Morien

Second stringers compared to an actively played PK OF THEIR OWN AGE. It is not a wonder that a knight who has been actively adventuring for 10 years is superior to one who has spent those 10 years in garrison service. However, if you are the only 30-year old knight in a party of freshly knighted 21-yr olds, you are still much much more capable than they are. Sure, they will eventually catch up when your age starts catching up with your in your 40s, but they are unlikely to catch up with you before you have already changed to your own primary heir. Honest question: if you had your choice between playing a 21-yr fresh knight from No-Name Family for 10 years and then switch to your main heir (who comes of age) or playing a 31-yr old uncle of your main heir for 10 years and then switch, which one would you and your players choose to play? Which one would be more of an asset to the group? Assume, for argument's sake, that the other PKs in the party would be 2x21, 26, and 31, all having been adventuring from 21 onwards.

Well, not as great as a played PK is likely to be, but this is due to the fact that the 30-yr old has not shared the same dangers and adventures. But that doesn't mean that they are bench warmers. For instance, if there is a 30-yr old brother, then the main was probably in his mid-30s. Chances are that the 30-yr old is still at least comparable in age to the other PKs, much more so than a new 14-yr old or even 21-yr old. Secondly, sure, he will not reach the rarified air that a PK who has been adventuring every year since he was 21, but then again, he is SUPPOSED to keep the bench warm for the primary heir, who is probably in early teens by this point. So say, 10 years or so. In those 10 years, this 30-yr old will be a much more capable character than a new 21-yr old knight would be. As for Glory & high skills, there is a simple solution for that too: 1) Give the new 30-yr PK all the Annual Glory that he would be entitled to from 21-yr onwards. 2) Give the new 30-yr PK a chance to earn Battle Glory for all the famous battles that have happened during the time he has been knighted: 1d6*battle size Glory*victory modifier. 3) Give the new 30-yr PK any general 'witnessed an event' Glory that the general public would probably have attended to, like Arthur's coronation or wedding. Add the above to the Knighting Glory and Inherited Glory, and the new character will almost definitely have 2 Glory Bonus Points earned, if not 3. Now, hang onto those GBP until the rest of the chargen is done. In other words, let the Player use Yearly Trainings boost the skill to 20, and then allow him to use those 'saved' GBPs to boost his skill above 20, if that is what he wants. Sure, he is probably still lagging a bit in skills and traits in general, but at least his main skills and attributes ought to be good enough. Campaigns do vary a lot, though. In our campaign, it is not rare for the PKs to suffer major wounds every few years, so they kinda 'pay' for their experience checks by needing to use the Yearly Training to boost their lowered attributes instead. We also use GBPs as fate points, so we don't see a huge Skill increase past 20 via GBP, either. The highest Weapon skill is 22, despite the knight being past 10k in Glory. Just to add, another solution would be to give the player 3 Yearly trainings per year, but limit them thusly: 1st 5 points to spend on skills up to 15, AND 2nd 1 point in trait or passion, AND 3rd 1 point in attribute or skill past 15. This would roughly mimic what we are seeing in the PK experience checks & Yearly Training. But then you'd run to the problem that you mentioned: that a player might get a BETTER character by benching the primary heir for a while. Sure, he'd miss out on the adventuring Glory, but on the other hand, he wouldn't take Major Wounds nor get squished by a giant when you are 22.

I couldn't find it in the book, so I went looking the old Nocturnal Forums... Greg said the following in a thread where hitting a horse was being discussed: "Just remember that even if he strikes the knight's horse, the knight's combat win would protect the horse. He does not have to specify he is protecting his horse." If the defending knight doesn't have to split his skill, then it makes no sense that the attacker would have to, either. Earlier in the same thread Darren Hill stated: "In normal melee, the attacker just says whether he wants to hit the rider or the horse. The rider rolls his attack normally, and if the attacker wins, he hits the one he chose as target." Greg did not comment on that, so given his actually answer supporting this same method, I think it is in a reasonably good footing. Most importantly, it works in game. In another thread, a Boar is attacking the horse of a horseman, who in turn is attacking the boar, and the question was if this is a single opposed roll or two unopposed rolls, as neither the knight nor the boar is actually defending against the other. Greg's answer was: "I would just make this an opposed roll of the knight with his weapon versus the boar where a win by the boar = he disembowels the horse". I think that is the definitive answer. If it works for a boar, it ought to work for a man attacking the horse rather than the rider, too.

IIRC, that is the way it works by RAW. In our game, we use a house rule that if you are attacking the horse instead of the rider, you do not suffer the -5 penalty if you are on foot. The horseman still gets the +5 to attack you.

Well BotM had a destruction table roll 1d20-DV+5/10/15 based on raid severity. That would probably be the easiest way to go. You could simply roll against that number for the most vulnerable investment and if it gets destroyed on a success, then roll the next at cumulative -10, until failure or investments run out.

That is partially why I think that Chalkhill is the correct name.

Chalkhill. But this does explain why there is a Churchford Hundred which does not appear in the WARLORD maps: it is a duplication of Chalkhill.

As any new 21-yr old PK would. My point is, if you had two Players, one starting to play with a 14 yr old squire with full 21-yr training right up front will be clearly much more powerful than the Player who waited until the heir was 21-yr old before starting play. Hence, the squire-starter will have much better chance to reach higher Glory and skills, thus being more likely to get to the Round Table, too. The full Annual Glory is probably more than enough to counter any increases in inherited glory (which is just 10% of the father's glory).

Yeah, that is a big advantage over regular knight. In effect, you benefited from 6 years of Yearly Training AND experience checks. So by the time your character hit 21, he had the equivalent experience and maturity to a 27 old knight, making it much easier to have high combat skills and statistics. Which then means that it is much easier to qualify for the Round Table. And this is ignoring the 6 years of Glory, even lesser Glory, gained during squirehood that other, 21-yr old new PKs wouldn't get (did you get full Annual Glory, too?).

p. 196: Southern border of Salisbury, the source of Ebble River, where Broad Chalke is. Or p. 13 for that matter.

It is intentionally double-dipping, since the worse the damage is, the more likely it is that something is smashed and also that more than one thing is smashed. If the place is Ravaged, then most of the investments ought to be in smoking ruins, IMHO. 1d20 feels too random for me. You can have a raid rolling 20 and causing more damage than the place being ravaged on a roll of 13.

The skill cap on previous experience being 15 after the character is older than 21 years is idiotic. We do not use that in our campaign, and instead the older characters get the ordinary Winter Phase Training and Practice choice.

The issue is that the squires really shouldn't be fighting unless absolutely necessary. Their job is to hand a new lance to their knight, etc, not try to gather glory on their own. Also, in court situations, a good squire is neither seen nor heard, as he serves his knight and the lady seated next to the knight. So while you do get a lot of opportunities for Modest and such, the actual role that you can play is somewhat limited. Certainly the knights are the ones to make all the decisions and speeches and such. I was just rereading the squire rules in BotEnt, and I need to warn about one potential confusion. I think it is clear enough, but just in case: There are two sections in there, Character Generation (based on the age at chargen) and Winter Phase (during play). You don't get attribute increases, skill advancement & Yearly trainings from BOTH. Basically, once you finish Character Generation, you should forget that section and only focus on the Winter Phase rules.

Sure, go ahead. A very very simple idea: If a raid is successful, roll 1d6 for each raid severity. If any die result is severity or less, an investment is destroyed (either randomly or using logic). Example: The holding is pillaged (severity 2). Roll two times 1d6, resulting in 2 and 5. Since 2 is equal to the severity, one investment is destroyed.

Sorry for the confusion. It is an acronym for Rules As Written. In other words, that is the official rule for Squire characters. Our own, predating BotEnt revision, are slightly different, but as I said, it doesn't matter since we won't play squires. BoK&L has another set of rules, which are quite simplistic. I prefer the (revised) BotEnt rules (obviously, having had a hand in writing them). I discourage the players from playing squires, as it is very rare that they will enjoy the experience. Instead, I suggest that they play a kinsman for a few years and then switch to the heir when he is old enough to be knighted early (18-19, usually). Of course, it can happen that they are enjoying playing the kinsman by then, and might continue until the heir is truly ready, or even a bit beyond that.

Clearly the raid did not touch the rabbits, who were safely within their warren. Or rather, even if some rabbits got capture, one nice thing about rabbits is that they will breed like, well, rabbits. Destroying the warren itself would require serious spade-work, and who has time for that when there is looting and pillaging to be had? But it is totally up to the GM. If you want to introduce a chance that a raid destroys an improvement, have at. I would have no problems believing that some of the herds (horse, cow, sheep) might get stolen during the raid, leading to reduced income from those sources, too. You can recalculate the total value of the holding with all the new investments: Let's say £10 manor + £3 worth of investment (free) income. 3 Lots would normally be £3, but now we add in the investments, so 1 Lot = £13/10 = £1.3. Which makes 3 Lots = £3.9. Or to put it in other way, treat the investments as their own 'holding' that gets raided, too, and thus reduce the Free Income they provide by 3 Lots as well: 3*£0.3 = £0.9. So the Holding itself suffers -3 Lots, and the Free Income from investments is just £2.1 this year due to the raiding. This is consistent with how the old investment income is treated, as it gets added to the Assized Rent and the Lot value is recalculated.

That's what Permanent Damage represents. Destroyed/damaged assets. It is just that it is pretty difficult to destroy everything.

BotEnt is RAW. We don't usually play squires do it is of lesser importance. Some heirs get knighted early at ages 18+, in which cases we tend to just make them as knights but knock off some of the misc picks in KAP 5.2 chargen, -1 per year under 21.

Too much overlap. I wouldn't allow it in my campaign.🙂

Of course not. The space is gone. Reassessment doesn't magically increase the size of the landholding. You can always sell the sheep herd or whatnot and build a new thing there, if you really wish. Sure, why not. WARLORD limits improvements to just caput major, but it is your game. It won't unbalance the game. But keep in mind that a lone manner somewhere might be raided quite easily, too.

I am thinking that it would work better as Stoicism (Religion). That way, you can balance it against other religions, rather than against the overpowered Chivalric. Maybe something like: Required Traits (at 16+): Valorous, Temperate, Just, Honest, and Prudent Bonus: +3 Major Wound Threshold That gives Stoicism Two overlapping traits with Chivalric, same as Roman Christianity.

Well Roman Christian +6 HP is worse (except when one-shot) than Armor of Honor +3. It is probably no wonder that in a game inspired by the paragons of Chivalry (Arthur & his Knights of the Round Table), it is Chivalric that is the bestest Ideal. On the other hand, nothing prevents a Chivalric knight from being a Christian Paragon as well, which is another 'hidden' downside of Nobilis: not only are you getting a worse bonus but it also limits on what else you can stack with it.

So I was puttering around Book of Uther to check up a name, and happened to be on a page (p. 20) talking about that... "Primer Seizin: An inheritance tax paid with a relief. When the escheat is done, the king receives from the heir, provided he is of full age, one whole year’s profits of the lands." Full age here should be taken to mean that the heir is not subject to wardship and hence the Primer Seisin is limited to a year and not until the heir is of age. It should not be interpreted that an underaged heir would not be subject to Primer Seisin. Escheat is also used inaccurately here, since it refers to the fief escheating back to the King, which is not what happens in Primer Seisin. Nor is Primer Seisin AFTER the reassessment has been done, but during it, with the Relief as a separate tax. So (IMHO): 1) Fief-holder dies. 2) The liege lord takes over the fief to reassess it. This takes a year during which the liege lord pockets any profits and the correct heir is determined. 3) The heir swears homage to the liege lord who answers with the liege lord's oath. 4) The heir needs to pay relief for the holding, before he gains control of it. If the heir does not pay the relief, then the liege remains in control of the fief and gets to pocket the profits until the heir coughs up the dough. However, the fief does not escheat to the liege during this time: the heir still has the legal right to it, but does not have the possession & use of it. If the heir is underaged, then the liege lord remains in control of the fief until the heir is of age. If a guardian is appointed, then the guardian collects the relief. Magna Charta establishes that an heir who is underaged does not have to pay relief when they come of age, which seems like a rule Arthur would institute. However, I have a feeling that Uther would not be as charitable in most cases. As Relief goes, it is somewhat more complicated since the £ in Magna Charta and £ in KAP do not line up perfectly, and of course the value of a knight's fee fluctuated with time and place, too. I have seen some estimates that a knight's fee was £20 per year. Which, depending the way it is calculated, is either twice what it is in KAP or the exact same (once you add £10 of Production to the Customary Revenue). Encyclopedia Britannica says that the customary value for the relief was the one year's revenue, same as Greg's definition, even though this is larger than what is in Magna Charta. Again, I would chalk this up to Arthur revising the more arbitrary determinations of Uther, and possibly even lowering the relief down some to reflect more what is actually left for the knight's upkeep (£4, if including the squire or the wife) and profit (£1).

As Atxgtx said, it depends on the situation. Generally they don't, if there is an option not to. For instance, the combat skills of a 14-yr old squire SUCK. You throw the kid against an experienced Saxon raider and he will be chopped liver the next round. Have fun explaining that to the kid's parents who trusted you to train him and keep him safe. Now, if we are talking about a 20-yr old squire wearing his late father's gear and seeking to prove himself on the battlefield to earn his spurs, now that is a totally different kettle of fish. There is also a chance that the squires get attacked while on the battlefield, following their knights. A footman likely doesn't care that the guy on horseback swinging a sword at him still has pimples: Poke it to make it go away! In Book of Battle, Greg implied that squires customarily fight to give their knights a chance to disengage, but I am not GMing it like that: if it is dangerous for a knight to disengage, how much more dangerous is that for a fresh new squire wearing only a gambeson? No, in my game, the squires are for support only, unless they are attacked first. (Some exceptions may apply. For instance, in one touch-and-go skirmish battle, one of the PKs ordered the squires on horseback and rode with the squires around a Saxon shieldwall to attack them from behind. The sudden 'reinforcements' of a dozen or so horsemen with lances was enough to make the Saxon morale break, after it had already been wavering at the heroics of the other PKs on the front.) Just from GMing perspective, I seriously don't want to bother about rolling for extra X NPCs and their opponents. Nor do I want to beef up the opposition to prevent the squires from tilting the balance: most KAP encounters are designed per knight, not per knight+squire. There is also the point that if the squires are helping the knights, it is less Glory for the knights, and might even lead to some sneering at court: "Heard your squire had to save your bacon again, ol'chap." Again, as Atgxtg said, not normally. When you take on a squire, you take on the responsibility to train him until he is 21. However, there are a couple of ways around that 'problem': 1) Atgxtg's suggestion that you simply pay for the second squire. With the DF £1 per manor, the PKs would likely be able to afford this without too much hardship. 2) Like you suggested later, the PK could hire an older esquire to be his squire for the couple of years, and then switch to the nephew. A variant of this is that the current squire is not 14-yr old, but a 19-yr old whose knight has died (in a recent battle, skirmish, accident, or illness). Thus, the PK has stepped in, knowing that he has about 2 years before his nephew is ready. There is also the point that while nepotism is fine and well, spreading the family around is actually a better form of nepotism: the squire and his mentor knight usually form a lifelong bond. If you are training your nephew, you form a bond where one already exists (family relationship). However, if you train a non-family member and the nephew gets trained by a non-family member, you have both added a non-family knight (assuming your squire gets knighted in the end) into your sphere of influence. So a better way of doing things would be to ask around the other PKs, for instance, if any of them has a need for a squire in the next 2 years or so. I mean, if someone needs a squire in 3 years, it would be very easy for the PK to pay the first year upkeep if he really wants it to happen. And if not a PK, there surely would be NPKs that could be tapped for that mentorship role. But if the PK insisted, I would not have a problem with uncle-nephew nepotism. After all, we have the example of Arthur's brother-brother squiring, and I think it as not that rare for a kid to go and be a page at a maternal uncle's household, either.

Quick question, are you using Book of the Manor or Book of the Estate? Since the income in the ESTATE is just one number, which you simply add to your Discretionary Funds while you are alive, and to your holding value when it is reassessed when you die and the heir takes over. No rolling necessary. But sure, if you give no benefits for the investments whatsoever, then it is CC since you don't get anything else.