Pendragon Chivalry Bonus Requirement: 80 or 96?

[Algesan]

On 10/25/2018 at 6:44 PM, Atgxtg said:

I think the change was to help speed of chargen, and to ensure that PKs weren't dysfunctional. Back in KAP1 I'd often see People  roll up PKs that, by the luck of the dice, were practically unplayable. Or, a bad Loyalty (Liege) roll might force a player to age his character for years, or stay a squire longer so as to reach the required 15. 

 

It also helps to prevent super characters. Oddly enough its not high Characteristics that are a problem, so much as high traits, and the related glory awards. I've seen lucky players end up netting both the Chivalry and Religious bonuses, plus a couple of notable passions to net over 300 glory per year at the start. With only moderate adventuring they will earn 1000 Glory every three years-to start! Down the road a bit, it tends to be every other year, and all those extra glory points really amp up the characters. 

Point, but it also gives a more clone-ish feel to the characters (IMO)...OTOH, using the "squire time" system I did, everyone ended up with Chivalry and Religion bonuses, although it did depend on the rolls for how much they had to commit that way and how much to raising skills.  As a note, I never improved any of the skills over 15 for the characters I created.  So, speaking of being clones...

Which means I'll have to watch the Glory meter.  I'll have to look over my characters I've made up again and see if there is an obvious issue.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Algesan said:

Point, but it also gives a more clone-ish feel to the characters (IMO)...OTOH, using the "squire time" system I did, everyone ended up with Chivalry and Religion bonuses, although it did depend on the rolls for how much they had to commit that way and how much to raising skills.  As a note, I never improved any of the skills over 15 for the characters I created.  So, speaking of being clones...

Which means I'll have to watch the Glory meter.  I'll have to look over my characters I've made up again and see if there is an obvious issue.

Oh yeah. It's a tough balancing act. If you use the standard (preassigned) method for traits you end up with cookie cutter knights with similar personalties, because they will want to have good scores in the chivalrous and religious traits. But if you roll random, you could end up with paragons of knightly virtues who rack up a fantastic amount of glory each year. In my last campaign, several players rolled great traits vales (with dice, it happens) and were quickly racking up over 300 glory a year in traits and bonuses. And it escalated from there. Of course, changing the Chivalry bonus to 96 would have made a difference.

I've been thinking of going with 2D6+3 instead of 3D6 for trait scores. That would still allow for some variance, but reduce the chance of getting a string of traits at 16+. With the cultural modifiers and discretionary points the bonuses should still be obtainable to some. 

 

 

[Algesan]

On 11/21/2018 at 8:55 AM, Atgxtg said:

Oh yeah. It's a tough balancing act. If you use the standard (preassigned) method for traits you end up with cookie cutter knights with similar personalties, because they will want to have good scores in the chivalrous and religious traits. But if you roll random, you could end up with paragons of knightly virtues who rack up a fantastic amount of glory each year. In my last campaign, several players rolled great traits vales (with dice, it happens) and were quickly racking up over 300 glory a year in traits and bonuses. And it escalated from there. Of course, changing the Chivalry bonus to 96 would have made a difference.

I've been thinking of going with 2D6+3 instead of 3D6 for trait scores. That would still allow for some variance, but reduce the chance of getting a string of traits at 16+. With the cultural modifiers and discretionary points the bonuses should still be obtainable to some. 

 

 

I'm using 4d6 drop lowest for stats (except Size, I always do that one straight 3d6) and 3d6 pick your side for traits (pick which trait in a pair you want it to apply to).  If you wanted to even those up some, then your 2d6+3 or even 2d6+6 would work for stats & traits.  Biggest problem with the "standard" character creation system for me comes from the fact that virtually everyone is that..... bugger..... +3 CON "race".  Yes, it is kind of "period" for the (early) Great Pendragon Campaign, but the different continental "races" with their varied skill sets provide a nice variety.  Sure, everyone is going to have 15 minimum in several combat skills, but that just means they are all well trained.  I see that happening in generic BRP games where everyone slams their combat skills to the max reasonable level at a minimum and lets the rest catch up as they can.

[Atgxtg]

The +3 CON, in fact Attributes in general aren't so much of a problem. It's the traits, because they have the potential to bring in lots of glory. In my last campaign we rolled them randomly per 5th edtion and the Book of Knight & Ladies, and between the cultural and religious modifiers, 6 free points, and the ability to turn one trait into a 16, I very quickly wound up with several knights who qualified for both the religious and chivalrous  bonuses, and were racking up over 300 glory a year. Combined with adventuring,they were earing a glory point every other year. 

And that opened up the door to rapidly bringing skills up over 20, which in turn helped to increase their glory per year.

Having 15 in several combat skills ins't a problem, it that by starting that high PKS can quickly and easily get up past 20. I had a PK riding around with something like a 34 sword skill! He started with a 15, worked it up to 20 (which is quite sensible for a knight to do) and then put that glory point he was getting every other year into it for awhile. He also got very lucky and rolled a string of 20s for improvement (it got to the point where everyone at the table would stop and watch when he rolled to improve Sword). 

In previous editions PKs didn't start off quite so skilled, or with as many trait modifiers, nor with a religion that helped so much with the chivalry bonus, so characters netting 300 glory/year from traits were a lot less common, and happened over time. 

 

[jeffjerwin]

More potent starting knights may reflect the literature more than 'realism' - the generic Arthurian literature has squires and newly knighted youths accomplishing great deeds: think of Tristram, Lancelot, and Gareth (and Gawaine in some versions).

This sort of story would be impossible if a few 16s and 15s aren't on a character sheet from the start. KAP has leaned more toward making the PCs major figures in the Round Table (displacing more obscure characters) rather than being bystanders, as the editions roll along.

Non-PC knights and ladies presumably do not have so generous a starting assortment of abilities.

[creativehum]

I just took a look at the Knights & Ladies rules for randomly determining Traits and all those modifiers. YIKES!

There's no way I'd use those... for all the reasons Atgxtg notes in his posts. The possibility of everyone running around with those huge modifiers is out of control.

[jeffjerwin]

39 minutes ago, creativehum said:

I just took a look at the Knights & Ladies rules for randomly determining Traits and all those modifiers. YIKES!

There's no way I'd use those... for all the reasons Atgxtg notes in his posts. The possibility of everyone running around with those huge modifiers is out of control.

That's a reasonable reaction if you want to give the campaign a 'grounded feel'. However, KAP is predominately about being a hero of the Round Table, which is not a 'grounded' sort of story. The game ought to support both approaches, and I think Greg, based on my conversations with him, intended for there to be a more than one option; there was discussion of different character generation methods based on group expectations.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

More potent starting knights may reflect the literature more than 'realism' - the generic Arthurian literature has squires and newly knighted youths accomplishing great deeds: think of Tristram, Lancelot, and Gareth (and Gawaine in some versions).

This sort of story would be impossible if a few 16s and 15s aren't on a character sheet from the start. KAP has leaned more toward making the PCs major figures in the Round Table (displacing more obscure characters) rather than being bystanders, as the editions roll along.

I disagree. I've ran all the editions of Pendragon, and have had quite a few powerful PCs, including some Round table members, with just a few 15s and 16s on the sheet. So its possible.

If you go with the recommended, standard method in KAP5+, including the Book of Knights & Ladies, traits are not rolled but set at 10 plus religious, cultural, and regional modifiers. With that method, a few 15s and 16s is about the best you can hope for. So the higher traits aren't really a design goal. More a by product of roll over a dozen traits randomly, then applying a few modifiers, then being able to raise something to 16, and then have 6 points to spend on top of it all. 

That doesn't mean that the results will get out of hand, but It has the potential to. In my last campaign I wound up with half a dozen paragons of virtue and chivalry. Most weren't that bright though, and died before they could ride the glory train. The ones that did survive, though, became something else again. I've never seen PKs as powerful in Pendragon, except for Lancelot.

 

 

 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, creativehum said:

I just took a look at the Knights & Ladies rules for randomly determining Traits and all those modifiers. YIKES!

There's no way I'd use those... for all the reasons Atgxtg notes in his posts. The possibility of everyone running around with those huge modifiers is out of control.

It's not so bad, if you use the standard method for determining traits. Those little pluses, the bump to a 16 and the 6 discretionary points help to prevent every character from being the same with traits all 10/10 or 13/7.

It's when you roll the traits that it opens the potential to go haywire. With 3D6 rolls there is about a 10% chance of rolling a trait score worthy of glory, and about another 10% of a trait being borderline. With 13 traits most PCs will probably end up with a couple of 16s and a couple of 15s. So spend 2 discretionary points, bump something to 16, and you are up to five traits at 16+ or 80 glory a year. More if they are the right traits (religious or chivalrous). Factor in for cultural homeland modifiers and they probably have a couple more traits on the borderline, and they still have 4 discretionary points left!  

100 glory a year from traits goes from being rare to being commonplace within the same edition of the rules. And that 100 can easily be 200 or even 300 if the player hits the right traits. The default Homeland of Salisbury, and British Christianity help in that regard. 

Then you factor in what happens during play and improvement over the winter phase and it can get wild. 

Again, I'm not saying that it will happen, but that it can. Although since Pendragon is a game where everyone ends up rolling multiple characters it is probably more likely to happen eventually, than not

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Atgxtg

[jeffjerwin]

27 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I disagree. I've ran all the editions of Pendragon, and have had quite a few powerful PCs, including some Round table members, with just a few 15s and 16s on the sheet. So its possible.

If you go with the recommended, standard method in KAP5+, including the Book of Knights & Ladies, traits are not rolled but set at 10 plus religious, cultural, and regional modifiers. With that method, a few 15s and 16s is about the best you can hope for. So the higher traits aren't really a design goal. More a by product of roll over a dozen traits randomly, then applying a few modifiers, then being able to raise something to 16, and then have 6 points to spend on top of it all. 

That doesn't mean that the results will get out of hand, but It has the potential to. In my last campaign I wound up with half a dozen paragons of virtue and chivalry. Most weren't that bright though, and died before they could ride the glory train. The ones that did survive, though, became something else again. I've never seen PKs as powerful in Pendragon, except for Lancelot.

Gareth, Lancelot, and Tristram are between the ages of 16 to 17 when they defeat or kill powerful, veteran knights. Lancelot, of course, fights multiple knights at once. Gareth (and his close analogues Erec and the Bel Inconnu) fights a series of increasingly more formidable opponents, with hardly any chance to recover from wounds. While I don't suggest using Lancelot's starting abilities, Gareth and his type are the very model of second-string Round Table knights (or future Round Table knights, really), and they all possess toughness, significant skill, and pronounced positive personality traits (Valorous, Energetic, etc. at 16+). Well, you may say, that is because they are the hero of the story. Well, then, what are the PCs? These kind of characters aren't immortal, but they tend to be killed by treachery or impossible odds, rather than by the dice alone. So I think PCs should be heroic from the start, kind of like in RQ:G.

 

Edit: this is particularly true for the second generation of PCs, born early in Arthur's reign or during the Anarchy.

Edited November 29, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[Atgxtg]

33 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

. So I think PCs should be heroic from the start, kind of like in RQ:G.

Fine but then why the huge discrepancy between the random and standard methods? If heroic characters with high trait scores were supposed to be the norm for PCs (and based on everything I've read from Greg, that's not the case)then why aren't the character generated normally heroic? Let me illustrate:

 

The Typical starting Knight from Salisbury, Logres  has: 

Cymric
(British Christian)
Chaste 13/7 Lustful
*Energetic 14/6 Lazy
Forgiving 11/9 Vengeful
*Generous 13/7 Selfish
Honest 11/9 Deceitful
*Just 11/9 Arbitrary
*Merciful 10/10 Cruel
*Modest 13/7 Proud
Pious 10/10 Worldly
Prudent 10/10 Reckless
Temperate 13/7 Indulgent
Trusting 11/9 Suspicious
*Valorous 16/4 Cowardly

With a free bump to a 16 and 6 points to spend. He's got the Chivalrous bonus if he wants it (he only need 3 points), and can start to work on the religious bonus too. Assuming a fairly typical allocation of points, this knight will end up 4 traits at 16 and the Chivalry bonus, for 164 Glory/year. 

But with random rolls and a little luck, he could double that. Yes it depends a lot on how the dice fall, but not so much. The worse case scenario is that he ends up about the same. That bump a trait to 16 becomes a lot more powerful with random rolls, as it allows someone to easily bounce back from a bad roll in a bad spot, like a 6 Energetic. And those +1, +2 and +3 modifiers that have a minor effect normally, end up doubling, tripling, and even quintupling the odds of a 16 on certain traits. 

Now if heroic characters high high traits are supposed to be the norm, wouldn't the standard method get more bumps?

 

IMO the problem is that free bump to 16 combined with 6 discretionary points.. With the standard method it works out fine, but with the random method it leads to overkill. Older editions of Pendragon had the random rolls and the modifiers, but not that bump to 16. That bump lets a player mitigate a bad die roll without having to go into his discretionary points, and turns the bad roll into a 16 to boot.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Atgxtg

[jeffjerwin]

16 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

 

Now if heroic characters high high traits are supposed to be the norm, wouldn't the standard method get more bumps?

 

The standard method is the safe method: you won't end up with an incompetent unable to qualify for knighthood (I'm paraphrasing Greg here) which could easily happen as well in KAP 1.0. It's obvious that (meta-fictionally) whoever rolled up many of the main characters used dice.

For Uther's reign and the Anarchy it's very important that PCs be competent warriors.

For Arthur's reign, it's important that PCs be dynamic and interesting courtiers, knights errants, etc. Of course, they gain benefits from their father and/or mother to make them so.

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, jeffjerwin said:

The standard method is the safe method: you won't end up with an incompetent unable to qualify for knighthood (I'm paraphrasing Greg here) which could easily happen as well in KAP 1.0. It's obvious that (meta-fictionally) whoever rolled up many of the main characters used dice.

LOL! Tell me about it. Back in KAP 1 Valor wasn't required, and we had a PK with a low Valorous, and one PK with a high score. When up against something nasty, most of the PKs would flee, leaving "Mr. Valorous:" to fend for himself. He took off in Glory because he got lucky, won  the early fights, and then used his Glory points wisely.

Lots of our early characters often had to spend a few years building up stats to qualify. Loyalty (Lord) usually took a few years. 

 

With KAP5 you can't make a character who doesn't qualify unless you work at it. 

 

1 minute ago, jeffjerwin said:

For Uther's reign and the Anarchy it's very important that PCs be competent warriors.

Which has little to do with traits.

1 minute ago, jeffjerwin said:

For Arthur's reign, it's important that PCs be dynamic and interesting courtiers, knights errants, etc. Of course, they gain benefits from their father and/or mother to make them so.

Yes, but no more or less than knights from earlier periods. Chargen is the same except for some shifting in skills. 

Just to clarify, its the random traits that can be problematic. I don't mind the other random stuff. Sure a CON of 6 is practically a death sentence, but the odds of that happening are low, and the effect of a very high CON isn't going to put the game out of whack. PKs netting 300-500 glory a year, can. 

 

[jeffjerwin]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

 

Just to clarify, its the random traits that can be problematic. I don't mind the other random stuff. Sure a CON of 6 is practically a death sentence, but the odds of that happening are low, and the effect of a very high CON isn't going to put the game out of whack. PKs netting 300-500 glory a year, can. 

 

On the other hand, every knight at the table having the same personality traits is a decidedly uninteresting game. That Valorous story is fun, and also something that happens in the stories themselves. I'm not all that fond of point-buy and static systems, because the story needs to include some diverse personalities. Perhaps there's a 'middle way' that could generate surprises, without being completely random?

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, jeffjerwin said:

On the other hand, every knight at the table having the same personality traits is a decidedly uninteresting game.

Yeah. Every knight being the same is bleah. That's why I think they give the PKs  the 6 points to allocate, and especially that 16, since it lets everybody pick one thing to be know for. 

Quote

That Valorous story is fun, and also something that happens in the stories themselves.

The Valorous story is probably what sold the game to the players. Once they saw one heroic knight rack up lots of glory, they knew it was possible.

The cowardly story was probably more fun. That PK, of all characters, wound up with the Valorous Shield, a magical item I devised and probably the one that has the most Arthruian feel out of any I've created. The shield gives protection equal to half the Valorous score, but the character had to make a Valorous roll to use. If he ever failed a Valor roll the strap broke and the shield fell. Despite the fact that the shield was useless to him, the player kept the shield and refused to give it to someone for whom it could be of some  use (i.e almost any of the other PKs). He eventually  hung up on the wall in his manor, where it would routinely fall down.  

Quote

 

I'm not all that fond of point-buy and static systems, because the story needs to include some diverse personalities. Perhaps there's a 'middle way' that could generate surprises, without being completely random?

There is, I think I posted it a while back. Just trim the random method so it is not so extreme. 2D6+3 gives you fairly averages, but still allow for a 15 naturally, and higher with modifiers.  A super character with lots of high traits is still possible much much less likely.

Oh and KAP4/Knights Adventuerous Chargen works too, even just the trait generation section with KAP5.

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Atgxtg

[creativehum]

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's when you roll the traits that it opens the potential to go haywire.

Yes. Exactly. That's what I wrote.

[Atgxtg]

5 minutes ago, creativehum said:

Yes. Exactly. That's what I wrote.

Yup. It took six months but I think we are in complete agreement about something! 

 

Oh, and characters who earn lots and lots of glory start to have a whole new set of problems some of which they aren't even aware of. In my last campaign the guy with 25,000 Glory and Sword 35 ended up as the group unit Comannder in Battle. He would routinely lose family knight and put the other PKs through the wringer- mostly because he couldn't evaluate the threat level of situations properly anymore. When you have Sword 35 and a +5/-5 most opponents on the battlefield aren't much of a threat. Saxon warrior with 2H @ 22 with the Wotanic bonus who does 9d6 damage? Not a problem! What the player failed to understand was that no one else in his group had a 35 skill and opponents that he could rip right through were mauling the rest of his unit. 

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Atgxtg

[womble]

On 11/29/2018 at 2:14 PM, Atgxtg said:

The +3 CON, in fact Attributes in general aren't so much of a problem. It's the traits, because they have the potential to bring in lots of glory. In my last campaign we rolled them randomly per 5th edtion and the Book of Knight & Ladies, and between the cultural and religious modifiers, 6 free points, and the ability to turn one trait into a 16, I very quickly wound up with several knights who qualified for both the religious and chivalrous  bonuses, and were racking up over 300 glory a year. Combined with adventuring,they were earing a glory point every other year. 

And that opened up the door to rapidly bringing skills up over 20, which in turn helped to increase their glory per year.

Having 15 in several combat skills ins't a problem, it that by starting that high PKS can quickly and easily get up past 20. I had a PK riding around with something like a 34 sword skill! He started with a 15, worked it up to 20 (which is quite sensible for a knight to do) and then put that glory point he was getting every other year into it for awhile. He also got very lucky and rolled a string of 20s for improvement (it got to the point where everyone at the table would stop and watch when he rolled to improve Sword). 

In previous editions PKs didn't start off quite so skilled, or with as many trait modifiers, nor with a religion that helped so much with the chivalry bonus, so characters netting 300 glory/year from traits were a lot less common, and happened over time. 

 

It's what my character (my second; the first died gloriously at Terrabil) in my current game ended up doing. He gets over 300 annually from Traits, Passions and Religious and we don't even get 100 for Chivalry yet (nobody's going to dish out respect for a concept that isn't really recognised until Arthur is established, is how my GM sees it) though he qualifies. I have gone 'full Passion' and spent all my Glory Points on "Loyalty (Lord)" which is now at 30... Was the most Glorious Knight and got to Knight Arthur at the Tournament. GM thinks he's too overpowered, with three or four other Passions over 16, but I hate to think how vicious he'd've been if I'd put 'em all into Spear Expertise and just kept the Passions sitting at 20 with normal Annual Improvement points: "Can I Passion? Oh goody. Autocrit with spear."

[womble]

On 11/29/2018 at 9:43 PM, Atgxtg said:

Yup. It took six months but I think we are in complete agreement about something! 

 

Oh, and characters who earn lots and lots of glory start to have a whole new set of problems some of which they aren't even aware of. In my last campaign the guy with 25,000 Glory and Sword 35 ended up as the group unit Comannder in Battle. He would routinely lose family knight and put the other PKs through the wringer- mostly because he couldn't evaluate the threat level of situations properly anymore. When you have Sword 35 and a +5/-5 most opponents on the battlefield aren't much of a threat. Saxon warrior with 2H @ 22 with the Wotanic bonus who does 9d6 damage? Not a problem! What the player failed to understand was that no one else in his group had a 35 skill and opponents that he could rip right through were mauling the rest of his unit. 

 

Those "Notable" Traits and Passions should be their own pinion for the character too. Opponents with even the measliest political or social nous should be able to manipulate the knight into all sorts of trouble.

We're hitting a sort of inflexion point in our game at the moment, where the second generation knights are filling in their fathers' places in the Eschille, and the last battle did not go so well because we (as a group) expected to do as well as we had been, combined with the fact that we're fighting knights now, and they're harder than Saxons cos they get horses too...

[Atgxtg]

58 minutes ago, womble said:

GM thinks he's too overpowered, with three or four other Passions over 16, but I hate to think how vicious he'd've been if I'd put 'em all into Spear Expertise and just kept the Passions sitting at 20 with normal Annual Improvement points: "Can I Passion? Oh goody. Autocrit with spear."

 

And he is right, in a way. The thing is KAP once your scores hit 30 or so it become problematic. With height bonuses, inspiration etc, you can get into autocrit territory. The the GM's only option of giving you trouble is to in battle is to do the same thing you're doing, which greatly escalates the PK casualty rate.

The game really wans't built for PKs to be in that range all the time. Some sort of scale down is probably needed. 

59 minutes ago, womble said:

Those "Notable" Traits and Passions should be their own pinion for the character too. Opponents with even the measliest political or social nous should be able to manipulate the knight into all sorts of trouble.

 Or just sit back and wait as those traits and passions eventually drag the PK into a bad situation anyway. But even then, it's going to take a considerable amount of effort and resources to really hinder such a PC.

 

I'm, starting to think that the biggest deterrent to high scores is the benefits of high scores. Last night, in the third week of my new campaign the PKs got into a battle and put the guy in charge who had been the guy with Sword 35 in the past. They almost got them killed. In one instance he had the choice of several opponents in the battle and he went for the biggest and toughest, and the group got banged up pretty good. Later on, the went for glory and did an "Attack vs. Two" when they had no reason to, and then spent the next couple of rounds fighting to get out of dodge. This was against a pathetically wimpy peasant army. What the Player is starting to figure out is that opponents that seemed easy when you have Sword 35, aren't such pushovers when you have Sword 15.

In the last campaign that Player was puzzled about the phenomenally high casualty rates he was having with followers, but last night he got to see what it felt like to be an average knight instead of a master swordsman. 

[Hzark10]

The one thing I will point out is with Traits and Passions, "If a PK has a trait of 15 or less, he is free of control."  A player wants to play a super-knight with lots of traits 16 or above?  If the gm does not challenge that knight with scenario hooks, then he is letting a player get away with something.  Having a Valorous of 16 means you are brave.  Gee, see that small giant over there?  You know the one who is going to kill that peasant?  YOU have to be valorous, while those who are not, don't have to fight.  In fact, they might even run away...

Or, having a high Chaste, and be tempted by a very beautiful woman. Or a high hate, and being forced to work beside them on a diplomatic mission, etc. 

If a knight has a high trait, the gm must provide hooks that make it not all that much of walk through with them. Challenge them.

[Atgxtg]

On 12/26/2018 at 7:53 PM, Hzark10 said:

The one thing I will point out is with Traits and Passions, "If a PK has a trait of 15 or less, he is free of control." 

That's only partially true. Pretty much every official KAP scenario had some mandatory trait and passion tests ,or at least ones that were mandatory to succeed at the adventures. 

On 12/26/2018 at 7:53 PM, Hzark10 said:

A player wants to play a super-knight with lots of traits 16 or above?  If the gm does not challenge that knight with scenario hooks, then he is letting a player get away with something.  Having a Valorous of 16 means you are brave.  Gee, see that small giant over there?  You know the one who is going to kill that peasant?  YOU have to be valorous, while those who are not, don't have to fight.  In fact, they might even run away...

Or, having a high Chaste, and be tempted by a very beautiful woman. Or a high hate, and being forced to work beside them on a diplomatic mission, etc. 

If a knight has a high trait, the gm must provide hooks that make it not all that much of walk through with them. Challenge them.

Yes, but in a lot of ways that's just icing on the cake. Virtuous traits are not supposed to be treated as something the GM  uses to destroy PK. People who are playing valorous knights or chaste ones, etc. expect to face such challenges, and in a way look forward to them, as they show that their character is indeed brave, chaste or whatever. Many such challenges have rewards for succeeding too.

In my current campaign, one PK, with a high Proud nearly got into hot water with the Countess. He was a master Falconer and helped her recover a lost falcon, and she had noticed his ineptitude in finding a wife (he repeatedly failed his courtesy rolls to find a match, every year) and offered to help him. But he had to deal with his Pride when she pointed out he was lacking in the social graces. He could easily have taken offense and lost out on her help, and most likely insult her in the process, as he probably would have failed the courtesy roll required to decline her help gracefully. So a potential chance for help could easily have turned into a PK alienating his liege lord's wife, and having to deal with the consequences.

But, the point of this thread is about the change in the required total for the Chivalry bonus. I for one, think that one of the reasons for the change might just be that the old 80 point requirement is very easy for characters to get in KAP5+, especially the "standard" characters from Salisbury if using the Book of Knights & Ladies, where starting characters could begin only a couple of points shy of 80. Yes, having  high traits will lead to challenges, but the armor of honor, extra annual glory, and the social benefits of being "chivalrous"  will be worth it. 

For instance, take a look at the old Tournament of Dreams adventure.A Knight with 16 in all his Chivalrous traits is going to have a distinct advantage in that adventure pretty much in every encounter. While there are some trait tests in the adventure, a high value in a chivalric trait helps the knights, not hinder them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[soltakss]

On 12/27/2018 at 12:53 AM, Hzark10 said:

If the gm does not challenge that knight with scenario hooks, then he is letting a player get away with something.

Personally, I stopped thinking in terms of "letting a player get away with something" years ago.

RPGs are just games, for everyone to enjoy, I don't really care, as a GM, whether Players are using the rules to the max, or concentrate on roleplaying, or their PC's goals, or just turn up to play a game. Whatever makes it fun for everyone is good to me.

[Hzark10]

Ok, maybe those aren't the best choice of words, but if you find that using BoK&L almost guarantees you to be Chivalric from the get go, then change the amount needed to the higher amount.  Or maybe a combination of the two: +2 armor if 80+ and +4 armor if 96.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Whatever makes it fun for everyone is good to me.

This is the goal.  If one player uses the rules to get an unfair advantage, then change the rules.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Hzark10 said:

Ok, maybe those aren't the best choice of words, but if you find that using BoK&L almost guarantees you to be Chivalric from the get go,

NO almost about it. Christian PKs from Salisbury generated using K&L start with 77 points towards the Chivalry bonus, can bump one trait up to 16, and have 6 discretionary points. So they can get the Chivlary Bonus in Chargen if they want it. And without going to great extremes in traits either. And I think that's what tipped Greg off to the 96 vs. 80 after all these years.

 

1 hour ago, Hzark10 said:

then change the amount needed to the higher amount. 

They did just that on the form fillable PK sheets. So 96 is , apparently the new "official" value. 

1 hour ago, Hzark10 said:

Or maybe a combination of the two

Based on the post that Greg made that raised the threshold to 96, I think that pretty much what he had in mind. I just don't know if he worked something out. Greg was working on lesser bonuses that wouldn't be "Chivalrous" but work out as some lesser bonus.  I just don;t know if he had it worked out and passed it on.

1 hour ago, Hzark10 said:

: +2 armor if 80+ and +4 armor if 96.

Why increase the bonus to +4? 

I think what Greg was working on, based on his post,  was probably something like:

80= +1, 10-25 glory/year

98 = +2, 25-50 glory/year

96= +3, 100 glory/year

Only that the lesser bonuses weren't going to be called Chivalry, and that there might be new bonus from other traits. He might have had something similar in the works for the religious bonuses too.

1 hour ago, Hzark10 said:

This is the goal.  If one player uses the rules to get an unfair advantage, then change the rules.

It's not one player nor is it unfair. It's simply a case of the Chivalry bonus being much more easily obtainable in KAP5+, especially when using Knight & Ladies than was intended or was the case in the past, due to all the trait modifiers.