Depending on which edition of pendragon you use, you may use either DEX or Horsemanship for knockdown rolls when on horseback.
I find horsemanship is one of those skills that is very dependent on campaign for its importance.
In some games, it will be used only for knockdown; in those games, requiring DEX for knockdown rolls will rob horsemanship of its only useful purpose.
In other games, the GM will create lots of chases and hunts, encourage people to use horsemanship for things like escaping dangerous battles, or remounting when unhorsed, and create situations where horsemanship can be used out of combat, such as getting a frightened horse back into battle, or recognising which is the best horse to pick when you win a prize. In these games, you can remove horsemanship from knockdwon rules completely, and still have a very useful skill.

I try to make my games like the second option, but it doesn't always work out, so I use a compromise for knockdown rolls. I use one of the following two rules:

Horsemanship or DEX, whichever Lower
In this case, if you are naturally clumsy no ammount of horsemasnhip skill is going to keep you in the saddle. Skill is important only up to your natural ability.

Average Horsemanship and DEX
(Rounding up, btw.) This is the rule I use most often these days. A skilled rider stays in the saddle more often, as does someone with naturally high DEX, but both are important. Also, someone with Horsemanship 20 doesn't get glued to his saddle. But someone with 25 might, if he also has 15 DEX.

Average Horsemanship and DEX


This is what we use nowadays, pretty much because of the same reasoning as yours. It may become a bit problematic when you have knights with DEX 15 and Horsemanship 20, but hey, that is what you have a destrier for... (double the SIZ is automatic unhorsing). :)

I'd probably go for averaging the dex and horsemanship too.

I hope it's still on topic to add the possibility of knockdown on the mount as well as the rider.

The following occurs quite a lot in Malory:


So Sir Launcelot turned him, and either fewtred their spears, and came together with all their mights, and Sir Gaunter's spear brake, but Sir Launcelot smote him down, horse and man.

Malory, Morte D'Arthur, Book VI, Chapter XII

Checking the 5.1 edition stats a charger looks to be quite dexterous at 17, but at Siz 34 that still leaves the possibility of taking down both mount and rider on an average 6 dice critical! It's certainly there in the literature, and provisioned for in the rules.

An above average 6 dice crit could bring down a destrier if it failed dex.

Has anyone ever applied the knockdown rules to the knight's mounts as well in jousts?

And should the knights dex and horsemanship be used instead of the mounts own dex in cases like these?

When a player or an npc has rolled enough damage to inflict knockback on horse and rider, I usually describe the hrse going down too.
On a couple of occasions, a player or more likely NPC monster has rolled enough damage to kill a pc and major wound the horse - I sometimes then describe that as cutting through the horse too.

These events are infrequent enough that it's easy just to handwave them. Plus, when they happen, the rider is unhorsed or dead, so it's fun to describe the horse going down too.

That sounds like a good rule of thumb you have there Darren by adding the rider size to that of the mount, and some pretty graphic descriptions in the mix as well.

There'd generally be a greater chance of surviving such events in a Tournament with rebated weapons I'd guess, but I don't think many GMs would be willing to roll damage and calculate knockdown for all jousters in a multi-round tourney, rather than simply marking the higher lance roll down as a win and moving straight on to the next participants. So I guess the issue of a non-lethal horse and man knockdown wouldn't necessarily occur in general play.

When pondering horse Knockdown, it sounds like your saying the horse and rider both compare their stats against the damage rolled by their enemy. So, there's no need to target the horse or rider, there are consequences to BOTH of them, correct?


T.

I;m not saying you do that all the time, Taliesin, just when it's notable:

It's one of those descriptive tools you keep in mind to for things like:
* illustrating how strong and dangerous a particular foe is (if a giant hits someone, and wipes him out, he might as well knock the horse down and out too, to i8llustrate the danger the players are in if it hits them),
* reward a player for a particularly impressive attack, when they take someone out with massive damage. But equally often, I might describe how far the rider is hurled from the saddle. This are situations when the character is probably out of the battle (dead or unconscious) so describing extra effects to the horse is just gravy - it doesn't affect anything.

But for most situations, horse and rider knockback are independent events. If you want to knock the horse over, attack the horse.

Got it. Thanks!


T.