5.2 battle system special events and passion questions

[Bille]

I know this will be superseded when the new edition comes out but I am running a solo 5.2 pendragon campaign and struggling a bit with the battle system.

Am I right in thinking that you can only access a special event in a battle if you are mounted facing mounted troops or on foot facing other footmen? The mounted vs foot table doesn't have this as an option. I am confused as to why this might be.

Also, the followers fate table presents losses percentages - is this purely for fiction purposes? It doesn't seem to have an impact on future rounds of battle?

I know I'm a bit late to the party but really want to get a handle on this game!

All the best

Bill

[SaxBasilisk]

I can answer the second one briefly: that table is broken, and I would suggest not using it until the end of the battle.

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Bille said:

I know this will be superseded when the new edition comes out but I am running a solo 5.2 pendragon campaign and struggling a bit with the battle system.

Am I right in thinking that you can only access a special event in a battle if you are mounted facing mounted troops or on foot facing other footmen? The mounted vs foot table doesn't have this as an option. I am confused as to why this might be.

There is no Mounted vs Foot table. There is just Afoot vs. Mounted, which is for PKs who have been unhorsed and now find themselves on foot, facing against a mounted foe. The reason why there is no special in this case is because the (usually lone) knight on foot is very limited in what he can do, since he lacks mobility.

Yes, I understand why it is confusing that there isn't a Mounted vs. Afoot table, too.

This is because in 4th edition (and 3rd) from which this Battle system is mostly copied from, there were just two tables:
If you are mounted, you use Mounted (vs. Mounted) table all the time, regardless of the enemy. If you are on Foot, you use Afoot (vs. Mounted) Table. There were just two tables, without all this confusion about what the enemy is. The trick there is that the chaos of the battle might force you to stand and fight the footmen, since you are not maneuvering on an empty, flat, limitless plane against that one unit, but are part of a bigger battle. I recommend you use this system instead, rather than get hung up on what exact enemy unit you are supposed to roll against.

2 hours ago, Bille said:

Also, the followers fate table presents losses percentages - is this purely for fiction purposes? It doesn't seem to have an impact on future rounds of battle?

As SaxBasilisk said, that table doesn't work AT ALL for Battles. It would just about work for a Skirmish. It would be much better to take the Family Survival system from Book of the Estate, but the other easy way would be to build it directly from your Unit Commander Battle Rolls in each Battle Round. Something like:

Crit = no losses
Success = 2% losses
Failure = 4% losses
Fumble = 8% losses

And then modify by the final result:
Decisive Defeat: x2, the extra casualties result during the rout, and the wounded are captured as well.
Indecisive: No modifiers.
Decisive Victory: x0.75, recovering some of the captured losses.

Distribution: One fourth are dead, one half are wounded, one fourth are captured.

So let's say the Battle lasts 5 rounds. The Unit commander rolls Success (as this is First Charge, it is the Army commander's roll that matters), Failure, Failure, Success, Fumble. The loss percentage is 2+4+4+2+8 = 20%. The Battle ends with a Decisive Defeat, so we double the casualties, so 40%. Of these, 10% died outright in the field, 20% were wounded and captured (since it was a Decisive Defeat), and other 10% surrendered without major injuries. Assuming an eschille of 10 knights, this would be 1 knight dead, 2 wounded and captured, and 1 captured.

While I would not cause a PK to get captured due to the above roll, I would still use the actual size of the eschille to calculate the losses, including the PKs. And if some of the PKs were left behind and captured, I would count them as losses. So in the above example, if one PK was knocked unconscious and left behind, then it would be just 3 NPKs rather than 4 that would be lost, too.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Morien

[Bille]

Thank you so much for these prompt replies, it has been really helpful.

I'm looking forward to digging deep into the system. It seems well suited to solo play. Particularly in the way that the traits and passions define a character and guides their actions when you are not sure what to do, and in the amazing number of story seeds and NPCs that the system throws up simply through things like the family tree and the winter phase. I am using the Mythic GM emulator for the adventures that emerge through play.

I am guessing that, when it comes to group play a smaller number of players (2-3) is ideal? I can imagine that the bookkeeping side of things could get pretty monstrous with large tables.

Thanks again

Bill

[Morien]

10 hours ago, Bille said:

I am guessing that, when it comes to group play a smaller number of players (2-3) is ideal? I can imagine that the bookkeeping side of things could get pretty monstrous with large tables.

It really depends how deep do you want to go into the individual PK's personal journey. It is all about sharing the spotlight. The fewer PKs there are clamoring for their share, the more you can focus on the PKs you have.

I think most of KAP adventures seem to be balanced for 3-5 PKs in mind, although Greg did a nice thing in GPC by making most encounters scale with the number of PKs (like 2 bandits for each PK, and so forth). However, some of the individual big monsters you might need some help, so the GM can send a couple of NPKs to help (and act as meatshields, too, since if you only have a couple of players, you don't want their story to be cut short every other adventure...).

Personally, for my style, 4 players is about the sweet spot. They split easily into 2 pairs of buddies if the group needs to split for some reason. There is enough NPC family members floating around that something interesting is probably happening in the background most of the years. But it is not so many that 1-2 Players sit mum, only rolling the dice occasionally.

However, I definitely recommend doing most of the Winter Phase rolling off-session, between sessions. And do it at the start of the year. Not only does that give the GM a chance to prep something that will come up during the year rather than just surprising the PKs at the end of the year, making it more natural, but it saves time during the sessions themselves, as the players don't have to wait for the GM to look something up and then feverishly try to weave it into the story on the spot. This is especially the case if the GM is using more expanded manorial luck tables (Manorial Luck was introduced in Book of the Manor, but dropped from Book of the Estate, yet people still use it to get random events impacting on the manor) and expanded family event tables (or even the Personal Events and the Family Events from Paladin, which I would recommend over the KAP 5.2's Family Event one).

[Bille]

Thanks Morien. And thank you for all the advice you had in your posts about tweaking the rules and introducing the game. Really useful!

[Morien]

6 hours ago, Bille said:

Thanks Morien. And thank you for all the advice you had in your posts about tweaking the rules and introducing the game. Really useful!

Happy that you found them helpful! 🙂