Hi,
I just got the french 5.1ed and I think I'm going to add a light house change to the damage system. I enjoy systems where the quality of the roll has some consequences, it's not just fail / success and fumble / critical to expand.

My mod would be to grant a bonus to damage equal to the difference between the rolls.
PK1 rolls 14 while PK2 rolls 10, there's a +4 damage. it's simple enough that my players should be able to do the maths without slowing down the fight.
If PK1 rolls 14 but PK2 rolls a fail, then it would be a +14 damage and that's maybe too much, it's like an average 4d6 bonus, but then a critical gives this kind of bonus and even more, according to the player's stats.
So it would just make damage more progressive and the jump between a normal success and a critical would be less of a jump and more of a next step, while depending on the quality of the roll of your opponent.
I like the fact that how much damage you inflict does not only depend of your skill but also of your opponent.

Still the PK are new and it's the first phase and I'm wondering how this would scale with the increase of skill and later armor if we make it to the next phases of the campaign. And there's also the scaling with skill getting up far higher than 20, which is not my problem right now since PK are fresh from chargen, but soon enough with a bit of glory and maybe an inspiring passion, I will have to deal with skill higher than 20.
Since there seems to be an healthy forum about houserules, I thought I could be prudent and ask how this would cause some issues, un-balance, abuse and so on, according to more experienced players ?

Firstly, I think combat in Pendragon is probably deadly enough as it is. Especially during early phases, when all you have is a norman chain mail (10) and a shield (6). And you tend to fight against Saxons doing 5d6, with the shield only protecting 1d6 (due to Saxons using axes). So even if you do get your shield in between, you are still taking a few points of damage on an average roll, and without a shield, a Major Wound is a possibility even without a critical.

Secondly, there is already a 'damage threshold' in place due to the skill of the opponent: a partial success gives you the shield armor bonus, which is about equivalent to -2d6 to enemy damage.

But if you wish to make it even more deadly, then here is one option... If your skill success is ten or more higher than your opponent's, then you do additional 2d6 of damage.

Note that this makes combat much much more deadly, especially for low skill characters, who might actually miss their roll (failure = 0). And it makes major wounds much more common. Now, opinions vary in this Forum as well, but like I say in the beginning, I find Pendragon deadly enough, and most of our house rules have been towards making it a bit less deadly in general, to cut down on those 'random knight challence, oops, a critical, you are dead'.

Anyway, using that above house rule suggestion, the fight could go like this (assuming two knights with norman chain, shields and swords, 5d6 damage, skill 15):
A rolls 8, B rolls 16: A does 5d6 points of damage for an average of 7 points after armor
A rolls 8, B rolls 6: A does 5d6 points of damage, and an average of 1 point after armor+shield
A rolls 13, B rolls 17: A does a whopping 7d6 damage, for an average of 14 points after armor, a potential major wound
A rolls 13, B rolls 3: A does 7d6 again, B gets shield, so about 8 points goes through.

Indeed I don't want combat to become deadlier and that could be an unintended consequence. Especially with new players, it can be frustrating. It's just that my group likes to have a little to qualify each roll, it has been helping the players to visualize the combat and describe it if specific rolls have different consequences, even if the difference is light.
So to avoid it making it too deadly, I could also reduce all base damage ? A character who should be doing 5d6 would be reduced to 4d6 or even 3d6. I'll have to test that. It would mean taht an unskilled character would have a hard time inflicting damage to an armored character, which I guess is fine by me.
I'm also thinking of moving from a random damage system to a stable one, a character with 5d6 would be a character with 12 damage (lower than the average since the bonus from the difference will add to that).
Sorry if that's not clear I'm thinking of the possibilities and how to get the best without having to do too much rebalancing of a system I don't know that well (yet!).

Don't make it more complex. If you want to do house rules in combat - make such that reduce complexity (and rolls) not add to it.


You want combat mechanics that is fast and easy so that you can concentrate on the RPG aspect of combat.




With that said let's test your idea, I'll assume 12 damage + progressive bonus. Also assuming shields are still used as per basic rules.

First lets make up 3 'grades' of knights:
A have a skill of 25. B have a skill of 15. C have a skill of 5.

Start with two C knights.
They would never land any heavy hits at all. Instead it will be a tedious, boring slooooooow descent until one side falls.
The damage will be 12+ ~3=15 minus an average armor of 12, is 3HP. So about 6 hits to take out a knight. With both succeeding nothing happens it must be only success vs miss hits. That is about 1 in 5 rolls, so about 5*6*2=60 combat rounds on average. with the end never being death - but always unconscious.

Two B knights.
Here your system works, kinda. Sometimes you might even land a major wound.
There is a ~19% chance of a hit vs miss of 12+15=27 minus 12 = 15HP. So sometimes you could even do major damage.

Two A knights.
Since they never fail they always get shield, but in your system that means never full damage as well.
So here it is always 12+shield=18 in armor. So you have to roll 7 more than the opponent to do 1hp. Which eliminates about ~60% of all rolls (them being too close). A hit that wold do more that 24 damage would be a high roll vs low roll so about ~20%. Leaving the remaining ~20% as smallchange hits.

Then in the case of an A vs a bunch of Cs, the Cs can never do any damage - at all.
In the case of an A vs a bunch of Bs, well it depends how you handle the 5 above 20 thing but if we assume a projection of your system to handle this as +5 to the A roll, then a B can do a max of 12+9 damage one out of four hundred rolls. So about a ~5% chance to do any damage at all. But their ability to do any major damage is gone.

etc

Or to summarize - you have to roll more to get less results - lower tier vs upper tier is no longer improbable, its impossible - plus you have completely removed death as a possible outcome of battle.
Take it from someone who tinkers a lot with game systems - keep the pendragon system as it is. don't tinker with houserules until after you have played at least 10+ fights with mixed tiers/monsters.

Tinkering is how I learn, usually I break stuff or they explode on me and then I understand why I shouldn't have done that and how to, maybe, fine tune instead of distort. But hey I'm making progress, now I'm asking beforehand if it's gonna explode.
So I know the reasonable behaviour is to test the system extensively and then, maybe, houserule a few things.

I don't think the complexity is the problem, there's less rolls to be made by attack and a small bonus to add can be done by an average player.
The main problem is what is shown by the simulations. Super-lengthy fights between low-skilled characters and a really big advantage to "A" knights versus "B" knights. It's not complexity it's boring and it kills challenges.
Even if, in the case of A versus a bunch of B, A would have to split his skill, making it possible to hit him.
And a skill of 5 is really low, NPC from the rulebook have at least 8 in their combat skill and that's a peasant with a mace, if he has a club he only does 2d6 damage, no chance at all to inflict damage to a mailed knight, except on a crit. I'm not sure I'd be bothered by a system where a lone peasant could not win against a rested, equiped knight, a group is another story of course and a lone knight in a riot "jacquerie" should be in danger if, for whatever reasons, the group is after him.

I'll keep looking but I'll try to give it more simulations with mixed characters.

Indeed I don't want combat to become deadlier and that could be an unintended consequence.


Your system means that every damage roll will be increased - from 1 point to 20 points. The system is much deadlier.
If you use this system, you should reduce base damage to compensate.
Also, what happens to criticals? They already double damage - and get a bonus too? (Or arer you doing away with criticals?)

I'd go with the earlier suggestion of "win by 10 = +2d6", or maybe "each 5 point of win = +1d6"
In both cases, a critical would double damage instead.

But be aware: these modifications will lead to significantly more pc deaths.

And a skill of 5 is really low, NPC from the rulebook have at least 8 in their combat skill and that's a peasant with a mace, if he has a club he only does 2d6 damage, no chance at all to inflict damage to a mailed knight, except on a crit. I'm not sure I'd be bothered by a system where a lone peasant could not win against a rested, equiped knight, a group is another story of course and a lone knight in a riot "jacquerie" should be in danger if, for whatever reasons, the group is after him.


The non-combat npc stats have combat skills listed for completeness, but a knight is only ever in trouble against them when out of armour and outnumbered.
The weakest opponents players will be facing in real combat are the bandits, picts, saxons, and sergeants. And they can give players a decent fight, especially in numbers.

When the players face 3:1 odds vs bandits, or 2:1 vs saxons, they will not be happy if you are giving their opponents increased damage! Especially when, outnumbered, some of those attacks will be unopposed. If a knight faces 3 bandits, for instance, he may put all of his skill against one bandit, and rely on his armour to save him from the other two. If they get a damage bonus based on the quality of their hit, this becomes a much, much riskier proposition.