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Questions regarding the Rydychan adventure


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On 4/28/2020 at 10:41 AM, The Wanderer said:

Moreover, as they come with their own mercenary soldiers from Salisbury, how would the "servitum debitum" be managed on these manors?

Presumably, you would like to get even more soldiers and knights. So if you have a manor back in Salisbury, that is your first manor, supporting yourself and 3 foot soldiers. When you get a second manor in Rydychan, you want to get a household knight and additional 3 foot soldiers. Not only will this allow you to fulfill your SD obligations to both Countesses, but it will also make you more powerful in fighting against the usurper brothers.

So, no change.

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They hired about 30 mercenary soldiers and 10 mercenary knights... 😅 I was wondering if they don't want to upkeep more, if they could use the money to help them pay for the mercenaries the next year.

44 minutes ago, Morien said:

When you get a second manor in Rydychan, you want to get a household knight and additional 3 foot soldiers.

And I think that when they are in Rydychan they will have to use the manor there to mantain themselves as Salisbury is far away.

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The thing is, as Rydychan is at war, I don't think they would be able to use the resources from their manors in Salisbury once they are settled in Rydychan (remember I am using de adventure  as written in Lordy Domains). Therefore, they will have to use the income from the manors in Rydychan to support themselves. They have brought mercenary soldiers, so I think they could use them to fulfill the SD obligations (they have lots of knights and foot soldiers), and letting them save 1 libram (for no children) and 1.5 libram for no soldiers (no saving from the wife as they'll have to hire a steward).

I would like to know if I am managing it well, regarding BotE/BotW rules.

Of course, these lands are still not granted nor gifted, but "on lease" or "by pleasure". They are "lended" by the baroness of rydychan to "protect and steward".

Maybe I could use the rules for the "leased free farms" (p. 39, BotW) to simplify it, during the years (2-3) of the adventure. And after it, the manors could be gifted to the PKs.

Edited by The Wanderer
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Salisbury is not that far, just a few days away. They can certainly at least winter some of the mercenaries there -> use those resources to pay for the mercenaries. At the very very minimum, they should be able to take that £4 render that they'd normally eat themselves and turn it into £2 silver to pay to the mercenaries.

On the most generous side would be to use the full income coming from the Rydychan manors to pay for the mercenaries, allowing the knight to act his own steward since he is there almost constantly. And the £1.5 footman SD could certainly be used to pay for the mercenaries, since the mercenaries will more than fulfill that criteria.

So, up to you, ranging from:

Just £1.5 + £1 saved from kids (harsh)

Just £2.5 + £2 silver = £4.5 (strict)

Full SD £5.5 for that second manor + £1 saved from kids = £6.5 (medium)

Full CR £10 for that second manor (using the £1 DF from Salisbury to support the countess) (generous)

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I am tempted to make them support themselves there because although Salisbury isn't very far, it would be risky to send the render (or silver) from Salisbury as Rydychan is occupied by the usurpers and they could raid and steal the caravan. I want to create the feeling of a dangerous land to travel.

And so, it is £4 to support themselves, and I will let them choose if they want to have a steward or not, having a total of 5 or 6 DF depending on that decision.

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12 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

I am tempted to make them support themselves there because although Salisbury isn't very far, it would be risky to send the render (or silver) from Salisbury as Rydychan is occupied by the usurpers and they could raid and steal the caravan. I want to create the feeling of a dangerous land to travel.

And so, it is £4 to support themselves, and I will let them choose if they want to have a steward or not, having a total of 5 or 6 DF depending on that decision.

Sure, you can do it like that. Depending a bit on the Countess of Salisbury, she might count the Rydychan adventure as fulfilling the knights' duty to her, in which case their manors should be able to convert that £4 render that the knight is not spending at their home manors into £2 silver, to be collected when they are back. Or if this is more of a PKs' personal project, she would probably insist on that £4 render paid to her since the knight is not there to fulfill the SD.

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7 hours ago, Morien said:

Sure, you can do it like that. Depending a bit on the Countess of Salisbury, she might count the Rydychan adventure as fulfilling the knights' duty to her, in which case their manors should be able to convert that £4 render that the knight is not spending at their home manors into £2 silver, to be collected when they are back. Or if this is more of a PKs' personal project, she would probably insist on that £4 render paid to her since the knight is not there to fulfill the SD.

Yes it was a mission appointed by her, collaboring with de baroness of Rydychan and Duke Ulfius ^^

I give them the possibility to send the money to Rydychan, but they have to accept the risk of losing it hehehe

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2 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

Is it possible to pay the mercenaries in render? I mean, if they are going to serve you for a year or two. Or do they only accept silver (treasure)?

If I were a mercenary, I would be happy enough to take the upkeep costs in render during the duration of the employment. 'Room and board'. Makes for easier logistics when I don't have to worry about buying my own provisions. Anything extra, though, I would want in silver. So I would probably follow that same rule with mercenaries.

(Note that in my own campaign, we do not use the 2:1 render to treasure conversion, so the issue doesn't come up.)

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  • 1 year later...
59 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

I was thinking... How well? I mean... How easy or difficult is to set fire to a motte and bailey castle?😄

It is not easy, if you don't have access to some nice stuff like tar and grease and other such things that will stick and burn long enough for the fire to spread to the logs. I mean, in principle you can just cart enough dry hay and bundles of sticks and pile those against a wooden building and light them on fire, and eventually the building will catch on fire, too. It is not as if you can just fire a couple of fire arrows and see the whole thing go up like kindling.

Now the issue with this is that the gentlemen inside the keep (or the bailey) tend to have shall we say strong views about people tying to set their castle on fire, and they tend to send rather pointed (sometimes even barbed) objections to this course of action. Or throwing down some weighty arguments against the besieger, too.

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On 4/1/2020 at 1:07 AM, Tizun Thane said:

In case you don't know, the Rydychan Brothers Adventure is (vastly) expanded in Lordly Domains, in a full 3 years scenario. It's written for the third edition, but it's still useful.

Thank you for the heads up on this. I had forgotten about this. Nice to know it is more fully expanded. Just opened it up to read!

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"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, the PKs obtained the victory on the Rydychan campaign and the baroness Gwendolyn gifted them with the manor they held there (just a 10L manor).

But that seems a poor reward as they spent too much money and resouces from their private trasure so the Countess Ellen should also reward them in some way, so, what dou you think about one of these options:

a) Appoint them to be officers of Salisbury (they are two PKs, so maybe marshall and seneschal) seems appropiate as they are going to effectively rule Salisbury with the countess during the Anarchy (we are in 501).

b) Upgrade any of their manors within Salisbury from gifted to granted.

c) Giving them any valuable present during Christmass (an improved horse or anything like that).

What do you think?

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1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

So, the PKs obtained the victory on the Rydychan campaign and the baroness Gwendolyn gifted them with the manor they held there (just a 10L manor).

But that seems a poor reward as they spent too much money and resouces from their private trasure so the Countess Ellen should also reward them in some way, so, what dou you think about one of these options:

What do you think?

They were helping the Baroness, not the Countess. Hence, it is for the Baroness to reward them. A granted manor each in Rydychan sounds like a good reward (depending just how much money they spent), and also ensures that they are there to help the Baroness in the future, too...

On the other hand, if they are glorious knights already, it could be that they are deserving of officerships anyway in Salisbury. Especially if they are of proven loyalty to the Countess, and having just proven their skills as commanders in Rydychan.

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14 minutes ago, Morien said:

On the other hand, if they are glorious knights already, it could be that they are deserving of officerships anyway in Salisbury. Especially if they are of proven loyalty to the Countess, and having just proven their skills as commanders in Rydychan.

I read in other post that the officer's pay would be about 6L per year and that goes to the standard of living... But as they already are rich knights, could they save money (from their income) to use as discretionary funds? Or do they must spend all (% of SoL of the manor and the officer's pay bonus) for the SoL??

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1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

Or do they must spend all (% of SoL of the manor and the officer's pay bonus) for the SoL??

By RAW, yes.

However, you are the GM. If you want them to have some more spending money (and in particular since this is Anarchy and money is tight as it is*), you might let them save some of it or spend it on like extra soldiers or something.

* Note also that due to it being the Anarchy (loss of trade, outliers, need for more knights and soldiers, need to pay tribute), the Countess might not be able to afford the same pay bonus as the Count could in the good old days of Uther. Really depends what the situation is in your campaign.

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3 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

So, the PKs obtained the victory on the Rydychan campaign...

How did it go? Anything interesting you want to share about running it?

As far as rewards go, the rules say "The object of King Arthur Pendragon is for your character to accumulate Glory."  

So, I'm curious: what Glory did they get for accomplishing the Adventure? That's what my focus would be on.

Edited by creativehum

"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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On 2/6/2022 at 11:03 PM, creativehum said:

How did it go? Anything interesting you want to share about running it?

As far as rewards go, the rules say "The object of King Arthur Pendragon is for your character to accumulate Glory."  

So, I'm curious: what Glory did they get for accomplishing the Adventure? That's what my focus would be on.

I used the campaign of lordly domains, specially the beginning but I made a lot of changes during it. For example I made the abbot of deertown offering to help and then betraying them. Also, they got help from an aunt of the usurpers who got in love with one of the PKs 🙂

Glory, they got about 500 or 600 maybe (250 for accomplishing it, the rest from combats).

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I always wanted to run "Of Allies & Enemies," but I've never had a campaign go long enough to allow me to do so. I love hearing about things people changed and added in. Thanks!

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1 hour ago, The Wanderer said:

I used the campaign of lordly domains, specially the beginning but I made a lot of changes during it. For example I made the abbot of deertown offering to help and then betraying them. Also, they got help from an aunt of the usurpers who got in love with one of the PKs 🙂

Glory, they got about 500 or 600 maybe (250 for accomplishing it, the rest from combats).

How long did it take game-time-wise? I'm imagining two or three years?

I ask only because it seems like I might be offering more Glory for the quest of a multi-year campaign. You get 250 Glory for killing a lion. I think this tale is worthy of more than that -- knocking down villains, bringing stability to the troubled isle, saving the sister-in-law of Duke Ulfius -- but that might be just me.

Not saying you did anything wrong! Only passing on how I see this adventure as a big deal and worthy of solid renown for pulling it off.

Edited by creativehum

"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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7 hours ago, creativehum said:

I ask only because it seems like I might be offering more Glory for the quest of a multi-year campaign. You get 250 Glory for killing a lion. I think this tale is worthy of more than that -- knocking down villains, bringing stability to the troubled isle, saving the sister-in-law of Duke Ulfius -- but that might be just me.

Well, depends.

You get that 250 Glory for defeating the lion by yourself. That is pretty darn impressive.

Sure, if those two PKs go by themselves and beat all the usurpers in single combats, and single-handedly restore the Countess, that would be pretty impressive. However, they likely did not do so, but had loads of help, even if they were the primary movers behind it. And whether that 500-600 Glory is combined (hence x2 the lion) or individual (x4 - x5 the lion), it is in any case much more than just the lion.

When we played through the "Of Allies & Enemies", one PK took down 6 enemy knights (and causing the remaining two to flee), four of them after all the other PKs were already down. The other PKs would have been captured were it not for him, likely dooming the reconquest effort. He got loads of glory for that and a granted manor in Rydychan. The Player is still talking about it even though it happened at the start of 2015 and about 50 years ago in game time. 🙂

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9 hours ago, creativehum said:

How long did it take game-time-wise? I'm imagining two or three years?

I ask only because it seems like I might be offering more Glory for the quest of a multi-year campaign. You get 250 Glory for killing a lion. I think this tale is worthy of more than that -- knocking down villains, bringing stability to the troubled isle, saving the sister-in-law of Duke Ulfius -- but that might be just me.

Not saying you did anything wrong! Only passing on how I see this adventure as a big deal and worthy of solid renown for pulling it off.

It took two years, I accelerated the things a bit because I want to play Morgan's wedding next year (501).

Apart from the glory (now I'm thinking it could have been more...) I rewarded them with gifted manors (one for each PK; should have been granted?), and also they became officers (seneschal and marshall) of Salisbury!

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