Morien

1 hour ago, Grimmshade said:

Can a skill ever go above 20?

I assume so*, with Experience check roll of 20 or using Glory Bonus Points. Or via magical item or temporarily from a passion.

1 hour ago, Grimmshade said:

Do Attributes/Characteristics increase?

I assume so*, with Yearly Training and Glory Bonus Points. And magic, etc.

1 hour ago, Grimmshade said:

In the quick start it says wooden/dull weapons do half damage. It also says pulling hits does half damage. Is this cumulative? (So 1/4 damage?)

I assume so*.

* Based on 5.2 with nothing in the Quickstart to contradict it.

3 hours ago, Voord 99 said:

combat is often the place where PbP games bog down.  

I would honestly just trust the GM to roll everything out and post the outcome. Most of the time, it would be a simple opposed rolls until something interesting happens, and the players could write out their general tactics*, too. Although in KAP, Uncontrolled attack or Defensive usually come to play when something else has gone right or wrong already. But as long as it is just chipping paint from the shields or minor bruising (a few hp or less) in damage, the combat can pretty much continue without player input.

* The most common situation that comes up in our games is what do you do if you are knocked down, or you knock the enemy down? Or other similar dis/advantage, such as rearming. Are you going defensive or trying to attack at -5 to hit the enemy before they hit you with an Uncontrolled attack and vice versa?

Once something interesting happens, the GM can post the results, such as after 3 rounds of fighting, Sir A has managed to knock his opponent down, but Sir B has been knocked unconscious, and his opponent is moving to gang up on Sir C, who is stalemating his opponent. Does Sir A stay to finish his opponent off, or hurry to help Sir C (intercepting Sir B's opponent), risking that his own opponent will get up next round and maybe join the fight the round after that?

7 hours ago, Mugen said:

I don't have my rulebook right now, but I don't remember any hard limit to skills. In my memory, you can't have skill above 15 if your character is 15 years old, but you can train him afterwards if he's older, up to 20.

KAP 5.2? The hard limit is in the chargen, which says that you can't go above 15 (except with family characteristic). Individual Skill Choices, p. 38: "No Skill or Combat Skill may ever be raised above 15 by this process."

If you are older than 21, you get to use the Previous Experience rules, and even then: "no Skill may be raised above 15." (I do ignore that in our house-rules and instead use the normal Winter Phase's Yearly Training & Practice rules.)

9 hours ago, Metalzoic said:

The text "An opposed roll required of a knight as a reaction to another is not considered their action for that round but a "free action" Is really poorly worded.

As being attacked by a higher DEX knight would require you to make an opposed roll reaction in return. Which by that wording would not be considered their action.

Yeah, it is not worded well, especially as the example, the DEX roll to avoid a knockdown, is not an opposed roll. I can't think off-hand any opposed rolls in combat (using KAP 5.2) that wouldn't be actions. If you drop the 'opposed' from that sentence, it would be much less confusing in the follow-up. Heck, for a quick start, just saying that Knockdown and Major Wound rolls are not Actions would be enough.

And yes, I can very easily see how the Quick Start rules as written lead to a confusion on how to resolve the combat. Especially if one is coming out of the "I hit and you parry, then you hit and I parry" paradigm.

There is another small mistake here, too: "A critical success adds an additional +4D6 to the Damage Attribute for this round." It should be "for this HIT": if you are fighting two opponents and you roll a critical success against one and a normal success on the other, the second guy doesn't take +4d6 extra damage simply because you criticalled against his friend.

Also, I noticed that in the QS rules, there is a CON roll to stay conscious if you take a MW. This is a change from the previous editions, where you rolled against current HP. This might actually make death more common for high CON characters, since they stay conscious a bit more often, and hence are in danger of getting killed by them next hit.

1 hour ago, Grimmshade said:

I was assuming that like in Call of Cthulhu you attack someone and they fought back and then they attacked you and you fought back. So that each person got an attack and a response in a round.

Yeah, that is definitely something that is different in KAP than in most other RPGs. The whole exchange of blows (of each pairing) is handled with a single opposed roll.

6 hours ago, Grimmshade said:

Holy crap, I read all this totally wrong in the Quick Start. Thanks for the great examples @Morien

You are quite welcome.

Just out of curiosity, in what way did you read the rules wrong? Were you assuming, like happens in most RPGs of my experience, that it is 'I hit, then you hit'? So you were running two opposed rolls per round rather than just one?

I think it is always useful to hear from people who are new to the rules, since some of us old hands are already so set in our grooves that we may be blind to some phrasing that for us is obvious, but not so for a new person unfamiliar with KAP. 🙂

3 hours ago, Metalzoic said:

1st - Page 6, in red outer column it says "Each character or monster may attempt one action per combat round in addition to moving". But on the very next page, under Step two: resolve combat actions it says the exact opposite, "Generally, characters can either fight or move, but not both"

Im assuming the first rule in red is actually wrong, correct? 

Yes, I would trust what the actual rules say. The red outer columns are more like 'notes' or highlights, and I think in this case there has probably been an error.

3 hours ago, Metalzoic said:

2nd - page 4 under combat it says "An opposed roll required of a knight as a reaction to another is not considered their action for that round but a "free action."

The example given is a DEX roll to resist a knockdown. The actual opposed Combat roll IS an action: the 'defender' is choosing act by fighting back. Remember, all combat actions are done simultaneously. Everyone declares their actions, and then they are resolved.

Example:

Declaration:
Knight A (lower DEX) declares that he is attacking Knight B.
Knight B states that he is fighting Knight A.
Knight C, out of range, states he is moving to join the fight.

Combat:
Since both Knights A and B are fighting one another, we go straight to Combat resolution, and it doesn't matter who has the higher DEX since it is an opposed roll that happens simultaneously. C is not fighting, so nothing happens here.

Movement:
A and B were not moving. C has his move action left, so he moves into the fighting range and can participate in the next round.

3 hours ago, Metalzoic said:

I'd think yes, but then I under Dropped or Broken Weapons it says "They start the next round unarmed"... Implying that theres no possibility of picking it up during the current round, which would seem to mean that once you're involved in a combat you can't take further action ..

Yep, once you are fighting, that is your action for the round. In the main rules (of 5.2 edition), there is a -5/+5 combined action rearming penalty, when you get another weapon ready (often your sword or a spare axe/mace/hammer), or in the case of a sword, pick it up. So that would come into play in the next round. The combined action rule may have been omitted for brevity. At least that is how I would run it given the current knowledge of 5.2 + Quick start 6e rules.

EDIT: Going strictly by Quick Start rules, I would rule that the Rearming is an action. Thus, if Knight A's weapon is broken, he would have to spend Round 2 rearming. Luckily, Knight C is there to assist against Knight B, who gets to choose between hitting both A and C at -5 to his skill (see fighting multiple opponents box on p. 19; two rolls for B, first one against A is unopposed since A is rearming, the second one is against C's full skill), or focusing solely on A (B gets an unopposed strike on A, C gets an unopposed strike on B, and here I would rule that the DEX matters if B gets the strike off before C or not) or C (opposed combat between B and C, while A rearms in peace).

I am so biting my tongue as I wish to avoid spoilers. 😛

My take on Guenever...

She is smart. She is ambitious. She has goals of her own. Such as giving women more of an agency via the Courtly Amour, using it to tame and civilize the brutal, warlike impulses that were in vogue during Uther and Anarchy Periods.

Her marriage to Arthur starts more of a political match, at least on her side (and Leodegrance's). Arthur might be smitten by her beauty and why not. But she finds him very agreeable husband, partner and king. He is wise, just and generous, and she plays her part as the Queen, the fountain of mercy and fashion and etiquette. She is always polite (except when the situation calls for something else), with a smile and a kind word to anyone she meets, and inspires an almost religious loyalty in (some of) her Queen's Knights. She would naturally try to elevate and advance the career of knights who share her beliefs (or could be brought around to do so), including possibly Romantic PKs, and similarly she might direct challengers or social pressure to take down/trip up knights who refuse to 'reform' themselves. I also would not be surprised if her household is a 'clearing house' of messages from damsels in distress, making her a good quest-giver, in particular via her ladies-of-waiting rather than directly. As well as receiving other gossip that can be sifted through and brought to Arthur's attention if it merits his attention. And while Kay is Arthur's Senechal, Guenever is the Queen, and they work together to ensure that the Court runs efficiently and as smoothly as possible.

Naturally, her affair with Lancelot does throw things off kilter a bit. But Love does that to you. Her marriage with Arthur, as I said, has been a very comfortable partnership, but not one of grand passion (on her side). She loves Arthur, but Lancelot is The One for her. Even so, by the time she succumbs, she is already past childbirth (or close enough), which is probably one of big disappointments in her life for her, as providing Arthur with an heir of his body and hers would have been her primary task as a Queen, and she knows evil tongues would be whispering about that behind her back. But luckily, the succession is secure in the person of Gawaine, and his children, so Guenever can allow herself (finally) to surrender to the passion. And then it turns out that Lancelot has a secret family. No wonder she blows her top at him. She likely regrets it soon enough, but Lancelot is already gone. Also, she might be dealing with some guilt over cuckolding Arthur like this, as well as the risks that she is running for both herself and Lancelot should this affair become public.

Something like that. I think she is a better reader of people and a judge of their character than Arthur is, and she is less hasty, too (except when her passions are triggered). Arthur does do some bone-headed snap judgements/decisions at time (Ywaine, for one; that definitely reads as a Fumble in Just... also going to take care of the Giant of Mount St. Michel by his lonesome, when he has an army to lead and a war to win; or the duel against Pellinore). Arthur also tends to be more Trusting, IMHO, wanting to believe the best of people and hence a bit more idealistic. Guenever, given her own intrigues (for a good cause), is more sensitive to the falsehoods and schemes that people might have. As well as the aforementioned gossip network supplying her with plenty of background information.

1 hour ago, Tizun Thane said:

Is the man in a blue surcoat Ector? I love the drawing anyway.

I think you can be sure it is him. The appearance, the body language and then the position next to Merlin already hint very strongly at that. His heraldry is the variant arms of Sir Kay: "In the Vincent ms.: Azure, two bird’s wings inverted argent." (from here: https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/articles/some-arthurian-coats-of-arms/ )

Is it just me or is the guy on the left a deliberate homage to Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail? 

Granted that seems to be a double-headed Eagle on the tabard and hence makes it Lot rather than Arthur in the Holy Grail, but the resemblance is uncanny. 

OK that was hilarious and totally something I could see happening at our group, too. 

In a non-Kap game, the PCs were called upon to inspect a double murder: someone very strong had ripped the heads clean off. 

Marcel: Alright, so how do we hush this up to cover for Raksha? 

Raksha (7' of muscular, murderous voodoo priestess): Hey, dis was not me, mon. 

Marcel: Suuure it wasn't. Must have been your twin brother, hmm? 

Raksha: I don't have a brother. 

Marcel: It is alright. Nothing wrong with being true to yourself. 

Raksha: Keep it up and I'll rip your head off! 

Marcel: I rest my case. 

Lordly Domains has some guidelines.

Me, I am just considering all of that Conspicuous Consumption. You get the Glory based on how big a tournament you are sponsoring. (If I were feeling really generous, I might give an extra x2 modifier for feasts and tournaments and such, which don't really generate a similar kind of reciprocity as gift-giving does.)

24 minutes ago, mj6373 said:

1) If you get Free Income from Improvements sufficient to cover an entire Endowment, and then you die and your land is reassessed after the church is built, do you owe servitium debitum on the increased productivity of your land, even though it went straight from Free Income to an Endowment during your lifetime?

I'd say No, since you don't own the Endowment anymore.

24 minutes ago, mj6373 said:

 

2) If you give at least £10 as an endowment to an abbey, does the abbot owe you servitium debitum, as if they were a vassal?

No. You have given it to the abbey and the income is going towards the upkeep of the abbey and the monks, not to soldiers.

There are cases when you have given much more than what is necessary, and then it is possible that the abbot owes SD. But it would be separate from the Endowment itself. It would work simply as a grant to the abbey, same as to a temporal fief-holder.

If you go by RAW, yes, you roll Childbirth at the Winter Phase of the same year. Generally adventuring and so forth happens during Summer, so you technically might have the nine months before the next Spring rolls around (mid-/end of March).

My rule of thumb is that if you get married in Autumn, let alone in Winter, then you do not get to do the Childbirth that year and will have to wait for the next year. I apply the same criterion on any sleeping around as well.

By the Hundred Years War, this was codified in the contracts of indenture (i.e. basically mercenary contracts for noblemen to raise X number and types of troops for the campaign, for Y amount of pay). This review of a book ( https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1465 ) mentions: "In return for reasonable compensation English monarchs also had direct rights to the most important enemy commanders." That accords with my memory as well.

King Mark is seized later on in GPC whilst raiding, and he is in fact ransomed (for £2000) and the ransom given to his captors. However it does say that the captured king should be delivered to their own liege lord, who then in turn sends Mark to Arthur. (I did not use this adventure in my campaigns, since £2000 for the PKs is a way too much for my liking.)

12 minutes ago, mj6373 said:

Additionally, Book of the Estate, p. 17-18, lists the capture of an enemy king as the kind of event that warrants being promoted to estate-holder. But while killing Gorlois is listed as a sufficient deed to earn an estate, capturing King Octa gets no mention as being so notable in either the GPC or BotE. (But the latter might be because they thought it would be redundant, after already giving the general rule about capturing kings?)

Yes, I think this is the case. No need to list out Octa specifically when the general rule about capturing kings is already triggered. Since I am leery of giving the PKs too much money to play with, I am much more inclined to let them 'share' an estate's worth of landholdings instead. I.e. a manor a piece, from the grateful King.

As for the monetary value, here is the big thing: Octa is NOT RANSOMED. He is kept captive by King Uther. Thus, the £350 is not the ransom value or even a share that he PKs get from the total value. Instead, it is simply a reward that Uther gives in this case (predating the Book of the Estate). In that context, £350 is not bad money for a bit of hard work.

One unintentional problem:

A heroic PK gets awarded with a manor somewhere else, in addition to his starting manor. End result: His finances are now -£0.5, if he keeps the manor for himself, no benefit (well, some Glory). Gaining a manor becomes a poisoned pill, rather than the generous reward it is supposed to be.

Probably an easier way to handling this is simply change the subinfeudation percentage to 50% or so. With more plentiful vassal knights as a default to begin with, there will be more social mobility (more widows and heiresses), and you could easily say that any new estates with outliers would have the outliers already subinfeudated or something.

25 minutes ago, mj6373 said:

do you have to re-do the £12 upfront investment

Yes. The investment is destroyed. Now if the GM is feeling generous, he can say that the land is cleared and prepared so it is just 50% (£6) if you replant the (new) vines.

6 hours ago, merlyn said:

Malory's version definitely indicates that Igraine is true to her husband the Duke

Yes, I was not contesting that. I was simply pointing out that if one wanted to cast Uther in a better light in their campaign, it would be easy enough to change.

Just to toss this into the pot...

If you go with the GPC age for Gorlois (understanding that you do need to adjust the ages around a bit, i.e. Ygraine is too young to have two girls of marriageable age in 492), you could easily go with the idea that Ygraine is married to this older man (Gorlois' stats suck in the GPC in comparison to Uther's in KAP 5.2), and might indeed welcome advances from the more vigorous warrior king, Uther. Indeed, who is to say that she is not in love with him, that the passion is mutual? And it is jealous Gorlois who whisks his wife away from her True Love and locks her up in Tintagel under guard.

Of course, the problem would be that in Malory (IIRC), Ygraine claims to have no knowledge that the man who made love to her during the night of her husband's death was Uther, which seems rather silly from Uther, to be honest. Easily handwaved aside, I think.

Now BoSi does make Gorlois younger and present Gorlois+Ygraine pair as one of the great love stories of the age, but if you want a more sympathetic Uther, the above is one tweak you could do without too much sweat. (In the GPC, Ygraine has Love (Gorlois) 16 which does hint at a very happy, loving marriage already, admittedly, but still.)

Try to kill Uther:
Sure, go ahead and maybe you succeed. If you do it in the right place, you might get King Madoc, and Arthur is never born. Congratulations, you have changed the campaign. Let's see what happens now... If you kill him after 491, then it just means that the Anarchy comes a couple of years earlier, no biggie. Be ready for consequences, though, especially if you are discovered. (Loss of lands, knighthood, plenty of enemies...)

Side with Gorlois against Uther:
See above. Likely leads to exile at the very least, since unlike Brastias, you are fighting against your own liege lord (Roderick).

Try to avoid fighting for Uther altogether:
Definitely a valid choice as well. You might miss out on a couple of events, but that means you have more time to more personal stories, and there is always the need for garrisons and patrols when the main strength of Salisbury is away.

My players decided to side with Cornwall during the Anarchy and fought against Robert and Arthur during the Boy King. Ended up exiled in Cornwall, where now-King Mark was quite taken by their show of unwavering loyalty to his cause. Made for an interesting variant Anarchy and Boy King, let me tell you. 🙂

Also... Uther is not the worst of evils by a long-shot. The GM has Saxon raiders, bandits, robber knights, monsters, faerie and demon to throw as baddies that need punching, such as Sir Gorboduc. Anarchy in particular will be full of situations where you can fight for what is right. Whether you succeed is another matter, but you can certainly try to uphold the rights of widows and orphans, starting from Salisbury itself.

Also also, as much as the Character Sheet might hem a character in, it also can encourage heroic playstyle. High Just, Merciful, Valorous and Honor might lead you to even critique your own liege lord, if he is up to some cruel or shady stuff. And if you get punished for it... well, many of the early heroes of the Round Table did a stint as a knight errant in disfavor/exile. Just look at Sir Hervis, or Sir Ywaine and Sir Gawaine of the Triple Questers. Gawaine basically told Arthur to his face that this ain't right and walked out of Camelot.

On 6/3/2022 at 3:26 PM, Stan Shinn said:

I didn't know about this! I'll definitely check this out -- thanks for the tip!

Leafing quickly through my copy of Book of Knights... yeah, you could, in principle, play the game with just this and nothing else, as all the rules* (except maybe some solos) are in there. (* Caveat about Characters: it is 4.5e, so the characters start out significantly stronger than in 3e/4e and even 5e, I'd argue, as they get three yearly trainings per year of squiring, rather than just one; also, the Luck Table is a bit more generous at places, like 1d6 healing potions instead of just one). However, in order to cram all those rules into a one tight package, some of the explanations and examples have been dropped, in particular concerning individual Traits and Passions (one short sentence each to explain them) which are at the heart of Pendragon. It might be a very good "Player's Book" to supplement the 4e, but especially for a new GM, the full 4e would be worth the extra 7 dollars, IMHO. Just having the Bear Hunt and the White Horse adventures to start with would be worth something already, not to mention a much expanded monsters and other opponents section. And maps (& Lands section) are nice, too. Family history and family generation as well.

For a one-shot game to see if your friends might be into KAP, sure, you could hedge your bets and go with this, but for even a mini campaign, I'd want 4e.

If you don't already own 3e, get 4e instead. It is basically a combined 3e basic rulebook + Knights Adventurous, and costs the same as the 3e rulebook, $9.99.
(The rule changes between 3e/4e and 5.2 are pretty minimal, in the great scheme of things. But 4e has the world information and expanded characters for AD 531, something that both 3e and 5.2 lack.)

Also, you might be interested in this thread, if you have not read it already:

6 hours ago, creativehum said:

He's still alive, but unconscious, his breath shallow, motionless in his shattered state. "He will die by midnight," she says.

I think that is the right call, except do not keep him unconscious. Let him get his final words in, to speak with his comrades one more time, etc. He should not die between sessions, unmourned and forgotten.