The Adventure of the Great Hunt - a Quickstart preview of Greg Stafford's "ultimate edition" for the Pendragon RPG

[MOB]

Free download marking the second anniversary of Greg Stafford's passing #weareallus

This week Chaosium marks the second anniversary of the passing of Greg Stafford, the company founder and its original creative visionary. With the hashtag #WeAreAllUs, we commemorate Greg as one of the greatest game designers of all time; winner of too many awards to count; and a friend, mentor, guide, and inspiration to generations of gamers.

While Greg Stafford's influence on the universe of tabletop gaming is beyond measure, he considered the King Arthur Pendragon RPG his masterpiece. And this year for #WeAreAllUs, we salute Greg’s magnum opus with a free sneak peak of the 6th Edition core rules and an accompanying scenario, The Adventure of the Great Hunt, originally outlined by Greg way back in 1991 and presented here in print for the first time.

Greg started work on the new edition ten years ago. Since that time, it has gone through multiple development phases and is at last nearly ready for its public debut. He called this, and always intended it to be, his “ultimate edition” and we are proud to see it finally coming to fruition.

"Pendragon veterans will find that the fundamentals of the game remain the same, with subtle modifications reflecting the culmination of nearly three decades’ refinement of Greg’s vision of Arthurian fantasy", said Pendragon line editor David Larkins.

For newcomers to Pendragon, everything you need to experience the Pendragon system is here in The Adventure of the Great Hunt: the core rules, a scenario playable in a single session, and six pre-generated characters.

Download your free copy of The Adventure of the Great Hunt here:

• The Great Hunt
• Pregen Characters for The Great Hunt

Let us win glory for our king, who will reward us with honors and lands; and the devil take the hindermost! 

Edited October 18, 2020 by MOB

[Mugen]

It seems there are more changes in the rules than in the previous editions.

I'm not sure about the changes to the Passion Exaltation rules, as I know a lot of players that won't use it if their passion is between 16 and 18, as the risk is bigger than the reward. Reducing the bonus is certainly a good thing, on the other hand.

I like that there are less combat skills.

By the way, I couldn't find which skill must be used for daggers : Sword, Brawl, the highest one ? As no PK has a dagger skill, I think there is no such skill anymore.

Criticals dealing +4d6 is nice, especially for those with less than 4d6 base damage. Armors are not ignored on a critical, but I don't remember if that was the case in previous editions, or if I'm starting to confuse different BRP games...

 

[beardo1976]

Looks like daggers use Brawling (pg 4).  I love the distinction of the different armor pieces and the addition of the arming sword.  Adventure looks like a fun one.  Belching panthers, I love it!  
 

I agree with you @Mugen, the risk of using a passion of 16-19 does seem high given the current benefit, maybe if on a failure the number of days of Melancholy are reduced?  Say 1d6 or 1d6+1?  I’d keep everything else as it, including the loss of a point of the passion.  That’s a pretty hefty penalty already, but up to 11 days of Melancholy on top of that seems rough.

Edited October 18, 2020 by beardo1976

[KungFuFenris]

*Devoured*

Alright. This seems like a very nice improvement.
New passion rules are nice (the results are... interesting), new Grappling rules are *very* nice.
Love the new weapon skills and the new ways of handling things that could parry. I could also do with finding out what the rules about two weapons would be.

I outright adore the female knight on pg19.

So.... 6th Edition when?!

 

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

I'm not sure about the changes to the Passion Exaltation rules, as I know a lot of players that won't use it if their passion is between 16 and 18, as the risk is bigger than the reward. Reducing the bonus is certainly a good thing, on the other hand.

Passion 16+, you have to roll if the GM thinks the Passion might be triggered. That's the deal. You get the Annual Glory, you have to act like it. I like the fact that now you can actually use your 1-15 Passions, which was pretty much impossible to get the players to do, especially if their passions were below 10. They'd never roll those, since the chance of Melancholy was so great.

I do agree that 1d6+5 days of Melancholy sounds a bit much, but I would remind you of what KAP 5.2 said: "The knight naturally awakens from his Melancholy on his
own, but it requires a number of weeks equal to the score of the Passion that provoked the dismal mental state." So we'd be looking at 4 to 5 MONTHS of Melancholy under KAP 5.2 rules. Also, keep in mind that you can snap your friend out of his Melancholy with some good rolling. I have been operating under KAP 4 rules myself, where Melancholy lasts for a day. I could see 1d6 as a nice compromise there, as @beardo1976suggested. Losing a Passion point is not that bad now, since 1-15 passions are still rollable.

[creativehum]

The rules for Passion seem to be the big change I've seen on a scan of the rules. 

I really love the rules for there being mechanical effect for non-Famous Passions. A lot.

On the other hand, the bonuses and risks for the Famous and Exhaulted Passions make the Passions seem rather... mundane and boring now? For me, a knight invoking Passions was a signal that whatever was happening meant everything to the Player Knight. Big risk, big reward, and a clear flag on the field.

(I understand that the GM can impose Passion roles per the rules, but because of the risks, I never did this. I always left it up t the Player to choose to invoke a Passion, which is the other half of the rules.)

On the third hand, sometimes going into Meloncholia or Madness for months didn't seem to fit if you failed a Passion against your Hatred of Saxons for example. Sometimes a "He's gone into the woods and has been lost for weeks and weeks" makes sense, and other times it doesn't. This is honestly the only piece of the Pendragon rules I consistently bounced against. I loved the rules and the idea... but the one-size-fits-all approach to the Melencholia and Madness never seemed to capture what the rules were after.

I think what I might do in the future is have two tiers for the length of time for Melencholia and Madness, to be discussed before the roll is made between the GM and the Player: keep the rolls from the table (1d6+5 or 1d6+10) but they represent either days or weeks, as defined by the importance of the Passion and the situation at hand by the Player for his Knight. (And,in the case of Madness for really, really emotionally significant matters for the PK, going back to the old rules, even months).

I understand this isn't a solution that will make sense for a lot of people ("Everyone will pick days!") and not certainly you could put in a rule book given how much this depends on everyone at the table being on the same page and collaborating. But for my group, who are heavily invested in making stuff up together that seems emotionally true and driven by the story, I think it will work.

As for the rewards... no. A +5 is the standard bump for any positive positive advantage, no matter how mundane. If I'm going to use Passions at my table (and I'm going to use Passions at my table!) I want them to produce crazy-inspired actions that make everyone at the table laugh and gasp as the PK makes rolls that are off the chart.

I appreciate Greg might have thought the bonuses were too much. But they were always balanced with the risk. Let a Player Knight be too much every once in a while, is my view. This is a game about a legendary time with legendary characters. If, in a given fight, or a given speech in court, or whatever, the knight' Passion drives him to super-human deeds that are told about for years afterward... well, that to me is the rule doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

Edited October 18, 2020 by creativehum

[Morien]

19 minutes ago, creativehum said:

I appreciate Greg might have thought the bonuses were too much. But they were always balanced with the risk. Let a Player Knight be too much every once in a while, is my view. This is a game about a legendary time with legendary characters. If, in a given fight, or a given speech in court, or whatever, the knight' Passion drives him to super-human deeds that are told about for years afterward... well, that to me is the rule doing exactly what it was supposed to do.

+5 is a lot, though. +10 was an insta-win (or insta-lose, if the opponent had a passion on and you didn't, which happened in some of the adventures and in quite a few Battle opponents in Book of Armies). We have been playing with +5 for, oh, about 15 years or so, and it is still a 'plant a flag'-event.

[MelronPeredor]

I cannot see anywhere how bonuses are applied. I mean, I know and I am sure everyone on this board knows. But I would think a Quickstart would make it clearer. What happens if your skill is 15 and you get a + 10. It can be guessed by reading the rules, but it should be much clearer, since Pendragon has always been a bit different than other Rpgs. If someone reads this with no prior experience, we want them to have as smooth an experience as possible.

The adventure itself is great, the QS is pretty and very attractive. Everything’s you want to draw new people in.

[Morien]

25 minutes ago, MelronPeredor said:

I cannot see anywhere how bonuses are applied.

p. 3: "Impassioned: A temporary +10 bonus to a single Skill".  That is pretty clear.

p. 4: "For example, a character with a Sword Skill of 18 and a Horsemanship Skill of 15 fights from horseback as if their Sword value is 15. If they gain a +5 height advantage against an opponent on foot, however, their effective Skill is boosted to 20."

What I dislike about the 20 (+x) notation is that it does not address what happens when the skill is 18 and then gets a +5 modifier to 23... The older rules were clear that you just added +3 to the dice roll. Current rules do not make it clear, and actually make it seem as if you'd only get a critical if you roll 23 on 1d20, which is impossible. Now I know I should count 23 as 20 (+3) but that is not explained anywhere.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Morien

[MelronPeredor]

4 minutes ago, Morien said:

p. 3: "Impassioned: A temporary +10 bonus to a single Skill".  That is pretty clear.

p. 4: "For example, a character with a Sword Skill of 18 and a Horsemanship Skill of 15 fights from horseback as if their Sword value is 15. If they gain a +5 height advantage against an opponent on foot, however, their effective Skill is boosted to 20."

What I dislike about the 20 (+x) notation is that it does not address what happens when the skill is 18 and then gets a +5 modifier to 23... The older rules were clear that you just added +3 to the dice roll. Current rules do not make it clear, and actually make it seem as if you'd only get a critical if you roll 23 on 1d20, which is impossible. Now I know I should count 23 as 20 (+3) but that is not explained anywhere.

I might have been unclear Morien. My issue is exactly yours, the example they use is 15 + 5, but what happens if the bonus is +10? We know how to treat a 25, but a first time reader might figure it out, but in a Quickstart it need to be stated in a much clearer way. In fact the best way, might be to have the skill 18 better explained. In fact, the example make it seem that the skill of 18 only benefits from +2 as « however, their effective Skill is boosted to 20. ». That need to be better unpacked especially for a Quickstart.

[Leingod]

31 minutes ago, Morien said:

What I dislike about the 20 (+x) notation is that it does not address what happens when the skill is 18 and then gets a +5 modifier to 23... The older rules were clear that you just added +3 to the dice roll. Current rules do not make it clear, and actually make it seem as if you'd only get a critical if you roll 23 on 1d20, which is impossible. Now I know I should count 23 as 20 (+3) but that is not explained anywhere.

Isn't that covered by this bit on pg. 2?

Quote

Note that if a target value is 20, it becomes impossible to fumble, and that a modified dice roll greater than 20 counts as a result of 20 and is a critical success.

 

[Richard S.]

This all looks really cool! Could someone more familiar with the system give a rundown as to what looks different in this edition? Off the top of my head it looks like the skill list is smaller and passion bonuses are smaller, but I'm not the most well versed with Pendragon so I'm probably missing some stuff.

[creativehum]

2 hours ago, Morien said:

+5 is a lot, though. +10 was an insta-win

But if someone has Orate 3 and risks invoking a Passion on behalf of his lord (or whatever), an 8 isn't an insta-win.

And I don't mind insta-win for the knights when it comes to Passions.

I think a lot of this comes down to what one person or another wants Passions to mean. To me I want them to be the truly bigger than life stuff. But that's me.

[creativehum]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

What I dislike about the 20 (+x) notation is that it does not address what happens when the skill is 18 and then gets a +5 modifier to 23... The older rules were clear that you just added +3 to the dice roll. Current rules do not make it clear, and actually make it seem as if you'd only get a critical if you roll 23 on 1d20, which is impossible. Now I know I should count 23 as 20 (+3) but that is not explained anywhere.

I am not quite sure where this concern is coming from. On page 1 of the Quickstart:

Quote

 

Used when success is based entirely on the character’s own actions. Roll 1D20 versus the value of the Statistic. If the Statistic value is written as 20 (+x), add the value of (+x) to the die roll to determine its final value. The final number of the die roll is compared to the target value to determine the outcome.

• Critical Success: Exactly the target value—often confers an additional benefit beyond a success.
• Success: Less than the target value.
• Failure: Higher than the target value.
• Fumble: A natural 20; a spectacular failure causing problems.

Note that if a target value is 20, it becomes impossible to fumble, and that a modified dice roll greater than 20 counts as a result of 20 and is a critical success.

 

I believe the concept could have been expressed more clearly, but it is all there.

[Morien]

1 hour ago, MelronPeredor said:

I might have been unclear Morien. My issue is exactly yours, the example they use is 15 + 5, but what happens if the bonus is +10? We know how to treat a 25, but a first time reader might figure it out, but in a Quickstart it need to be stated in a much clearer way. In fact the best way, might be to have the skill 18 better explained. In fact, the example make it seem that the skill of 18 only benefits from +2 as « however, their effective Skill is boosted to 20. ». That need to be better unpacked especially for a Quickstart.

OK, we might actually have the same issue. I don't think the Horsemanship limit is poorly explained (as such, although I think it should say that it limits the BASE skill, not the effective one): skill 18 is capped to 15 by horsemanship 15, and then that new Sword 15 gets +5 =20.

@Leingod, it is not explained, since it is nowhere said that 18+5 = 23 should be counted as 20 (+3). It is simply said that if the statistic is ALREADY written 20 (+x), then roll 1d20+x. That is what I am trying to say. The earlier rule of just take (modified value-20) as a bonus to the dice roll. Then you are not limited by how it is written down, nor what particular modifiers apply. This could have been cleaned up more.

[Morien]

11 minutes ago, creativehum said:

If the Statistic value is written as 20 (+x)

If my Sword is written 18 and I add 5, I get 23. It is not "written as 20 (+3)", which is why everything after that would not apply, and make the whole value of 23 very confusing for a newbie. -I- know how I need to GM it, but a newbie GM might not. Earlier rules were clearer.

[creativehum]

Well, what is weird is that it is written, unexpectedly, as an algebraic formula. I say unexpectedly because I don't think there is another bit of algebra in the whole quick start.

But 23 is the same thing as 20 (+3). It is an awkward phrasing, but technically it is correct.

Here is the passage from 5.2 which explains the rule in plain language:

Quote

 

If a character has a statistic value greater than 20, even if it is only temporarily modified to greater than 20, then every die roll he makes versus that value is increased. The increase is equal to the amount of the value over 20. Thus, a knight with a Dexterity of 25 would gain a +5 bonus to the roll every time he makes a DEX check, as long as he suffers no penalties from other sources.

Note that the die roll can never be reduced, only increased, in King Arthur Pendragon. A penalty to a statistic is applied to the statistic’s value, not to the roll itself.

Treat any result of 21 or higher on the roll as a 20, which is a critical success. Thus, a value greater than 20 in a statistic increases the chance of a critical success and eliminates the chance of a fumble.

 

I find it a much better construction.

 

[MelronPeredor]

10 minutes ago, Morien said:

If my Sword is written 18 and I add 5, I get 23. It is not "written as 20 (+3)", which is why everything after that would not apply, and make the whole value of 23 very confusing for a newbie. -I- know how I need to GM it, but a newbie GM might not. Earlier rules were clearer.

Yes I have the same issue as you do. The rules are not explicitly explained. If like most of us you’ve played previous editions it seems clear, but for a newbie gm it might be needlessly confusing and when I look at a Quickstart I assume being a newbie GM that never tried the system before. It is a small but annoying flaw in an otherwise excellent Quickstart and I am sure it won’t be difficult to fix, but the basics in a Quickstart have to be crystal clear.

 

Hope that makes sense

[Baba]

I’m excited! This looks good!

The changes I spotted, and what I think of them at first glance:

Stuff I liked

Slightly lower armor ratings? : The armor of the pregenerated knights adds up to 12. I guess what they wear is equivalent to at 14 point partial plate in 5.2? Lower armor rating seems like a good thing, because combat between knights may not just be about waiting for the crit, and because you're not quite as safe ignoring the 3d6 damage footsoldier stabbing at you.

Crits give a flat +4d6 instead of doubling your dice: I like this a lot. The footman's crit becomes actually worrisome, while a lance charge crit doesn't automatically kill you.

Appeal: Appearance has been such an oddly narrow stat, and it is hardly used for anything. Changing it to Appeal seems to be an attempt to make it more worth the focus it gets as one of five attributes. I appreciate the effort, but I wonder: How does this work with skills like Courtesy, Orate, Intrigue, Play, Sing and so on? It seems like a very appealing character should be good at those skills.

Fewer skills: Generally I think 5.2 has too many skills that are seldom tested. The main problem with that is when you feel like your character probably SHOULD be good at something, but you don't feel good about wasting points on skills you are never going to use. 6th edition seems to fix that.

• Faerie Lore and Folk Lore have been folded together. I've never rolled a Folk Lore test in my life, and the common understanding of the word "folklore" includes lore about faeries.
• Heraldry and Recognize have been folded together. Neither are used very often at our table, and they seem related.
• Boating is gone. I don't know what you'll use now if you get into a dramatic situation on a boat, but we have only tested boating once the last five years.
• Read is now called Literacy. Fair enough.
• Flirting and Romance are folded together - or perhaps flirting now covers the flirting aspect of romance, while other aspects of romance are covered by Courtesy, Compose, Dancing, Orate, Play and so on. Good - it sometimes seemed difficult to choose whether to test flirting or romance, we mostly ended up ignoring the flirting skill. In theory, if you wanted to be a real charmer, you had to improve both, which seems unreasonably expensive.
• Swimming is gone. I'm guessing it's a dex test now? Good. My first character had swimming 10, and never made a swimming test in his life. My second character had swimming 5 although he grew up by a river, and almost drowned on the only swimming test he ever made.
• Tourney is gone. Good, we never really knew what to do with that. Maybe it's covered by Courtesy now?

Stuff I am uncertain about or neutral about

Normal swords are called arming swords. That's fine.

The "Lance" skill is now called "charge". Possibly so that players won't ask to use their lance skill when not charging? Not a rule change, just a name change.

Horsemanship is no longer a combat skill. Probably doesn't matter.

Your weapon skill is capped by your Horsemanship skill when you are riding. Seems ok?

There are more detailed rules for brawling. Probably ok? Haven't missed them, but not negative.

On a partial success you can parry with your weapon instead of using a shield, gaining a lower damage reduction than a shield would have given you. The good thing about this, is that it makes a partial success valuable for someone not using a shield. But it also makes the shield less good comparatively, I'm not sure if I like that.

Starting knights seem to get more passions. This could make passions less special? I generally don't like making lists longer. A Pendragon character allready has a lot of different stats.

Passion rules: Lots of changes, I have to mull a bit more over these.

 

Stuff I didn’t care for at first glance

A crit doesn’t automatically beat a normal success anymore - you also have to roll higher: Those poor footmen and bandits are already mostly a roadbump, now they can’t even depend on a crit.

Partitioned armor rating (coat of plates, aketon, great helm): I don't see how this will make the game more enjoyable, and so I don’t think it will be worth the extra complexity (even though it's not very complex).

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by Baba

[Voord 99]

3 hours ago, creativehum said:

I think what I might do in the future is have two tiers for the length of time for Melencholia and Madness, to be discussed before the roll is made between the GM and the Player: keep the rolls from the table (1d6+5 or 1d6+10) but they represent either days or weeks, as defined by the importance of the Passion and the situation at hand by the Player for his Knight. (And,in the case of Madness for really, really emotionally significant matters for the PK, going back to the old rules, even months).

I understand this isn't a solution that will make sense for a lot of people ("Everyone will pick days!")....

A possible addition to that is that, if you pick the weeks for Madness, you get a roll on the Madness table in the GPC, with the possibility of checks, useful contacts with poor but decent knights, etc.  I’d probably say that you couldn’t pick the longer one, and have the benefits, unless you have a Famous Passion.

But I’ve never really liked the Madness rules, because they don’t create moments that correspond well to the classic moments when madness happens in the literature - and RAW, a really strong Passion (20+) means that you can’t go mad, barring modifiers, which is the exact opposite of the way that it should be.  So I’m sympathetic to removing madness as a possibility for normal Passions, which is in fact what I was already doing - I’m inclined to think that it should go further, if anything.  (What I’m thinking of doing is having Madness be an additional thing that happens on top of Shock for Famous Passions, or Passions that you critical, so that it happens when you fail.)  

I have mixed feelings about the new Passion rules overall.  I’m a bit wary of the added complexity of Exalted Passions.  One thing that I like about Pendragon is that it’s a fairly simple and elegant system that does what it needs to but no more.

 And I’d say that what this might end up doing in practice might be not so much to restrain the advantage of being Inspired/Impassioned as really incentivize players to get those Passions up to 20 to guarantee the +10.  Arguably, the advantage of having a Passion at 20 or higher is already as great as it needs to be, because you can’t fail the roll for Inspiration.

What intrigues me, though, is the revamped list of Passions, which looks very promising and looks to me to map the emotional world of the knight better than the current ones do.  I don’t think the Quickstart discusses the revised Passions specifically, however, unless I missed it.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Voord 99

[Atgxtg]

Well it is a quickstart, so I expect the actual rules will have some changes, just like RQG did. So far I'm more interested in the obvious rule changes:

• First Aid can now be applied to oneself, at -10. It also heals damage equal to the healing rate/double healing rate rather than 1d3/1d3+3
• Critical hits now do +4d6 instead of double damage
• Passions & Inspiration now give a inspiration bonus based on the passion value as well as the die result, but (IMO) at the expense of critical successes.
• Brawling damage is a small fixed amount, making it difficult to harm an armored foe.
• Weapons now have a parry value and can stop some damage, on a partial success, like a shield.
• Weapons also seemed to be classed into groups now, rather than specific weapons. 
• Armor has become piecemeal again, similar to, but different than the system in Knight's Adventurous.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

9 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Well it is a quickstart, so I expect the actual rules will have some changes, just like RQG did. So far I'm more interested in the obvious rule changes:

• First Aid can now be applied to oneself, at -10. It also heals damage equal to the healing rate/double healing rate rather than 1d3/1d3+3
• Critical hits now do +4d6 instead of double damage
• Passions & Inspiration now give a inspiration bonus based on the passion value as well as the die result, but (IMO) at the expense of critical successes.
• Brawling damage is a small fixed amount, making it difficult to harm an armored foe.
• Weapons now have a parry value and can stop some damage, on a partial success, like a shield.
• Weapons also seemed to be classed into groups now, rather than specific weapons. 
• Armor has become piecemeal again, similar to, but different than the system in Knight's Adventurous.
• Horse Damage has been upgraded (hurray), based on the "Large Charger" being the standard mount.

 

[Morien]

17 minutes ago, creativehum said:

I find it a much better construction.

Me too, which is why I am not a fan of the 20 (+x) construction, as I have already said.

9 minutes ago, Baba said:

A crit doesn’t automatically beat a normal success anymore - you also have to roll higher: Those poor footmen and bandits are already mostly a roadbump, now they can’t even depend on a crit.

Good spot. I suspect that this is an editorial error, though, rather than a rule change, and it should read:

"Winner: Score a critical success, or a success with a higher final dice roll than the opponent’s. In combat, this means you hit your enemy."

If you look at the tie, it says:

"Tie: A success for both opponents that is exactly the same final dice roll, or both roll a critical success;"

implying that all critical successes are equal in value.

[Baba]

14 minutes ago, Morien said:

Good spot. I suspect that this is an editorial error, though, rather than a rule change, and it should read:

"Winner: Score a critical success, or a success with a higher final dice roll than the opponent’s. In combat, this means you hit your enemy."

If you look at the tie, it says:

"Tie: A success for both opponents that is exactly the same final dice roll, or both roll a critical success;"

implying that all critical successes are equal in value.

Seems likely, hope you're right!

Edited October 18, 2020 by Baba

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

I’m excited! This looks good!

The changes I spotted, and what I think of them at first glance:

Stuff I liked

Slightly lower armor ratings? : The armor of the pregenerated knights adds up to 12. I guess what they wear is equivalent to at 14 point partial plate in 5.2? Lower armor rating seems like a good thing, because combat between knights may not just be about waiting for the crit, and because you're not quite as safe ignoring the 3d6 damage footsoldier stabbing at you.

Actually the opposite. Reifnorced Mail in KAP3-5 was 12 points while Sir Ector's refirnoced mail is listed at 14 points in the adventure. Sir Servause le Breuse's Advanced Mail seems to be equivlaent to the 11 point Mail with nasal helm but protects for 12 instead of 11. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Crits give a flat +4d6 instead of doubling your dice: I like this a lot. The footman's crit becomes actually worrisome, while a lance charge crit doesn't automatically kill you.

I don't like it. As for the footmen, they should have been give a SIZ increase backin JKAP3 when PK SIZ went from 3d6 to 2d6+6, which would have fixed them. I also haven't seen lance crtis be autokills. Most PKS tend have good weapon skills and get their shield.

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Appeal: Appearance has been such an oddly narrow stat, and it is hardly used for anything. Changing it to Appeal seems to be an attempt to make it more worth the focus it gets as one of five attributes. I appreciate the effort, but I wonder: How does this work with skills like Courtesy, Orate, Intrigue, Play, Sing and so on? It seems like a very appealing character should be good at those skills.

I with you on this. I started a thread on this awhile back noting that APP is essentially a dump stat, and Morien had a  way to adress this fix it but 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Fewer skills: Generally I think 5.2 has too many skills that are seldom tested. The main problem with that is when you feel like your character probably SHOULD be good at something, but you don't feel good about wasting points on skills you are never going to use. 6th. edition seems to fix that.

I think you might be readying too much here. It is just a quickstart, so they probably just listed the skills that might actually come up during the adventure. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

• Faerie Lore and Folk Lore have been folded together. I've never rolled a Folk Lore test in my life, and the common understanding of the word "folklore" includes lore about faeries.

I have mixed thoughts on this. While folk lore wasn't used a lot in my games, I'm not all that thrilled with the idea that someone who knows a lot about his peasants in now an expert of faeries or vice versa. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

 

• Heraldry and Recognize have been folded together. Neither are used very often at our table, and they seem related.

Really? Heraldry and Recognize come up all the time in the published adventures. 

 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

• Boating is gone. I don't know what you'll use now if you get into a dramatic situation on a boat, but we have only tested boating once the last five years.

Maybe. They might have just dropped skills that wouldn't come up in the adventure, especially the ones that would normally start at 0.

 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

• Read is now called Literacy. Fair enough.

IMO a slight improvement, as Literacy implies the ability to write, too.

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

• Flirting and Romance are folded together - or perhaps flirting now covers the flirting aspect of romance, while other aspects of romance are covered by Courtesy, Compose, Dancing, Orate, Play and so on. Good - it sometimes seemed difficult to choose whether to test flirting or romance, we mostly ended up ignoring the flirting skill. In theory, if you wanted to be a real charmer, you had to improve both, which seems unreasonably expensive.

Once again, the "missing skills" are all those that would normally start at 0 during the early periods, and were probably omitted as not being relevant to the adventure. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

• Swimming is gone. I'm guessing it's a dex test now? Good. My first character had swimming 10, and never made a swimming test in his life. My second character had swimming 5 although he grew up by a river, and almost drowned on the only swimming test he ever made.

 

Again, it might have just be omitted for the quickstart characters as it wouldn't come up in the adventure, and is a skill that normally starts at 0.

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

• Tourney is gone. Good, we never really knew what to do with that. Maybe it's covered by Courtesy now?

Once again, I doubt it's gone. It just wasn't required for the adventure. I hope it isn't gone, as we did know what to do with it.

 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

 

Stuff I am uncertain about or neutral about

Normal swords are called arming swords. That's fine.

Yes, no real change, other than to be more historically accurate. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

The "Lance" skill is now called "charge". Possibly so that players won't ask to use their lance skill when not charging? Not a rule change, just a name change.

I think this one is a rule change, but a subtle one, as the charge action doesn't seem to reguire a lance (or spear) to execute. This seems to indicate that a knight who descides to charge using a sword rather than alance can do so but that he still rolls his Charge skill AND he doesn't get the +5 bonus (which does require the lance or spear).

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Horsemanship is no longer a combat skill. Probably doesn't matter.

I might make for Ladies. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Your weapon skill is capped by your Horsemanship skill when you are riding. Seems ok?

Seems problematic to me, as it will ususally negate the mounted vs. foot bonus. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

There are more detailed rules for brawling. Probably ok? Haven't missed them, but not negative.

Seconded. Brawling doesn't seem to come up much in our games.

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

On a partial success you can parry with your weapon instead of using a shield, gaining a lower damage reduction than a shield would have given you. The good thing about this, is that it makes a partial success valuable for someone not using a shield. But it also makes the shield less good comparatively, I'm not sure if I like that.

I don't think it hurts shields in anyway, as 6 points of protection from a heater sure beats 3 from your sword. 

 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Starting knights seem to get more passions. This could make passions less special? I generaly don't like making lists longer.

I think these will be a non-issue. The new passions are all pretty low in value, and would be omitted for most NPKs.I think the reasons why we see Devotion and Stationthen in the write-ups of the sample characters is because this is a quickstart, and to show 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Passion rules: Lots of changes, I have to mull a bit more over these.

Agreed. I think these might be a misstep. 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

 

Stuff I didn’t care for at first glance

A crit doesn’t automatically beat a normal success anymore - you also have to roll higher: Those poor footmen and bandits are already mostly a roadbump, now they can’t even depend on a crit.

While it did work that way in KAP1, I think this is just a case of poor rule wording, as the "critical = 20" bit has been omitted.

 

2 minutes ago, Baba said:

Partitioned armor rating (coat of plates, aketon, great helm): I dont see how this will make the game more enjoyable, and so I don’t think it will be wort the extra complexity (even though it's not very complex). 

Well that's you opinion. Having played with piecemeal armor in KAP3-4, I disagree.  It can be fun to piece together a better suit by getting a new helm or better body armor. It not all that more complex to buy 3 pieces of armor rather than one suit.