Morien

Feel free. That is why I posted them. As for wealth, the bonuses are not huge: +1 Glory per 1£ of dowry, and +50 per manor if she is an heiress. I could see revising both up some, especially given how rare the heiresses are. Of course, the husband will then also get the title glory, if he was not landed before.

Geez, you are asking me to remember something from 5 years ago? Warlord v1.0 it was 250 Glory. I -think- it was a change due to vassal knights being rarer than they were in earlier editions, and Greg wanted the glory to reflect that. 50 Glory is not that much, after all. Then when Warlord was revised, it was decided that 200 Glory per step up to a King would give a nice round 1000 Glory total for the King. Since at the time, 1000 Glory was the cap anyway, this seemed about right. That is my recollection of it.

Since people were asking, here are Sir Pramalot's expanded tables that we are using at the moment. Expanded Manor Luck.pdf Expanded Family Events.pdf

Fully agreed with the above. The suggested CON roll childbirth above with roughly 1.25% maternal mortality per year would result in a roughly 3-in-4 survival over the fertile period of the NPC wife (25 years). Since it is quite probable that any PK who dies while their son is still a minor will die during that same period, it is 3-in-4 odds that the mother would still be alive. This is a huge difference compared to the 10% yearly death in vanilla KAP, which results in over half of the women dying within 7 years; the wife has only 7% survival chance to make it for 25 years. Granted, the above ignores the family survival rolls from BotE (1.25% yearly chance, if memory serves, ratcheting up in later years), but that would still be about a 50/50 chance (5% survival with vanilla rules, for 10% + 1.25% mortality per year). Of course, the younger the PK kicks it, the more likely it is that the mother of the son PK survives (no childbirth rolls, assuming she doesn't remarry).

Some people were asking about the house rules that I use in our campaign, so I am trying to add them all here. Some of the stuff is a bit more complicated, so I might just summarize it and add it in later if there is more interest. And also if I recall something else that we do. A lot of this stuff is the way we have played for years, so it is not always easy to remember what is the house rule and what is the RAW, without checking! I have organized this roughly in the way the chapters are in the KAP 5.2 book, but not slavishly so. The most important house rules, IMHO, are II.10, IV.6 and IV.7. I.) CHARACTER GENERATION This is largely similar to KAP 5.2, with some key differences. I.1.) Attributes There are three methods to choose from, but in all cases, APP gets rolled randomly (3d6, but I usually give a reroll if it is below 8, and I allow -1 other attribute = +2 APP). The three methods for the other four attributes are: a) Point-buy: 50 (the default 60 - 10 APP); b) Point-buy: 43+2d6 (giving a range of +-5 around 50); c) Random rolls: SIZ 1d6+12, DEX 1d6+7, STR 1d6+10 and CON 1d6+9. Each player can choose at chargen, which method they wish to use for the attributes. I.2.) Traits and Passions We are overly generous with Traits, as we give extra 6 points to distribute to the Traits. However, this is counteracted a bit by the lower Passions, as instead of 15s, we roll 2d6+6, except Hate (Saxons) which is 3d6. You still get 3 points to add to Passions, and +1d3 Homage when you become a vassal knight. Furthermore, while we do not allow the son to inherit the father's statistics, traits and passions, we do state that any Trait or Passion the Father* had at 16+, can be raised up to that level at half price during chargen. So if Father had Homage 18, and you rolled Homage 12 for the Son, you can use 3 points and get it to 12+6 = 18. * Father = the player-character parent, who could be the Mother instead. There have been some talk about having the half-priced Famous Traits from the Parent, but taking the half-price Famous Passions from the Mentor (the knight who trained the PK through squirehood), which might instil a fun little 'minigame' of trying to match your son with a knight whose passions you agree with. However, we opted to keep it simple and just use the Parent. I.3.) Skills In the Skills, we have three major differences. First, all the PK's weapon skills start from 10*, no questions asked. Non-knight (i.e. Lady) player character's skills start from 5, but they get extra 10 skill points as 'compensation'. This change has not had a big impact on the game, but it does give the PKs a reasonable chance to use a boar spear or grab a fallen weapon if need be. Mainly, they just use their main weapons (Sword/Axe/Mace and Lance) and if Sword is their secondary, they bring it to 15. Secondly, in the current campaign, we allow the low skills to be raised half-priced up to 10. So Play 2 -> 10 costs only 4 points. This has had a bit more of an impact, as it does encourage people to rather bring a low skill to 10 than to go from 15 -> 16 in another skill. Although the combat skills are still primary improvements. It has not been especially unbalancing, though, in my mind. Thirdly, we are bundling some skills and dropping others away. We have joined Flirting & Romance into a single skill, the same with Read/Write & Clerk and Battle & Siege, and taken Tourney (replaced by Courtesy when it comes to proper knowledge of the rules) and Diplomacy (we use Courtesy and Orate instead) out altogether. As you see, some of those rebundled skills were added in expansions, rather than in basic KAP 5.2, too. Oh, Swimming defaults to DEX*, and you can buy it up from there if you wish. (No one ever raised Swimming anyway. This way, I can at least throw some aquatic obstacles in their way and not result in Total Party Kill.) Oh, fourth thing is that we do not use the cultural Speciality Skills from BoK&L, but since I said this was based on KAP 5.2 anyway, no problems there. * As some of you may be aware, I have become a proponent of skill defaults from Attributes, using something like DEX/2 or APP/2 for pretty much all skills. We have not done that yet, and it might be difficult to implement that fairly while we are in mid-campaign**. But something to think about. ** The other thing I dislike is the Family Characteristic, since it locks in the character into 'the family trade'. If you have Hunting +5, then you very much need to become the group hunter, since you can get Hunting to 20 at chargen, a huge advantage over people who do not have that Family Characteristic. I am seriously thinking of just removing it and giving 5 skill points extra instead. However, as with the above one, this is a difficult change to do in mid-campaign. I.4.) Characters younger than 21 As a general rule, we just take off one of the (yearly training) choices on Step 3 (p. 38) for each year they are younger than 21. Works easily enough, as we seldom have characters that are younger than 18 anyway. II.) GAME SYSTEM We have tweaked some things in the game system, too. II.1.) Criticals, fumbles and confirmation rolls Regardless of the skill, a roll of 1 is always a potential fumble, and 20 is always a potential critical (except if your skill is 1 or less, in which case it becomes just an ordinary success). Furthermore, in a crit-crit tie, we downgrade both to normal successes and compare the actual modified rolls: so if Skill 25 rolls 18+5=23 and Skill 20 rolls 20, this becomes a normal success for 23 and a partial success for 20. If you roll a critical, reroll to see if it is a full critical (success, crit) or a half critical (failure, fumble). This only matters in combat skills (see below). For non-combat skills, both count as criticals. Also, if the skill is already 20+, ignore this reroll. If you roll a fumble, reroll vs. skill-10. If you succeed (or crit), it is just a failure. If the skill is 30+, ignore this reroll, it is just a failure. II.2.) Flat Critical damage, no doubling Instead of doubling the damage on a critical, a full critical does +4d6 damage, a half critical +2d6. This makes it slightly more likely to survive big monsters like Giants. II.3.) Opposed resolution when both skills are above 20 When both skills are above 20 (with modifiers, if any), the lower skill is reduced to 20 and this amount is subtracted from the higher skill as well. So if the skills are 29 and 30, they become 20 and 30-(29-20) = 21. This is to counteract the 'tink-tink-boom' where two high skill opponents fighting results in the beheading (crit hit) of the other (who failed to roll a crit) in a few swings. By bringing both skills down closer to 20, the criticals remain a minority. II.4.) Lance damage +1d6: just what it says, a charger does 7d6. II.5.) Getting up Lightly armored characters still need a round to get up on their feet. So a bandit/Saxon Raider who is knocked down will fight a round with -5/+5 penalty, same as a knight. However, I do not let this combine with mounted vs. unmounted bonus, since +10/-10 is a bit too much of an overkill. II.6.) Uncontrolled Attack This gives only +5 now. +10 unopposed was a bit too much of a good thing, even though KAP5.2 explicitly states that the shield bonus of the defender still applies. It still cancels out Defensive, both of them will fight normally with their NORMAL skills. Giving the +10 to both would again tip the advantage generally to the attacker, since usually this tactic is employed when the other person is already in trouble (knocked down and/or rearming). II.7.) Passion Inspiration & Madness Instead of +10, it gives only +5 on a success and +10 only on a critical (no doubling of skill). +10 was a 'I win' button for the PKs if the NPKs didn't have a passion to match, and vice versa. On the other hand, we don't impose Shock for failing, since we noticed that this encouraged the Players to use Inspiration to make an even fight into a curb-stomp, but avoid using passions if the odds were against them, since they were afraid of getting a Shock for failing. In short, in the situation where they most should have used the Passion, they opted not to. Instead, they become Melancholic if they fail in the impassioned task. As for Madness, I am very very tempted to save that for Passion criticals when you fail in your task. That feels much more thematically correct to me. You go Mad because despite your bestest effort, you failed to protect your loved one. I might use Shock on a fumble, though. Note, though, that I am quite strict when it comes to allowing a Passion to be used. It is not just enough to be fighting alongside your fellow PKs to allow Loyalty (Group) to be used. One of them has to NEED help, and the Passion use has to reflect that. II.8.) Chivalric Bonus Instead of 80 or 96, it is tiered. Honor is added to the list of 6 Chivalric Traits. When you have 3 of them at 16+, you get +1 Armor of Honor, 5 gives +2 and all 7 gives +3. Counter-Traits (like Proud) gives -1 to the trait counter, so an exemplar Pagan (Proud 16+) who has all the other 5 Traits and Honor passion at 16+, would result in 5+1-1 = 5, which means +2 Armor of Honor. The nice thing about this system is that it actually forces (through Traits & Honor) the chivalric PK to act Chivalric. With the 80 limit, it was possible to have Honor 5 and 6 Traits at 13-14 level, which I very much disliked. II.9.) First Aid: Success = Healing Rate, instead of 1d3, and Critical is double the Healing Rate of the character being aided. II.10.) Unused Glory Bonus Point = Fate Point This is a big change and probably would be worth its own chapter, but still. In short, when you cross over each full 1000 Glory, you get a Glory Bonus Point. Normally, you use this right away in Winter Phase, but in our house rule, you can save it for later. Not only that, but you can use it as a fate point, AFTER the roll has already been made. In an opposed resolution, it gives the opponent a failure and you a success, so you can counteract enemy critical hits with it. This makes it rather powerful (in our previous campaign, one PK took Lancelot out with the help of 3 Glory Points that she had as a new character from a rather illustrious lineage), perhaps too powerful. The other 'downside' is that it does slow down character progression some: since the Players hoard the GBPs to keep their characters alive (metagaming aspect), it means that they do not use them for increasing their skills or stats. However, most of the time, this evens out as they often use the GBP to counteract a critical hit that would cause a major wound, and hence they would have needed to use the point to regain the lost stat point anyway. II.11.) Ties in combat If the two combatants tie in combat (but see II.1. on the crit-crit change as well), they both hit. Shields protect normally. If one of them is using a Sword (normal or Great) and the other isn't, then the non-sword is broken and does NOT do any damage. II.12.) Critical Passion increases? Rather than giving an automatic +1 (and hence ensuring that Passions that got past 20 started skyrocketting), you get an immediate experience increase roll as in Winter Phase: roll 1d20 and if the result is larger than the current value of the Passion or a 20, the Passion goes up by one. You also get an experience check to roll later at Winter Phase. This keeps the 20+ passions from shooting to 30 and beyond by simply rolling criticals often enough in play, as you still need to roll a 20, but helps to raise the lower passions if you get lucky. Passions 20+ ought to be rare, since they are so very useful! (Especially in vanilla KAP, where you can't fail nor fumble when using them any more. Can you say 'Overpowered'?) III.) GLORY AWARDS III.1.) Combat Glory This is closer to 4th edition, 50 Glory for a young knight, 100 for veteran one, and so forth. I pretty much eyeball the 'challenge level' to an average knight and then decide the Glory. I also give 20% for First Blood duels, since there is always the chance of that one unlucky critical killing or Major Wounding a PK. III.2.) Marriage Glory This is something I have changed a lot. First of all, when a Lady character walks down the aisle to marry a knight or above, she gets 1000 Glory. This is her 'knighting'. Then instead of 100% of each other's Glory, it is 20% (including the 1000 from above) + some bonuses for wealth, dowry, APP and wedding feast. This means that there is some point in trying to marry as Glorious character as possible. I would be quite tempted to make it just 10% Glory, so that the ceiling would be at 10K for knight, but this would take an average of 150 Glory off from what the husband gets. Dunno. It hasn't been a big enough issue thus far, since thanks to the change in Childbirth Table (see IV.6 below), the wives live far longer, so remarrying is rarer. III.3.) Title Glory: Follows BotE. III.4.) Skill/Court Glory: Instead of flat 10 Glory, they get Glory equal to their APP score. III.5.) NO Annual Glory for Chivalric or Religious Bonus: The traits needed (see II.8.) give their own Annual Glory already. Adding extra 100 a pop would give way too much Annual Glory for essentially staying home (total 180+ per year for Religious), and swamp the Adventuring Glory. Which I very much dislike. III.6.) Glory awards are awarded after the situation has been resolved, rather than at Winter Phase. Since we usually play 2-4 sessions per game year, it is easier for all concerned that I give out the glory at the end of the each battle, while everyone still recalls what the heck just happened. Also, it might be of interest if they gain a Glory Bonus Point (see II.10.). Annual Glory is still gained at the end of the Winter Phase. And speaking of... IV.) WINTER PHASE I should mention at the start that we generally play 2-4 sessions per game year, rather than the usual 1 session = 1 year. Also, we pre-roll the Manorial stuff (luck, harvest) and the family events at the end of the previous winter phase, so I (as the GM) can go through the tables at my leisure to match events to rolls, and then try to weave that into the year's adventures, if it matches, or just have it ready when the PKs return home. This is why we can use the longer resolution systems such as the Harvest System and Extended Luck/Family events Tables. IV.1.) Experience checks I try to be very generous with checks, and I recommend other GMs to do likewise. In short, if I am asking for a player to roll a skill/trait/passion and it succeeds, crits or fumbles, I will give a check. At the end of the year, I generally give 1 trait/passion more and 1-3 skills depending how many they have already gotten, to represent what has been going on off-camera. I do not generally roll a Solo, since this replaces it. But see IV.2 below. Paladin's Personal Event Table is also worth looking at, and something I am thinking of stea... adapting for our campaign! IV.2.) Economic Circumstances: Income We use £10 manors with the normal income resulting in Standard of Living £6 for a married knight with a family, and £1 discretionary funds. However, we do use a homebrew harvest system (http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2234.html), modified from Book of the Manor, and use the Extended Manorial Luck tables (By Andrew Williams with suggestions by BigSteveUK & Spoonist) that were posted on Nocturnal Forum. However, if I'd be starting a campaign again, I might use something simpler, like Atgxtg's suggestion of 2d6+3 variable income (I'd just roll once for the whole county to get the idea how bad the general harvest is). Then I'd modify each manor's income with +£1 for successful Stewardship or Folk Lore (+£2 on a crit), and +£1 for Gentlewoman. Then I'd allow 'squeezing' with Arbitrary, Selfish, and Cruel checks, +£1 each. This would be quite easy to manage and would be a temptation of sorts for the PKs to fall into 'Sins'. If the PK is not squeezing, I'd have them roll Just and get a check on a success, as in the 'Your Own Land' solo. £3 of the income goes to other stuff (soldiers, court), so you could just roll 2d6 instead. Then the rest would be used for the maintenance (below) or something else. I do allow the PKs to stash their extra income as treasure at 1:1 rate, rather than BotE's 2:1 rate. IV.3.) Economic Circumstances: Grade of Maintenance / Standard of Living All the bonuses and penalties are removed as the first thing. Instead, living at a higher rate than ordinary (£4 unmarried knight and £6 married with kids) is simply conspicuous consumption, at +10 Glory per extra £1, up to 100 Glory, and after that +1 Glory per £1. The lower Maintenance I would penalize thusly: (paid/normal)*Annual Glory (note, this lowers the rate new Annual Glory is gained, it doesn't lower his Glory Total). If the knight goes below half of his normal (£2 or £3), then hard choices have to be made, since he can no longer support his horses. Time to start selling them, and I would not let them be automatically replenished. Granted, a knight who has gotten into this dire straits should start squeezing his peasants, and/or asking his friends and liege lord for help. That being said, I have never seen a PK go Impoverished. Finally, I would also give a penalty to Court rolls for poor attire, -1 per £1 maintenance missed or some such. I ignore the Clothing Value: the normal wardrobe and keeping it up in style is already included to the Maintenance. However, if the PK has spent money on some lavish clothing (conspicuous consumption again), then that value might decrease from tear and wear. If a PK were to try to deliberately hoard money by living under the norm, I would definitely give +1 Selfish and -1 or more to Honor. It simply shouldn't be done by a knight. The only exception I'd allow is if it is to pay a ransom or a tribute or something of that sort, but that is not hoarding, per se. IV.4.) Horse Survival Horses are supposed to live for close to 30 years. Well, not in Pendragon! This table is the main reason my players refuse to spend money on finer horses and sell any looted horses as fast as possible. I am currently lowering the death chance to just 1 instead of 1-2, but even that kills off 50% of the horses by the 14th year Since the new horse is already 5+ years old, this results in an average lifespan of about 20 years, which is much better than the 12 years that 1-2 gives, but it might still be a bit low. Of course, some of the captured horses might simply be older horses and die because of that. IV.5.) Random Marriage Table This is fixed in Book of the Entourage. I am generally quite against giving out heiresses on a random roll, but at least in the BotEnt, you really, really must be swimming in Glory and brownie points before you can roll an heiress, unlike here, where you can luck onto one with a simple 1d20+1 roll. As a simple fix, I would just tell the Players that they can easily get a wife appropriate to their title as their first wife (so eldest daughter of a vassal knight, as the default), and then one step (so a younger daughter of a vassal knight) down as the second if they already have a son. Anything more than that (widows, heiresses) takes some serious roleplaying (buttering up the liege/guardian, doing heroic deeds/quest). IV.6.) Childbirth Table ( https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/10315-childbirth-and-child-survival-moriens-recommended-quick-fix/ ) I ABSOLUTELY LOATHE the Childbirth Table in KAP. 10% death chance is insane. A quick fix is suggested in the above link. The one we use is the system I posted on the old Nocturnal Forum, anyone who is interested can poke through that archive. However, I am warming up to the sheer simplicity of Atgxtg's original suggestion of using CON rolls, and here is my riff on that: Childbirth roll: Roll the Woman's CON. Modifiers: -10 if a child was born last year, -1 per year past 35. Critical: Twins born (roll 1d6: 1 = identical girls, 2 = sororal girls, 3 = girl & boy, 4 = boy & girl, 5 = fraternal boys, 6 = identical boys). Success: A healthy child born. Failure: no conception. Fumble: Tragedy. Go to the next table. Tragedy: Roll the Woman's CON again. Critical: Unhealthy child born. Success: Take a Major Wound, child dead/dies within days. Failure: NPC women die, unhealthy child born; PC women take mortal wound (3 major wounds), unhealthy child born. Fumble: Mortal wound, barren for life (which can be good for future survival), child dead/dies within days. Also, with NPC women, I'd just have -1 CON per major wound, since their other stats are not tracked. The CON can just be the cultural average (Cymric Women 13-14). IV.7.) Child Survival Table I hate this one as well, but at least it is fixed in BotE (Family Survival Table). However, since I am lazy, we are currently using a 1-2 death during 1st year, 1 death thereafter, stop rolling once the kid is 5. But the suggestion in the above thread, rolling 1d20 until the child is 7, 1 = death, would work fine too, resulting in about 70% survival rate. In any case, the table in KAP 5.2 needs to be fixed, since it would have only 20% of the kids surviving. IV.8.) Family Events These tables are next to useless, too. Paladin has a much better one. I am currently using the Extended Family Events tables (by Andrew Williams (Sir Pramalot), Spoonist and others) from Nocturnal Forums. As it has over hundred entries, it is not the quickest thing to peruse, but as stated in the beginning, I have time in between sessions. Otherwise, I would heartily recommend Paladin's Family Events table (although I would scale down the promotion to a simple landed knight, as it would seriously scupper the plot if PKs have several dukes and counts as family members). However, all of these have a problem on the Family Member roll, since generally Parents and Grandparents are already dead, and many of the siblings are non-existing or dead, too. An elegant solution was presented (alas, I forget who it was) on the Nocturnal Forum of simply listing your family members by name and relation on a sheet with 20 rows, and then rolling 1d20 each year to see who gets picked. If it is an empty row, no family event this year! EDIT: Here is the link to rcvan's post: http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2955.html IV.9.) Training and Practice: instead of 1d6+1 skill points (up to 15), it is flat 5 skill points (up to 15). Remember the half price up to 10 (see I.3). IV.10.) Glory Bonuses: see II.10. V.) OPPONENTS I am not going to go through everything here, but when it comes to human opponents, here are my general skill levels (which follow Book of the Entourage's mercenaries pretty closely, although not exactly): 5 = base civilian 8 = militia, bandit 10 = green footsoldiers / young hunters 12 = average footsoldiers / average hunters / very young knights 14 = average sergeants / Saxon raiders / young knights 16 = veteran footsoldiers / veteran hunters / average knights 18 = elite footsoldiers / veteran knights 20 = superelite footsoldiers / elite or old knights 21+ = named knights (local champions and such) 25+ = famous Round Table Knights When it comes to Damage: 4d6 typical footsoldier or a very young or an older knight 5d6 veteran footsoldier or a typical knight 6d6 a really big guy, probably a local champion/bodyguard Saxons get a small nudge. Their spear levy is likely still 4d6, but their professional soldiers and many raiders are 5d6. Their elite is solidly 6d6, and champions can be 7d6, with berserkers even 8d6.

All the more reason to fix the KAP 5.2 childbirth table! But yeah, I am bit surprised as well, although I guess that it makes sense, storytelling-wise: if the father is dead, then there is revenge to be had, a usurper to be overthrown! If the mother died in childbirth, there is not much that the hero can do about that.

Slight corrections to the suggested tables (twins, tragedy child unhealthy/dead). 1. Childbirth roll: Roll the Woman's CON. Modifiers: -10 if a child was born last year, -1 per year past 35. Critical: Twins born (roll 1d6: 1 = identical girls, 2 = sororal girls, 3 = girl & boy, 4 = boy & girl, 5 = fraternal boys, 6 = identical boys). Success: A healthy child born. Failure: no conception. Fumble: Tragedy. Go to the next table. 2. Tragedy roll: Roll the Woman's CON again. Critical: Unhealthy child born. Success: Take a Major Wound, child dead/dies within days. Failure: NPC women die, unhealthy child born; PC women take mortal wound (3 major wounds), unhealthy child born. Fumble: Mortal wound, barren for life (which can be good for future survival), child dead/dies within days. Also, with NPC women, I'd just have -1 CON per major wound, since their other stats are not tracked.

Well, I am already on the record for opposing the Grade of Maintenance modifiers for childbirth and child survival (see first post on this thread). And in I recommend not using the Harvest system of GPC at all, and simply keep everyone at Ordinary unless they fork over some treasure/loot, +£1 discretionary funds from BotEstate. But it is your campaign. YPWV.

I would definitely count fancy clothing and such as conspicuous consumption. Jewelry I would not, as that would count as treasure in my book instead, and it gives other bonuses than Glory instead. I wouldn't treat 'basic' warhorses and armor as conspicuous consumption, but I would be happy to treat 'pimped up versions' as such, sure. If you get a charger that is nice and white for X multiplier, that extra money I would consider CC. Or, alternatively, I could start giving Bling Glory. Each extra £1 you spend on Bling will give you +1 Glory per year. So if you parade around in your White Charger that cost you extra £40 and wearing a silvered armor costing extra £10, then I would give you 50 Glory per year for it. I mean, you deserve it, since you have a HUGE 'capture me!' sign on you during Battles.

Happy to help. Any questions, feel free to ask.

Can't be. This would make Lamorak, and by extension Pellinore, way too old. Now, Pellinore's brother, however... (This uncle, Sir Lamorak the Elder, was supposed to be the messenger in BoU chronology year 492, but at some point, a mistake crept in and he was named as the son of Pellinore. This is a mistake. It was supposed to be the brother of Pellinore, after whom Pellinore's famous son is named.)

I would say that this is unlikely*, since Uther is not really all that religious, and I doubt that most of his close knights are, either. * There is one Lamorat de Listenois in the Guiron 'prequel' stories, who very much sounds like someone who might be connected with the Grail King's lineage... But I don't think he is mentioned in BoU.

Well yes, since you go from 10% death chance (assuming death on 1-2) to 1% death chance (10% x 10%). Taking 15 years, this becomes 86% survival rate, only 1 in 6 dies.

Congratulations! And by all means, that is what the forum is all about! Do you have the GPC extension (from BoUther or standalone) starting at 480, or are you starting at Year 485 (GPC)? In the former case, you might download the Marriage of Count Roderick, which is available for free from Chaosium site. It helps to bulk up the early 480s, as well as establish the Salisbury-Levcomagus feud. Well, you might download it anyway, to get the context for that feud, as well as a framework for running 'embassies' of your own. Here are a few of old Nocturnal Forum threads that might help (the first one does have some relevance for campaigns starting in 485, too): Starting the Campaign in 480 rather than 485: Things to consider http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2552.html Lethality of Pendragon: When it is and when it isn't http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2279.html Anarchy: Some GMing advice (especially about the Sauvage Forest) http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2589.html Grand Unified Adventure Timeline http://kapresources.wpengine.com/Pendragon Forum Archive/index.php/t-2802.html

It is high*, but I am quite happy to handwave it as a narrative trope as well as to keep things simple. I mean, if you wanted to model the multiple birth rate accurately, it would also need to depend on the age of the mother**. I am much happier with a high chance of twins than I am with a high chance of death in childbirth. EDIT: * The current chance in UK is about 1.6% of a birth being a multiple birth, but this might be due to women giving birth older and fertility treatments. It was closer to 1% in 1984. So yeah, twins on a crit is quite high, but I am fine with it, for reasons stated above. The chance of identical twins vs. non-identical twins is actually a bit low. It might be better to just roll one 1d6: 1 = identical girls, 2 = sororal girls, 3 = girl & boy, 4 = boy & girl, 5 = fraternal boys, 6 =identical boys. ** Actually, the proposed CON roll system does this in a way, since the chance of a singleton birth goes down with age, but the critical (twins) chance stays the same. So the chance of twins on a successful pregnancy goes up.

Speaking of narrative reasons, that is another point against the current Childbirth (and child survival) tables. Before we made the changes to childbirth in our campaign (we fixed child survival pretty much as soon as we started playing), it happened often enough that the PK might have spent years winning the hand of a damsel, only to have her die a couple of years into the marriage due to death by childbirth, rendering all that effort more or less moot. Also, even if she had any children, those children would be unlikely to survive to adulthood. Tragedy is one thing. But to have this to be the norm is very detrimental, IMHO.

You might enjoy Book of Sires more than GPC in that case. Although admittedly you still don't have more than 30 years or so of events (but in several different regions, having different events at times!) before Aurelius comes back and starts to install feudalism. Alas, you still have the unifying figure of the High King, Vortigern, even though there are rebellions against him. So it isn't quite as gritty and dark and splintered as the historical reality likely was, with tiny little kingdoms and kings with armies of a couple of hundred ruling as far as they could see from their hilltop. Now that is grimdark. I think Atgxtg has his own prequel campaign starting from 410 (or 415?) so that would add another about 30 years to the saga. Have you checked out Age of Arthur? I don't own it myself, but from what I gather, it is both a bit more historical (more splintered kingdoms/Roman remnants) and also fantastical (the Fae). Here's a review: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16043.phtml

GPC, p.9: "• What is the Round Table? The Round Table is an ancient, magical table owned by King Leodegrance of Cameliard (given him by Uther);" This is in contrast to Wace's Roman de Brut, where the Round Table is ordered by Arthur to prevent quarrels between his barons about the best place to sit. Which is a bit silly in a way for surely it would be more prestigious to be seated close to the King away. It is also in contrast to Robert de Boron's Merlin, in which Merlin magically creates the table for Uther. But this is a small table, an imitation of the table of the Last Supper, having 13 seats and one empty seat (Judas'), until the knight who will achieve the Grail. By Malory, this table has swollen to seat 150 knights, which is what GPC follows. There is no mention whatsoever about the Round Table in Book of Uther. Leodegrance is mentioned once, in the chronology appendix, year 492. KAP 5.2, p. 10: "514: King Arthur marries Guenever and institutes the Brotherhood of the Round Table." This, and the lack of mention of the table in Book of Uther implies that there was no formal organization around the Round Table. I have a vague recollection that the idea was being bandied around that Uther would have gifted the Table to Leodegrance in order to win his support and vote in the Supreme Collegium. In which case, 492 might work. But it leads to a question where the table was before that? Why wasn't it being used? Of course, one possible easy solution: It is a big honking table, and even when broken down, it is still a lot of boards and chairs to be transported around Logres in Uther's progress. It could have been gathering dust in some castle somewhere, before it was gifted to Leodegrance. It is also possible that the Round Table didn't show off its magical powers for Uther (or even Leodegrance), since he was not worthy. GPC says that the names appear once Arthur names the knights who are elevated to the Round Table. Could be that since there was no formal Brotherhood before 514, no one had a set seat and hence their names didn't appear. And since it wasn't 'magical' and only rarely used, it was not a big thing during Uther's time. La Tavola Ritonda states that there were knights of the 'Old Table' (Uther's time) and of the 'New Table' (Arthur's time), but I admit, I have had the impression that the Italian stories read like prequel fanfic at times, with Uther's court being the bastion of chivalry and having the greatest knights and heroes, some of whom live to impossible old age and joust down knights like Lancelot during the Grail Quest. Since Uther Period is supposed to be gritty and might makes right, this doesn't fit with my conception of KAP Uther Court so well, even though we have some of those proto-chivalric heroes in Book of Uther.

Well, more of a medieval Arthurian romances, with some Victorian & modern stuff added in. Greg went pretty hard for the historical Norman England as a backdrop for Uther Period in the Book(s) of Estate/Warlord/Uther. Book of Sires is a mix of (mainly) Historia Regum Britanniae, real history, Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and stuff invented to make the stories flow better and fill in the years of family history with something. Ah, that might explain things. If you had a GM who insisted that you can only play a wife character, and then has 10% chance per year to have your character die in childbirth... and if the child survives, only having 20% chance of living until adulthood... I wouldn't be so eager to play Pendragon, either! It depends what you want to do. In our current campaign, we have 3 lady knights, thanks to the luck of the dice when it came to the gender of the surviving kids. Not a big issue, since we didn't make it one; if you want to play a female knight, go for it. If you prefer playing a lady character, you can do that too, but since most of the published adventures are written with knights in mind, it is not as much fun (see Jeff's campaign below, though). In the first GPC playthrough I GMed, we had one female player play lady knights in two first generations, and then switching to a lady character for the last 2 or so generations. I think she was about 50 at the end of the campaign, still going strong thanks to amazing luck at Aging rolls, and pretty much pulling the strings of the other PKs, many of them her cousins or nephews or in-laws by that point, telling them what to do. She become Agravaine's mistress after the death of her husband, which actually led to the Orkneys breaking up with Guinever (they had been her loyal supporters until then, since a barren queen meant that Gawaine would have inherited, all good from their point of view), when Guinever disapproved of this 'scandal'. There is also Jeff's campaign that he summarizes here:

I actually made a little mistake in my calculations above, since only a failure in the Tragedy roll results in death, and fumble causes barrenness. Hence, for CON 13, you have a 5% fumble chance and if fumbled, 30% chance of failure = 1.5% chance of death in childbirth per year. 69% survival rate for 25 years.* For CON 14, the chance of CON failure is 25%, so the death by childbirth would go down to 1.25% per year. 73% survival rate for 25 years.* * The 0.25% barrenness chance per year would also extend the 'lucky' women's lifespans, as they would no longer have the risks of childbirth. I ignored this chance for simplicity in the above survival calculations. 6% of the women would roll the double fumble at some point during the 25 years, but this ignores those who would have already died at some point prior to that. So guestimate about 4%, added to the above survival rates. Too lazy to model this accurately.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. As for the roles for women, it is explicitly stated in p. 34 that if you want the women knights to be fully equal in your version of KAP, you can and are encouraged to do that. Also, you can just remove the death by childbirth totally from the game if you want to do that, as well as all child / family survival* stuff. The reason KAP has these rules and most other games do not is that KAP has been designed to be a generational campaign. Other games are not, and generally do not even have rules for families. * Just quickly noting here that in Family Survival, the males have higher death chances in raids and battles than women do. So it evens out with respect to the childbirth deaths: it is realistic for medieval times and hence dark from our modern perspective, but I would not, personally, call it grimdark. Now, if you use the tables in KAP5.2 with 10% yearly chance of death by childbirth & 4 out of 5 kids dying as children, then I totally agree with you, that is not realistic, that is grimdark!

Since I use Folk Lore more as the interaction skill with peasants rather than knowledge of herbalism, I would not use it. I would allow a Chirurgery roll to reduce the chances, but not improve them. A CON roll is already a pretty good chance to go from. As for the system, here is my suggestion: 1. Childbirth roll: Roll the Woman's CON. Modifiers: -10 if a child was born last year, -1 per year past 35. Critical: Twins born (roll 1d6 for the gender of each, and if the 1d6s are the same, they are identical twins). Success: A healthy child born. Failure: no conception. Fumble: Tragedy. Go to the next chapter. 2. Tragedy: Roll the Woman's CON again. Critical: Unhealthy child born. Success: Take a Major Wound, unhealthy child born. Failure: NPC women die, PC women take mortal wound (3 major wounds). Fumble: Mortal wound, barren for life (which can be good for future survival). Also, with NPC women, I'd just have -1 CON per major wound, since their other stats are not tracked. This would result about 1.7%* death chance per Cymric Woman per year, which means about 30%* of them might die during a 20-year period of fertility from childbirth. That might still be a bit high, but tons better than the current one. (* depends a bit if you use CON 13 or CON 14, but close enough.)

Would you care to expand on that? The discussion of the childbirth and its complications is distressing, or the possibility of a player-character dying in childbirth (which, by the way, is something that most of us are not advocating)?

Exactly my point. Landed knights get Folk Lore check from their solo, "Your Own Land": Intrigue, Folk Lore, Stewardship and potentially Just/Arbitrary. Household knights get Courtesy check from their (new) solo, "Liege's Household": Intrigue, Courtesy, potentially Homage Lord (successful roll gives a check, or take -1 if you prefer that), and roll one "Vassal Service" solo for one additional check.

We did consider that, too. However, we felt that it might result in players 'shopping' for rolls in their low skills just to get the check, and make it very hard to get a check in their high skills that really need the checks to advance. We do give checks on Fumbles, which to us reflects more of a 'I won't do that again!' than a failure, which is more 'I dunno'. My point was that the household knights would not be the contact point, usually. Instead, it would be the stewards and bailiffs. Sheriffs, sure, but that is an actual royal office, not a normal household knight (and often was a baron or a landed knight). Whereas the landed knight is communicating with his peasants almost all the time he is at home, listening to their concerns, judging their disputes at manorial court... He simply gets much more exposure and personal interaction with the peasants than a household knight (whether royal or baronial one). By contrast, the household knight would be spending his time at the baronial or royal court (not always the case, there are patrols and garrison duties, too, but still), interacting with his liege lord on daily basis, witnessing visiting knights and nobles... A much better case for Courtesy than for Folk Ken, IMHO. YPWV.