As our GPC moves towards the middle of the conquest period I fancy making childbirth less risky.

Romance is becoming more important and PKs are getting attached to their wives. The 10% mortality seems punitive and I think it will be good to have a real effect of the civilising of Arthur's rule beyond just fewer raids and battles.

1.Childbirth:

A result of 11 or 12 on the Childbirth table indicates a complication, putting the life and health of the mother and child in jeopardy.

The mother makes a CON roll

Result Effect
Critical Success Mother and child are fine. The Chirurgery check is unnecessary
Success Mother survives but must make an aging roll. The child is dying
Failure Mother and child are dying
Fumble Mother and child are dying and physician suffers a -5 to the Chirurgery check

The physician, midwife, healer or wise woman overseeing the birth then makes a Chirurgery roll. See book of the Manor for details on these entourage members abilities.

Result Effect
Critical Success Physician saves both mother and child
Success Physician may save either mother or child. If the mother is saved she makes an aging roll
Failure Physician can save neither mother nor child
Fumble Physician can save neither mother nor child. If the mother survives she must make an additional aging roll

Any thoughts?

My gut feeling is that this is too generous.

Just by having CON 13 (the average for Cymric women), you'll cut the mortality down by a factor of three (to 1/3rd of 10% = 3.3%). And then if you include even a modestly skilled midwife (Skill 12), you cut it down to another 40%, ending with 1.4% chance of death in childbirth for the woman. You are starting to be in the territory of 'why bother to roll'. And note that this is with average woman and an average midwife. It gets even worse when you have CON 16 and Chirurgery 16.

I'd do it like this...
1) Keep the rolling the same:
11 = mother and child about to die. Intervention possible by the midwife (rolling as above).
12 = mother about to die, child is fine. Mother gets a CON roll.

Again, high CON and Skill help, but the probabilities are closer to that 3.3% rather than 1.4% with a midwife in the house who is willing to save the mother rather than the child.

My gut feeling is that this is too generous.

Just by having CON 13 (the average for Cymric women), you'll cut the mortality down by a factor of three (to 1/3rd of 10% = 3.3%). And then if you include even a modestly skilled midwife (Skill 12), you cut it down to another 40%, ending with 1.4% chance of death in childbirth for the woman. You are starting to be in the territory of 'why bother to roll'. And note that this is with average woman and an average midwife. It gets even worse when you have CON 16 and Chirurgery 16.

I'd do it like this...
1) Keep the rolling the same:
11 = mother and child about to die. Intervention possible by the midwife (rolling as above).
12 = mother about to die, child is fine. Mother gets a CON roll.

Again, high CON and Skill help, but the probabilities are closer to that 3.3% rather than 1.4% with a midwife in the house who is willing to save the mother rather than the child.


That's a fair point on the mortality figures. It might be a little lenient though the aging roll the mother is likely to incur will shorten a wife's lifespan over time. I forgot to add an aging roll to the physician saving the wife. Will edit that now.

I want to keep the CON roll as I'd like to end up with a system that will support female PCs without too much arbitrary death.

Perhaps on an 11 the complication is minor and resolved as above. On a 12 it is very serious and gives a -5 penalty to both the CON roll and the chirurgery check. This probably pushes the mortality figures back towards historical levels.

The fact that the physician can choose who to save opens the situation up to political and passion-based intrigue. What if the mother makes her swear to save the baby at all costs? Conflict between a Love (Wife) passion and a Love (family) passion for a player knight could have all sorts of implications in the long term - particularly if the child is the next player-knight.

Result Effect
Critical Success Physician saves both mother and child
Success Physician may save either mother or child. If the mother is saved she makes an aging roll
Failure Physician can save neither mother nor child
Fumble Physician can save neither mother nor child. If the mother survives she must make an additional aging roll

A minor point, when physicians took over handling child births in the real world there was a huge increase in both child and maternal deaths. Midwives were much much better. I agree that Greg's system is too deadly. death rate's like he has happened only in cities and medieval cities were generally deathtraps for both men and women-they were just too subject to disease, pollution (both air and water) and bad food, in contrast we have the records of Charlemagne's women and daughter, not one in 150 died in childbirth, but they were still dropping like flies from malnutrition even in their twenties. A death rate of about 2% a year is closer to reality, but than again burying an old hag of 25 for a new wife of 15 is fun too and adding even more manors after each death.

Rolling CON is a good idea, just roll on KAP traits, then roll Con to see if they really die, if they fail the roll they lose constitution equal to the amount they fail by, still brutal, but not as brutal as normal KAP, then roll the mid wives skill if she succeeds something like this: roll is 1-5 saves one point; 6-10 saves 2 points; 11-19 saves 3 points and 20 four points. All CON loses are permanent; but child loses are not changed. Ones wife does not age, she just becomes more and more frail with each failure. No critical successes allowed for the midwife too. Witches can always be blamed too for a health wife suddenly becoming frail= a new passion hates witches ;) or maybe ones wife takes up witchcraft to protect herself= role playing opportunity.

I agree that this is a problem (if you run games with the same PK-lethality rate as I do, more Ladies dies than Knights. Getting pregnant is more dangerous that fighting Saxons ...

So, I give all wifes a save on result 11 and 12. I use CON, set at 13 for Cymric (and Irish) women, and 10 for the rest. I don't do it more detailed than that, I want it fast, simple and without bookkeeping (like having to have stats for all PK wifes and rolling Ageing).

Thought about this some more ;)

Revised childbirth roll

d20
1 = special roll, bad
2-3 = the couple are infertile, counts only on the first roll, otherwise no children
4-11 = no children
12-15 = a daughter is born
16-19 = a son is born
20 = special roll, good

Bad special roll
1 mother and child die
2 mother dies, child lives
3 mother lives, child dies
4-5 sickly child, dies on 1-4 during childhood, constitution -8 (-5 for non-Cymric)
6-10 mother dies unless she makes a constitution roll during the next year
11-20 child stillborn.

Good special roll
1-10 son born, +10 to generation points or +2 to all random rolls for attributes.
11-14 mixed twins born
15-16 sororal twins born
17-18 fraternal twins born
19 sororal identical twins
20 fraternal identical twins

This is still much too deadly when one considers that it's added to a normal 5% chance of dying for NPC in normal times. The survival rate for a thirteen year old bride looks like this even without death in childbirth.

AGE = %survive

13 = 95%
14 = 90%
15 = 86%
16 = 81%
17 = 77%
18 = 74%
19 = 70%
20 = 66%
21 = 63%
22 = 60%
23 = 57%
24 = 54%
25 = 51%
26 = 49%
27 = 46%
28 = 44%
29 = 42%
30 = 40%
31 = 38%
32 = 36%
33 = 34%
34 = 32%

If I were a lady in standard KAP I would become a witch just for a chance to survive, the minus 8 to honro is not all that bad ;)

I agree that this is a problem (if you run games with the same PK-lethality rate as I do, more Ladies dies than Knights. Getting pregnant is more dangerous that fighting Saxons ...

So, I give all wifes a save on result 11 and 12. I use CON, set at 13 for Cymric (and Irish) women, and 10 for the rest. I don't do it more detailed than that, I want it fast, simple and without bookkeeping (like having to have stats for all PK wifes and rolling Ageing).


The CON roll was my first instinct but we've been detailing wives and ladies a little more anyway so it wasn't adding too much bookkeeping.

As to the odds and mortality rates I think they fit the themes and setting of the Uther and Anarchy phases beautifully. My PKs buried many wives and babes while the saxons burned their lands and the great lords hid in their castles. It just feels a little jarring as we approach the romance period.

Thought about this some more ;)

Revised childbirth roll

d20
1 = special roll, bad
2-3 = the couple are infertile, counts only on the first roll, otherwise no children
4-11 = no children
12-15 = a daughter is born
16-19 = a son is born
20 = special roll, good

Bad special roll
1 mother and child die
2 mother dies, child lives
3 mother lives, child dies
4-5 sickly child, dies on 1-4 during childhood, constitution -8 (-5 for non-Cymric)
6-10 mother dies unless she makes a constitution roll during the next year
11-20 child stillborn.

Good special roll
1-10 son born, +10 to generation points or +2 to all random rolls for attributes.
11-14 mixed twins born
15-16 sororal twins born
17-18 fraternal twins born
19 sororal identical twins
20 fraternal identical twins

This is still much too deadly when one considers that it's added to a normal 5% chance of dying for NPC in normal times. The survival rate for a thirteen year old bride looks like this even without death in childbirth.

AGE = %survive

13 = 95%
14 = 90%
15 = 86%
16 = 81%
17 = 77%
18 = 74%
19 = 70%
20 = 66%
21 = 63%
22 = 60%
23 = 57%
24 = 54%
25 = 51%
26 = 49%
27 = 46%
28 = 44%
29 = 42%
30 = 40%
31 = 38%
32 = 36%
33 = 34%
34 = 32%

If I were a lady in standard KAP I would become a witch just for a chance to survive, the minus 8 to honro is not all that bad ;)


There's some interesting stuff in there. Any thoughts on how it interacts with a PKs grade of maintenance?

I considered low and high maintenance when i made the revision.
The standard effects in KAP are:
Impoverished = -15 (far too high reduce to d3+2
Poor = -3 (reasonable, more daughters would be born and fewer sons and one's wife would have a much worse chance of dying)
Ordinary = no effect
Rich and superlative = +3 (one would just get more and better sons using my system)

The real rate of boys to girls is 55%/45%, so more boys born is not unreasonable.

As to the odds and mortality rates I think they fit the themes and setting of the Uther and Anarchy phases beautifully. My PKs buried many wives and babes while the saxons burned their lands and the great lords hid in their castles. It just feels a little jarring as we approach the romance period.


Yeah, but I think that should be solved through the manor system. Or, in other words, in the early phases PKs should often only have the means to live "Ordinary" (or even "Poor"), but once we reach Romance, "Rich" and "Superlativ" should be common.

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, because I'm not seeing the high mortality rate that people are citing. Maybe we've just been lucky, but we're in 493, and my PK (solo campaign until last year) has had a kid every year (and twins once). None have died, though more than half have been "Sickly." And the wife has pulled through just fine. We've been rolling on the survival tables annually as well and we have yet to lose one. Maybe I'm missing some modifiers or something?

I think people will generally like the new Family Survival Tables in the Book of the Estate. Lower incidence of death and you only roll to age 7 with children, not 15.


T.

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, because I'm not seeing the high mortality rate that people are citing. Maybe we've just been lucky, but we're in 493, and my PK (solo campaign until last year) has had a kid every year (and twins once). None have died, though more than half have been "Sickly." And the wife has pulled through just fine. We've been rolling on the survival tables annually as well and we have yet to lose one. Maybe I'm missing some modifiers or something?

I think people will generally like the new Family Survival Tables in the Book of the Estate. Lower incidence of death and you only roll to age 7 with children, not 15.


T.


Variance does not effect the true odds, normally everyone runs both hot and cold, with the true odds normally showing up gradually.

We have the real odds of survival of French villagers (who certainly died more than gentry/nobles): average number of children born per couple 5; average children surviving to age 20 = 3; if one survived to twenty average life span 65 age for women and 67 age for men. This gives us some idea of the real maternal mortality rate for our noble couples.

NEW KAP SYSTEM

CHILDHOOD MORTALITY (ordinary maintenance)
AGE
1 = 90%
2 = 81%
3 = 73%
4 = 66%
5 = 59%
6 = 53%
7 = 48% (47.82969 %)

YOUTH (age 8-12 for girls and 8 to14 for boys, 5% MR/annum)
8 = 45%
9 = 43%
10 = 41%
11 = 39%
12 = 37%
13 = 35%
14 = 33% (33.40125638760227%)