I have often had a few problems with glory bonuses:
* SIZ is too popular (and justifiably so)
* Increasing weapon skill is better than any other benefit - and yet increasing low skills is pretty crap
* Personality traits and passions are often ignored (unless racing for chivbalry or religious) because the bonuses gained are easily lost.

So, I used the following bonuses.

Each point of glory buys you one of
* +1 to SIZ
* +2 to any other stat
* +1 to your highest weapon skill (this is weapons only, inc. Lance, but not Battle, Horse, Siege)
* +2 to any other skill (cannot take a weapon skil to the same level as your highest weapon skill)
* +1 to a Passion
* +2 to a Personality Trait

I also set a maximum level which no stat, passion, or trait could exceed, which was 20 + 1 per 2,000 Glory. This wasn't meant to limit most characters, just to curtail the most extreme possibilities. Note that most characters below about 8,000 glory can't even reach the maximum.

I combined this with the Annual Glory tweak in this thread:

This meant that the average glory per year went down, but each glory point meant more. It also meant that I didn't feel the need to say, "please don't buy SIZ again" or "you could spend glory somewhere other than sword you know". I could feel happy letting players spend glory exactly where they wanted, and encourage them to go for what would make their character more powerful.

This system was created to enable players to have the characters they wanted to play (it was easier to get religious bonus or chivalry if they wanted them, or to boost DEX for double feint or CON for hit points, or STR for pure damage) and not feel it was wasted.

Interesting, Darren.

I have not had that many problems with SIZ inflation, but the other two points are quite familiar to me. Granted, I feel this must be combined with some kind of Glory rate tweak (like you point out). In our campaign(s) the usual Glory sink has been stats when they have gone down due to a Major Wound, especially when they drop from the damage threshold due to a point lost from SIZ or STR. This is then patched up by Glory. The other one has tended to be the Sword Skill, although occasionally we have seen Battle Skill being raised, or a trait to get Chivalric/Religious.

Then again, the highest glory a PK has gained was one knight with around 18000 Glory and Sword 28. He did only 5d6, but that didn't matter since he was rolling criticals almost half the time. But that was in the Good Old Days of the 4th ed Battle system, which added a group modifier to the skills and thus tended to ensure that in battle, you either critted or were critted against. So lots of glory or a major wound.

I very much like the +2 for traits, and may steal that for our campaign. As for the rest, I will need to mull them a bit. Something like +2 for non-combat skills up to 20 and +1 after that, and combat skills at +1 (non-lance secondary weapon skills at +2; the bang is limited by the fact that you can only use one can-opener at a time, so might as well encourage spreading it around). As for stats, I might go for +2 up to 15, and +1 after that (with SIZ always +1; hardly a limit as all as most PK builds have SIZ 16+). This is even without introducing any Glory-tweak, but like I said, I will need to think about this for a bit.

I very much like the +2 for traits, and may steal that for our campaign. As for the rest, I will need to mull them a bit. Something like +2 for non-combat skills up to 20 and +1 after that, and combat skills at +1 (non-lance secondary weapon skills at +2; the bang is limited by the fact that you can only use one can-opener at a time, so might as well encourage spreading it around).


I'm glad you think it's worth thinking about!
My original version did have +2 for non-combat skills and combat skills to 20, and +1 thereafter. But I found it's nice to have, say, characters with 25 hunting skill, or 27 flirting, or whatever. Players can get those kinds of skills with the family charactereistic, and I found it's nice to be able to get other skills to the same levels.

Plus, allowing +2 for secondary combat skills encouraged players to actually develop second weapons at high levels, rather than concentrating on the first. If a knight has raised his sword skill to 27, say, does it really unbalance things to also allow him to raise a second skill to 20+ levels? He's still going to be using sword most of the time, but every now and then he'll switch to another weapon that he is isn't as good with, which is a lot less likely to happen if that secondary weapon is stuck below 20.

My original version did have +2 for non-combat skills and combat skills to 20, and +1 thereafter. But I found it's nice to have, say, characters with 25 hunting skill, or 27 flirting, or whatever. Players can get those kinds of skills with the family charactereistic, and I found it's nice to be able to get other skills to the same levels.


I can see that, but I am a bit worried about very high Battle and Horsemanship, both of which at 20+ are quite powerful (especially Battle, as we tend to have some big (foreign) battles from time to time even during Pax Arthuriana).

I don't think a Courtesy 24 would wreck the game any more than Courtesy 22, to be honest. And less than Battle 22, I'd say. So yeah, consider me convinced to have:
Non-combat skills: +2 per glory point
Battle, Horsemanship: +2 up to 20, +1 after that
Main Weapon, Lance: +1 per glory point
Secondary (non-lance) weapon: +2 up to Main Weapon



Plus, allowing +2 for secondary combat skills encouraged players to actually develop second weapons at high levels, rather than concentrating on the first. If a knight has raised his sword skill to 27, say, does it really unbalance things to also allow him to raise a second skill to 20+ levels? He's still going to be using sword most of the time, but every now and then he'll switch to another weapon that he is isn't as good with, which is a lot less likely to happen if that secondary weapon is stuck below 20.


Yes, that was my reasoning as well, although I think I'd have Lance as the special case, as it occupies a different niche (and a very important niche at that, wrt tournaments and challenges) than the sword. A knight with Sword 25 and Axe 24 is a lot less able to rock the boat than a knight with Sword 25 and Lance 24.

You make good points, and I agree with your reasoning.
The main reason I don't want to use different structures for battle, lance, etc., is just its extra special cases. I want to keep it as simple as possible.

I'd restructure your costs as:
Non-combat skills: +2 per glory point
Highest Combat Skill: +2 up to 20, +1 after that
Secondary Combat Skills: +2 up to Main Weapon*
with Combat skills defined as Battle, Horsemanship, Weapons, and Lance.

Though simplicity might mean this is superior (and seems closer to your goal):
Non-combat skills: +2 per glory point
All Combat Skills: +2 up to 20, +1 after that

Bear in mind I'm coming from this with a view that players aren't going to get a massive amount of glory. They'll be in their late 30's at least by the time they get 8,000, if they live that long.
So, getting +2 to Battle or Lance isn't too much of a problem: the player has to raise it to 20 first to get the full benefit from it, and then to keep getting +2 also has to have another skill higher, and each point of glory spent on Battle or Lance, could instead be being spent on that other high skill. I doubt you'll see many players getting, for instance, 25 sword, 24 lance, and 22 battle. They'll have to spend a fair few years practice (or glory) to get each of those skills to 20 first, and then its at least another 8,000 glory to get those levels.

If a player has, say, Sword 23, Lance 17, he has a choice of raising lance or battle by 2, or sword by 1. If lance and sword both cost 1 glory point for +1, then he will nearly always choose sword: if he can get +2 from glory, some of the time he'll spend on Lance instead.

Though simplicity might mean this is superior (and seems closer to your goal):
Non-combat skills: +2 per glory point
All Combat Skills: +2 up to 20, +1 after that

I doubt you'll see many players getting, for instance, 25 sword, 24 lance, and 22 battle. They'll have to spend a fair few years practice (or glory) to get each of those skills to 20 first, and then its at least another 8,000 glory to get those levels.


Good enough, although I would add the secondary melee weapon clause (+2 up to the main weapon) just to encourage point spreading.

It is not Sword 25, Lance 24, Battle 22 knight that I am (that) worried about, but the Sword 20, Lance 20, Battle 36 knight (using your original +1 to main weapon, +2 secondary weapon, +2 non-weapon skills = 8 Glory points above 20 => Battle 20+16). I don't have a big problem of Glory being more useful at low levels, either. I'd be fine allowing a player to turn it into 5 points that he can divide to his low (<15) skills (equivalent to the yearly training).

Under that simplified system in above, Sword 25, Lance 24, Battle 22 knight would need at least 11 000 Glory, and likely much more since he probably didn't start with 20 in all of those. So likely closer to Glory 20 000 knight. So this is more or less a non-threat, in my campaign (the highest glory to date is little shy of 19000 and that includes a heroic death at Badon Hill).

I do give out a bit more Glory than you do, apparently, since looking over the character sheets, I see several characters close or over that 8000 Glory mark who are in their late 20s or just turned thirty. And that includes two who were retired for a couple of years already. The previous case was 35 years old when he dies at Badon Hill, and had he not died there, there was little that could have stopped him (Sword 28 or so) from gaining another 10000 on top of that. But yeah. I need to be prepared to see knights clocking over 10000 during the campaign, and pretty soon, too. ('16000 is the new 8000, doncherknow?' Which reminds me to update the Glory requirements for the Round Table. :P You wouldn't believe the riffraff they are letting in nowadays...)

It is not Sword 25, Lance 24, Battle 22 knight that I am (that) worried about, but the Sword 20, Lance 20, Battle 36 knight (using your original +1 to main weapon, +2 secondary weapon, +2 non-weapon skills = 8 Glory points above 20 => Battle 20+16). I don't have a big problem of Glory being more useful at low levels, either. I'd be fine allowing a player to turn it into 5 points that he can divide to his low (<15) skills (equivalent to the yearly training).

I can see whhy that would be worrying! I did mention a maximum rating level you missed: nothing can be increased beyond 20+Glory/1000. So, that 8,000 glory character could have at best 28 Battle, even with +2 per glory bonus (it might be got there with as little as 4 glory though would probably take 5-6- but i take your point, battle should be treated like a weapon skill).


I do give out a bit more Glory than you do, apparently, since looking over the character sheets, I see several characters close or over that 8000 Glory mark who are in their late 20s or just turned thirty. And that includes two who were retired for a couple of years already. The previous case was 35 years old when he dies at Badon Hill, and had he not died there, there was little that could have stopped him (Sword 28 or so) from gaining another 10000 on top of that. But yeah. I need to be prepared to see knights clocking over 10000 during the campaign, and pretty soon, too. ('16000 is the new 8000, doncherknow?' Which reminds me to update the Glory requirements for the Round Table. :P You wouldn't believe the riffraff they are letting in nowadays...)

When I'm playing characters through the 510-518 period, I also see characters get to 8-12,000 glory quicker than my earlier post described, but that is a very glory-rich period, I don't think it's matched at any other time of the campaign. Do you find your knights gained more duirng this period than they did during the anarchy before hand?

Re: Limit. Yes, you are right, I forgot about that. Still, Battle 28 is nothing to sneeze at, like you pointed out yourself. :)

Re: Glory progression. The characters I am talking now are post-Badon... two (highest-Glory ones) started in the Roman War, but spent a couple of years in retirement (one is still retirement, one was brought back to play). The newcomer started afterwards in 531, without famous parents, and is already around 7700 Glory after 6 years of gametime. So yeah, I probably need to slow down a bit with the glory! (In my defense, we have been playing like one long adventure per year plus a battle in France, in addition to the regular yearly glory. And that included saving Arthur from Camille, which was worth lots of Glory.)

Hmm, I was checking one of the better documented previous knights, and he went from ~6000 in Spring 514 to ~10000 to Spring 518, so about 1000 Glory / yr . However, that already includes joining the Round Table (1000). Most of rest is battle glory, especially in 517. And judging from the fact that he 'started' in 510 (actually in 511, but we backdated the char to 505 to make him more comparable with then-current chars and gave him some average glory for the battles of 510) with about 1500 glory, he did the same running up with ~1000 Glory / yr to 514. (Heroic death at the final night of Badon left him in around ~13000 Glory, so he was doing rather well in 518... other than ending up dead, that is.)

The Roman War was pretty sweet Glory-wise, too. I see one of our knights collected ~1300 battle glory (alone) in 526, and another ~450 battle glory in 527. This in addition to all the other side quests and yearly glory.

Battles are great for glory - if you survive them :)

In my first campaign, I used to run long multi-session adventures, and give lots of glory. These days I still do that, but break them up with shorter years, and also keep a close eye on the glory awards. I find I give lots of 10 and 20 point awards for various things, but 100-point awards are pretty rare (culimnation of important quests aside).