Lately, my player's have perplexed with their choice of skill increases. Come end of year training and the occasional allocation of a glory point bonus the skill/stat of choice has not been the expected CON, SIZ or weapon skill but... concern commoners! Last year one of my PKs spent his end of year training and his glory bonus point on it. His thinking was sound, "hey, if I get it to 20 my peasants will *always* work harder for me and improve my weather roll" but still... this guy has average stats and an average weapon skill.

This reflects a general trend in my game. No one ever seems to bother increasing Stats. For whatever reason my players just don't think it's worth it.

This reflects a general trend in my game. No one ever seems to bother increasing Stats. For whatever reason my players just don't think it's worth it.


I can see the attraction in Concern(My Commoners) to increase the harvest, although my players are likelier to play the Like (Landlord) side of it by pumping up their Just trait and doing justice events every time they get the chance.

On the other hand, amongst the knights, 6d6 in damage is almost a religious observance. As soon as a knight drops to 5d6, the moaning starts, until Glory Points or Yearly Training fixes it. :P Granted, we have Partial Plates to show up already, and 5d6 simply isn't enough to make a dent. 6d6 is a significant advantage in knocking people over and in damage done past the armor. We did, briefly, have a PK with War Hammer doing 8d6 vs. Plate, which was pretty impressive. Alas, he was on the customer side of a critical battleaxe hit from a Pictish Lord (who, by the way, are a lot bigger than the normal runts...).

Getting Sword skill up past 20 is another favorite.

After coming through the anarchy and the civil/saxon wars my players tend to prioritise fighting.

Sword comes first, then horsemanship (until its 20) with lance and battle coming up the rear.

Most have 6d6 damage now.

I put a mild limit on skills - if you want to take a skill past 25 with Glory you need to spend 2 points per skill point. You also need to get the two bonus points in one year so the opportunity doesn't come along regularly.

I did this to encourage a bit of branching out as we were getting pks with swords in the 30s and the commander with battle 31.

One Roman knight has recently realised the power of spending glory points on law. It's 22 now and he is a social monster.

IMG the 5d6 is the norm. Both myself as GM as my players feel that this is nice and does not need to be higher (at least for the moment).

Also I implemented a house rule that makes the use of glory to increase skills, traits, passions and stats above their maximum more expensive. The number of glory points needed to increase above the maximum is equal to the the current value minus the maximum. Thus a skill increase of 22 to 23 requires 2 points from glory.

the main reason I implemented this rule is that I feel that the game works best when skills are between 0 and 20. When skills come into their 30s the game is just a bloody affair and there is no chance on failure. And even the best fighter in the world can make a mistake imho.

This has prevented the arms race I have seen earlier and also focuses the PK on other skills than pure combat skills.
IMG this is mainly Folk lore and Intrigue. these skills can give the PK some insight in what happens in the world around them and gives them a chance to act upon them. One of the PK used his points on increasing Faerie lore, since his great aunt's mother came by the manor to take her daughter home. She was a fey.

In my old group, 6d6 was pretty common. More or less all players bumped Sword, Lance and Horsemanship to 20 as fast as they could, and then tried to get Sword up to 25 [which we had as a cap]. All players also tried to have at least 400 in annual Gory from traits. So, they invested heavily in Traits/Passions and Combat skills; then Stats; and Skills came in last.

Now a run a game with some other dudes, and they invest a lot of points into skills (Folk Lore seems popular!). I have been kind in this mini-campaign, only a couple of really dangerous combats so far and no PK (or player ;)) death yet. Also, I now don't give annual glory for Traits and Passions (but for being Chivalric and/or Religous) so that isn't a dead given option to keep up in the Glory game. Hence, Skills seems more important to them.