Morien

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

that armor is dated to 1420; Saxons wore a mail shirt with a roman-style helm and relied heavily on shield and spear. Plate is very, very late.

I was talking about KAP, where Arthur's knights are clad in plate armor, not the real historical 6th century.

In KAP, AD 531, Partial Plate becomes available and swiftly becomes common. Player characters start with a reinforced chainmail (12 pts). Point being, anyone wearing 8pt chain shirt is severely underarmored in that context.

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

Strange thing i noticed in "Knight adventurous", in chapter about woman there is picture of female knight, and accompanying description claim that her armor is impractical and even dangerous. While in reality, except for unbuttoned top of chainmail and lack of helmet (which is actually normal outside of battlefield) she wearing perfectly normal early medieval chain shirt, and even leg protection.

While some armor is better than no armor...

1. Those boob-plates will deflect hits to the unarmored cleavage. Lack of helmet and neck protection. No armor on hands nor forearms (often hit). The narrowing of the chainmail skirt towards the bottom is a cause for concern, too. The chain mail tunics tended to flare out towards the bottom, to allow more freedom of movement without causing the hem to ride up.

2. The starting time of 3e is AD 531, which means that the knights are dressed more or less like this (including the helmet behind him):

So within the context, yes, her armor is inadequate and has dangerous deficiencies. It would be a good armor for a Saxon in mid-400s, if the chainmail could be laced all the way up and the hem made more loose.

Did you buy them used? Since unless I am badly mistaken, that is the Cambria map from The Savage Mountains.

The map in fold-out map in 3e (KA) and 4e should be this one:
http://scruffygrognard.com/images/oldmap.jpg

2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

Here i wanted to again point out that peasant levy now believed to be 19th century misconception.😉

In fact, in KAP, anybody even use them?🤔

Serfs apparently did not serve, but freemen (yeomen and the like) were expected to be armed (Assize of Arms 1181) and might be called up to defend the realm. In KAP, Arthur issues similar Assize of Arms in 515 (BotW, p. 102-103). BoU p. 25 also makes this distinction, noting "a general levy is summoned, which includes all able-bodied free men".

Thus, the numbers for the manorial peasant levy are much exaggerated, since it is based on the total manpower of the manor, including serfs. Rather than 5d20, it should be closer to 3d6, IMHO. And generally no, I don't use it.

7 hours ago, SaxBasilisk said:

1) GPC has a four-day battle; BoA has a three-day battle. I'm going to use the four-day battle, but use the weaker units in BoA for Day 4, alongside the Saxon kings.

This is because GPC counts the 'prequel' battle of the ford as part of the Battle of the Badon Hill, despite it happening at the ford rather than the hill itself. Once you make that adjustment, the 3-day battle makes sense. That being said, BoA goes way over the top for my liking, when it comes to the enemy list. Giant Swooping Hawk, really? Draconic warriors? I much prefer the pathos of GPC last day, with the dregs of the Saxon nobility dying with a song on their lips, slaying before being slain, earning their ticket to Valhalla.

2 and 3: Yep, probably a good idea to clean house. Also, you could even fudge the dice a bit (with the Players' approval) to ensure that those old characters go out in a blaze of Glory (Heroic Death 1000 Glory), which gives them a proper sendoff while at the same time allows you to underline the deadliness of Badon without killing their current characters. Pruning the family trees of deadwood, as well as clearing out some of the NPKs is a good idea, too, IMHO.

4: I have run Badon twice.
The first time, we were wrapping up the face-to-face campaign (at least for now), as I was moving across the country (we picked it up later via Skype and IRC, and then Roll20). So everyone kinda knew that it was going to be a Big Finish. So after the PKs managed to survive Day 3 (the actual big battle, where the PKs were instrumental in keeping the Cymric infantry line from collapsing), as they were walking amongst the piles of the dead in the dark of the night, they came upon an old man with one eye, carrying a spear, two ravens on his shoulders and flanked by two damn big wolves. "You have spoiled my plans for the last time..." Worked very well for an epic finish, with one player bragging for years that his PK managed to wound Wotan before getting impaled.
The second time, I kinda wussed out since most of the PKs were relatively young still, and killing them off would have left a big gap before the heirs would have grown up. So while they lost an extended melee, I didn't have the Saxons slaughter them all while unconscious, but had the cavalry literally arriving in the nick of time.
I think it is obvious from the above, which one I preferred. 😛 (I was drawing heavy inspiration from Twilight of the Grey Gods by Robert E. Howard. And before someone calls me out for having a literal god on the battlefield while pooh-poohing Giant Hawks, well, one fits my mythic narrative, the other doesn't. Besides, the Wotan encounter happened in the night, with just the PKs witnessing it, rather than in the middle of the battle.)

5: I think GPC mentions that Merlin has been missing for a while, in the gossip or something? So no, he would not be around.

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

https://www.leidenpsychologyblog.nl/articles/when-girl-meets-boy-in-utero-the-twin-testosterone-transfer-ttt-hypothesis (shame they removed old comments, there was interesting discussion..) It seems women born with twin brothers would be way more likely to became knights😀.

Also a bit of a favorite for playwrights for masquerade/crossdressing shenanigans... 😛

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

Strange thing i noticed in book "Saxons!", in chapter about Badon battle in enemy tables modifier results in Logres having less knights then other british regions. Wasn't it supposed to be other way around? +it seems Logres end up with even inferior foot troops...

My guess is that since the fight is happening in Logres, it would make sense that local (Logresian) peasant levy and garrison troops are brought to the fight, too, whereas the reinforcements from farther away would be bringing a smaller but more elite force. Thus, you don't get common farmers in Cambrian and the North forces, but might get some from Cornwall (Jagent being relatively close to Badon).

Indeed, if you have more time than I do, you could count the numbers of knights vs. foot in page 95 and see if the non-Logresian forces have a higher knight/foot ratio than Logres does FOR THIS BATTLE. It does not mean that in general Logres has less knights per capita than the other regions. You would indeed expect just the opposite, since many of the other areas (Cambrian mountains, Highlands) are still tribal rather than feudal.

2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

Well, yea, but in standard situations squires aren't supposed to fight directly, aren't they?🤨🤔

Depends on the squire (and their age/prowess/Player-character status). They can take wounds from the enemies in BoB2. They are not calculated in the Unit Results, but then again, neither are NPKs (unless you have just 1-2 PKs). They are part of the Unit, and are calculated for the army size, too.

4 hours ago, ArkSvid said:

For irrigation as an economic investment

Just mentioning quickly here that the Book of the Manor investment scheme is totally out of whack, unless you vigorously enforce the 'only one investment of its type' rule from BotEstate. It is still way too generous, but at least it will stop income from exploding upwards exponentially. (I did a quick calculation and the value of the single £10 manor in Uther Period, using the unrestrained investment rules from BotM, resulted in an income of thousands of pounds by the end of the campaign just from investments alone. Assuming no reassessment of the property (see below), of course.)

Introducing new investments that you can add for extra income feeds the same problem, although if you fix the above problem, it is a much lesser issue. Also, if you adopt the reassessment from Book of the Estate when the holder dies and the heir takes over, you can rebalance things in each generation, which helps a ton, too.

Also, England is famous for its lack of rain, right, hence the need of irrigation ditches? *tongue firmly in cheek*

More seriously, agreed with the previous poster.

3 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

 Meanwhile in KAP actuall knight lance is 2/3 infantry by default...

Half and half, when you consider that it is knight+squire. 

41 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

Probably, although it important to note that it's basically same way phalangists often depicted wielding pikes with shield. It still possible to thrust with it, but you need to turn your whole body...

Maybe depicted, but the pike was a two-handed weapon, with the shield slung from the neck/shoulder. Both hands on the pike to allow you to actually use it rather than just hold it in place. It is a thrusting weapon. Sweeping it from side to side would make you hella popular with your mates as you disrupt the whole formation...

41 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

More relevant, dueling fencing (rapier and dagger) had occasional attack with both weapons, however this seem to be quite risky maneuver.

I believe I mentioned sword and dagger in my original comments about dual-wielding in civilian context.

As for medieval art:

🙂

4 hours ago, Professor Chaos said:

firstly that chronicles etc are almost always madly and impossibly inaccurate when they describe armies numbered in the hundreds or even tens of thousands

Oh, I am not contesting that. I am not suggesting that the French had 100 000 knights at Crecy, quite the opposite. My memory was that Delbrück tends to go more minimalistic than the modern ones, although the modern estimates are closer to his than to the chroniclers' numbers. And I have a vague memory that in some cases he went well below what the modern consensus is, although I don't have the specific examples at my fingertips.

4 hours ago, Professor Chaos said:

And few and legendary as actual early medieval sources are they do tend to talk about very small armies:

Not contesting that either.

4 hours ago, Professor Chaos said:

So a huge battle whether in actual or fantasy medieval Britain should really be one involving ten thousand plus combatants on both sides, a large one thousands, and so on down.

Yep, agreed there too.

2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

This is information mostly from eastern european sources (from countries which fought either against swedes, or on both sides of the war), there aren't many information on swedish army in english, and i don't speak swedish:

OK, looks like that they are more like carrying the musket (makes sense, you wouldn't want to just leave it), rather than 'dual-wielding'. Especially when you have it tucked under your armpit like that, sure, you might be able to run into someone, but it is more as a static defense to keep people from charging you. While the sword would be doing most of the attacking.

Murchad is a chad, no question about it. 🙂 I think Harald Hardrada is reputed to wield an axe in each hand at Stamford Bridge. Still, exceptions, and heroic ones at that. I'd still argue that in both cases, it is much closer to what Deacon was proposing as his house-rule, than double attacks of D&D.

Oh, I missed your Battle Sizes one... Yeah, the Battle Size table in BoB2 seems way way off. I'd argue it is off even for later Periods. The one in Book of Uther (p. 187) is much closer to the reality of Pendragon, given the numbers of knights in Britain (in Uther Period). Now, I could see that number doubling, but the BoB2 battle sizes imply that it quadruples. Sure, the Saxon lands are conquered and trade is booming in Later Periods, but there are still significant areas of wilderness that are still uncleared even at the height of Tournament. Maybe just before Yellow Pestilence you might get there if you are willing to handwave wildly and not think about it too much. But it would logically mean that the Romance Period Salisbury should still have at least double the knights that it does in Uther Period. Based on 4e, it doesn't. Now if we take BoB2 at face value, Greg seems to have intended to change that. It is what we have in print, so I guess the number of all the knights in Logres goes from ~2200 in Uther Period to ~9000 by Tournament or so.

As for tournaments, Arthur's Pentecostal Tournament tends to draw over 3000 knights (KAP 5.2, p. 252). So this would imply that the number has gone up some, as even taking the whole of Britain, the number of knights would be just around 4500 in Uther's time, and a minimum of 2/3rds attendance is rather high.

Anyway, you do what you want with it.

58 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

P.s. Interestingly, in gunpowder era armies of dual-wielder actually existed, like scottish highlanders charging with broadsword and dagger. Or swedish brief experiments (sword and bayoneted rifle).

The highland charge was more of a sword and a targe, i.e. a sword and a small shield. Sure, they had a dagger in the shield hand as well, but the primary function was to parry/block with the shield and attack with the sword. (Individual loadout of course varied, and I don't doubt that some had just sword and dagger. In any case, this would be more the civilian context I referred to, used in the gunpowder battlefield, since armor is no longer a thing.)

As for the sword and the rifle, I am not aware of it, but it is frankly physically impossible to fight one-handed with a musket/rifle+bayonet. It is too heavy, heavier even than most short polearms. Having it in the other hand as a clumsy parrying stick, sure, better than nothing to block enemy sword swings, but I think there is a reason why this didn't take off as the new style. Are you sure it wasn't more of a case of the sword being a backup weapon? Fight normally two-handed with the bayonet and then switch to the sword if needed?

1 hour ago, Call Me Deacon Blues said:

on a crit you get the benefits of both special weapons (in the aforementioned example, if you were fighting an enemy with a shield and mail, you'd get both bonuses)

I wouldn't give this. Critical itself is powerful enough as it is.

On the other hand, allowing a pick of the weapon boni is probably balanced OK vs. the lack of the shield. Indeed, shield + favored weapon is clearly superior against a specific enemy. On the other hand, I might give the dual-wielder a chance to just continue whacking away with the remaining weapon, if one of them is broken by a fumble/tie (I would only cause one weapon to be broken in such a case, not both, since a shield-user doesn't lose a shield).

In 6e, both axe and mace use the same skill, so that is not a limiting factor for dual-wielding here. The adventure had a separate dual-wielding skill, but admittedly that one would be overkill vs. the benefits proposed here.

2 hours ago, Oleksandr said:

I wonder would be rules for dual-wielding added in 6ed?🤔 It has rules for parrying with two weapons after all...

My take:

Historically, dual-wielding weapons wasn't really a common thing in the battlefield. You had your spear/sword and your shield, or later on, a two-handed weapon (usually a polearm or a pollaxe for the English knights in particular). Dual-wielding in the sense of having two weapons was much more common in the civilian context where you wouldn't be carrying around a big shield during your everyday life, but might carry a sword and/or a long knife for self-defense purposes. In those situations, might as well pick up pretty much anything you can use to help you parry the opponent's weapon, but it doesn't mean that you'd be attacking with both windmill style, which is what many of the RPG dual-wielding rules tend to imply (double attacks and so forth). It is much more about being able to parry and control the opponent's weapon with one of your own while you are stabbing/cutting him with your free weapon. So bonuses to parry seem appropriate (similarly to, but worse than, an actual shield), double attacks less so.

26 minutes ago, Oleksandr said:

Does beings with multiple attacks (and dual wielding humans) capable to split attacks as normal?

Yes on creatures, no on dual-wielding humans. Regular rules don't have dual-wielding, but there are rules for it in the Tales of Mystic Tournaments. It doesn't give you two attack rolls, but it does give you two damage rolls. But you need a special skill too. 

I forget if BoA has some 'rulebreaking' rule of cool units. I know that some units have a javelin missile attack followed by a melee attack, which is a bit unfair if the knights have to split their skill. BoB2 is not fully compatible with normal combat rules. 

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

What i wanted to point out was abbesses at all almost absent from KAP, much less as liege ladies. When discussing status of women in medieval society that's quite important.

I'd add as a quick qualifier that the only book where we have gotten a more detailed look at the church organizations has been Book of Uther. Which is supposed to portray a more brutal, less refined period. So the absence of abbesses in the org chart is not all that surprising, all the more so since BoU mentions that there are apparently no independent nunneries at this time, but that all are attached to an abbey, and hence the abbess reports to the abbot. Amesbury is one example of this. (And yes, I know at least a couple of examples from medieval history where the exact opposite was the case, the abbess ruling over the abbot. But they are very much the exceptions.)

I'd expect that independent nunneries might flourish under Guenever's patronage, though.

Lion in Winter is excellent. I happened to watch the two-part TV movie first, and I am honestly torn which version I prefer. Patrick Stewart did an excellent job as Henry II, and I think I prefer his less hammy portrayal to Peter O'Toole's (although O'Toole's Angevin rage is better). That being said, Katharine Hepburn will always be my Eleanor. 🙂

I wouldn't worry too much about the grittiness. If the style fits the GM and the group, it is all good. I deliberately downplayed some of the fantastical stuff during the Uther Period, so much so that Merlin performed no magic 'on camera'. All his 'shapeshifting' could have been just clever disguises.

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

BTW, i wonder, how in real play PK interact with their children, and families in general? Is that important part of game?🤔

Depends what the GM and the Players like to play. And the number of players, too. For instance, I currently have 5 players in our campaign. If we focused a lot into each of their families, we would never get any adventuring done. On the other hand, if I were running a solo campaign for just one player, then definitely the family drama would be part of the campaign.

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

*interestingly, it seems it's impossible to make castle like this by KAP rules😅

Well, there are currently no 40 meter high walls in the fortification lists, sure. I checked Lordly Domains and the tallest walls were just about half that, 60'.

But in principle, there wouldn't be a problem adding such an option. Granted, I would expect it to cost about four times as much as the 60' wall (double the height, double the thickness; x1.5 thickness would be pretty close actually what the thickness is quoted in the Wiki, 16-20', since the 60' wall is 12' thick in LD).

1 hour ago, Oleksandr said:

On more positive note "Although Wilton Abbey was a Benedictine nunnery, it held its lands from the king by knight service. The Abbess' knights were her tenants, who in turn held land from the Abbey by knight service. Usually the abbess fulfilled her duty to the king by scutage. But she had knights with King Henry III on his 1223 Welsh campaign, and at the Siege of Bedford Castle the following year. Between 1277 and 1327 she offered knight service at least four times"

This doesn't mean that the Abbess herself was a knight, just to make that point clear. Just that she was the liege lady to some vassal knights in the lands of the Abbey.

On 12/10/2022 at 11:41 PM, svensson said:

So, how many medievalists or are students of the Medieval period are there in KAP.

I expect more than our share, given the more (pseudo-)historical setting (in comparison to like Forgotten Realms) and the Arthurian literature tradition stretching back to Middle Ages.

As for myself, I don't have any official qualifications, other than a lifelong interest in history (particularly medieval) and fantasy/historical fiction literature. I am actually much less versed in Arthurian literature as some of the buffs in the Forum: HRB & Malory are enough for me. That does mean that my campaigns have much fewer 'easter eggs' for the hardcore affectionados, but given that my players are even less exposed to Arthurian literature, it would be pearls for the swines situation anyway. What I try to accomplish is a world that is internally consistent, one that 'makes sense' to the players and the player-characters. Sure, sometimes stuff happens and faerie magic tends to evoke a string of bad language (from players and PKs alike), but as long as there is verisimilitude and the players are invested in the characters and the campaign, I count that as a victory.

23 minutes ago, Hzark10 said:

I have always believe it to be a form of outrageous, taken to an extreme. Meaning, one is humble in all things. Nothing should be done to extreme.

Given that it is paired with murder, I think it is more serious than that. Perhaps things that would outrage the society. Rape, blasphemy?

Actually pretty close to what Sax Basilisk came up with: "wicked deeds".