Cornelius

On 6/28/2019 at 4:19 PM, Atgxtg said:

Yeah. I think this is partly due to the differences between games and reality. In a game, especially an RPG, we like to have everything clearly defined and explained to us. In reality it just isn't the case. In KAP, on paper, there is always a clearly defined pecking order, based on rank and glory. In real life, it just wasn't as clearly defined or even adhered to when it was. 

True. But thats the difference between having a fixed number for glory and a more subjective measure in real life. Together with the odd connections between lords makes it almost impossible to determine who should be in front of whom.

Also the fact that Modest is a christian virtue I think a lot of lords are very rpoud and to be honest the only way to distinguish yourself among your peers  and get more glory is to be in the thick of the fighting, making glorious deeds. And sometimes this pays off, but most of the times it did not.

I participated in a high fantasy setting with the KAP system. Magic was far more present and there were player characters who were magic users. Magic spells were used as skills.  So you could have a healing spell as a skill. We did not use the magic system from the 4th edition.

There are two settings in the works I think. One in a japanese samurai setting and one in the bronze age. I do not know what the status is at this moment.

To be honest the system can be used best when you play in a setting where traits and passions are more important than common sense. Also if you have a system where there is some kind of ideal to live by is the norm. In KAP the ideal is Chivalry. For a japanese setting this could be Bushido. The Ideal determines which traits and passions are important.

22 hours ago, Morien said:

ESTATE, p. 18: "An oath of Fealty is sworn to other lords from whom a knight gets land, and also to lords who are temporary, such as leaders in a military campaign."

I admit that I had forgotten that apparently the leaders in a military campaign do get Fealty sworn to them. I would only apply this to the mercenaries. The medieval history is RIFE with internecine bickering amongst nobility, which each baron jealous for glory and prickly about their own honor, which often resulted in very big mistakes on the battlefield.

I had missed that apparantly. In my mind homage was sworn to your liege, and fealty to other lords you held land for.

In the case of a military leader it could also be that only those swear an oath whom liege lord is not present. So if Earl Roderick is present as a vassal you would not swear fealty, but Earl Roderick would. 

On 6/22/2019 at 5:29 PM, Atgxtg said:

To be honest, it isn't. In RPGs is often is because of the better protection, but realistically someone has little or not chance of sneaking up on a prey animal while wearing full metal armor. I could easily see applying thew armor DEX penalty to Hunting skill in such circumstances, especially when rolling 1d6+Hunting-Avoidance to see how close they can get for "the Kill!".

 

 

This depends on the type of hunt you are conducting. The classic hunt involves more a chase of the quarry with beaters and hounds and not sneaking up on it. So stealth is not necessary in that case. 

8 hours ago, Morien said:

As Atgxtg already said, no they would not. They are not on Madoc's payroll, but fulfilling their duty to the Count of Salisbury, even if the Count is not physically there.

If the Count had nothing to do about it and the PKs were acting as mercenaries, there for just the payment Madoc would give them, then they would take an oath of Fealty for the duration of the campaign (as long as they are getting paid; not getting paid is grounds for ditching the oath, as Madoc would have broken his part of the deal by not paying; although often enough the mercenary pay was in arrears). As soon as the campaign is over and the mercs are released back home, the Fealty would vanish as there is no longer an employment bond between Madoc and the PKs.

Not sure if I would give them a Fealty passion for this. I think it is covered by their Honor. For me passions are more permanent than for a single season. So they may develop a loyalty towards Uther or Mafoc while serving with him over the years. Especially if Uther or Madoc does something like saving their lives.

Reducing passions is not so easy. A lot depends on the actuions of the PKs. I would only reduce their loyalty when the lord acts against them personally. Witnessing him lying to others does not necessarily make you less loyal. So you can have conflicting passions or traits. So you could have a directed trait distrust( Uther) and a loyalty. Its kind a like: Yeah sure he is a lying a**hole, but he is our lying a**hole. 

14 hours ago, BioKeith said:

In the case of hunting, is there a penalty for wearing full armor, as opposed to hunting leathers? Or is that also just a house rule. 

As far as I know that is a house rule. The penalty is probably only a social stigma. But to be honest hunting a huge bear or boar is a full armor preferable to a hunting leather.

In my gaming group is a legendary story of a young knight who went on a hunt as part of his wedding feast. He met a fallow deer and was slaughtered by it (lucky crits on the deer part). Since then the players are wary when we go on a hunt. Especially if it is a fallow deer.

You could also use the result of the battle as a roll of the skill. So if the battle was a glorious victury (this is equal to a critical roll), a win is a success, a loss a failure and a crushing defeat equal to a fumble. The casualty rates are more consistent with that I think.

On 6/7/2019 at 11:15 AM, soltakss said:

This kind of thing used to worry me.

Now, I just ask "What do you want to achieve?"

If you want a certain level of realism where wearing armour is difficult and has side effects, then impose penalties.

If you like the idea of knights sleeping in armour and jumping up when an enemy appears, then play it that way.

True. But I also think there is a difference between wearing the armor all day and wearing it during the night.

I am not sure if wearing an armor while travelling all day has any problem. Yes it is heavy and it may restrict movement. But I think training will off set this effect.

And unless you are sleeping in the wild you should be safe inside a manorhouse. Hence the tradition to visit local knights when you need a night's sleep.

Sleeping in armour may be uncomfortable but there is a difference between full plate and chain I think, due to the flexibility of the armor. So if you bring in realism, you should keep this in mind as well.

But I have no experience with either so if there is someone out there that has tried it I would be interesting to hear his or her experience.

On 5/24/2019 at 5:59 PM, Atgxtg said:

As far as the Saxons inaction during 510-513 I think they were just willing to sit back and let the Brits kill each other off. Then they could just roll over the survivors of the conflict. 

 

It is always assumed that the Saxons are a unified front, but they are not. they each fight eachother as much as they fight the Cymri I think.  It is only around 513 that Aelle is able to get them to accept him as the bretwalda. And I think that only happened because of Arthur unifying the Cymri. 

13 hours ago, Morien said:

I think it is a bit of a hybrid between BoB2 and the old KAP4.

The easiest way to GM it would be to simply do Lance/Melee weapon vs. Bow, and then apportion Wins & Losses accordingly. But that is not how the rules are written.

The way it seems to go in KAP 5.2 is that you first do Lance/Melee weapon vs. Bow, and if you get through that, then you do Lance/Melee weapon vs. the crappy melee of the bowmen, which is where you gain the Glory.

Admittedly, since I started with 4th edition, I tend to GM it thusly:

1) Approach: The bowmen shoot with unopposed Bow (-5 if shielded). Roll Horsemanship if the horse was hit, to continue the charge/approach.

2) Melee with the bowmen: Roll unopposed Melee weapon to cut the cowardly varlets down!

To be honest the difference between unoppossed and their reduced weaponskill is not much. A standard archer has a sword skill of 8. He gets a -5 due to height difference. Also the knight gets a +5 for his melee weapon which is probably at least a 15. To lose from them you need to roll crap and the archer needs to roll good. Since the archer has no armour there is a good chance to hit him.

I interpret the Just trait as following the rules set out in the law and custom of a location. 

Even a king needs to abide by these rules. And yes he can change them, since his word is law. But changing a law, as King Arthur could do it in this case, would create a whole lot of other problems and set a precedent for future cases. For a king I would say that changing the law to suit his own interest is arbitrary. 

The problem I have is with Arbitrary: It is usually instigated by another trait or passion, like Mercy or loyalty. So what is a truly arbitrary act?  

I approached it from a different angle. In order for the officers to have some standing they must be above average. This also is reflected in their financial status. So an officer of an earl should maintain himself as a rich knight. The Earl will pay them out enough to maintain this standing. In my game each was awarded some rights that they are able to ber rich knights.

Interesting. although it is about those filthy Saxons.

If your PKs hold 5.5 eschille (which means roughly 55 knights). They are estateholders? Assuming you have about 5 PKs this means each has an estate of about 100 Librum?

This would mean imho that they hold about 1/3 of Earl Roderick's army. This means they are very important men in the court of Earl Roderick.

By the way on page 110 Earl Roderick has 15 eschille. In book ofthe Estate though the number is at 14 (page 36).

Also be wary. Staging a coup during Earl Rodericks life is something that is seen as non knightly. Loyalty between liege and vassal is a sacred bond.

Aside from that they will need to have some strong backing for this. Not only do the need to deal with the other part of the vassals of Earl Roderick, but also his benefactor King Uther. Earl Roderick is always seen as a loyal vassal of the king, so he would not like to see him removed by someone who may be less loyal. So even if you get a majority ofthe vassals on your side, they also need to deal with King Uther, and his remaining 248 remaining eschilles (not counting Earl Roderick's).

Things change of course if or when Earl Roderick dies. Homage and fealty is between persons, not families. Of course there are rules of inheritance, but since it is a 'might makes right' period King Uther may be pursuaded to accept your new Earl, instead of a mere boy. Of course you will need the other vassals on board for this as well. The ideal period is of course to do this during the Anarchy phase, as there is no King and all the other lords are dealing with their own problems. You still need support from the other vassals and it may plunge the copunty into war. Then other lords may get involved as some hold lands within Salisbury county. Of course the arrival of King Cedric will get him involved.

During battles and combat for love I still use the normal rules for damage, except that al damage is healed when the PK gets some time to catch his breath. 

The only exception id when you roll critical. We roll first normal damage. If this exceeds armor (+shield) real blood is shed and real damage is struck. Then a second time damage is rolled. This damage is added to the first but is not real damage and is healed after the PK gets some time. Of course the total may cause a knight to be knocked from his horse of course.

Major wound is ignored as most damage is not real. When a knights is damage brings him below his unconscious level he has to stop fighting and give up.

Furthermore point 4 of @Atgxtg is a good one. also give them the option to seek them out specifically. The melee is after all the event to show off and many 'duels' will be fought I guess.

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Attribute increases after chargen do increase the  increases do raise the base, but only the base. Otherwise I don't think the attributes would be worth it, as the skill points gained from APP or DEX aren't equal to the benefits of the SIZ and CON lost. It's quality vs. Quality.

For example, Let's say Lady Elaine has APP 20, and Courtesy 10, Intrigue 10, and Romance 10, all due to her high APP> Now a few years go by and she raises Courtesy to 13 and Romance to 16, but intrigue stays the same. She meets and marries the Knight of her dreams gains 1000 glory points, and uses her bonus point to raise her APP to 21. Now, with standard rounding, her default for Courtly skills goes up to 11. This would raise her Intrigue to 11, but would not affect her Courtesy or Romance, as they are already higher than 11. 

Now 30 years go by and time starts to catch up with her and her looks fade a little back down to 20. But all her courtly skills would remain where they were, with her lowest ones at least at 11 as she had gotten them that high, and probably learned a little something over the years

Ok. some consequences:

- Training a skill at default by 1 or 2 points is not interesting, as an increase in the STAT is a better option. This is not a big problem as you would probably put all your yearly training into a skill if your want to raise it to some level. This is of course different if you have a default skill at 8 and increase it to 10, for instance.

- Increases gained by Experience checks may become 'lost' when you increase the Attribute linked to the skill. The experience checks is a integral part of the increase in level of the characters for KAP (in other systems you get XP or advancement points to do this). So it feels as if the experience your character has gained gets lost. It somehow feels wrong.

- It will make the increase of an Attribute over a skill, trait or passion even more important until the age of 35. 

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I'm curious as to the frequency, limits and how that fits with passion based inspiration? For instance can a character use a trait and a passion to inspire the same ability? Or could the use a trait to inspire a passion which turn is used to inspire something else? For example someone with Proud 18, Honor 15 is called a coward and fights a duel to save his Honor. He uses his Pride 18 to inspire his Honor (up to 20) ensuring that he can't blow the passion roll (and go mad) and that he can then use his Honor to Inspire his Sword skill. It makes sense logically, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea.

I would not allow this. Only one roll to get inspired. It is either his Proud or his Honor that should be used, not one to get inspired on the other. IMHO This example would break open a can of worms. And where would it stop? Could I reason that I get inspired from my Love(|family)  so I can inspire myself for my Proud to inspire myself for My Honor to get a bonus on my sword? There are probably more discussion about the logic of the choices which I do not want.

I would let the player explain the reaction of the PK and then decide wich trait or passion would be used to get inspired.

It may have been a difference in world view and what the virtues of a good king or general are:

In the Roman eye a good king is an educated mind, screwed in the political arena of the forum. Its not his prowes in combat but his strategic mind that wins the day. Strategy is learned by learning from the great generals of old. Even Julius Ceasar used mostly his charisma and strategic mind, while he left the execution of his plans to his subordinates. 

In the Cymru (and especially the Pict and Saxon) eye a good king is a man of action. He is strong and his prowes in combat wins the day. Strategy comes through experience and thus you need to go through the ranks to become a great general.Train your sword arm first, and through experience become a good general.

So for a Roman to make a great general was to get your child educated. And the best educated men are the monks. So it wasn't that odd to send your child to them to be educated. It is also the rerason why his Pict bodyguards feel it is a bad general (he has no experience).

So in essence you make lighter armor more interesting and it reduces the need for heavier armor.  what would then be the reason for a knight to actually wear heavy chainmail or even plate?

In a normal KAP game I would not want this. It is after all the game where you have the knight in shining armor.

Usually I would expect the reduction of armor be offset by some other gain than endurance in a combat. 

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, that was that I thought at first too. But Morien has suggested that Attribute/3 doesn't make APP or DEX all that important. The difference between a 3 and a 6 isn't worth the attribute points. Basically neither skill is worth using except in an emergency and the year or so it saves a character on training isn't worth the the investment in attribute points.

You could. I don't think itaht would be a good idea through for three reasons.

First off it it would require ,more bookkeeping.

Secondly, APP and DEX don't give all that much to the character, so just adding penalties makes those attributes the dump stats again.

Lastly, if a loss in DEX or APP accompanies a loss in skill then PKS are encourage to have lower values to age won't hurt them as much.

I am not against higher default values. It was just to point out that it would deviate from the current system. It would also mean that every  PK has a fair (around 25%) chance on succeeding in untrained skills. 

The bookkeeping. It would require that the charactersheet makes clear which part of the skill is from the STAT and which is from the training. Currently there are other systems that use this method as well and I do feel that it means much more bookkeeping. Skills do not change every session (at least not in mine), so you would probably only have to recalculate during a winterhase. And it would mean that you cannot make 'bad' choices as the point used in training are still there.

I think we all agree that we do not want any of the STATS to be just a dumpstat, in order to get some good scores. We want them either to make a conscience choice to have high and others lower or have their Attributes roughly around 10-12.  So I do not see a downside here.

@Khanwulf and @Atgxtg: Interesting list and I like it. There are however some things that need clarification.

1) Starting skills are now around 2-3 mostly. There are a few exceptions (like First Aid). With the rule STAT/2 as the default and people having their STATS at 10 minimum you will have a skill default at 5. This almost double than the base value now. I am not sure what would happen, but if you divide the STAT by 3. You get around a value of 2 or 3 as default.

2) Decrease of a skill. If you reason that a skill is based on a STAT you could also reason that the skill decreases if the STAT decreases. You could say that part of a skill is based on your STAT and part on training. Thus as you age and you lose your DEX you will lose part of your skill as you are more stiff and cannot move as agile as you did before. In the example the Dagger skill will increase when DEX increases, and decreases as DEX decreases.

3)  Combat skills as DEX based. I am not sure if I like that. Since combat is an integral part of the life of a knight DEX would become very important for combat. I understanbd that SIZ and STR determine the damage you do. I understand that in your idea only the default is changed and as you wish to increase your primary combat skill higher than 10. So when you focus on one combat skill (for instance Sword) it will be less important to have a high DEX. But a person with a high DEX would be able to get more combat skills at a higher level than a low DEX person. (Of course if you apply my comment 2 then this is even a bigger impact)

This is how I would use it:

I would allow the bonus to apply to STATS if they are used as a sort of skill. Thus a STR would be allowed if you have to bash your way through several doors to get to your love or run a 10 mile stretch to save her. But as with all inspiration it requires some sort of logical sense. 

For instance I would not want it 'abused' in the following example: A PK has a skill 25+ and thus always increaes his size to do more damage as he reasons he will hit his opponent anyway. 

BTW In my games to get inspired something must have happened that triggers your passion. You may hate Saxons, but that does not mean you get inspired everytime you see a Saxon. Only when for instance you are outnumbered and may loose or when a friend goes down you can get inspired.

I would not put any requirements from the stats, but it would have an impact on how his conversion is viewed by the others.

For instance a Pagan converting to Christianity would be questioned of his reasons when he still has high Pagan traits. He would probably act in accordance with his former believe instead of that of his new christian beliefs. 

Of course if the PK is actively seeking to become a good christian he may even become a fanatic and this would mean that his traits will change and become more christian. As a GM I would help him out in this of course.

On 3/31/2019 at 9:52 PM, svensson said:

A PC death is NOT 'a mistake', RB. The whole point of adventure games is risk and death is a natural consequence of that risk. In a full-on battle like your scenario, that risk multiplies and sometimes that means a character loss.

The real question is 'does the player feel he got jerked around'? If he does, talk to him about it and see what you can do to improve your GM skills. Also, make sure that the character's sacrifice is honored in-game. Perhaps the teenaged liege lord has grown up a bit, seeing one of his honored retainers butchered for the sake of education....

As long as there is a difference between the player and the PC, things will be fine. Award the player for having his character make such a sacrifice. Maybe others in the court feel some sort of obligation to the retainer. Even the young lord may feel a special bond with the new character (if it is a family member). This may give him privilages other PCs do not have. 

Also make it clear that this is not just a random kill, but a true plot and it will define the relationship between the remaining PCs.

First of all all the Book of series does is expand upon a part of the game. Estate gives more insight in running an estate, Uther gives more insight in the court of King Uther. So if you have a group of players who like court intrigues and empire building. The Estate and uther are probably the ones you want. If you have a group who likes the generational play GPC and Estate or Manor are interesting. Book of Entourage also helps here. If you wish to have a more divers group of knights Book of Knights and Ladies is a handy one then.

Book of the Estate vs Book of the Manor. I would choose one of the systems and stick with it. But I would choose Estate over Manor. (even thou I use a modified manor system currently).

Book of Knights and Ladies. I use them as a GM to set the background of other knights, but did not use it for the PKs as I wanted them to come from Salisbury.

Book of Sires: I would use this one as a GM to get some background on the other areas of Britain and to get some depth on the things that happen there. Other than that I would only use it if I would set the campaign in another region than Salisbury.

Book of Battles and Book of Armies. Unlike Morien I am not as negative about this system than he is. For me it is far better than the original battle system in the core rule book. The problem with the book is that it takes some time to get the hang of it. It gives a lot of options for a unit to do that have it affect the battle. Fortunately the options a unit can do reduce a lot depending on the battle roll of the Unit leader. One important thing to do is translate the math to a description on what happens to the unit of PKs. One of the options to make the battle more memorable is the extended round system. I use this to add a special event to the battle (for instance helping you unhorsed liege lord, or capture an enemy leader, or maybe just halp out a friend). These events make the battle memorable, not the dice rolls.