Book of Entourage , Wife's Siege Skill

[Atgxtg]

I just noticed that Siege is not listed among the skills available to wives in the Book of Entourage 1.3. Surely that's an oversight. and it should be included in the list of skills that start at 5, right?

[Morien]

I'd say no. High Siege skill is not that common, unless (or even if) the wife happens to be a Chatelaine (female Castellan). Certainly not all 20 year old ladies have it at 10! Even in the GPC example, Lady Jane has Siege of 3, despite defending an actual castle. (BoK&L has Cymric Ladies starting with Siege 5, Siege 2 in Romance and after.)

However, if it would fit the lady's background (she has been defending the family castle against Saxons for some years now) then I would consider allowing Siege as one of the three picks. But this would be very extenuating circumstances. Otherwise, I would be happy for them to have Siege 5 and increase it if they are actually using that skill in game.

Edited February 27, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

Ah, I was doing up Estate record for the two PKs who have gotten landed in my campaign and noticed that there is a listing for Siege skill under the wife stats on the Estate Record. So I figured it should start at something, and is was one of the recommended lady skills in previous editions of the Book of Entourage, so I though the omission was an oversight.

I just wanted to be sure they get some default skill, even if they aren't improving it. 

 

I think what I'll do in my campaign is in the early Periods (Uther/Anarchy/Boy King/Conquest) wives get Siege instead of  Fashion, and in the latter Periods (Romance/Tournament/Grail Quest/Twilight Periods) wives get Fashion instead of Siege. K&L does swap the starting values around for those two skills, at that time. That would only divert from BotE 1.3 for the first of the campaign, and go with the darkier, gritter tone of the early years. 

 

 

 

[Morien]

47 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Ah, I was doing up Estate record for the two PKs who have gotten landed in my campaign and noticed that there is a listing for Siege skill under the wife stats on the Estate Record. So I figured it should start at something, and is was one of the recommended lady skills in previous editions of the Book of Entourage, so I though the omission was an oversight.

But not necessarily one that they'd pick...

47 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I just wanted to be sure they get some default skill, even if they aren't improving it.  

Yes, at the starting skill value of 5, as per BoK&L.

47 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I think what I'll do in my campaign is in the early Periods (Uther/Anarchy/Boy King/Conquest) wives get Siege instead of  Fashion, and in the latter Periods (Romance/Tournament/Grail Quest/Twilight Periods) wives get Fashion instead of Siege. K&L does swap the starting values around for those two skills, at that time. That would only divert from BotE 1.3 for the first of the campaign, and go with the darkier, gritter tone of the early years. 

This is a reasonable way of doing it, too. I would apply the Father's Class modifiers, as per Stewardship, though. A daughter of a merchant should know less about defending a castle than a daughter of a baron.

EDIT: Actually, refreshing my memory about how the skill assignment works in ENTOURAGE, I think we are actually on the same page here: Fashion/Siege doesn't automatically improve to 10, but remains at 5. I think this switch you propose is a very good one. This also means that the Stewardship modifier is probably a bit too harsh: halving it seems to give more reasonable numbers.

Edited February 27, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Morien said:

But not necessarily one that they'd pick...

No, noit at all. It just that the  "follower" wives only get a handful of skills.

1 hour ago, Morien said:

Yes, at the starting skill value of 5, as per BoK&L.

Okay, as long as they get something to default to. KPA is rather unkind to someone without a skill. Although, with the revision in the siege rules, DV actually can help out a lot now. Even someone with no Siege skill now has a pretty good chance to do so if they got a few points of DV left over. 

 

1 hour ago, Morien said:

This is a reasonable way of doing it, too. I would apply the Father's Class modifiers, as per Stewardship, though. A daughter of a merchant should know less about defending a castle than a daughter of a baron.

EDIT: Actually, refreshing my memory about how the skill assignment works in ENTOURAGE, I think we are actually on the same page here: Fashion/Siege doesn't automatically improve to 10, but remains at 5. I think this switch you propose is a very good one. This also means that the Stewardship modifier is probably a bit too harsh: halving it seems to give more reasonable numbers.

Yeah, I think we're getting there. it's not that I want all wives to be good at Siege warfare. I just want to give them a default value of some sort to fall back on. If a PK wants to pick Siege as one of the three Improvable skills, I'd be okay with it, but otherwise "follower" wife is going with a 5. 

 

BTW, nitpicking aside , I actually think BotE is a big improvement. For the most part it makes the NP followers fun. They are reasonably competent and useful, but not so useful as to be too useful. And the shortform keep the bookeeping simple.