I've been working on some adventures and trying to suit them to my PKs, who are all more familiar with games based on the D20 system where hordes of weak foes are more the norm than in Pendragon. I'd like to give them some minor foes that they should easily defeat before the climax of the adventure, but I'm having trouble finding something appropriate. I've considered Picts (low size means low damage and no armor means they're easily felled), bandits (little armor and low skill, but perhaps too easily dealt with and realistically bandits should flee from knights), and goblins (easily killed, but I'm afraid that using goblins as spear fodder is contrary to the role of fairie in Pendragon).

So, when fitting, what do the rest of you use for minor foes? What suggestions have you?

To be honest. this the point why I dislike the D20 systems. At a certain point a goblin cannot hurt you at all, even a horde of goblins are no danger. KAP is different in that even a lowly bandit can be a danger.

But the three you mention are the most common minor foes. also remember that there is usually a +5/-5 modifier due to height differences.

Bandits, or maybe some foot soldiers if the situation is appropriate. The latter might be slightly better armored and skilled than the bandits and expected to stand. Can probably have a few archers along to annoy the knights and possibly injure horses.

And even bandits might hang about if they think they have favorable terrain and a chance to win, or if they fear their leader more than they fear you.

Foot soldiers are probably the closest thing we have to a 'speedbump' enemy, when we happen to use those. Bandits tend to run, or be overrun quite quickly. But...

The 'divide your skill against the enemies' is a killer. Even two lowly foot soldiers (skill 10) can become problematic vs. an unmounted knight, and three is really bad news. Of course, if you are a big feller with a good armor, then they are more of an annoyance, but some of our illustrious PKs have been laid out with a Major Wound by a lucky crit from a mere foot soldier. And that is something that can happen in Pendragon, so 'throw hordes of weak enemies at them' can actually results in the PKs never getting to the climax, or being so weak that they will lose.

A crit will happen 5% of the rolls of the NPCs. Hence, assuming that you have a few PKs (which might be a lot), and have a couple of foot soldiers each, the expectation is that you will roll one crit for the foot soldiers, and if the dice are in a killing mood, you might get more than one. Again, the armor (and the skill) of the PKs influences this a lot, of course. Norman Chain with Sword 15 without Chivalric is a lot different from Partial Plate + Chivalric with Sword 20. The latter can much more easily soak the damage, but if you allow ganging up, you increase the number of attacks per round and make it a less of a chance for the PK to defend himself with a shield or even hit the foot soldiers in turn. It only takes a lucky high roll on that crit, and you have a PK down with a Major Wound, effectively taking him out of the climactic battle. And maybe even allowing the dreaded death spiral, if the thus freed foot soldier can gang up on another PK. Since the crit chance doesn't depend on the skill level, the same thing actually can happen even with skill 5 desperate peasant levy...

Just something to be aware of, when considering hordes of enemies.

Oh, and a Saxon warrior is NOT a speed bump! 5d6 + Axe + Skill 13, and this guy is a lot more dangerous than a Young knight, and more equivalent to an Ordinary knight in damage potential. Especially so in Uther + Anarchy.

If you want to do a 'training wheels' sort of session then you could structure an adventure so that your PKs encounter what is effectively the same threat (one fairly weedy saxon warrior per PK say) multiple times.

In the first encounter everything is their favour (knights are mounted, saxons are taken by surprise laden with booty in open country) then for each subsequent encounter you flip one of the factors against them - so the next encounter is a patrol of alerted saxons looking for their missing colleagues, then the knights push on and encounter a second saxon patrol who scatter into the woods (no charges), then they follow their backtrail to another group in thick woods and underbrush (no horses), pushing through that group they then run into an ambush (PKs start on lower ground), then they reach the main group (PKs are outnumbered 2:1) and the final encounter can only be reached by swimming to the river eyot that the saxons beached their longship on (PKs are afoot, unarmoured, outnumbered, on lower ground, attacking a prepared enemy).

That should give you and your players a fairly good introduction into how the factors in play going in to a fight influence the overall challenge of an encounter.

Regards
Luke

If you want to do a 'training wheels' sort of session then you could structure an adventure so that your PKs encounter what is effectively the same threat (one fairly weedy saxon warrior per PK say) multiple times.

In the first encounter everything is their favour (knights are mounted, saxons are taken by surprise laden with booty in open country) then for each subsequent encounter you flip one of the factors against them - so the next encounter is a patrol of alerted saxons looking for their missing colleagues, then the knights push on and encounter a second saxon patrol who scatter into the woods (no charges), then they follow their backtrail to another group in thick woods and underbrush (no horses), pushing through that group they then run into an ambush (PKs start on lower ground), then they reach the main group (PKs are outnumbered 2:1) and the final encounter can only be reached by swimming to the river eyot that the saxons beached their longship on (PKs are afoot, unarmoured, outnumbered, on lower ground, attacking a prepared enemy).

That should give you and your players a fairly good introduction into how the factors in play going in to a fight influence the overall challenge of an encounter.

Regards
Luke


Unless thee Saxons are unusually unskilled I think 2:1 odds and with the PKS "afoot, unarmoured, outnumbered, on lower ground, attacking a prepared enemy" will result in several dead PKs, but I do see your point and may try it in less extreme form.

As an aside none of my PKs have a swimming above 2, but they might encounter bandits while hunting.

Unless thee Saxons are unusually unskilled I think 2:1 odds and with the PKS "afoot, unarmoured, outnumbered, on lower ground, attacking a prepared enemy" will result in several dead PKs,


The players aren't obliged to take on the later encounters - they can always back off if things start to get too tough. In fact that is another useful lesson for KAP play; they need to understand that not all challenges are 'fair' and sometimes it is better to retreat and live to fight another day.

Regards
Luke