Morien

As a general rule, I am very much in favor of trying to intertwine personal stakes and hooks into the adventures. I would not be that keen to make the bear into a knight-killing monster bear since it would break the rationale of sending just squires after it. The Bear Hunt reads as a tutorial since that is what it is. One way to make it a bit more fun would be to introduce a couple of NPC squires who might be looking to hog all the glory and give the players some rivals to test themselves against.

I see your point, Baba, and I explicitly stated that it is the first adventure if you are running this as a mini-campaign. If all you are doing is trying to convince a group of lukewarm D&D players to give the system a chance, giving them older knights to play and dropping them into the Red Blade would work better, I agree. It very much depends on the level of the buy-in you already have from your players, if they are committed to a dozen sessions of a mini-campaign or if they need to be dragged to play it at least one session.

Alright. So the adventures... Note: I skimmed through them to refresh my memory, so don't expect too detailed analysis (also, I don't want to spoil the players who might be reading this). 4e The Bear Hunt: Introduction, knighting of the squire PKs. Definitely the first adventure you wish to run if you are running this as a mini-campaign. (If, however, your game group is more like 'meh, I want to be a badass fighter who can Great Cleave his way through goblins', the game might not be for them. Or you could start them off with older, more experienced knights and let them go ham on some poor bandits.) The White Horse: I would be very tempted to run this as the second adventure, as it teaches the players of the importance of their Traits. (There are a couple of tweaks that I would do, since as people have noted, its rather harsh 'fail and you are out' -mechanic can make it very frustrating for players with poor dice luck. I have discussed this in another thread that I will find and link here in just a moment. EDIT: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/12763-adventure-recommendation/?tab=comments#comment-198571) The Red Blade I would save this one for later, as it is a rather high-stakes one, if memory serves. The Great Hunt I would save this for the middle or so, since it basically brings the player-knights into the notice of King Arthur. While it doesn't require terribly experienced characters, it works better if they have some years under their belt, already. The Birthday Hunt (DoB #1) Semi-challenging but easily scalable by the GM. Possibly a relatively early adventure, and it would be easy enough to set this into Salisbury by changing a few names around and making the birthday boy the son of Earl/Count Robert. (Do note that as this was intended as a one-shot convention game, one ending sees the affected PK returning to a Britain where a hundred years or so has passed and Arthur is just a legendary foe of the ruling Saxons. I wouldn't be so harsh in a mini-campaign and just make the PK skip a year, returning prior to the next adventure.) The Maiden's Oath (DoB #2) This is another good adventure for relatively new PKs. More battle heavy, so maybe have this as the third one, to let the PKs flex their muscles a bit after the slower White Horse. The King of the Red City (DoB #3) This adventure involves the PKs in some higher tier politics and bigger battles, and works admirably as the capstone of the mini-campaign, but I won't spoil the ending! (I very much disagree having this as the starter adventure, as the author suggested as an option.) The Dragon's Hoard (DoB #4) This adventure has a dragon, as the name implies, so it is a somewhat dangerous one. It would work very well as a penultimate adventure of the mini-campaign, I think. Alright, so as a quick campaign skeleton: late 530: The Bear Hunt. Introduction of some wife candidates (who do not have to be heiresses, dangit; see the Helpful Suggestions thread above). The Maid Elianor (see below) ought to be one of them, to introduce her before her adventure comes up. 531: The White Horse 532: * (Getting to know wife candidates and maybe even rescuing one of them from a dastardly rival?) 533: The Maiden's Oath. At the end of this adventure, the PKs should be getting married, perhaps one of them to the eponymous maiden, Elianor! (No problem with her being an heiress here, since the PKs worked for it.) 534: * (Family stuff?) 535: The Birthday Hunt. (Now, if you wanted to have heiresses as wife candidates, this is the time when the grateful Earl/Count might be doling them out. If you do that, you might wish to move this to 534 and have the Marriage (below) fill 535-538 instead.) 536: * (If you wanted to, you could take the Marriage of Count Roderick and repurpose it as a mission to find a suitable bride for the birthday boy from last year's adventure, now that he has been knighted and, hopefully, rescued. This would add some filler into the 536-539.) 537: The Great Hunt 538: * 539: The Red Blade 540: * 541: The Dragon's Hoard 542: * 543: The King of the Red City. The campaign ends with the PKs qualifying for the Round Table, as Arthur has had his eye on them ever since 537. So hopefully the mini-campaign ends with a nice high note of the PKs becoming part of that hallowed brotherhood, with beautiful, loving wives and a few children already growing to carry on the family name in the future. * = Skip (play a solo) or personalized adventures for the PKs. This gives them a bit more time to get experience under their belts before they start hitting the 'higher level' adventures. This means that the player-knights will be in their early 30s, probably around their peak physical prowess, when they are hitting the latter adventures. I added some suggestions in the above.

Well, not specifically for you, but people like you, definitely! 🙂 Also, have you seen this thread: It was written for GMs and players looking to play a 5.2 + GPC campaign, starting in 480 (or 485), but many things there are valid for both 4e and 5.2e. Like Voord 99, I think KAP 4e is easier than Paladin as a trainer set for 6e. As Voord 99 surmised, my feeling of Paladin rules is that they are basically 4e+ a host of house-rules, and I am saying this as a guy who has his own set of 50 or so house-rules and tweaks on KAP 5.2. Anyway, my point is that 4e (or 5.2e) is both easier and more 'canonical' than Paladin, when KAP rules are concerned. The difference in rules between 5.2e and 4e is relatively minor. The setting and even the worldview in Paladin is somewhat different, as Voord 99 already said, too. Also, I wouldn't worry about 'spoiling' the KAP campaign. In fact, I think keeping the introduction and the eventual 6e campaign in the same setting makes it much easier for the players. Also, you can portray the introductionary 530s as an era of peace and prosperity, basically having Camelot as a backdrop where the knights can report on the adventures they have done and bask in the approval of the King and the Queen, and the rest of the court. You don't want to have the Big Plot dominate this introductory campaign, IMHO. By contrast, once the PKs get to this spot in KAP 6, they have probably already gained a lot more Glory and name recognition, and even if they switch to their sons soon enough, the players know what is going on, and that, and the different adventures you'd run from the new GPC book (Romance & Tournament Periods) as well as published adventure and regional books, there will be plenty of surprises all around. It definitely won't feel stale. One thing I would do, though, is ditch the Family History for this introductory campaign. That can be quite spoilerific as it gives the year by year breakdown of the events and the battles (even though they might be a bit different in KAP 6 than in KAP 4, as they also differed between KAP 4 and GPC). Also, in my experience, the players want to play. Hook them in with nice adventures, and you can worry about the family backgrounds later when KAP 6 is out and you are doing a real campaign. Also, the 4e (and 5.2e) family background was quite Salisbury-centric, still. Book of Sires would give you more options, but the whole idea here is to give you a cheap starter set, not an exhaustive one. Also, by diminishing the importance of the background, you can let the players be freer with their backgrounds and work with them to tie in their characters, even if one is a Saxon and another a French knight (actually still a squire) from the Continent (no doubt picked up by the mentor knight during the Roman War). However, while I advise not doing the Family History for these intro PKs, you ought to go ahead and read through it yourself, to get some idea what has happened.

As all of you likely already know, there is going to be a starter set for 6th edition. But in case you want to play NOW but not commit to getting a load of 5th edition stuff, here is something you can do to get yourself and your game group primed for 6th edition. (Yes, I know that most of the people in this forum already own loads of books and have played/GMed KAP, but in case we have some people who haven't...) 1st thing you need: The Rulebook Obviously you need the rules to play the game, and some background information doesn't hurt, either. KAP core rules have stayed quite similar from edition to edition, so it isn't a huge deal if you get 3th, 4th or 5.x edition. 5.2 has the most up-to-date rules and is nice and slick with its new art, but I'll be honest here: I'd go for 4th edition if I'd be looking for a starter. My reasons for this are as follows: 4th edition is set to start AD 531, meaning that your PKs will drop down right into the golden age of Arthurian chivalry, romance and adventure. In short, what they expect to experience when you tell them that the game setting is King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. By contrast, 5.2 drops you in 485, in King Uther's rather more grey-shaded world of might-makes-right (granted, you can use 5.2 to play in AD 531 rules-wise no problem, but the setting info is for 485, which makes it a touch harder for a new GM). Not only that, 4th edition is a thick tome that comes with nice blurbs of information about the various counties and the kingdoms, as well as rules for creating characters who are not the standard Cymric knights from Salisbury, whereas 5.2 would require you to get the Book of Knights & Ladies to get the extra chargen information (and alas, not really tell you all that much about the various kingdoms and counties...). Furthermore, 4th edition pdf is a steal at $9.99 from Chaosium website (link below). There is another reason, and that is the Adventure of the White Horse, but more of that later. Finally, I started with the 4th edition back in the 90s, so it will always have a special place in my heart. ❤️ https://www.chaosium.com/king-arthur-pendragon-core-rule-book-4th-edition-pdf/ 2nd thing: The Adventures There is a nice collection of free stuff out there already. Chaosium has put out two free adventures, The Red Blade and The Great Hunt (link below). There is also the Marriage of Count Roderick (link below) that you might wish to get and retool for finding a bride for the liege's son (if playing 4th edition) or use as a prequel (if playing 5.2 edition) as is. However, the 4th edition comes with its own intro adventure, The Bear Hunt (also included in 5.2), where the player-characters get knighted, and in addition, 4th edition has a very nice adventure, the Adventure of the White Horse, which introduces the players to the system of Trait tests and how not every challenge is won with weapons. Alas, 5.2 edition lacks this adventure, which is a great shame. In addition to the free stuff above (or included into the rulebook), there is also the Dragons of Britain fanzines #1 - #4, available for free at the drivethrurpg.com (links below). They each have a fan-created KAP adventure that you can use. https://www.chaosium.com/we-are-all-us-free-adventures/ https://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/Pendragon/NM14 - Marriage of Count Roderick.pdf https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121452/The-Dragons-of-Britain-1 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126635/The-Dragons-of-Britain-2 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130711/The-Dragons-of-Britain-3 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139056/The-Dragons-of-Britain-4 So in the end, you end up with seven (eight if 4th edition) adventures + the Marriage of Count Roderick to play with as a taster with your friends, just by getting the rulebook. In the next post on this thread, I will give my suggestions on how to weave those adventures into a mini-campaign for your players. (However, that will have to wait for later, as I ran out of time.)

(Since the topic came up in Discord, I figured I'd just cross-post here as well.) Since Pugnacious Knight came up in the other channel, and I commented on Chivalric, here is a quick overview of our house-rule for Chivalric: CHIVALRIC KNIGHT The Chivalric Traits are Energetic, Generous, Just, Merciful, Modest and Valorous, as before. However, there is also a Chivalric Passion: Honor, for a total of 7 things that make you Chivalric. 1st tier: If you have three of the above traits/passion at 16+, you gain +1 Armor of Honor. 2nd tier: At five or more at 16+, your Armor of Honor becomes +2. 3rd tier: At all seven at 16+, you are the pinnacle of Chivalry and your Armor of Honor reaches +3. Note: If you have the trait at 4 or less (i.e. the opposite one is 16+), it counts as -1. Thus, a Pagan Knight with Proud 16 but others at 16+ would still be able to reach +2: 6-1 = 5. Honor 4 might already be cause for disqualification from being a knight. The thing I very much like about this house-rule is that it makes a chivalric knight to act chivalric (since it requires traits/passion at 16+, as the Religious knight bonus does as well), which is also what Greg's adjusted 96 limit tends to do. However, by chopping it up in tiers, it gives the Players some benefit while they are struggling up to the top, rather than waiting until the very end. The earlier limit of 80 was way too low; everyone had it, it was achievable with traits as low as 13 each + Valorous 15, and it didn't require you to actually act according to the ideals. To use a similar method for the Pugnacious Knight, I would build it like this: Dropping out Trusting, since it makes no sense to me in the rough dog-eat-dog world of Uther that it is supposed to reflect, and replace it with Arbitrary (might makes right) rather than leave Arbitrary as a wild card. Also, I want Arbitrary in there as a contrast to Chivalric. For the passion, I would add Homage (old Loyalty [lord]), since sticking to your lord is more important than the fiddly dictates of Honor. PUGNACIOUS KNIGHT Traits: Vengeful, Generous, Arbitrary, Proud, Reckless, and Valorous Passion: Homage (old Loyalty [lord]) 1st tier (three at 16+): +1 damage 2nd tier (five at 16+): +2 damage 3rd tier (all seven at 16+): +3 damage Note that it would be possible, under this method, to have both Pugnacious Knight and Chivalric Knight statuses overlapping at tier 2, as long as you avoid Just/Arbitrary and Modest/Proud. I don't mind, since this would already represent a huge commitment to one's traits and those Vengeful 16+ and Reckless 16+ are probably going to lead to enough trouble already. Also, as soon as they commit to one or the other, the other one drops to 'mere' +1, but they still need to keep all those traits up. In short, it is a lot of work to get both of them above +1 each. 

Actually, I may have been remembering our old houserule there... Nowadays, I think what we do is to roll a new Loyalty with 3d6+bonuses (like the 1d3 for vassal knight) and then take the average between it and the previous loyalty. So if you were superloyal to Roderick, some of that likely carries over, but not all of it, and so forth. Granted, it is not really an issue outside of Anarchy in most campaigns.

I give my PKs a choice: they can reroll the Passion or they can keep the one they have. Yes, I know this means that on the whole, they keep the high loyalty and reroll the poor ones, but I am fine with this. Loyalty is one of those nice passions that is tailor-made for the GM to use as a hook, as my players found out having maximised their Loyalty [Prince Mark] during the Anarchy... 😛 All hail Good King Mark! I think you are right. That being said, in our campaign, Cornwall had it as a requirement for their help that the knights of Salisbury bend the knee to Prince Mark, "until such time as Robert is old enough to swear allegiance to the King of Cornwall and take his place as the Count of Salisbury as a loyal vassal of the King of Cornwall". Which led to a nice little loyalty conflict when Squire Robert (no early knighting for you!) was captured by Arthur's army in 511... and Arthur promptly released Robert and knighted him, before asking for an oath of loyalty to the King of Logres, "as his father before him".

I was going to comment on this... where are they going to get those mercenaries, by the way? You can't just press 'recruit a mercenary knight £1' button in a computer screen and the mercenary to materialize in your army roster. In fact, pretty much the only way for them to get mercenaries 'on the spot' is to offer clemency for those enemy knights they just defeated. But of course then you can't loot them, or they would not be able to fight for you as knights. Not to mention that their loyalty might be suspect. And finally, those other victorious knights and footsoldiers might be looking for their cut; granted, you might be able to talk at least Gwendolyn's household knights around into supporting this idea to reclaim her lands quicker, and possibly even Ellen's, and then the footsoldiers can probably be bought off by any stuff from the dead/too badly wounded to be worth waiting enemy knights.

Yeah, at the very least -1 Honor. One could, yes. Honestly, just to reduce the overhead for the GM, I would just value everything at 50% and then split evenly, with the understanding that if you own a third of that charger, you will get your £3 d80 eventually when it is sold, don't worry about it. Or some wealthier knight might want a spare/replacement and use some of his loot to trade/buy it from the people owning those shares.

Please reread point 1. How many enemy knights were captured? How many horses? Most of the loot would be the knights' armor and horses, since they are probably all robber knights without much in the way of family or liege lords to pay their ransom. I mean, technically the usurpers might, but without armor and horses they would not be worth the money to the usurpers. OK then. See point 4. about household knights. Same would apply to the vassal knights of Ellen/Gwendolyn sent here by their lieges.

Good way to get a rebellion or a desertion in your hands if you do not. Loot is expected, just like the PKs get loot in GPC's scripted battles even if they do not personally capture a horse, for instance. Are all of those other knights and spearmen either mercenaries or sworn men of the PKs? Or other allies working on their own? Or are they (and the PKs) sent by the PKs' liege? In the latter case, the liege would expect a cut, too. Here is the way I'd do it: 1. Calculate the total KV (knight value) of the winning army with a knight being 1, and a spearman being 1/8th. 2. Divide the loot by the knight value: remaining loot / total KV of the army. This is how much each knight gets. 3. Now it gets complicated: Each knight would give 1/3rd of their loot to their feudal superior / employer. (Theoretically the footmen as well, but they are getting such a tiny share that it is not worth it.) 4. Each 'middleman' knight would give another 1/3rd of their TOTAL loot to the Battle commander, who of course has gained his own share and 1/3rd of his own men. In the case of household knights, they would give that 1/3rd to their liege lord (even if absent) and 1/3rd of that (so 1/9th of a hhk's share) to the army commander, although if the army commander is a vassal of the same liege lord, he might consider letting the whole third slip him by. 5. The army commander, if he wants to keep his allies sweet, ought to think about showing some personal largesse, too.

Depends. Sure, if all the player-characters are magicians, it will by necessity have a very different feel from the default KAP. But if it is more of a case of a single magician player-character acting more as a quest-guide role (a role also often filled by ladies) or as a support character (ditto), then the campaign would play out almost the same. Perhaps a bit more supernatural adventures, but those already exist in the published adventures, as does magic, for instance the Tournament of Dreams. However, if you play, say, Paladin, you are not going to be playing the GPC, full stop. That is the difference in my mind. It is not the same setting, the same period of the game world. Hence Paladin is a spinoff, but something like Beyond the Wall, Saxons!, Land of Giants or Pagan Shores are add-ons. All those four introduce different societies and settings from the default rulebook, but they co-exist in the GPC world, and while you can run a regional campaign that is pretty much totally divorced from the Arthurian saga, you don't have to. Now if someone were to come up with, say, Beowulf (Land of Giants gets close) or Nibelungenlied that would focus solely on those stories and societies and would have a campaign set there, without any connection to the Arthurian world, then I would call them spin-off games. Or if you take Saxons! and fast-forward it to 9th century with the Vikings (the new "Saxons") and Alfred the Great (the new "Arthur" stand-in), then yes, that is a spin-off game. As it is, though, Saxons! is so connected to the KAP timeline and happenings that it is not its own separate GAME, it is simply looking at the same setting from the different side. Just like in the Old D&D, you had Mystara with its Gazetteer series detailing one country after another, with their own little quirks and societies, and those didn't make them spin-off games. Hmm. Maybe a good definition is if the characters made in one supplement interact and crossover with characters from another supplement, it is an add-on. Whereas if they cannot (without invoking magic or time-travel or dimensional hopping), then they are separate games. Although in AD&D you had the same game and simply different campaign worlds. Same thing is true with GURPS: same ruleset, just multiple different campaign settings. Anyway, just wanted to explain where I was coming from with these definitions. 🙂

KAP 5.2, p. 185. I don't know if you had an earlier edition? I'd just add here that at least in our campaign, the lord would have to have a use for the stuff you are looking to sell him for him to pay a full price. He is not just going to pay a full price for any old stuff, unless you are a favorite of his or something like that. Also, it would probably be more suitable socially for you to gift the loot to the lord, and hope that he will gift you back something about the same value. For instance, if the lord has access to a higher class of a warhorse thanks to his bigger and better horse herds, he might take the normal chargers you gift him (those household knights might need new horses, especially if there have been battles against the Saxons recently), and give you a better one as a return gift. As for the Lord's Third, that is already taken into account in the Battle loots, I believe. I would impose it when the PKs are 'on duty', such as patrolling or at war. But I would not impose it if the PKs are out adventuring on their own time and happen to come across some robber knights or a buried treasure. However, giving a third of that kind of loot to their Lord on their return would certainly earn them brownie points from the Lord, as well as checks to Generous and Loyalty/Homage [lord].

I would not consider Codex Mirabilis a spinoff game, more of an add-on.

An actual spinoff game? You are not just talking about Codex Mirabilis that allows for magician player characters? Slightly misleading. 4th edition did allow Saxons, Irish and Picts (and Occitan and Romans, in addition to the Cymric default), however all of those were still knights (or ladies). The 5th edition Book of Knights and Ladies not only has all of those but more besides, all the way from the darkest North (Danes) to the easternly east (Byzantines and Zazamancs/Saracens/Persians). Not only that, unlike 4th edition that has those different nationalities for 531 start, BoK&L has different starting skills for early periods and late periods for the 'Big Six': Cymri, Roman, Irish, Saxon, Pict and Aquitanian (formerly Occitan).

Hmm. As I said, we house-ruled it so that you can use your highest weapon skill regardless. However, here is how I interpret the shield defense rule (p. 139): You can simply defend yourself with your shield using DEX+10 (counting as a Defensive tactic) even if you are not armed with a weapon. If you want to use Defensive and re-arm at the same time, then you use DEX+10 for Defensive and -5 for rearming, for a total of DEX+5. Whether this suggests that you cannot use Defensive while re-arming with your Weapon skill is up to debate. Admittedly, the whole point of using DEX would be useless if you can use your main Weapon Skill instead, since your main Weapon Skill is likely much better than your DEX. But if the choice is between rearming and fighting back with Weapon Skill -5, or rearming and Defending with DEX+5, then there would be a niche to fill with this shield defense. I don't recall off the top of my head if Greg said anything definitive on this one in any forum posts. He may have. I'd have to go and look. We have played with "rearm+Defensive with Weapon Skill +5" so long that it is frankly a reflex already. EDIT: OK, the shield defense says explicitly that even if the GM normally doesn't allow Defense tactic, since it is an optional combat tactic, it should be allowed with the shield defense. That might be the reason of it, but it could be explained better, I feel. I have not seen anything that would say that you cannot use Defense tactic whilst rearming with a weapon, but that might be one of those GM judgement calls to make. I can definitely see the game being more deadly, especially with high skills, if it is disallowed. Also, as I said, personally I prefer using the Sword skill even without a sword: a knight with a Sword skill 25 doesn't suddenly forget how to use his shield (DEX 10) even if he drops his sword! EDIT2: 4th edition is clear that rearming and fighting uses your combat skill at -5 (and +5 to the enemy skill). Again, there is no reason why Defense tactic would not be allowed by the knight rearming, since it makes total sense that he would be backing away while getting his sword out and focusing more on defending himself. Also in 4th edition, what to do if you lose your weapon due to a fumble: "In that case, to block incoming blows with the shield, the character who fumbled may still make the roll of the weapon lost, though he cannot damage his opponent. " We did interpret that to include, for balance's sake, that you could still do Defensive, but of course if you are not using a weapon, the opponent can just do an Uncontrolled attack and hence make it back to Skill vs. Skill with you unable to hurt him. I don't know why 5th edition decided to change that to just DEX and nerf shields that way.

Both critical = tie. So nothing happens, as per KAP 5.2, p. 113. Greg used a house rule that both do 1d3 damage (past armor) if it is crit vs. crit, so you could say that the Defensive one takes 1d3 damage (past armor) but doesn't cause any damage in return because of Defensive.

1. Yes and yes: he can pull his sword and fight with it in the same round. That is what the -5/+5 is there for. 2. No, he can attack with his sword. In our houserules, he can also decide not to draw his sword and just protect him with his shield, using his highest 1H weapon skill (Sword, most likely) with +10 for Defensive. The downside of this is that even if he wins, he doesn't get the sword out (since he didn't do a combined action) nor does he do any damage (since he was Defensive, and also because he didn't have a sword in hand). 3. This is what our PKs usually do: rearm with Defensive for a total of +5/+5, with the downside of not doing damage on a win. 4. Brawling attack? Sure, but he would suffer -5/+5 because of combined action. So why not use his Sword since his skill is better and the damage is higher.

Hmm, so you basically took out the antagonists before running the adventure. I think Bege, robbed of his brothers' help, would be seeking some kind of an accommodation with his Salisbury relatives. Staying alive and keeping your lands even if it means bending the knee is preferable to dying. That being said, see below... Well, first question: Did the PKs take Basile's fortress or did one of his lieutenants take over? In the latter case, you still have an enemy there. Second question: How are things between Levcomagus/Silchester and Salisbury? If things are not peachy keen, it would be easy enough to assume that whoever Ulfius leaves in charge after withdrawing most of his armies might harbor anti-Salisbury sentiments and seek to undermine the PKs' efforts to husband their manors. Thus, acting almost like one of the Usurping Brothers for the benefit of the adventure. So if Salisbury and Silchester are at loggerheads, I could see Bege stalling, trying to play one side against the other. He is probably not an outright antagonist to the PKs, wanting to keep his escape hatch open, but he would no doubt be willing to stay in the sidelines and let the others try to stymie the PKs. The status quo would work for him. Finally, even absent of the above issues, you could easily enough run the interesting parts of the Allies & Enemies, with the faerie encounters and issues with the local grumbling and defections and the like.

The GM is right. However, if you want to point to rules, Book of the Estate, p. 51. The interest is not compounded, but it is based on the original loan sum, as the example shows. Secondly, there is no 'paying off the loan early'. The repayment date was specified in the original loan contract. Until then, the interest is ticking. What you'd have to do is to pay the whole loan off (and the interest), at the agreed upon date. If you are unable to do that, bye bye your collateral (land).

Per defeated enemy, yes. That is what I meant by personal fights. I'd just apply modifiers just to the final roll, which would determine both the outcome of the skirmish as well as the losses on both sides. The first charge roll I'd have unmodified: regardless of odds, smart tactics are smart tactics.

I agree that the troop quality and numbers should matter even in a Skirmish. Another thing is that the PKs' success in their own personal fights should also matter a lot to how the whole skirmish ends up: if the PKs utterly wipe the floor with their own opponents, they are then free to help the others, and vice versa. Given that the PKs are likely a a significant part of the whole skirmishing force, I would be looking at something like +1/-1 per PK winning (and vice versa), or even higher bonuses if the skirmish is small. Enemy casualties usually do not matter so much, which is why the Skirmish is not an opposed Battle roll. I argue that it should be, but also that the Follower's Fate casualties jump up a bit too quickly. Having a matrix of results to play with would make it possible to have more granularity. The casualties can simply be symmetrical, too.

YPWV, but the way I GM it... All the upkeep paid in the Winter Phase is for the upcoming year. So yeah, you pay in advance. You are basically allocating the resources to feed the guy through the year until the next harvest comes in. The big advantage of that is that if there is a bad harvest, the PK has most of the next year to try and make up for it rather than getting hit instantly with the penalties. Also it makes the PKs pay for their servants rather than trying to argue that since the guy died during the year, they don't have to pay...

I think Prometheus878 meant that if he is doing a solitaire play (i.e. using a GM emulator, with himself as the solo player), would it be better for him to run a party or just a single PK. I have to admit that I don't find solitaire play that interesting. I need someone to bounce off from and share the fun, so my energies would be diverted more to finding someone to play with, even online, and taking turns to GM or running a GM-PC as a sidekick (either another knight, snarky Dinadan-type to Tristram, or an actual career squire like Prince Valiant, Lancelot & Tristram have). If I were to run a solitaire play with a single PK, I would very much recommend making the PK tougher than the normal PK in group play. Like giving him extra 10 years of training without aging him, right off the bat, and tossing the 15-starting-skill cap away. I would likely also give him a career squire, who is experienced in things that the PK isn't, such as make him a Hunting 15+ expert so that the PK doesn't have to spend points there. Fortunately, a lot of the combat encounters in Pendragon adventures are already scaled with the number of PKs (such as "3 bandits per PK"), but I would certainly look over the encounters and maybe tweak them a bit to make sure that they are usable in single play, too. Giants and such are very very deadly if you are trying to solo them.