Okay, time for part two.

There are two issues I will tackle here, 1) stat-inflation, particularly SIZ-inflation and 2) (annual) Glory-inflation.

Stat-inflation, particularly SIZ-inflation
If NPC Knights were like PKs, Britain would overflow with knights with a SIZ of 20 or more. I don't know how many giant PKs I have seen in my 93-session KAP-campaign. This becomes rather ridiculous, after a while, in a world were average knights have a SIZ of 14 and good ones generally have 16 or 17.

The reason for this phenomenon is simple enough. SIZ provides HP, damage and makes a knight harder to knock down. It is the best, most important stat. Without a doubt. Especially so for old knight, for whom a high SIZ can compensate a lot when stats start to decrease.

I have also seen other blatant abuses of the glory bonus rules, such as Faerie half-blood knights with 7d6 in damage (they are supposed to be small and nimble, I know) or knights with DEX 25 (cool, in a way, but a "build" that appeared after I allowed the infamous Double Feint tactic).

The solution to this problem, is simple, though: rewrite the rules for glory bonuses (page 111) so that no stat may be increased above "cultural" max stat. Ever. In any way. So a Cymric knight would have a max stat line of 18 - 18 - 18 - 21 - 18, a Pict 15 - 21- 18 - 18 - 15, a Saxons 21 - 15 - 21 - 18 - 18, etc. Indeed, this is how the rule was written in the 5.0 rules. It should have stayed so in the 5.1 ed.

Let me be clear: I don't mind good PKs. But the glory bonus rule is broken, and it leads PKs that are too good and it leads to absurd consequence. With this change, you can still build very good PKs. But you can't build absurd, one sided PKs. A Cymric PK who has maxed out his stats is a pretty damn hard character. Stopping players from building SIZ 25 monsters isn't being niggardly, it's common sense.

Apart from stopping the epidemic of giantism, this simple change of the rules has another good effect: culture actually becomes meaningful. The restrictions or max score are pretty irrelevant at character creation. Sure, you could make an extreme Cymric build with CON 21 at age 21 or a Saxon with SIZ 21, DEX 8, STR 21, CON 8 and APP 5, but I think most such characters are pretty unplayable. But as the rules are written, once a PK is in play, culture matters no more. Want to make a STR 20 Pict? A SIZ 24 half Fae? A DEX 19 Saxon? No problem.

But if the rules are rewritten on the line above, culture will set limits even on the most heroic, high glory PKs. Pict can never have more than 5d6 damage, for example, and Cymric no more than 6d6. Only Saxons can achieve 7d6. But only Picts can have DEX 21, and be guaranteed to never fail a DEX roll. And so forth. And I think this is a GOOD THING as it makes cultures relevant, and the players choice of culture now becomes something very important.

So, bring us back the rules on glory bonus from the 5.0 ed.

(annual) Glory-inflation
Glory inflation is problematic, since it allows absurdly high stats, combat skills and more or less offset aging. In average, a PK will loose 1 stat point per year from aging, but a good character could easily have an annual glory of 400 or 500. Plus glory from play, typically 200 to 400 (but occasionally much more) means that glory alone will offset most of the effects of age. The first problem can be solved easily enough, along the lines suggested above. The second problem I think should not be solved. The third by making aging harsher, but also by keeping Glory in check.

Let me be clear: I don't mind PKs getting high glory, even to reach the levels of Lamorak and Gawaine. But PKs should reach high glory in the right way, i.e. through deeds (primarily), and not through virtue, or rather, their fathers virtue.

Second and third generation characters tend to start with 2000 - 4000 glory (knighthood + fathers glory). With an annual glory in the 400 - 500 range, they quickly reach famous status (8000), even if they just sit at home and mope. I have seen very many PKs in the 10000 - 15000 Glory range that pretty much never did anything significant or heroic in their lives. So there is a problem here.

Also, as a GM you can control the amount of Glory PKs get during play; but annual glory is to a large extent in the hands of the players, and how they build their characters. Sure, you could be niggardly with trait and passion checks, but I think that is a mistake. Players want to see their knights develop, and good role playing should be rewarded. Neither do I think that the rules for inheriting Glory, Traits and Passions should be amended. Again, this aspect of the game is something that players love, and it means that they can build characters to last a whole campaign.

What I do suggest, is that the rules for annual glory be amended.

Here are some thoughts.

1) Set a cap on annual Glory.

1a) This could be done in a brutal way, say max 250 Glory per year in annual Glory. Or you could do it like this:
Traits: max 100 Glory
Passions: max 50 Glory
Ideals: max 100 Glory
Land, castle, income and standard of living: 100 Glory.
Hence, no more than 350 Glory per year, and that can only be achieved through holding vast estates and castles. For most PKs max annual Glory would be 250 + a little from the manor and standard of living. This level, I feel, is the right level.

This is, however, a rather inelegant solution.

1b) No knight can gain more in annual Glory in a year than what he gains in play. This one is brutal against knights that aren't played regularly, but it stops the sit-and-home-and-become-famous-for-my-virtues-without-doing-squat-syndrome.

Again, I'm not sure I really like this rule.

Lets try another one:

2) Glory for ideals, land, castle, income and standard of living remains unchanged.
Traits and Passions generate Glory in a different way.
In the Winter Phase, a PK gets 25 (or 50?) Glory for each Check in a passion (Passions checks being rather rare, anyway), 10 for a Check in a Trait below 16 and 20 for a check in a Trait of 16 or more. The benefit of this system is that the GM controls checks, and thus can keep the level of Glory from Trait and Passions at a level he likes. Also, just being Just or Hating something don't make you famous. Only actually acting on those feelings gives glory. High Traits and Passions never used (and hence checked) gives no Glory.

This is a GOOD THING, I think.

This is the rule I would use if a started a new campaign today.

So let me now see you thrash it ... :P

I'm with you on both these points but I'm using different mechanisms to control them.

SIZ - This really is the uber stat. Unchecked, PKs would boost it at every opportunity because it has so many positives, as you point out. I use the -1 APP per + point of SIZ rule mentioned on Greg's site but with a few extra penalties. First SIZ increase gives a -1 APP, second gives another -1 APP and a distinguishing feature of "Heavy", 3rd point = -1 APP, -1 DEX and a distinguishing feature of overweight, 4th= -1 APP, -1 DEX and a distinguishing feature of "Obese". No increase allowed beyond 4 points be it glory bonus point or celestial intervention - 4s the limit. TBH my PKs have never gone for more than 1, just the perception of being fat or overweight puts them off.

On stat inflation in general I don't know why the aging cut off at 35 does not include glory bonus points too. I always assumed this to be the case until it was pointed out otherwise to me on the boards. I guess it might lead to a situation where people would tend to pump their stats from 20-35, not spending points on skills at all, because of the 35 cut off. It just seems a little ridiculous that you can defy aging to such a degree.

Glory inflation came to the fore recently when one of my PKs constructed a PK with both Chiv and Religious bonus from the start (damn that irks me). He was making something like 350+ per year just from being alive. As he doesn't get to play as often as the other players he purposely made his PK this way. We talked it through and agreed that any knight not in play would only gain a fraction of normal annual glory. Sitting at home on the manor does not tell the world about your chivalry, piety and general kick-arseness.

Glory inflation on the GMs part is another issue though. I sometimes find myself having to rein back on what I give out. It's very easy to give a bit more as an extra reward which then becomes the norm.

Not sure about the racial max limit. It sounds a bit *too* limiting, but would agree that some racial individuality should be maintained. I'm pretty certain Greg changed the rules to allow Winter Stat increases to break racial maximums but it's a rule I'm not keen on - I stick with the old one; only Glory bonus points can do it.

Keep 'em coming. What's next, the manor? An area I've think I've modded the most.

The short version: I disagree with your stat limits, and agree that annual glory needs to be curtailed for the most extreme characters. More details below.

Regarding stat maximums:
I agree with you about SIZ being the most important stat, which makes it easy to abuse, but disagree totally on limiting stats to maxima. One of the primary reasons glory exists is to allow players to become superhuman. Your example of the knight with DEX 25 and using double feint - exactly what the rules are meant to encourage. What that knight spent on DEX, others will have spent on Sword skill, or perhaps STR and SIZ. Also note: double feint has a -10 penalty, so that DEX 25 character is still going to waste 1/4 of his successful attacks. It's still a risky tactic.

Also faerie knights do get 7d6 damage - there's a wide variety of faeries, they aren't bound by human limits. Have a look at the faerie knight npc in the rulebook's monster section. It's fine for a player to match that (quite an achievement if you are using the latest set of faerie PC stat modifiers!).

In my campaign I did it another way, I altered the awards for glory as shown in this new thread: Alternate Glory Awards (http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1414), and the rate of glory as stated in Annual Glory Tweak (http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1415), and perhaps most important, the Relative Glory Awards (http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=1416) tweak. I've also discussed elswhere how I get my players to maintain a pool of characters, and force the occasional play of backups by tying them into plots, so the primary characters are not gedtting all the glory.
To get into the 8-12,000 glory range - most pc knights never managed it, but those that did were 35+. Aging was starting, children were growing up, so they'd likely have a few more years of glory before shifting focus.

I should point out: I like it when a player develops his knight to 7 or 8d6 damage (highest I've had was a saxon with 9d6, +1d6 for Wotanic bonus, +1d6 for 2h, and often an extra +1d6 for axe), or gets close to 50 hit points or whatever. It's more interesting than getting a 35 sword skill, and as powerful as they are, there's always something in pendragon that can take them down.

Glory inflation
See my other thread for another tweak, but I should point out:
You said a good character can easily gain 4-500 annual glory. in my experience this does happen from time to time, but is very much not the norm (more common later in the campaign when using trait inheritance). And I'd say, even then, Pramalot's example of 350 is more typical or very high annual glory characters.

Combine that with 200-400 annual, occasionally more, and you might get 1 glory per year, but maybe more likely 1 glory per 2 years (including fallow years, years the character didn't do well, and the more normal years). Either way, if the character is just managing to offset aging, this means the character is not improving. So, this is not a problem. It allows a player to reach a certain plateau and then stay there (or probbaly very, very slowly deteriorate). This I think is an intended part of the system. Some players will keep their old guys around, others will shift to younger characters. Those older guys are then forced to be played whenever the player can., because as soon as that knight takes a year off, the rot starts to set in. So, very likely, they'll switch to another younger character too at some point. I've seen this cycle happen many times.

The limits you suggest for annual glory categories are pretty sensible. In my last campaign, I did incorporate limits, because I was going for a ore "each glory point is individually important" feel (the above threads describe them) and my limits were kind of similar.

On stat inflation in general I don't know why the aging cut off at 35 does not include glory bonus points too. I always assumed this to be the case until it was pointed out otherwise to me on the boards. I guess it might lead to a situation where people would tend to pump their stats from 20-35, not spending points on skills at all, because of the 35 cut off. It just seems a little ridiculous that you can defy aging to such a degree.

Glory allows you to become superhuman, figures of legend. That is what it's for.


Glory inflation on the GMs part is another issue though. I sometimes find myself having to rein back on what I give out. It's very easy to give a bit more as an extra reward which then becomes the norm.

This is a good point. In my earlier campaigns I was often too generous. Then i went to a phase of being too stingy as a reaction to that. So finding a balance can be tricky. A good rule of thumb for me: if the players are getting to, say, 8,000 glory by the age of 30, they are probably getting it too fast. (The 510-520 mega-battle periodd being the exception to this rule). This also helps keep the inherited glory in check - I don't see characters being born with 3,000+ glory.

A good rule of thumb for me: if the players are getting to, say, 8,000 glory by the age of 30, they are probably getting it too fast.


I agree with this. My (very slow) game has featured about a dozen or so PKs over the first 20 years of the campaign and only one of those has breached the 8k glory threshold (and that has required him to be a paragon out of the gate and survive 20 campaign years of active play) - none of the others have come close, with perhaps a couple of the luckier characters surviving long enough to achieve 4k glory.

With regard to some of the concerns raised by the OP, I suspect many stem from using the character design method (with allocation of stats from a 60-point pool) that is the default system in the 5th edition rules. Coming as I do from the 2nd/3rd edition (I mentioned that my campaign was slow, right?) I have always used the random method for chargen, which IME blocks many of the 'character optimisation' issues at source.

Regards
Luke

That's a good point abut stats. When rolling for them, I do still see lots of glory being spent on SIZ, but since it rarely starts at 18 right off the bat, it doesn't egt into ridiculous levels quite as quickly. Also, if other stats are rolled very well, there is often a temptation to increase them instead of SIZ. Players like to push up or exceed the maxima.

Back to glory, I'd say the 'typical' age at which my players exceed 8,000 glory (for those that manage it) is somewhere around age 35-40. Usually it's a knight who has a fair bit of annual glory (20 years at 200 per year is 4000, plus knighting bonus or 1000, means only need to get 3000 in adventure - that's certainly achievable).

As a rule, when I'm planning adventures, I have in mind a glory target of 200-400 per player-knight, for completion of quests, defeat of all likely enemies, etc. 200 is probably more common than 400, and often players don't succeed all possible objectives. If the adventure I'm planning can give, say, 500 or more, I make sure the next couple of years are a bit lower or the adventure is really dangerous. So yes, right in the campaign planning, I am thinking long-term about what kind of glory the players will get.

STATS




On stat inflation in general I don't know why the aging cut off at 35 does not include glory bonus points too. I always assumed this to be the case until it was pointed out otherwise to me on the boards. I guess it might lead to a situation where people would tend to pump their stats from 20-35, not spending points on skills at all, because of the 35 cut off. It just seems a little ridiculous that you can defy aging to such a degree.
Glory allows you to become superhuman, figures of legend. That is what it's for.

I agree, to some extent. The question is: what is superhuman (see below)?

Darren, I think it would be harsh not to give players any way at all to combat aging (it would be too much like real life). I think the solution here is 1) to keep Glory in control and 2) to make the aging table harsher, perhaps far harsher, as suggested in my first thread.


Not sure about the racial max limit. It sounds a bit *too* limiting, but would agree that some racial individuality should be maintained. I'm pretty certain Greg changed the rules to allow Winter Stat increases to break racial maximums but it's a rule I'm not keen on - I stick with the old one; only Glory bonus points can do it.


I agree with you about SIZ being the most important stat, which makes it easy to abuse, but disagree totally on limiting stats to maxima. One of the primary reasons glory exists is to allow players to become superhuman. Your example of the knight with DEX 25 and using double feint - exactly what the rules are meant to encourage. What that knight spent on DEX, others will have spent on Sword skill, or perhaps STR and SIZ. Also note: double feint has a -10 penalty, so that DEX 25 character is still going to waste 1/4 of his successful attacks. It's still a risky tactic.

But I don't think they are too limiting. A character with SIZ 18, DEX 18, STR 18, CON 21 and APP 18 is awesome! And if you flick through the book NPC stats, very few of them have stats above their cultural max, and then only with a few points. Lancelot with all his Glory has a highest stat of 19! And he's the Knightly Paragon. It do not depend on super stats, or at least not SIZ 34, which Lancelot would have had if some of my players had played him. I don't think heroes need to be better than above.
And Double Feint should be outlawed!


With regard to some of the concerns raised by the OP, I suspect many stem from using the character design method (with allocation of stats from a 60-point pool) that is the default system in the 5th edition rules. Coming as I do from the 2nd/3rd edition (I mentioned that my campaign was slow, right?) I have always used the random method for chargen, which IME blocks many of the 'character optimisation' issues at source.

You are right … but: the problem with rolling is that the system produces too many unplayable characters. Also, it can become very unfair, with some players getting hopeless stats character after character, while other getting the equals of gods. And if a player rolls super stats with a son who has inherited an awesome personality, we get very close to a death proof super hero. Furthermore, it punished those players who doesn't min max but do have ideas about their characters. I player who thinks “Okay, that last one was big and strong, now I want someone quick and pretty” and then rolls DEX 9 and APP 8 won't be very happy. I started my campaign with random stats, but abandoned it; it was just too unfair.


I should point out: I like it when a player develops his knight to 7 or 8d6 damage (highest I've had was a saxon with 9d6, +1d6 for Wotanic bonus, +1d6 for 2h, and often an extra +1d6 for axe), or gets close to 50 hit points or whatever. It's more interesting than getting a 35 sword skill, and as powerful as they are, there's always something in pendragon that can take them down.

I gave up somewhere in the Boy King Era and just put a cap on combat skills at 25. My players agreed.

Clumsy, I know, but I saw no other solution. By then, however, Glory inflation was rife, and high combat skills mostly comes from Glory. So, over to that issue.


GLORY

Back to glory, I'd say the 'typical' age at which my players exceed 8,000 glory (for those that manage it) is somewhere around age 35-40. Usually it's a knight who has a fair bit of annual glory (20 years at 200 per year is 4000, plus knighting bonus or 1000, means only need to get 3000 in adventure - that's certainly achievable).
As a rule, when I'm planning adventures, I have in mind a glory target of 200-400 per player-knight, for completion of quests, defeat of all likely enemies, etc. 200 is probably more common than 400, and often players don't succeed all possible objectives. If the adventure I'm planning can give, say, 500 or more, I make sure the next couple of years are a bit lower or the adventure is really dangerous. So yes, right in the campaign planning, I am thinking long-term about what kind of glory the players will get.



You said a good character can easily gain 4-500 annual glory. in my experience this does happen from time to time, but is very much not the norm (more common later in the campaign when using trait inheritance). And I'd say, even then, Pramalot's example of 350 is more typical or very high annual glory characters.
Combine that with 200-400 annual, occasionally more, and you might get 1 glory per year, but maybe more likely 1 glory per 2 years (including fallow years, years the character didn't do well, and the more normal years). Either way, if the character is just managing to offset aging, this means the character is not improving. So, this is not a problem. It allows a player to reach a certain plateau and then stay there (or probbaly very, very slowly deteriorate). This I think is an intended part of the system. Some players will keep their old guys around, others will shift to younger characters. Those older guys are then forced to be played whenever the player can., because as soon as that knight takes a year off, the rot starts to set in. So, very likely, they'll switch to another younger character too at some point. I've seen this cycle happen many times.


I agree with this. My (very slow) game has featured about a dozen or so PKs over the first 20 years of the campaign and only one of those has breached the 8k glory threshold (and that has required him to be a paragon out of the gate and survive 20 campaign years of active play) - none of the others have come close, with perhaps a couple of the luckier characters surviving long enough to achieve 4k glory.


Glory inflation on the GMs part is another issue though. I sometimes find myself having to rein back on what I give out. It's very easy to give a bit more as an extra reward which then becomes the norm.

I think that this is the correct level to aim at – 200 to 400 Glory a year; and 8000 in Glory being reach in a PKs 30ies. Congrats, if you can keep this level.

It took me a while to figure out the right amount of in game Glory per year, and I do feel I have learned to avoid a Game master induced Glory inflation. But it becomes hard to keep that level with PKs that have an annual Glory of 500 … So were are back to the problem of controlling annual Glory. The basic system is too generous, and needs to be reined in.

Glory inflation, is, by the way, another good argument to stick to the one-year-per-session-rule; multi session years tend to lead to more Glory.


The limits you suggest for annual glory categories are pretty sensible. In my last campaign, I did incorporate limits, because I was going for a ore "each glory point is individually important" feel (the above threads describe them) and my limits were kind of similar.

That's the feeling I'd like my players to have too. But I failed in my last campaign. I do think that I was a bit too generous with checks in Traits and Passions in my campaign, especially in the beginning, but even if I had been more conservative I think that it was only a matter of time before some of my players had built very high annual Glory PKs anyway. I think a combination of few checks, control of gaming session glory and some system to keep annual Glory in check solves the Glory inflation problem - and with that I also think that many problems with extreme combat skills disappears.


Manors


Keep 'em coming. What's next, the manor? An area I've think I've modded the most.


Yep. I don't have a full system, but I have some thoughts. In part Three ...

But I don't think they are too limiting. A character with SIZ 18, DEX 18, STR 18, CON 21 and APP 18 is awesome! And if you flick through the book NPC stats, very few of them have stats above their cultural max, and then only with a few points. Lancelot with all his Glory has a highest stat of 19! And he's the Knightly Paragon. It do not depend on super stats, or at least not SIZ 34, which Lancelot would have had if some of my players had played him. I don't think heroes need to be better than above.


I don't like that NPC book. Exactly why the NPCs are designed so weakly is beyond me. It gives a lot of useful detail on nice characters, but doesn't do a very good job of matching them to the Pendragon system. Let me share with you the stats of Lancelot in 1st/3rd/4th edition:

Lancelot, 1st edition:
SIZ 18, DEX 18, STR 40, CON 21, APP 18, Lance 40, Horsemanship 40, Sword 25.
Note: 10d6 damage, and faerie chain which gave him 18 Armour, +6 for shield, plus 3 for chivalry (though that came from Christian Religion back then).
Let's not forget his large range of 16-20+ passions, many other skills at high range.
Now that is a paragon.

Lancelot changes a little in 3rd/4th edition:
SIZ 15, STR 30, CON 21, Lance 39, Horsemanship 39, Sword 30.
He has dropped to 8d6 damage, but his sword skill has increased.

Other heroic knights, like Lamorak (DEX in mid to upper 20's - clearly designed to use Double Feint), Tristram (SIZ 27, STR 24, 9d6 damage!), Gawaine (a powerful special ability that means his damage varies over the course of the day between 6d6 and 12d6 - don't fight him at noon!). Lesser great knights like Marhaus, Pellinore and so on, where more impressive in earlier editions, too, though not quite so extreme.

It's these kind of stats I measure my PCs against, not the anemic stats in the NPC book.

With regard to some of the concerns raised by the OP, I suspect many stem from using the character design method (with allocation of stats from a 60-point pool) that is the default system in the 5th edition rules. Coming as I do from the 2nd/3rd edition (I mentioned that my campaign was slow, right?) I have always used the random method for chargen, which IME blocks many of the 'character optimisation' issues at source.

You are right … but: the problem with rolling is that the system produces too many unplayable characters. Also, it can become very unfair, with some players getting hopeless stats character after character, while other getting the equals of gods. And if a player rolls super stats with a son who has inherited an awesome personality, we get very close to a death proof super hero.

I agree with you. My stat roll systems always have some inherent balancing factor, cutting down on the extremes at both ends.

Furthermore, it punished those players who doesn't min max but do have ideas about their characters. I player who thinks “Okay, that last one was big and strong, now I want someone quick and pretty” and then rolls DEX 9 and APP 8 won't be very happy. I started my campaign with random stats, but abandoned it; it was just too unfair.

I depart with you here. I find over the length of the campaign, players will have the opportunity to design a lot of characters each, and given free choice, their characters will start to look very similar (with the occasion radical departure just to break up the tedium). But I have also used systems which require players to roll their stats or traits, but then have some freedom to shift the rolls about. You rolled high on DEX and low on STR, but your last character was the same and you want something different? just swap those stats around.



I should point out: I like it when a player develops his knight to 7 or 8d6 damage (highest I've had was a saxon with 9d6, +1d6 for Wotanic bonus, +1d6 for 2h, and often an extra +1d6 for axe), or gets close to 50 hit points or whatever. It's more interesting than getting a 35 sword skill, and as powerful as they are, there's always something in pendragon that can take them down.

I gave up somewhere in the Boy King Era and just put a cap on combat skills at 25. My players agreed.

I've played with a GM who did the same (he had a stricter limit, like 20+1 per 4,000 glory). Did you find it reduced the differences between characters? Also, by limiting players from taking stats above 18, aren't you giving them fewer places to spend glory on, and increasing the likelihood that they will all end up with 25 Sword (or other weapon)?

Consider also: changing the rule for criticals and tweaking the underlying dice roll system can allow you to let players continue to develop skills above 25 without it breaking the game. Then you wouldn't have to limit them, and players interested in combat power have viable choices between, say, increasing stats, passions, or sword/weapons. No one approach is much better than the others.
<snip>

But I failed in my last campaign. I do think that I was a bit too generous with checks in Traits and Passions in my campaign, especially in the beginning, but even if I had been more conservative I think that it was only a matter of time before some of my players had built very high annual Glory PKs anyway. I think a combination of few checks, control of gaming session glory and some system to keep annual Glory in check solves the Glory inflation problem - and with that I also think that many problems with extreme combat skills disappears.

It does become a lot less of an issue. Also, it makes the problem with high stats go away too. If you have players getting 1 glory per 2-3 years, and again at an average around 1 stat per year (with some years 3 or 4 of course), it takes its toll. Players who don't seem to be suffering, because they are getting enough glory to offset aging losses (for a while) are still suffering - because other players could be playing younger characters who are actually advancing, not staying static. And when that old character suffers a couple of years where they sufer 2-4 points each year, the player will often get disheartened and decided to retire the character. So, aging does not need to be more savage than it is at present to serve its purpose. That's been my experience anyway.

I don't like that NPC book. Exactly why the NPCs are designed so weakly is beyond me. It gives a lot of useful detail on nice characters, but doesn't do a very good job of matching them to the Pendragon system. Let me share with you the stats of Lancelot in 1st/3rd/4th edition:

Lancelot, 1st edition:
SIZ 18, DEX 18, STR 40, CON 21, APP 18, Lance 40, Horsemanship 40, Sword 25.
Note: 10d6 damage, and faerie chain which gave him 18 Armour, +6 for shield, plus 3 for chivalry (though that came from Christian Religion back then).
Let's not forget his large range of 16-20+ passions, many other skills at high range.
Now that is a paragon.

Lancelot changes a little in 3rd/4th edition:
SIZ 15, STR 30, CON 21, Lance 39, Horsemanship 39, Sword 30.
He has dropped to 8d6 damage, but his sword skill has increased.

Other heroic knights, like Lamorak (DEX in mid to upper 20's - clearly designed to use Double Feint), Tristram (SIZ 27, STR 24, 9d6 damage!), Gawaine (a powerful special ability that means his damage varies over the course of the day between 6d6 and 12d6 - don't fight him at noon!). Lesser great knights like Marhaus, Pellinore and so on, where more impressive in earlier editions, too, though not quite so extreme.

It's these kind of stats I measure my PCs against, not the anemic stats in the NPC book.


Well, I don’t like that book either, but I have no beef with the stats, which I find quite reasonable. I do not think that the greatness of those knights lies in having Superman stats. I don’t like their traits and passions, which are often rather bland.

Actually, Lancelot has a STR of 20 in the 4th editions, and a magic shield that doubles his strength. Again, not super stats.



I agree with you. My stat roll systems always have some inherent balancing factor, cutting down on the extremes at both ends.

(…)

But I have also used systems which require players to roll their stats or traits, but then have some freedom to shift the rolls about. You rolled high on DEX and low on STR, but your last character was the same and you want something different? just swap those stats around.

But if rolling stats produces so large problems that you need a set of ad hoc rules just to give PKs that can survive and players some choice, why not just let them buy their stats from the beginning, thus avoiding the unfairness of bad and good rolls? I can take it if players design characters that have similar stats; that’s not as defining as traits and passions which tend to be very varied in my experience. So I’ll stick to the points system. Its fair and it gives players control.


I should point out: I like it when a player develops his knight to 7 or 8d6 damage (highest I've had was a saxon with 9d6, +1d6 for Wotanic bonus, +1d6 for 2h, and often an extra +1d6 for axe), or gets close to 50 hit points or whatever. It's more interesting than getting a 35 sword skill, and as powerful as they are, there's always something in pendragon that can take them down.


I've played with a GM who did the same (he had a stricter limit, like 20+1 per 4,000 glory). Did you find it reduced the differences between characters? Also, by limiting players from taking stats above 18, aren't you giving them fewer places to spend glory on, and increasing the likelihood that they will all end up with 25 Sword (or other weapon)?

Well, that’s true. Nothing is more boring than Sword 30+. And no one is safe. But I think that the best way to combat those Sword 30+ knight is to give less Glory and make aging harsher.



It does become a lot less of an issue. Also, it makes the problem with high stats go away too. If you have players getting 1 glory per 2-3 years, and again at an average around 1 stat per year (with some years 3 or 4 of course), it takes its toll. Players who don't seem to be suffering, because they are getting enough glory to offset aging losses (for a while) are still suffering - because other players could be playing younger characters who are actually advancing, not staying static. And when that old character suffers a couple of years where they sufer 2-4 points each year, the player will often get disheartened and decided to retire the character. So, aging does not need to be more savage than it is at present to serve its purpose. That's been my experience anyway.

I think we are in agreement that 250 to 500 Glory in total per year is a good level. I would say that 333 Glory in average is what the system is construed to handle.

But in my experience, players are very reluctant to retire PKs. And reluctant to go out with a bang. This is because I allowed multiple characters. Next time I think I shall be stricter, forcing players to play the old guys until the fall in combat. (This might also be an incentive not to build those über-characters; if a player knows that he can't play the son until the father dies, he might not be so prone to building a monster).

Lancelot, 1st edition:
SIZ 18, DEX 18, STR 40, CON 21, APP 18, Lance 40, Horsemanship 40, Sword 25.
Note: 10d6 damage, and faerie chain which gave him 18 Armour, +6 for shield, plus 3 for chivalry (though that came from Christian Religion back then).
Let's not forget his large range of 16-20+ passions, many other skills at high range.
Now that is a paragon.

Lancelot changes a little in 3rd/4th edition:
SIZ 15, STR 30, CON 21, Lance 39, Horsemanship 39, Sword 30.
He has dropped to 8d6 damage, but his sword skill has increased.

Other heroic knights, like Lamorak (DEX in mid to upper 20's - clearly designed to use Double Feint), Tristram (SIZ 27, STR 24, 9d6 damage!), Gawaine (a powerful special ability that means his damage varies over the course of the day between 6d6 and 12d6 - don't fight him at noon!). Lesser great knights like Marhaus, Pellinore and so on, where more impressive in earlier editions, too, though not quite so extreme.

It's these kind of stats I measure my PCs against, not the anemic stats in the NPC book.


Actually, Lancelot has a STR of 20 in the 4th editions, and a magic shield that doubles his strength. Again, not super stats.
Yes, you're right. My bad. 1st edition has the stats I stated. 3rd edition has the STR 30, and I remember the STR 20+ shield so that must have been 4th edition.



I agree with you. My stat roll systems always have some inherent balancing factor, cutting down on the extremes at both ends.

(…)

But I have also used systems which require players to roll their stats or traits, but then have some freedom to shift the rolls about. You rolled high on DEX and low on STR, but your last character was the same and you want something different? just swap those stats around.

But if rolling stats produces so large problems that you need a set of ad hoc rules just to give PKs that can survive and players some choice, why not just let them buy their stats from the beginning, thus avoiding the unfairness of bad and good rolls? I can take it if players design characters that have similar stats; that’s not as defining as traits and passions which tend to be very varied in my experience. So I’ll stick to the points system. Its fair and it gives players control. [/quote]

When players routinely have a stable of a half dozen characters each, and will design easily a dozen or more characters pver the course of a campaign, random chargen avoids saying the same stats picked over and over again. Pendragon has too few core physical stats for choice to generate much variety. The dice are therefore being used to provide variety, not raw power. It's just another wayt o get roughly the same balance in characters, without relying on choice.
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But in my experience, players are very reluctant to retire PKs. And reluctant to go out with a bang. This is because I allowed multiple characters. Next time I think I shall be stricter, forcing players to play the old guys until the fall in combat. (This might also be an incentive not to build those über-characters; if a player knows that he can't play the son until the father dies, he might not be so prone to building a monster).


Well, it's not usually their choice whether they go out with a bang. Your experience is different from mine. If adventures have some level of risk, it just happens every now and then. I dnt think forcing players to stick with the same character will make your characters more willing to retire PKs. It will makew them more invested in those characters, and more reluctant to retire them, because if they do retire they have to start from scratch all over again.
I routinely have my players have at least 2, often more (especially in later generations when players have had time to establish more than one family, and are having multiple children come of age), and I find players naturally get invested in some characters more than others, but the avilability of extra characters softens the blow when an experienced character dies. They are also more willing to retire a character (esp. when they start suffering from aging), because they have alternates who have developed a bit of experience.
I find when players have multiple characters, and their old experienced guy starts taking even minor aging or major wound losses, some players will be happy to retire him and bring in a younger, fitter character.

I do suspect though that the reason your players were reluctant to retire their characters is probably not from the fact they had multiple characters. I don't know why it is, maybe its just a peculiarity of those players that no matter what, they are going to try to stick with one character. Maybe it's just that they haven't got used to Pendragon's life cycle yet.