 horsemen can engage him, and if one is a melee unit and the other is a missile unit, all four can engage him. Speaking of 'x2' units, I consider them to be 'cheating', and I would house-rule it. If they get two attacks, then the PKs should get two attacks: one to defend, the other to fight in melee. But that house-rule is clearly against RAW.

Yes. Woods even make this point explicitly: "Thus, a wooded manor of £10 provides £1". However, note that unlike the other bonuses (due to trade), Woods is NOT automatic. You need to have gotten the Woods rights assigned to your Manor to begin with. Depends if it is written into Servitium debitum or not. The obligation is to provide whatever is written in Servitium debitum, everything more is voluntary. The math works out that the normal full servitum debitum is £5.5 per £10, and 20% of that is £1.1 per £10. This is just a tad more than you'd be able to afford with Discretionary funds, but close enough to keep things simple, so yes, I would just handwave it and say that yes you can have SD of 6 knights and 18 footmen for a £50 estate at the cost of your Discretionary funds (even though the exact would be 6 knights and 17 footmen = 1 knight + 2 footmen extra = £5 extra = normal DF of £50 estate), if for some reason the King has insisted on as high SD as feasible.

Interesting idea. Just running with it, off the top of my head... She could have seen L&G love affair, the breaking of the Round Table as the result, leading to Camlann, and its aftermath with the Saxons gobbling up the fractured Britons. So at first, she might try to get rid of Arthur (Accolon storyline), figuring that with the Saxons defeated and Lancelot still missing from Camelot, Gawaine would manage to become the next High King. And when Lancelot then shows up, he can fall in love with the widowed Guinever and with his fast friendship forming with Gawaine, there is no fracturing of the Britons, leading to a new Golden Age. However, after Lancelot's and Guinever's relationship starts, she starts worrying that Guinever might try to rule as a High Queen, with Lancelot's help, if Arthur dies. Gawaine might accede to that, but many of the others wouldn't. So killing Arthur would lead to a civil war. However, if she manages to expose Guinever's infidelity early enough, Lancelot has not yet amassed as much influence at court and the Round Table stays united behind Arthur. No civil war. This might also explain why Morgan becomes so passive in as we get to the Grail Quest and Twilight. She has essentially given up, knowing what the future will bring, and all her efforts having been to naught. She doesn't have any personal animus towards Arthur, so that is why she shows up after Camlann, hoping to heal Arthur, so that he may return at some later date to lead the Britons again to that second Golden Age.

I seriously doubt that there will be 'canonical' gender-swapping. Each GM can do that in their own campaigns, no worries. But best to keep the 'default' close to the common canon of the Arthurian tales, IMHO. Now if we are talking about Britomart and other such female knights from literature, sure, bring those in. Or new characters to populate the land with.

IMHO, there might be a small slump in Anarchy, mainly attributable to Saxon expansion, but I doubt it would be a huge drop. Then the population would start recovering through Boy King. Sure, there are plenty of battles, but most of them are between armies rather than a genocidal campaign to murder peasants. Then there is likely a baby boom with Conquest and in particular Romance. The Yellow Pestilence knocks things down again, I agree, and the Wasteland likely knocks the population back to Uther levels, before the recovery starts in Twilight, only to get cut short by Camlann. So I could see maybe double the Uther population just prior to Yellow Pestilence, but not five times higher. And even that doubling would be ahistorically quick population growth, but possible, with the Enhancement of Britain and all that. It was a maximum number, not the minimum (which would be ~10000). The battles that would qualify would be Badon, maybe Autun and/or Saussy, and Camlann. All the others would be Large Battles. Besides, it is more of a rule of thumb than a solid criterion. You can have a bigger battle if one of the sides is even bigger. So for instance 6000 Cymri facing 18 000 Saxons would certainly qualify for a Huge Battle in my opinion.

Personally, I find the Battle Sizes in Book of Battles II too large, and the examples conflicting with what is stated as the army sizes in Book of the Warlord. As an example: Clash is termed as 'a couple of hundred knights', and then it states 'A large raiding force but fewer than all the troops of an earl'. This is pushing it. Only Roderick and some of the Dukes can muster more than a hundred knights. Also, the scale range of the clash is insane, covering from 25 knights to 250 knights, a factor of ten! Engagement is 'Several hundred knights' (250-750) and 'All the knights of two earls', with the example of 'Clarence v. Gloucester'. Alas, Eldol's land wealth is missing from Table 3.1 in BotW, but assuming the best case scenario and he has £1600, this split into two factions of Clarence and Gloucester is 80 knights each, not hundreds. This continues to Large (All knights of Logres is quoted as 9000, but BotW and BoU says ~2600) and Huge (all knights of Britain ~20000, where as BoU implies ~5000). Now part of that is that the number of knights and the population does go up towards Arthur's time, and BoB2 numbers reflect that better. There is a Battle Size for Uther Period in BotW, Appendix J, which cuts down the BoB2 numbers roughly by a factor of 5. I still find the BoB2 numbers high, even for Twilight. My personal rule of thumb is: Fight (i.e. normal mano-a-mano): max 10 combatants per side Skirmish: max 30 combatants per side (i.e. a patrol vs. a raiding group) Clash: max 100 combatants per side (i.e. two barons going at it) Engagement: max 300 combatants per side (i.e. two great barons, or an alliance of barons) Small battle: max 1000 combatants per side (i.e a dukedom gathering its forces) Medium battle: max 3000 combatants per side (i.e. Logres sends an expedition) Large battle: max 10000 combatants per side (i.e. Logres fights a defensive, important battle) Huge battle: max 30000 combatants per side (i.e. All of Britain fighting for the High King)

Maria de Estrada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/María_Estrada Wikipedia states: "according to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, she was the only Spanish woman with them at this point." (i.e. at Tenochtitlan in June 1520) Also, WIkipedia points out: "Most of the early sources refer to María de Estrada in general terms among the small number of women who accompanied the army at this time, but two writers of the later sixteenth century single her out as a soldier." "The basic fact that María de Estrada accompanied Cortés' army to Mexico is vouched for by eyewitness memoirs and most historians agree as to the reliability of the evidence on which her detailed biography is based." "...but other historians have been more cautious, suggesting that María de Estrada's military prowess may be a literary fiction,"

And these would not be nobles, in KAP definition, but yeomen.

Yes, that would be the significant elevation where I would be inclined to give the hill bonus for the inner layer as well. But for example Chateau Gaillard has outer bailey, inner bailey and a shell keep, all roughly on the same level, and actually downslope from another hill (the approach). Sure, there is a cliff towards Seine on the other side, but you wouldn't be able to attack that side anyway. My point is, I would not give Chateau Gaillard any hill bonuses at any point. Instead, I would do what fulk suggests and limit the circumference that you need to fortify and to man.

Yeah, it was in Discord. He said in 21/10/2010: "As for wielding two weapons, the new rule is simple: if you are wielding a one-handed weapon in your off-hand, you gain an additional Parry protection value of +2, unless the weapon in your main hand is a sword, in which case the additional value is +1. (So a hand axe and dagger, say, give you Parry +2, since hand axes normally have Parry 0; a sword and dagger, or sword and hand axe or whatever, would have Parry +4—+3 for the sword, additional +1 for the off-hand weapon. Still not quite as good as a shield, but close!)"

"No, we are not having porridge this morning since we need the rest as seeds coming Spring! So shut up and eat your moldy turnip! It will put hair on your chest, my girl!"

What, we are not supposed to track the number of egg-laying chickens and how many hides of different vegetables and grains we have growing and when? Madness! 😛 (Yes, I have HarnManor, and no, I would never try to actually run a game with it, unless it was specifically geared towards the PKs starting as humble farmers' sons and trying to improve their lot in life by climbing up the social ladder within the village...)

This is ignoring siblings, nieces and nephews and older generation who might still be alive. BoU says the nobility has about 3% slice of the population*. * Although the population figure in BoU seems to be just for the adults, as otherwise there won't be enough children to replace the knights in the next generation. Doubling the number of people in all categories to account for the kids would take care of that, and also allow for more monks and village priests. I seriously doubt that any region was self-sustaining a 40% of the population as nobles, especially given the medieval farming efficiency. The oft quoted numbers are 75-90% of the population needing to work the fields to support the rest. Now if it gets its food from elsewhere in the kingdom, I could believe it, but then it is not really fair to claim that the 40% is the representative of the society as a whole. 15-20% seems rather high, too. One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that what might get translated as 'noble' might not have quite the same meaning as it does in KAP. For example, the medieval Swedish nobility: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nobility#Medieval_nobility:_Frälse Most of them would be more appropriately classified as cavalrymen in KAP, not as knights, and when not at war, they would work their own farms.

Sword-and-dagger styles become more prevalent with rapiers and main-gauches. In Late Medieval, sword-and-buckler was more common. While I disagree with you that even a main-gauche would be preferred to a rapier in a defense* (let alone simpler hilted medieval daggers like bollock and rondel daggers), I agree with the general principle that having anything additional in your free hand would be better than having nothing, all other things being equal. Wrapping your cloak around your left arm as an improvised shield/armor, picking up a stool to interpose against enemy blade... But these are more like swashbuckling moves. Quite suitable for a Robin Hood conversion, but probably not that important for KAP combat. Especially since as a knight, the PK likely has either a shield or at the very least some armor on his arm already. 🙂 I would fully disagree with a medieval dagger being +4 Armor, almost as good as a kite shield. * By this I mean that if you have the option of fighting against a rapier with a rapier or with a main-gauche, but not with both, you are at a serious disadvantage with just the main-gauche. Whereas you would have an advantage if you have both against a single rapier.

KAP is a simple system at heart. Parrying with a weapon only and avoiding getting hit would be either a success with Defensive or a normal success (parry followed by a riposte). Or it could even be a failure if the enemy's follow-up ends up being a successful hit. The opposed roll is not a single swing, after all. Shield had been the only exception to the rule, as it gave armor bonus on a partial success: you still got hit but with lesser force. Now 6E is expanding that to swords and two-handed weapons: this helps to make the sword the pre-eminent self-defense sidearm, as well as making two-handed weapons more competitive (1d6 dmg Vs 6 armor was not really a great trade).

Yep. There are definitely lots of things that Greg lifted from the Norman England, but at the same time, Uther Period is NOT a carbon copy of late-11th/early-12th century Norman England. You don't have to go further than the British vs. Roman Churches. Or the 'Roman' cities. Or the presence of Saxon Kingdoms, or the independent Cumbrian and feudal Cambrian Kingdoms. Also, to answer to Oleksandr, Uther Period is not supposed to be all sweetness and light, quite the opposite. That makes Arthur's shine much brighter, but all men are not equal in Arthur's kingdom, either. A knight is a knight and a serf is a serf. Now, Arthur hands out justice tempered with mercy, and it is a much better place to live, but it is not an egalitarian utopia. That is my recollection as well.

OK, found it. I didn't think to look there. 🙂 I'd say most of the 'stone great towers' might qualify as Lordly Domain Keeps. Again, I am not fulk, so I am not sure of the exact terminology, if there is a distinction between a stone great tower and a stone keep. Colchester's castle (Castle of the Sparrows) would definitely qualify as a Keep (not a 'mere' tower) in my opinion as it has its own corner towers, as does the White Tower of London. On the other hand, the appendix also has Corinium/Cirencester Castle, which has a 'great tower' on a motte, but the DV is just 2. This, to me, implies that this is probably just a wooden tower, or that there is a typo in the DV. If the Keep protrudes enough from the walls, then the Keep adds its DV to the wall defenses, like a tower would, IMHO. If the Keep is inside the walls, but the castle is really small, then I would use the same justification as the motte+tower to let it be 'concentric', adding the DV to the walls. Use your own judgement.

Fireproof, I'd assume, as well as less likely to let missiles in through the thatch. The cost and the Glory columns show the same format, so it would be +1 DV for tiles and +2 DV for lead roof. Where do you see a "great tower"? I could not see it in Lordly Domains nor in BotE. In Lordly Domains, a Keep is usually "an oversized tower". But as it is explained in Lordly Domains, you can have the Keep acting as one of the towers, too, connected to the curtain wall. I think this would be common especially with the smaller castles, while the larger castles, especially once they become concentric, would have a separate Keep. YPMV (and I am not Fulk), but I'd say no, since the 'half curtain wall' (in Lordly Domains) is the bottom (thick part), and you are simply building the rest on top of that (although it should cost at least £5 to upgrade or it would be cheaper to build it and then upgrade than just build a full curtain wall). However, the large stone hall is a different construction than the Keep (thickness of walls, etc). I might allow the Hall to act as a half-price base for the Keep, i.e. interior structure is kept and the roof materials being reused, but not at the full price. I'd likely treat the rock wall the same way: half-price when upgrading to the curtain wall, as you still need to reinforce it and so forth.

Just to clarify, when I said 'all', I meant the example major caputs with their castles given in BotW, not all the castles in the Appendix of BotW. Both of the examples for which we have maps in BotW show the Hall clearly in the (Upper/Inner) Bailey, with just a Tower on top of the Motte itself. Hence my comment. Yep, totally happened historically. Makes sense, though. If the enemy has overcome the hill and the outer defenses and is now fighting in the inner courtyard on flat terrain, why should they get the penalty for the hill anymore? Now, if we are talking about significant further elevation (like the Motte), then there should be (and is, again in the example of a Motte) defensive bonus. Yeah, there are some of us here, who worked with Greg on different parts.

Welcome to the forum! As for the questions, the general rule of thumb is that the newest rules supersede the older ones. Hence, for fortifications, BotEstate (and BotWarlord) are what you should look at. While I can find a comment of no keeps on mottes in Lordly Domains (which is a 4th edition KAP supplement), I cannot find it for the Estate (Estate and Warlord are for KAP 5.x). Also, there is a distinction between a Keep (a big stone structure) and a keep/stronghold in BotW (i.e. any last-ditch defense structure, usually a Hall, a Tower or a Keep). You can easily build a wooden tower on top of a Motte, which is what the example of the Fortified Motte has done in BotE, and the Fortified/Large Wooden Halls in BotW. So this would not be a contradiction as such. I do think that based on the map of the Sentinel Ridge, the Hall should be in the Bailey, and a Wooden Tower on top of the actual Motte. Same with the Castle of the Pinnacle, which leads me to suspect that there is a pattern here and they all should bump the Hall to the Bailey and add a Tower on top of the Motte instead. Also, we have some historical evidence of big stone towers/shell keeps being built on large mottes, such as Cardiff Castle and the round tower at Windsor Castle, so it is very possible that once the Book of the Castle comes out under whatever name, we might have Mottes with actual stone Keeps on them. As for the Lambor Castle and Leir's Castle... I think you are right, although I am now a bit suspicious about the Boy King Period, too. As in, the Leir's Castle says that the fortifications have been upgraded, but instead it looks like that it is the Lambor Castle write-up from earlier, but without the fortified motte.

I didn't check but the ultimate discouraging is to limit it to fight-trained horses. But if you want something less drastic: 1. Prone only 2. Horse's DEX (but with +5/-5 for prone) 3. Half the charge damage (a sharp tip concentrates the force from the fast movement) 4. The opponent will be hitting the valuable horse to fight back. Also, needs to be prone, so you'd only use this because your sword can't reach him. Otherwise you are better off using your sword.

Yes, I run the whole Winter Phase with them to catch them up. The only exception is that they might have fewer experience checks due to missing out on the play (although they get some from solos). After all, just because the player couldn't make it into the game, his character keeps on living in this virtual world that we have created together. No reason why the PK and his wife would not procreate during that time and so forth, and obviously if other PKs gain passive Glory for sitting on their behinds, so should this one. I generally do not give event glory, although it depends a bit. After all, I am not trying to punish the player for missing out on games; missing out on RP should be punishment enough, right? 🙂 So if it is an event that the PK would have reasonably attended in NPC mode (as we call it), I might let the player collect some Glory for it (like using family history rolls). Examples could be big battles and royal marriages. Also, if someone is making a new older character, the spare to bridge the gap between the heir and the heir's still too young son, I generally see if the younger brother has been doing something whilst being a household knight in the same way.