Underage Knights and Inherited Attributes

[Khanwulf]

44 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yup, plus it would be easy to keep those bonus later, when the stats go up. If you know the default value is stat/2 then you know that upping DEX from 11 to 12 will raise any weapon skills up to 6, and a Lady who improves her APP from 15 to 16 would improve all her default courtly skills, letting her focus on a couple and relying on the default for others.   A couple of skills might be hard to classify to a attribute, due to the lack of INT, but a flat default of 5 could work, as could just listing them in the cultural mods.  I'll do up a list and we can see how it looks.

Ok, so then that's a benefit to raising APP, per the other discussion. And DEX, which is also fine. Players can know that they may bump up the DEX or APP skills on every even number. You may end up with situations, however, where a player puts 1d6+1 training points in, and then bumps the attribute and sends the skill to 16--is that a problem?

Why don't you do up a table, and then the different cultures could be just assigned modifiers of +/-1 or 2 based on what they are good at, or not.

[Morien]

7 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

You may end up with situations, however, where a player puts 1d6+1 training points in, and then bumps the attribute and sends the skill to 16--is that a problem?

Wouldn't happen. Atgxtg and I were talking about the DEFAULT skills. Since your skill is already at 15, way above the usual default of APP/2, this would only become an issue if the APP is 31+.

Let's say you start with APP 10. Your APP starting skills are at the default value, APP/2 = 5. You then train, say, Orate to 10 and Courtesy to 6.

During the play, you increase your APP to 11. Your new APP default is 6. All APP skills that are 5 are increased to 6. Orate 10 and Courtesy 6 don't change.

A couple of years later, you bump APP all the way to 13. Now the APP default is 7. Courtesy is also increased to 7, but Orate stays at 10.

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Ok, so then that's a benefit to raising APP, per the other discussion. And DEX, which is also fine. Players can know that they may bump up the DEX or APP skills on every even number. You may end up with situations, however, where a player puts 1d6+1 training points in, and then bumps the attribute and sends the skill to 16--is that a problem?

Well, to go somewhat with Morien's original idea, and to keep the bookkeeping simple, I was thinking that the Attribute could just set the default. So if someone had APP 13 and a default of 6 and raised their APP to 14 their default of 7 would go up but their Courtesy of 15 would not.  This does limit the benefits of APP a bit, but not to the point where APP Is only useful during chargen, since not all skills will be raised higher than the new default. 

 

Fort example a lady with APP 20 would, if using APP/2 have a default of 10 in all her courtly skills which would be about 3-5 points better than if we used the APP>16 or (APP-11)/2 rules. And those defaults would allow her to focus on one or two courtly skills to get them to 15.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Why don't you do up a table, and then the different cultures could be just assigned modifiers of +/-1 or 2 based on what they are good at, or not.

Okay how about this for a start?

Skills by Attribute Table APP based   Skills: Compose, Courtesy, Flirting, Folk Lore, Intrigue, Orate, Recognize, Romance Borderline Cases: Dancing, Faerie Lore, First Aid, Gaming, Heraldry, Play ( ), Read ( ) 0, Recognize , Religion ( ) Singing, Stewardship, Tourney     CON based   Borderline Cases: Awareness, Hunting     DEX based   Skills: Boating, Dancing, Swimming, all Combat Skills Borderline Cases: Dancing     No Attribute   Skills: Falconry, First Aid, Heraldry, Hunting, Play ( ), Read ( ) 0, Recognize , Religion ( ) Singing, Stewardship, Tourney Borderline Cases: Compose, Faerie Lore, Gaming, Heraldry, Play ( ), Read ( ) 0, Recognize , Religion ( ) Singing, Stewardship, Tourney

Borderline Cases are those where there is a case for the skill to be covered under a different attribute or where the attribute's claim on the skill are tenuous. 

To reflect cultural preferences we could give each culture some bonuses to certain skills. 

 

[Atgxtg]

5 minutes ago, Morien said:

Wouldn't happen. Atgxtg and I were talking about the DEFAULT skills. Since your skill is already at 15, way above the usual default of APP/2, this would only become an issue if the APP is 31+.

Yeah so Guinevere would have a default of 20 in all her courtly skills. Which is high, but a lot lower than the +25 she would get with the +1 per point over 15 rule. 

I suspect it really is less a case of her being that much better due to APP and more a case of people letting stuff like using the wrong fork slide because she is a babe. 

 

 

[Khanwulf]

17 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah so Guinevere would have a default of 20 in all her courtly skills. Which is high, but a lot lower than the +25 she would get with the +1 per point over 15 rule. 

I suspect it really is less a case of her being that much better due to APP and more a case of people letting stuff like using the wrong fork slide because she is a babe. 

 

 

Ok, I get it: so APP and DEX create a floor value for the skills, meaning that the most efficient use of points is in raising them early before checks and training are applied.

Are applied training points tracked separately from the skill base? So if a wound kicks in training keeps soil from dropping as much?

Oh and: "boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny". Quite sure what's happening is that physical characteristics are covering for relative lack of skill.

[Atgxtg]

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Ok, I get it: so APP and DEX create a floor value for the skills, meaning that the most efficient use of points is in raising them early before checks and training are applied.

Yes. Although APP will still be useful later in play as players won't usually be able to  or not necessarily want to raise all of their courtly skills above the default. For instacne if a Lady has a 20 APP he default scores would be a 10, so she would probably better better off concentrating on one or two skills skills like Courtesy and Intrigue and rely on the default for most of the others until she getsthe first two up to a point where she is happy with them. Say 15 or even 20. Then maybe years later she might look at Orate or Compose.And, if she should happen to have raised her APP by then, so much the better for he default skills.

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Are applied training points tracked separately from the skill base? So if a wound kicks in training keeps soil from dropping as much?

Well as envisioned, the default just replaces the value in parentheses next to skills. No more no less. So by itself it does't change anything. Now if we wanted to increase the training cap too we could, but that would make APP so important to courtly skills as to be the dominant factor..You could wind up at a point where someone's floor is above another's ceiling (i.e APP 20 vs APP 5).

20 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

Oh and: "boys will laugh at girls when they're not funny". Quite sure what's happening is that physical characteristics are covering for relative lack of skill.

Yes, plus even when the mess up they look good doing it. In some ways it can even make them seem more charming as a sort of minor flaw that prevents them from being obnoxious. 

[Atgxtg]

Oh, and just to throw in another idea we could have APP an/or DEX factor into the training and practice. For example if APP is 15-24 courtly skills get  2 points per point spent, if 25-34 3 for 1 and if 35+ then 4 for 1. Likewise if APP is below 5 then it take 2 points to improve by 1. THat would make it much easier to get a skill up to 15 with a high attribute.

[Hzark10]

4 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

THat would make it much easier to get a skill up to 15 with a high attribute.

But if I am trying to track my skills, how much more work is this? And, more importantly, is this a quick way of skill-creep? Part of the frustration I had as a player, and accepted as part of the system, was I could not raise everything as fast as I wanted to. I had to choose.  Make it too easy, or quick, and we will all have generic super characters.

[Atgxtg]

Just now, Hzark10 said:

But if I am trying to track my skills, how much more work is this?

It's less work. All that chancges would be your starting value. Instead of a (3) or a (7) or a (10) you'd start at APP/2. If your APP chanceg, your ceiling would go up, but that would be as complex as I'd make it. 

Just now, Hzark10 said:

And, more importantly, is this a quick way of skill-creep? Part of the frustration I had as a player, and accepted as part of the system, was I could not raise everything as fast as I wanted to. I had to choose.  Make it too easy, or quick, and we will all have generic super characters.

I don't think so. Yes, social skills will improve for high APP characters, but since it takes 2 points of APP to improve courtly skills by 1 point, I don't think it is any easier. Yes someone who starts with a 20 APP will also start with 10 in all their courtly skills, but that will come at the expense of other attributes. Plus a 10 skill isn't all that great. So the character will still need to spend a couple of years/picks to get skills up to 15. 

About the only point where I think it could become a problem is with ultra high APP, but even then the glory used to boost APP up to say 30 is glory that would have been more effective elsewhere (like boosting Intrigue from 15-20 or 20-25).

But, since we are in the R&D stage, can somebody "break" this?  Try writing up a Knight of Lady with this rule and see how far you can push the envelope.  Try a half fae character and max out APP and see how far you can exploit this in chargen. I suspect that for a knight you can write up a social beast who is a paper tiger in combat. A lady would be somewhat more dangerous, I think, but that was what we were aiming for. I'll admit I'm a bit concerned that lady characters only need one attribute (APP), but that's true without this rule. 

BTW, I really wish CON would factor into their childbirth rolls. Something like if a woman "dies' in childbirth she gets a CON roll to survive a mortal wound. As the game stands now SIZ, DEX, STR and CON have no value to a lady character.

 

But, back to the point, try to break this and see how bad it actually is/. Maybe APP/2 is too much and we need APP/3? Maybe it works just fine. Let's try to abuse the idea and find out.

 

[Hzark10]

The other thing that needs to be accounted for is the different timelines.  PV is knighted by the High King Arthur in 433, yet in KAP, Arthur pulls the Sword from the Stone in 510.

[Hzark10]

3 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

BTW, I really wish CON would factor into their childbirth rolls. Something like if a woman "dies' in childbirth she gets a CON roll to survive a mortal wound. As the game stands now SIZ, DEX, STR and CON have no value to a lady character.

There are discussions regarding this, rest assured. 

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, Hzark10 said:

There are discussions regarding this, rest assured. 

Good. Part of the difficulty with female characters is that they have been marginalized in just about every conceivable way in the rules. Now some of that is due to the sources/setting, and some of it due to the focus of playing heroic knights, but the overall effect is that, as it currently stands, women are not worth playing, outside of the occasional warrior woman or magician.

It's a tough tightrope to walk though, as we all want to improve them, but we still have the genre constraints. 

Oh, one other advatage of defaulting skills to an attribute in some way is that female characters will now get a default with weapon skills as well. Which could help those characters.

 

[Hzark10]

Assuming we accept PV's rules in that regarding skills, I would accept the following:

1) Rudimentary knowledge        Base 

3) Normal competence               10

5) mastery                                     16

6) renowned, virtuoso level        20

Remember that many times, the number of coins you thrown is your base attribute (Brawn or Presence) plus a skill. Like the attributes, skills are limited to 6. So, giving abilites based on stats in Pendragon:

19 hours ago, Morien said:

Wouldn't happen. Atgxtg and I were talking about the DEFAULT skills. Since your skill is already at 15, way above the usual default of APP/2, this would only become an issue if the APP is 31+

I think this is the way to go.  It would also help make conversion easier as the base skills are now based on a stat.

I think we have the basis for a good start on conversion and a similar working system for a tweak in KAP.

[Khanwulf]

I'm not following the conversion thread here, but what I was referring to is the situation where you have, say, 20 DEX at start: (selecting DEX for sake of example, could be APP)

1. Your base dagger skill is 10. You raise it one (1) point during play. It is 11.

2. Your raise DEX two more points. It is 22. Your base dagger skill now equals the raise and the raise is wiped out.

3. You take a mortal wound and lose 4 points of DEX. Your base dagger skill drops two points. Is it now 9. Since your raise was "lost" your dagger skill is 9. --Or should it be 10?

There are two problems from a player's perspective with this scenario, which is not as unlikely as you might think. First, the player will expect that when DEX goes up and the base increases it will raise the boat, not overwrite the skill increase. Second, if there is a drop he will expect the skill investment to return. 

A side point: clearly damage to DEX is going to be something PK anguish over, as it will hit ALL weapon skills and make knights slower and troubled. This is... actually realistic and I like it!

On to @Atgxtg's table of skills: let me make a few suggestions. I've marked my modifications in red.

On 4/18/2019 at 4:09 PM, Atgxtg said:

Skills by Attribute Table APP based   Skills: Compose, Courtesy, Flirting, Intrigue, Orate, Romance, Gaming, Dancing, Singing Borderline Cases:       CON based   Borderline Cases: Awareness, Hunting, Swimming, Falconry     DEX based   Skills: Boating, all Combat Skills, Play ( ), Industry Borderline Cases:       No Attribute   Skills: Religion ( ), Recognize, Folk Lore, First Aid, Heraldry, Read ( ), Religion ( ), Stewardship, Tourney, Faerie Lore, Heraldry, Read ( ), Religion ( ), Stewardship, Battle, Siege Borderline Cases:

Ok, so basically APP is your presence stat. An individual with high APP will do better in social activities because people will pay more attention to how they feel about being around them than the technical results of, say, the dance or game. 

CON is for endurance and focus, where getting tired would cause loss of focus. Swimming is an endurance activity--or STR, but I don't think any skill should be STR-based.

DEX is fine, except playing instruments should be in it. I could see Play as APP, but technical skill is actually more important when you're trying to fill a room of knights with something worthwhile from your instrument. Added Industry

I'm fine with the rest of the skill being no-attribute. These are knowledge-based by and large. I've added Battle and Siege here as they were missing and should not be DEX-based.

 

Thoughts?

--Khanwulf

 

[Khanwulf]

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

BTW, I really wish CON would factor into their childbirth rolls. Something like if a woman "dies' in childbirth she gets a CON roll to survive a mortal wound. As the game stands now SIZ, DEX, STR and CON have no value to a lady character.

Say: childbirth table is STR-based and survival is CON-based?

[Atgxtg]

55 minutes ago, Khanwulf said:

I'm not following the conversion thread here, but what I was referring to is the situation where you have, say, 20 DEX at start: (selecting DEX for sake of example, could be APP)

1. Your base dagger skill is 10. You raise it one (1) point during play. It is 11.

Check

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2. Your raise DEX two more points. It is 22. Your base dagger skill now equals the raise and the raise is wiped out.

Check, but since you knew you were going to raise your DEX you could have avoided this.

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3. You take a mortal wound and lose 4 points of DEX. Your base dagger skill drops two points. Is it now 9. Since your raise was "lost" your dagger skill is 9. --Or should it be 10?

It would stay 11. Lose of attributes does not cause a reduction in skill. A character doesn't forget how to use a dagger. 

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There are two problems from a player's perspective with this scenario, which is not as unlikely as you might think. First, the player will expect that when DEX goes up and the base increases it will raise the boat, not overwrite the skill increase.

Easily fixed by explaining it to him before hand. And honestly the player probably needs a heads up if he is wasting all those glory points on DEX. 

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Second, if there is a drop he will expect the skill investment to return. 

Nope. He skill would stay the same. 

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A side point: clearly damage to DEX is going to be something PK anguish over, as it will hit ALL weapon skills and make knights slower and troubled. This is... actually realistic and I like it!

I wouldn't do it that way, the aging table is tough enough as it is. 

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On to @Atgxtg's table of skills: let me make a few suggestions. I've marked my modifications in red.

Ok, so basically APP is your presence stat. An individual with high APP will do better in social activities because people will pay more attention to how they feel about being around them than the technical results of, say, the dance or game. 

KInda, although I didn't really suggest this with Prince Valiant in mind. It's just that every other attribute in KAP in phsyical.

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CON is for endurance and focus, where getting tired would cause loss of focus. Swimming is an endurance activity--or STR, but I don't think any skill should be STR-based.

Don't forget Energetic. I could see swimming being under either CON or STR, or even both. BTW, why don't you think a skill should be STR based? Just curious.

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DEX is fine, except playing instruments should be in it. I could see Play as APP, but technical skill is actually more important when you're trying to fill a room of knights with something worthwhile from your instrument. Added Industry

I can see that. Frankly a lot of the borderline cases are a stretch. Just because someone is good looking doesn't mean they can hold a tune, but that would be true of practically all the APP based skills.

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I'm fine with the rest of the skill being no-attribute. These are knowledge-based by and large. I've added Battle and Siege here as they were missing and should not be DEX-based.

I'd suggest keeping recognize APP based. For two reason. First off to help make APP useful as the "Courtly Attribute". Secondly if the high APP character is spending more time at court they should be seeing and meeting more people and should be able to recognize more people.

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Thoughts?

It needs testing. I think we need a half dozen of so characters written up with this rule in mind to see how it will look in actual play. Does this make  APP 20 or DEX 20 too much of a headstart, or does it cancel out wit the lower SIZ and CON? I don't know. Who does? But we probably need to try and find out before implementing it.

Also I'd be tempted to tie Religion to Spiritual. The idea being that someone who was devout would probably pay more attention to that stuff growing up and know a little more

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Cornelius]

@Khanwulf and @Atgxtg: Interesting list and I like it. There are however some things that need clarification.

1) Starting skills are now around 2-3 mostly. There are a few exceptions (like First Aid). With the rule STAT/2 as the default and people having their STATS at 10 minimum you will have a skill default at 5. This almost double than the base value now. I am not sure what would happen, but if you divide the STAT by 3. You get around a value of 2 or 3 as default.

2) Decrease of a skill. If you reason that a skill is based on a STAT you could also reason that the skill decreases if the STAT decreases. You could say that part of a skill is based on your STAT and part on training. Thus as you age and you lose your DEX you will lose part of your skill as you are more stiff and cannot move as agile as you did before. In the example the Dagger skill will increase when DEX increases, and decreases as DEX decreases.

3)  Combat skills as DEX based. I am not sure if I like that. Since combat is an integral part of the life of a knight DEX would become very important for combat. I understanbd that SIZ and STR determine the damage you do. I understand that in your idea only the default is changed and as you wish to increase your primary combat skill higher than 10. So when you focus on one combat skill (for instance Sword) it will be less important to have a high DEX. But a person with a high DEX would be able to get more combat skills at a higher level than a low DEX person. (Of course if you apply my comment 2 then this is even a bigger impact)

[Hzark10]

2 hours ago, Cornelius said:

1) Starting skills are now around 2-3 mostly. There are a few exceptions (like First Aid). With the rule STAT/2 as the default and people having their STATS at 10 minimum you will have a skill default at 5. This almost double than the base value now. I am not sure what would happen, but if you divide the STAT by 3. You get around a value of 2 or 3 as default.

I am thinking that if this approach is taken, those skills that are specific to an attribute could be STAT/2, but if it is borderline, then I feel that the stat is not specific enough.  I like the idea that as the attribute increases or decreases, it modifies the skill.  I know I am not as good as a dancer as I was as my Dex has slipped.  And, yes, if I am almost bedridden, my ability in the skill should suffer. Also thinking certain skills maybe are combination of 2 attributes, for example Weapon skills. A stronger individual would be able to do more damage, but a dextrous one would be able to hit more often.  

Easiest way to track this is to calculate base, and then the number of points put into the skill.  That way, if your attributes increase, your skill goes up and vice versa as you know how skilled you are in it.

[Khanwulf]

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Check, but since you knew you were going to raise your DEX you could have avoided this.

Personally I dislike telling players "you should have planned better". This, by someone who plans excessively. It's just not realistic, and a given player doesn't need to hurdle of understanding mechanics intimately to jump into Arthurian legend. It needs to be accessible. 

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It would stay 11. Lose of attributes does not cause a reduction in skill. A character doesn't forget how to use a dagger. 

No they don't, but speaking as someone getting older--you do get slower and that makes a difference. I'm ok with a lowering of an attribute through age/wounds to cause a decrease in skill, assuming that the relationship with the skill is linearly established at start. As it is here.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Easily fixed by explaining it to him before hand. And honestly the player probably needs a heads up if he is wasting all those glory points on DEX. 

No sir. Explaining to a player is not the answer. And let's please acknowledge that the objective is to change the "wastage" of points into DEX, APP or whatever. An investment in an attribute should be valuable on its face, with the benefits clear and measurable even if not always equal.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I wouldn't do it that way, the aging table is tough enough as it is. 

Yes but what is it tough? Because if your DEX and APP drop too far you become bedridden and unplayable? Not sufficient--that happens to STR and SIZ and CON with much more direct impact on knightly effectiveness. I'm willing to build-in reasons why you don't want to lose *any* attribute.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

KInda, although I didn't really suggest this with Prince Valiant in mind. It's just that every other attribute in KAP in phsyical.

And after posting I realized that PV uses Presence as an actual stat name. I'm using it generically. It is literally personal magnetism through appearance, in KAP.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Don't forget Energetic. I could see swimming being under either CON or STR, or even both. BTW, why don't you think a skill should be STR based? Just curious.

Only because STR is already core to knightly skills in the form of critical derived attributes like damage. Again, my point at least is to holistically examine stat impact. Also, if weapon skills are DEX-based, yet damage is STR-based, then you already have additional attributes built-in to the equation.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I can see that. Frankly a lot of the borderline cases are a stretch. Just because someone is good looking doesn't mean they can hold a tune, but that would be true of practically all the APP based skills.

Yes, we have APP, DEX, CON and knowledge, where Greg specifically structured KAP to remove the mental attributes and assign them to the player. They are modeled through skills that deal with memory, domain knowledge and reasoning.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I'd suggest keeping recognize APP based. For two reason. First off to help make APP useful as the "Courtly Attribute". Secondly if the high APP character is spending more time at court they should be seeing and meeting more people and should be able to recognize more people.

Then they should be sinking the skill points that they would otherwise spend on Orate, into Recognize. With this like of arrangement there will be a higher base level for courtly skills and I'm quite OK asking a specialist to raise up other skills that are important but more knowledge-based through yearly training. There needs to be balance.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It needs testing. I think we need a half dozen of so characters written up with this rule in mind to see how it will look in actual play. Does this make  APP 20 or DEX 20 too much of a headstart, or does it cancel out wit the lower SIZ and CON? I don't know. Who does? But we probably need to try and find out before implementing it.

Also I'd be tempted to tie Religion to Spiritual. The idea being that someone who was devout would probably pay more attention to that stuff growing up and know a little more

 

Agreed, it needs to be tested--or at least modeled with several cases both expected and extreme.

I'm opposed to incorporating Traits into the base of skills, as they are supposed to be personality.

--Khanwulf

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, Cornelius said:

@Khanwulf and @Atgxtg: Interesting list and I like it. There are however some things that need clarification.

1) Starting skills are now around 2-3 mostly. There are a few exceptions (like First Aid). With the rule STAT/2 as the default and people having their STATS at 10 minimum you will have a skill default at 5. This almost double than the base value now. I am not sure what would happen, but if you divide the STAT by 3. You get around a value of 2 or 3 as default.

Yes, that was that I thought at first too. But Morien has suggested that Attribute/3 doesn't make APP or DEX all that important. The difference between a 3 and a 6 isn't worth the attribute points. Basically neither skill is worth using except in an emergency and the year or so it saves a character on training isn't worth the the investment in attribute points.

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2) Decrease of a skill. If you reason that a skill is based on a STAT you could also reason that the skill decreases if the STAT decreases. You could say that part of a skill is based on your STAT and part on training. Thus as you age and you lose your DEX you will lose part of your skill as you are more stiff and cannot move as agile as you did before. In the example the Dagger skill will increase when DEX increases, and decreases as DEX decreases.

You could. I don't think itaht would be a good idea through for three reasons.

First off it it would require ,more bookkeeping.

Secondly, APP and DEX don't give all that much to the character, so just adding penalties makes those attributes the dump stats again.

Lastly, if a loss in DEX or APP accompanies a loss in skill then PKS are encourage to have lower values to age won't hurt them as much.

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3)  Combat skills as DEX based. I am not sure if I like that. Since combat is an integral part of the life of a knight DEX would become very important for combat. I understanbd that SIZ and STR determine the damage you do. I understand that in your idea only the default is changed and as you wish to increase your primary combat skill higher than 10. So when you focus on one combat skill (for instance Sword) it will be less important to have a high DEX. But a person with a high DEX would be able to get more combat skills at a higher level than a low DEX person. (Of course if you apply my comment 2 then this is even a bigger impact)

That is how it would work. I don't blame you for being unsure about the rule. I'm unsure too. And yes while it will help a high DEX character geta higher  skill with more combat skills it actually will be a downgrade for most PKs. As it stands now all PKS start with Sword, Spear Expertise/Lance and Horsemanship at 10. With the DEX/2 rule, they'd need a 20 to get that. 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

Personally I dislike telling players "you should have planned better". This, by someone who plans excessively. It's just not realistic, and a given player doesn't need to hurdle of understanding mechanics intimately to jump into Arthurian legend. It needs to be accessible. 

You might niot like it, but it is quite realistic and a part of GMing. I pretty have to do it every time the the does something stupid that getsa lot of them killed. There are quite a few things abotu Pendragon, as well as other RPGs, that the GM should explain to the players. For example, I do point out that using a glory bonus point to improve Play (HArp) from 3 to 4 is a waste of a bonus point.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

No they don't, but speaking as someone getting older--you do get slower and that makes a difference. I'm ok with a lowering of an attribute through age/wounds to cause a decrease in skill, assuming that the relationship with the skill is linearly established at start. As it is here.

Yes it does. But I think it would be a bad rule to implement. IMO DEX doesn't help a character enough to be worth the penalty. Not all stat bonuses are equal., With skills, low values translate into lower until and therefore a skill that won't be used very often - at least not when it is important. The guy with Boating 2 might be fine to padding a boat across the lake, but not on the ocean during rough seas. You'd want the guy with a higher skill for that.  

Meanswhile the stat bonuses from high SIZ, STR and CONm, such as an extra d6 damage doesn't have that effect. A guy who does 4d6 damage might not hit as hard as one who does 5d6, but 4d6 can still be relied upon day in day out, where a 5 skill cannot.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

No sir. Explaining to a player is not the answer. And let's please acknowledge that the objective is to change the "wastage" of points into DEX, APP or whatever. An investment in an attribute should be valuable on its face, with the benefits clear and measurable even if not always equal.

Yes it is. If fact it has been done. WEG's Star Wars RPG uses skill specialties that do just that. Once a character takes a specialty then it becomes it's own, separate skill and is unaffected by the base skill. If the base skill catches up to it, then the player basically "lost" points. It's explained in the rules, everyone knew about it and it doesn't cause a problem. Lots of people don't like the rule, but it is functional.

 

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

Yes but what is it tough? Because if your DEX and APP drop too far you become bedridden and unplayable? Not sufficient--that happens to STR and SIZ and CON with much more direct impact on knightly effectiveness. I'm willing to build-in reasons why you don't want to lose *any* attribute.

I think it is when you look at the benefits of a high DEX compared to a high STR, SIZ or CON. Specifically:

• The benefits of DEX 20 vs. DEX 10 is a 5 point increase in most combat skills, from 5 to 10. Now in game play that's not much of a benefit. Yes the character can master a lot of weapons more quickly but, so what? Having one weapon skill, Sword,  at 20 is much more useful than having a half dozen at 15.
• The penalties of losing DEX, if they reduced skills, would far outweigh the benefits, because high DEX helps low skills but low DEX would hurt high skills-that is the one the PKs rely on. I think it would b e a deal breaker.
• In addition the loss of skill would offset the "advantage" of a high DEX/APP and make those attributes the dump stat again. The PK with a 20 DEX can lose 8 points off his skill before being bedridden, while the guy with DEX with 8 can only lose 2.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

Only because STR is already core to knightly skills in the form of critical derived attributes like damage. Again, my point at least is to holistically examine stat impact. Also, if weapon skills are DEX-based, yet damage is STR-based, then you already have additional attributes built-in to the equation.

Yes, but examining it holistically DEX and APP are still the out stats out by far. Back when we were going with Morien's idea of a stat bonus (APP-11)/2 then DEX and APPS benefits were universal to all skills -this is the guy with Sword 22 benefited from raising his DEX 2 points as much as the guy with Sword 5,  IMO moreso. But is DEX only determiners the defalt then it doesn't help the guy swith Sword 22 at all (uless he has a DEX of 43), so I don't think it will be rightfor it to hurt him.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

Yes, we have APP, DEX, CON and knowledge, where Greg specifically structured KAP to remove the mental attributes and assign them to the player. They are modeled through skills that deal with memory, domain knowledge and reasoning.

Yeah. What I wish KAP had was skill categories liek RQ. While many people dislike them and prefer to take them out for simplicity, every version of RQ/BRP that does do, including KAP suffers by having attributes that don't mean as much. 

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

Then they should be sinking the skill points that they would otherwise spend on Orate, into Recognize. With this like of arrangement there will be a higher base level for courtly skills and I'm quite OK asking a specialist to raise up other skills that are important but more knowledge-based through yearly training. There needs to be balance.

Arbitrary check. The same argument could apply to orate, intrigue and courtesy- they should be spending the points. The whole idea of APP as a skill modifier of some sort presupposes that  they shouldn't need to.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

Agreed, it needs to be tested--or at least modeled with several cases both expected and extreme.

Definitely. There will no doubt be unexpected consequences. Frankly, I don't think the DEX as a base for combat skills will help much if Sword, Lance etc. still start at 10. APP will be more useful as courtly skills tend to have a lower base. But that's just my theory. I don;'t really know what effect raising the base for the courtly skills to around 7-8 will really have. I suspect it will just speed up advancement a little for ladies but not much more than that. But I won't know what it does until I have a player trying to use the rule to his advantage.

1 hour ago, Khanwulf said:

I'm opposed to incorporating Traits into the base of skills, as they are supposed to be personality.

Me too, but Energetic has been tied to stamina and endurance, and have overlapped with CON and Awareness in some instances. But I think for the most part we can ignore it. 

[Cornelius]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, that was that I thought at first too. But Morien has suggested that Attribute/3 doesn't make APP or DEX all that important. The difference between a 3 and a 6 isn't worth the attribute points. Basically neither skill is worth using except in an emergency and the year or so it saves a character on training isn't worth the the investment in attribute points.

You could. I don't think itaht would be a good idea through for three reasons.

First off it it would require ,more bookkeeping.

Secondly, APP and DEX don't give all that much to the character, so just adding penalties makes those attributes the dump stats again.

Lastly, if a loss in DEX or APP accompanies a loss in skill then PKS are encourage to have lower values to age won't hurt them as much.

I am not against higher default values. It was just to point out that it would deviate from the current system. It would also mean that every  PK has a fair (around 25%) chance on succeeding in untrained skills. 

The bookkeeping. It would require that the charactersheet makes clear which part of the skill is from the STAT and which is from the training. Currently there are other systems that use this method as well and I do feel that it means much more bookkeeping. Skills do not change every session (at least not in mine), so you would probably only have to recalculate during a winterhase. And it would mean that you cannot make 'bad' choices as the point used in training are still there.

I think we all agree that we do not want any of the STATS to be just a dumpstat, in order to get some good scores. We want them either to make a conscience choice to have high and others lower or have their Attributes roughly around 10-12.  So I do not see a downside here.

 

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Morien's idea of a stat bonus (APP-11)/2 then DEX and APPS benefits were universal to all skill

Just to note quickly that it was solely for APP, never intended for DEX, and that I much prefer the default skill suggestion.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

The penalties of losing DEX, if they reduced skills, would far outweigh the benefits, because high DEX helps low skills but low DEX would hurt high skills-that is the one the PKs rely on. I think it would b e a deal breaker.

Totally agreed; it would totally suck to lose a point each from your Sword 23, Lance 21 and Horsemanship 21 simply because your DEX dropped by one. Especially since you wouldn't be getting it back even if you increased your DEX up again. DEX & APP should only adjust the defaults. As soon as you use the points, they become immune to being lowered if the underlying stat drops. This also keeps down the bookkeeping, since...

40 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

The bookkeeping. It would require that the charactersheet makes clear which part of the skill is from the STAT and which is from the training.

Easily done. Just have 'D/2' or simple 'D' on all DEX defaults and A/2 or A on all APP defaults. As soon as you use points or get experience raises, replace with a number. Done. Mind you, if the default value becomes higher than your raised value (unlikely, since this requires at least 3 DEX or APP raises after chargen), then I'd be fine letting the default value take over again: you are relying on your inborn abilities again, not so much what you learned.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Frankly, I don't think the DEX as a base for combat skills will help much if Sword, Lance etc. still start at 10.

Let's make Sword, Lance & Horsemanship start with (DEX/2)+5. That way, DEX 10 guy starts with skills at 10, but DEX 15 guy starts with skills at 13, gaining some benefit from those DEX points, but allowing the average DEX guy still qualify for knighthood. Alternatively, those 15 points could be extra skill points, allowing DEX 15 guy to focus on other skills than combat skills.

Speaking of, we could do the same with those non-combat skills at 10; instead make them default+5. And the one skill at 15 could be default+10, max 15, use the extra points for something else. This way, you don't 'waste' your default points.

40 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

It would also mean that every  PK has a fair (around 25%) chance on succeeding in untrained skills. 

Assuming they didn't use the stat as a dump stat, yes. I see this a bit more as a feature, since when the skill is 2-3, it is so difficult to succeed that the players don't often even bother to try, unless I prompt them to roll. Also, they seldom increase those skills, since even spending a yearly training means that they are still below 10. Having the defaults around 5 means that they can pick up new skills a bit more easily, and hence are more tempted to do so, than focus just on a couple of skills.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

24 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

I am not against higher default values. It was just to point out that it would deviate from the current system.

Yes it would deviate. The idea was to make APP and DEX more useful than they are currently, especially for female characters, as APP is thier highest attribute but has little merit in game. Greg had a rule where APP over 15 added to social skills, which most of us considered to be more of a deviation, but ultimately I think some sort of devation/chanfge is required to make APP work.

24 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

It would also mean that every  PK has a fair (around 25%) chance on succeeding in untrained skills. 

Yup, but a 5 isn't much different than a 3. Neither is a skill I would want to rely on.

A second thing about it is that by the RAW if a PK picks up a weapon that he has no training in, such as an axe, he has to chance of hurting someone else, barring modifiers. If that were the case then practically nobody would get killed by axes, lead pipes and knives today, as relatively few people are skilled in using them. For example, I've never trained with a spear, but I'd be willing to bet you money that if I fought someone else who had to training either, one of us would get hit. 

24 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

The bookkeeping. It would require that the charactersheet makes clear which part of the skill is from the STAT and which is from the training. 

I don't think it would. It would be much simpler just to look at the Attribute/2 as the "floor" for such skills, and only as the floor. That way it would only need to be worried about if and when players improved thier DEX or APP, and only for those skills that hadn't been improved above Attribute/2. 

24 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

I think we all agree that we do not want any of the STATS to be just a dumpstat, in order to get some good scores. We want them either to make a conscience choice to have high and others lower or have their Attributes roughly around 10-12.  So I do not see a downside here.

Yes. That's just it. As things stand now SIZ is the most important attribute, CON is the runner up, and STR puts in a good show.  DEX is nearly useless to PKs -it's major uses for PKs is in Move rate, where it might be worth a difference of 1 point, maybe 2 if someone goes all in on DEX, and Knockdown where it is partially replaced by Horsemanship, and is still outclassed by SIZ (it's better to be bigger and not to have to make a DEX roll in the first place). DEX used to be somewhat more useful, with the double feint, but that's gone. APP is even less useful tthan DEX..

So the goal is to find ways to make DEX and APP more useful and worth improving. Just what ways, and how useful are the questions. 

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, Morien said:

Just to note quickly that it was solely for APP, never intended for DEX, and that I much prefer the default skill suggestion.

Totally agreed; it would totally suck to lose a point each from your Sword 23, Lance 21 and Horsemanship 21 simply because your DEX dropped by one. Especially since you wouldn't be getting it back even if you increased your DEX up again. DEX & APP should only adjust the defaults. As soon as you use the points, they become immune to being lowered if the underlying stat drops. This also keeps down the bookkeeping, since...

Yeah, as I said earlier it makes aging even worse than it is now, and hurts high attribute characters much more than it helps them, as the difference between 3 and 6 isn't as significant as the difference between 23 and 26 (or even between 13 and 16). 

1 minute ago, Morien said:

Easily done. Just have 'D/2' or simple 'D' on all DEX defaults and A/2 or A on all APP defaults. As soon as you use points or get experience raises, replace with a number. Done. Mind you, if the default value becomes higher than your raised value (unlikely, since this requires at least 3 DEX or APP raises after chargen), then I'd be fine letting the default value take over again: you are relying on your inborn abilities again, not so much chat you learned.

Yes, but easier just to ignore it. 

1 minute ago, Morien said:

Let's make Sword, Lance & Horsemanship start with (DEX/2)+5. That way, DEX 10 guy starts with skills at 10, but DEX 15 guy starts with skills at 13, gaining some benefit from those DEX points, but allowing the average DEX guy still qualify for knighthood. Alternatively, those 15 points could be extra skill points, allowing DEX 15 guy to focus on other skills than combat skills.

I like the 15 extra points-or maybe 3 extra picks, pick normal chargen. Probably need to do the same with First Aid, too. So we could give each character a few more picks, but probably suggest the 10's in the relevant knight skills, or just bring back qualification. 

1 minute ago, Morien said:

Speaking of, we could do the same with those non-combat skills at 10; instead make them default+5. And the one skill at 15 could be default+10, max 15, use the extra points for something else. This way, you don't 'waste' your default points.

Yup, althpough I think these could be treated just like a few more "picks" in standard KAP5 chargen. 

1 minute ago, Morien said:

Assuming they didn't use the stat as a dump stat, yes. I see this a bit more as a feature, since when the skill is 2-3, it is so difficult to succeed that the players don't often even bother to try, unless I prompt them to roll. Also, they seldom increase those skills, since even spending a yearly training means that they are still below 10. Having the defaults around 5 means that they can pick up new skills a bit more easily, and hence are more tempted to do so, than focus just on a couple of skills.

I agree. From what I've seen players quite reasonably don't rely on a skill or try to use if if the value is below 10, as they will normally fail. They might roll some skills when they are "freebies" to get a skill check here and there (like Recognize) , but generally speaking a 2-3 skill is practically useless. For example, nobody dives into the ocean to try and swim in rough seas if they have Swimming 2. Not unless their boat is sinking or something.