Two minor questions:

1. The 4 augmentations when used for skills is not clear, do they work +5 for the first augmentation and another +8 for the second (up to a max. of 15).

2. Is one allowed to take the non-standard Combat Skills as starting skills or do they need to be studied after creation, e.g. could one have Grappling as a starting skill?

My two denarii:

1. Each 'augmentation' gives +5 to a skill. So if you use two augmentations from Step 3 to raise your Hunting, it would go from 2 to 7 and then to 12. You are confusing the +8 from the example with Step 4, which gives you 10 skill points to distribute the way you see fit (in the example, 8 points were used to increase Hunting, hence +8). In all starting skill cases, the maximum is 15.

(We houseruled that the +5 from Step 3 is actually 5 skill points, distribute as you see fit. Also, we allowed the Family Characteristic to break the limit of 15, but only in chargen. So if you have +10 to Falconry, you can start with Falconry 25 (take Falconry at 15), but if you leave Falconry at its base value, you have something like 13.)

2. I see no rules against it. I allow taking of pretty much any skill that the knight could conceivably know as a starting skill. However, the 'one skill at 15' in Step 1, as stated in the rules, needs to be a knightly skill. That being said, if someone wanted Grappling at 15 and used the 10 skill points from Step 4 and one augmentation pick from Step 3, I'd have no problem with this. Grappling fits the knight's skill set of defeating the other guy much better than, say, Boating, which I would also allow. I would say 'no' if the weapon in question is not available yet. So you can't start with Halberd 15 in Uther's time, but Axe 15 or Great Spear 15 would be quite alright.

My two denarii:

1. Each 'augmentation' gives +5 to a skill. So if you use two augmentations from Step 3 to raise your Hunting, it would go from 2 to 7 and then to 12. You are confusing the +8 from the example with Step 4, which gives you 10 skill points to distribute the way you see fit (in the example, 8 points were used to increase Hunting, hence +8). In all starting skill cases, the maximum is 15.

TY Morien, re-reading the rule I see that I was just being dumb :-[, but with anything one has to be willing to be dumb to improve 8)


(We houseruled that the +5 from Step 3 is actually 5 skill points, distribute as you see fit. Also, we allowed the Family Characteristic to break the limit of 15, but only in chargen. So if you have +10 to Falconry, you can start with Falconry 25 (take Falconry at 15), but if you leave Falconry at its base value, you have something like 13.)

This is actually what I hate most about Family Characteristics, that a character can raise a skill to 15 and then add a FC on of +15 to have a skill of 30, when it takes an average character 20 years to raise a skill from 20 to 21! If all FC were just +5 they would not be so bad.


2. I see no rules against it. I allow taking of pretty much any skill that the knight could conceivably know as a starting skill. However, the 'one skill at 15' in Step 1, as stated in the rules, needs to be a knightly skill. That being said, if someone wanted Grappling at 15 and used the 10 skill points from Step 4 and one augmentation pick from Step 3, I'd have no problem with this. Grappling fits the knight's skill set of defeating the other guy much better than, say, Boating, which I would also allow. I would say 'no' if the weapon in question is not available yet. So you can't start with Halberd 15 in Uther's time, but Axe 15 or Great Spear 15 would be quite alright.


This is my interpretation of the rules too, also that Grappling should be one of the base skills, say far more than Play or Compose.

This is actually what I hate most about Family Characteristics, that a character can raise a skill to 15 and then add a FC on of +15 to have a skill of 30, when it takes an average character 20 years to raise a skill from 20 to 21! If all FC were just +5 they would not be so bad.


Feel free to change it in your campaign, or impose a cap of 20 for Skills with FCs.

So for instance, if I wish to have Awareness 20 and I have the +5 FC for it, I still need to get it up to 15 in chargen so that 15+5 = 20.

On the other hand, if I have Falconry +15 FC, then anything in excess of 5 in Falconry is wasted, but I get to use those points to somewhere else (i.e. not spend them in Falconry in the first place), and I get to start with Falconry 20, which is quite impressive to start with.

I do think that having the different values for FC is a good thing. Hunting +5, Horsemanship +5 and Awareness +5 are already very good and useful, and I would argue more so than Falconry +15. Falconry +5 would be next to useless by comparison. Orate +10 is almost too good, as it tends to be the go-to skill for 'make a persuasive argument to the people in power / people whose help you'd like to have'.

I do think that having the different values for FC is a good thing. Hunting +5, Horsemanship +5 and Awareness +5 are already very good and useful, and I would argue more so than Falconry +15. Falconry +5 would be next to useless by comparison. Orate +10 is almost too good, as it tends to be the go-to skill for 'make a persuasive argument to the people in power / people whose help you'd like to have'.


I think to make a persuasive argument is actually Courtesy - at least that is how Courtesy is used when seeking a bride from ones Lord. Lets look at FC and see what they're really for

JUNK

Light-footed (+10 Dancing)
Like an otter (+10 Swimming)
Good with words (+15 Compose)

Junk skills don't help one as a Knight Errant, don't gain one glory worth talking about and, don't gain one silver or help one woo women. Dancing does not help one court women. Swimming for Knights living in a county without deep and swift river or big lakes with the same true of most of the counties surrounding it is pretty worthless. Compose requires that one have high Singing skill before it gives even marginal glory - the reason "Good with words" is a Junk FC.

COURT

Never forgets a face (+10 Recognize)
Remarkably deductive (+5 Intrigue)
Love for arms (+10 Heraldry)

These are pretty weak FC, but help one at court and when traveling to other courts.

GLORY
Excellent voice (+10 Singing) 10 glory, 20 glory for a success.
Naturally lovable (+10 Flirting) no glory, 20 for a critical success.
Natural musician (+15 Play) 1 glory, 20 for a critical success.
Natural speaker (+10 Orate) 10 glory, 20 for a critical success.
Good with birds (+15 Falconry) 10 glory, 20 for a critical success.

Glory skills gain one lots of free glory. Falconry can be used more than one in a year, and even just at 8 is a great glory mine, when one raises the skill to 20 that +15 makes it 35 or one critically succeeds with rolls for 20 glory on roll of 5-20. One can easily gain more than 100 glory a year with it and it's much easier to attain this level than it is the 100 glory for being a Religious Paragon or a Chivalrous Paragon. It is massively over powered in terms of the glory one can gain with it. Having all these reduced to a simple +5 would be a big improvement

ADVENTURE
Good with horses (+5 Horsemanship)
Keen senses (+5 Awareness)
Nature-craft (+5 Hunting)
Natural healer (+5 First Aid)
Clever (+10 Gaming)

All of these are useful to Knight-errants. Gaming allows one to make money all the time one is staying as a guest and all the times one is staying at an inn. One can even gamble with ones host for aid, as written it's a nightmare for GM. A Character with this skill with this skill can use it everyday of a month long adventure requiring that the GM arbitrarily assign a skill to an opponent roll with the gambler and then subtract 1 for each point the loser and award 1d for every point the winner is ahead. Now if one has more than one gambler in a party a very terrible nightmare. As a GM I hate book keeping and this skill not only requires a huge amount of book keeping it eats up a lot of session time.

My revision is this.
1. It can be used only once a month, excepting at annual social occasions (AKA the county feast, Tourney and Hunt, though one could travel to more than one county's events)

2. That a roll of one is always a critical success winning £1; that rolls of 2-10 are always a win gaining 5s; that rolls of 11-19 are always losses costing one 5s; that a roll of 20 is always a fumble costing the gambler £2; that wins at 1s per point of skill. Even skilled gamblers can go bankrupt gambling and will always have cruel memories of highly improbable losing streaks. As written Gaming has no hard knocks for gamblers and does not allow degenerate gamblers to have winning streaks which delude them into thinking they're great gamblers, e.g in Poker one can have a high win rate over small samples of play like 100,000 hands and every serious poker player even if highly skilled will experience a 100,000 hand downswing once their sample size is large enough.

I think how you value these skills depends a lot on how you play the game.

I would not put Compose or Dancing in JUNK, but in GLORY. You can Dance on many court occasions, and Dance give Glory (at least in my games). Dance can also impress ladies. And you can Compose songs for others, and Compose gives Glory. I have argued in another thread that Swimming should be removed from the game, and made the province of DEX-roll, so I agree with your classification.

Intrigue is very useful in my games, and players tend to invest heavily in it (with Folklore!). I agree that Heraldry and Recognize are weak, an think the +10 is reasonable.

Gaming tends to be very little used in my games, and players rarely invest in it. As for playing abusing it: it is your prerogative as a GM to decide when a skill is rolled or not. It's fine just to say, "yeah, and you play a lot of chess, but we won't spend time on that. You can make one roll just before the Winter Phase" or something like that. And, honestly, I think this is a skill that could be dropped from the game too. It adds nothing, more or less.

OT: Since Pendragon sessions easily degenerates into glory- and check-chasing, that is players wanting to roll this or that skill to get an easy check or those extra Glory points, I have been toying with the idea of given Annual Glory for skills. I haven't thought it through, though, might have to start a new thread on that one.

Note that the FC matters in chargen: after that, your skill is what it is. Thus, the maximum you can start at chargen is 15+15 = 30, and after that, it is Glory Points or Experience Rolls, which is a considerable investment of Glory or Time.

Also, in our campaign we are not playing out half a dozen court occasions per game year. One or two are more probable, giving the players chance to roll their courtly skills. So I am less bothered by a 'Falconry Glory Machine'. Same with Gaming. I wouldn't allow the PK to use Gaming at every inn he stops at. Nor even in every castle. But if one were to play a 'Gambling Knight', I'd let him, and at the end of the year, roll like 3d6+5 for opponent skill and winner gets £1 from the loser (£2 on a crit or fumble). Significant money? Sure, for one manor man, but also risks losing quite a lot of money. I'd even allow the PK to set a lower stake, like 80d instead of £1. I wouldn't allow higher stakes except in play, and winning such a high stakes game would either have a very skilled opponent or an overconfident, rich and influential one, who might take it amiss that he lost (duels and/or intrigue to follow).

I reiterate that if you are bothered by high starting skills due to FCs, cap them at 20. Problem solved, but still giving some benefit to people for having a 'rare use' FC. Which is where I actually classify Falconry in our campaign. (Although I admit that I might be persuaded to lower the bonus to +10, given your argumentation.)

Also agreed with you and Sharpskytten that Swimming could be subsumed under DX roll rather than needing to be its own skill.

I would not put Compose or Dancing in JUNK, but in GLORY. You can Dance on many court occasions, and Dance give Glory (at least in my games). Dance can also impress ladies. And you can Compose songs for others, and Compose gives Glory. I have argued in another thread that Swimming should be removed from the game, and made the province of DEX-roll, so I agree with your classification.

To get even the 1 glory for success and 20 from a critical success, one needs to have at least succeeded with Singing, when one has a skill that has to has another skill at a high level. A Knight who does not want to have the Singing skill or pay professional singers does not really gain anything from Compose as a skill. To gain glory from Dancing one needs to be the "center of attention", only at ones betrothal and wedding or if one was dancing with someone like Jenna or Countess Ellen - all pretty rare happenings and even then only 1 glory for success and 20 for a critical success.

As for Swimming that always should have been part of the Boating skill - no one has a boating skill without also having a Swimming skill.

Gaming just sucks the way it's written, it should not of had gambling tied to it, but have always been a simple glory skill with 1 for success and 20 for a critical, also like dancing, as a means of getting to flirt with women 8)

I think the 5 glory for point above 15 per year is reasonable, but I was thinking of giving glory only for Battle; Horsemanship; Lance; Sword; Grappling; Courtesy and Hunting and would need to consider carefully the others. Awareness would get no glory as to gain glory one would need to be able to demonstrate the skill at court or at a Social event.

Gaming just sucks the way it's written, it should not of had gambling tied to it, but have always been a simple glory skill with 1 for success and 20 for a critical, also like dancing, as a means of getting to flirt with women 8)

I think the 5 glory for point above 15 per year is reasonable, but I was thinking of giving glory only for Battle; Horsemanship; Lance; Sword; Grappling; Courtesy and Hunting and would need to consider carefully the others. Awareness would get no glory as to gain glory one would need to be able to demonstrate the skill at court or at a Social event.


I agree that tying Gaming to actual gambling for profit is not a good idea, and I likely would start giving out Selfish checks to the knight who would pursue such an income.

I do think that giving Glory for skills that are higher than 15 is WAY too generous. 15 is the basic level for a competent knight, nothing noteworthy whatsoever. I would save the Glory Reward for skills that are 20 or (especially) above, as then they start to become 'the best in the County'.

I do think that giving Glory for skills that are higher than 15 is WAY too generous. 15 is the basic level for a competent knight, nothing noteworthy whatsoever. I would save the Glory Reward for skills that are 20 or (especially) above, as then they start to become 'the best in the County'.

Morien, I think a skill of 10 is competent for a Knight and 15 accomplished. If a Knight was working hard and getting an experience check every year it would take them this long to get to 15

10 = 50% failure = 2 tries to 11 = age 23
11 = 45% failure = 2.2 tries to 12 = age 25
12 = 40% failure = 2.5 tries to 13 = age 28
13 = 35% failure = 2.9 tries to 14 = age 31
14 = 30% failure = 3.3 tries to 15 = age 34
15 = 25% failure = 4 tries to 16 = age 38

I assume that the average Knight is Energetic 10 and not working very hard to advance, maybe two years for a check, so a Knight hitting 15 would be quite old and anyone having a 16+ skill would be noteworthy.

Even if they have the skill at 15 at age 21 it would take them this long to improve by experience with a check every year.

15 = 25% failure = 4 tries to 16 = age 25
16 = 20% failure = 5 tries to 17 = age 30
17 = 15% failure = 6.6+ tries to 18 = age 37
18 = 10% failure = 10 tries to 19 = age 47
19 = 5% failure = 20 tries = age 67 for skills of 20

Some Knights will be actively training and practicing in the Winter Phase, but that's only +1 for a single skill. 20+ does not seem reasonable to me for starting glory from a skill.

Morien, I think a skill of 10 is competent for a Knight and 15 accomplished. If a Knight was working hard and getting an experience check every year it would take them this long to get to 15


Since the skills you picked out are the ones that the knights would be most likely to be proficient at, then no, I don't see 15 as anything exceptional. I know that in our gaming group, starting with 15 in Sword, Lance and Horsemanship is quite common, and Battle 15 is not that much of a stretch, either, if the PK is not interested in a courtly career. Furthermore, you can get a skill from 10 to 15 in one year's training, so I do not agree with your claim that getting 15 in one of the core skills of a knight would take 13 years.

Now that being said, I do recognize that going from 15 to 20 is much harder. On the other hand, these are the skills that already tend to give Glory from their use, such as Lance and Horsemanship during Jousts. It sounds a bit like double dipping to me, and it is still relatively easy for a knight to get several skills to 17 or so in a few years of adventuring and some good rolling. Granted, extra 50 or so Glory might not sound much, but it would go feeding Glory inflation and even more if and when the knight would hit higher values.

Lets take as an example a knight with Sword 22, Lance 20, Horsemanship 18 and Battle 18. A veteran, even a heroic knight, we might agree? But not superhuman, I think you will grant me. Under your system, he would rack up (7+5+3+3)*5 = 90 extra glory. In addition to all the jousting glory and adventuring/fighting glory he would get.

Not to mention that you would be strongly encouraging even stronger concentration on those skills for a knight: not only will they allow him to succeed in war, adventure and tournaments, they will also net him 'passive' glory as well, while the courtly skills would be even more 'useless' by comparison.

To get even the 1 glory for success and 20 from a critical success, one needs to have at least succeeded with Singing, when one has a skill that has to has another skill at a high level.

Actually, I don't know why it only gives 1 Glory, and not 10. Were does that come from? All I can find in the rules is "The Gamemaster may Award Glory to a successful composer, particularly if the song is dedicated to a lady".


A Knight who does not want to have the Singing skill or pay professional singers does not really gain anything from Compose as a skill.

Well, some of my players use it to write songs about their enemies, and circulate the through Logres. And some Ladies would not even look at a knight (as a suitor or lover) without this skill.

So, again, the usefulness of skills are very much up to the way the game is played. My players tend to invest heavily in Folkore. Do yours?


To gain glory from Dancing one needs to be the "center of attention"

I've totally missed that, and I won't care. Of course you gain Glory if you Dance an important dance that is actually played out during a session.


only at ones betrothal and wedding or if one was dancing with someone like Jenna or Countess Ellen - all pretty rare happenings and even then only 1 glory for success and 20 for a critical success.

Why just 1 Glory and not 10?


Gaming just sucks the way it's written, it should not of had gambling tied to it, but have always been a simple glory skill with 1 for success and 20 for a critical, also like dancing, as a means of getting to flirt with women 8)

***

As to what is a good skill, I would look at the NPC on pp 176-177 as a baseline.

The Average Knight has 10 in a number of non-combats skills. Thats "Average".

The Old Knight has 15 in the same skills. So thats an average, but very experienced knight.

Both the Notable and the Famous Knights - and these are the good ones - have skills that are lower than the Old guy, at 10 and 13. The Extraordinary Knight has 16 in his non-combat skills.

Conclusion: everything above 10 (in a non-combat skill) is good, and everything above 15 is really good.

You can do the same calculation with combat skills ...

Since the skills you picked out are the ones that the knights would be most likely to be proficient at, then no, I don't see 15 as anything exceptional. I know that in our gaming group, starting with 15 in Sword, Lance and Horsemanship is quite common, and Battle 15 is not that much of a stretch, either, if the PK is not interested in a courtly career. Furthermore, you can get a skill from 10 to 15 in one year's training, so I do not agree with your claim that getting 15 in one of the core skills of a knight would take 13 years.

Knights are not gun ho warriors or sword saint polymaths. They are Knights because they're part of an hereditary class, as such the body of them will resemble a draft army. You'll have the 30% that are Cowardly 13+ and trying actively to avoid fighting at all. You'll have the 40% who while not actively cowering are trying to avoid as much fighting as possible and don't really have an interest in being warriors, both of these groups will not have Combat-skills above 10 when first knighted at 21. The cowardly 13+ will not be gaining experience or training Combat-skills, so they will not be improving at all. The second group will be more interested in Non-combat skill advancement and would be gaining experience in Horsemanship, Lance and Sword only because they live in dangerous times and they're be improving them from 10.

The 30% that are Valorous 13+ will start with Horsemanship, Lance and and Sword at 15 at 21. These Knights though gun ho are not polymaths and will mainly be improving these skills by experience. Knights have only 14 years to improve their Attributes and these Knights are more likely to be improving them than their skills.

Of the gun ho only a few 10% of the total who are Valiant 16+ will be hardcore warriors trying to be great ones (AKA the Sword Saints). They're going to be getting experience rolls every year and training their Lance and Sword every year until they're both 20, which takes 8-9 years. It was mainly the elderly age 30-45, who will be getting glory for warrior skills and becoming leaders, those older will be slowing down and maybe even becoming like the 40% as they get older. Glory if given at all for skills has to be given fairly young.

In my game I have removed the automatic glory for a success in a skill (or trait/passion for that matter).
Glory is something earned and not for the fact that you go around singing each day or going on a hunt each week with your falcon. Glory is only gained when you achieve something special. In the case of skills this means you must be successful in it at a special occasion.

So a rousing song composed that is sung at the beginning of the battle to quell the fears of your men earns you glory. Flirting with a lady to win her trust. Successful dancing with Guinevere.
Some skills may seem to be able to generate glory as they come more into play, but that is just as Skarpskytten says more based on how you play the game.

Knights are not gun ho warriors or sword saint polymaths. They are Knights because they're part of an hereditary class, as such the body of them will resemble a draft army. You'll have the 30% that are Cowardly 13+ and trying actively to avoid fighting at all.


Our Pendragons Seem to Vary. :)

At least during Uther's and early part of Arthur's careers, knights are warriors. Only later they become more courtiers. And even then, taking Greg's new Estate numbers into account, a good 80% or so of the knights are household knights, whose primary job is to be the nobleman's bodyguards and standing army. Cowardly knights need not apply, and truly Cowardly ones would have chosen (or been pushed) to a clerical career.

We seem to have a differing opinions on what the Average knight looks like. In my mind, the starting character is in effect an average starting knight and if you wish to have a Percival or a Gareth, then you'll need to pile on more statistic points and extra yearly trainings (without adding age). The Example characters at the end of the rulebook at least hint that the normal young knight would have Sword 15. Hence, especially when it comes to Sword and Lance, I don't see 15 as the threshold of fame. For me, 10 is 'barely up for it', the minimum of becoming a knight. 13 would be 'adequate' for a young knight, 15 is 'competent', 18 is 'good', 20 is 'excellent', and anything past 21 is 'heroic' with 25+ being 'legendary', if I were to assign adjectives to the levels.

In any case, you play Pendragon your way, I'll play it my way. :) I simply think that as far current 'canon' is concerned, skill 15 in Sword is to be expected from knights, and even 18 is not too remarkable on an older knight.

At least during Uther's and early part of Arthur's careers, knights are warriors. Only later they become more courtiers. And even then, taking Greg's new Estate numbers into account, a good 80% or so of the knights are household knights, whose primary job is to be the nobleman's bodyguards and standing army. Cowardly knights need not apply, and truly Cowardly ones would have chosen (or been pushed) to a clerical career.

One can't throw away 70% of the Squires Trained to be Knights to have only Valorous 13+ ones. If one keeps just the Valiant 8+ ones one will soon have new cowards as Knights will be moving both ways not just improving in Valor. There will be a strong likelihood that the Knights starting out at Valor 8-12 stay around that Valor and they'll be the majority of Knights.


We seem to have a differing opinions on what the Average knight looks like. In my mind, the starting character is in effect an average starting knight and if you wish to have a Percival or a Gareth, then you'll need to pile on more statistic points and extra yearly trainings (without adding age). The Example characters at the end of the rulebook at least hint that the normal young knight would have Sword 15. Hence, especially when it comes to Sword and Lance, I don't see 15 as the threshold of fame. For me, 10 is 'barely up for it', the minimum of becoming a knight. 13 would be 'adequate' for a young knight, 15 is 'competent', 18 is 'good', 20 is 'excellent', and anything past 21 is 'heroic' with 25+ being 'legendary', if I were to assign adjectives to the levels.

Even if professionals most people don't devote themselves heart and soul to their profession, but assuming one did, it would take 4-5 years to raise a base Sword skill of 15 to 20. Our Knight would be age 25-26. Our Excellent Knight has improved his lance to 16 while training his Sword to 20 and needs to train for only 4 more years to have both Lance and Sword at 20, so will be 29-30, still Young, but he wont have raised any other skills very far or have added new ones or raised Attributes. Once one has a skill at 20 it still takes 20 years on average to improve it to 21, essentially PK and NPC both have their skills capped at 20

The Canonical Knights at the back of the book are just samples for random encounters and are pretty simplistic. Lets look at Valor, Starting at 13 which would be the Average Knight he should have valor like this:

VALOR
13 = 35% failure = 2.9 tries to 14 = age 24
14 = 30% failure = 3.3 tries to 15 = age 27
15 = 25% failure = 4 tries to 16 = age 30
16 = 20% failure = 5 tries to 17 = age 35
17 = 15% failure = 6.6+ tries to 18 = age 41
18 = 10% failure = 10 tries to 19 = age 51

Those starting at 16
16 = 20% failure = 5 tries to 17 = age 26
17 = 15% failure = 6.6+ tries to 18 = age 33
18 = 10% failure = 10 tries to 19 = age 43

Valor like the other traits are extremely easy to improve as one does not need a critical success only a success. Religious Knights and Chivalrous Knights will quickly be getting their 100 glory per year and magical bonuses. I would not let any of the special Knights get glory from skills or even someone combine the Religion and Chivalry - the two were opposites in real life, despite what priests claimed.

If we put ourselves in the place of the characters, it's obvious that those valor 13+ would train to have Horsemanship, Lance and Sword all at 15 and would have Their three Non-Combat Skills all at 10 too and that they would most likely be Hunting, Courtesy and Tourney. Awareness requires that one be a scout, not really a Knightly role, especially if a Household Knight, so it would likely stay around 5. Most Knights were awful leaders and were followers, so would not be improving Battle much if at all. Household Knight were never just warriors even when under warrior Kings in the real middle ages - at least as many one administrators and seldom functioning as warriors.

One can't throw away 70% of the Squires Trained to be Knights to have only Valorous 13+ ones. If one keeps just the Valiant 8+ ones one will soon have new cowards as Knights will be moving both ways not just improving in Valor. There will be a strong likelihood that the Knights starting out at Valor 8-12 stay around that Valor and they'll be the majority of Knights.


I am assuming you base that 70% number on simply rolling 3d6 for Valor, yes? However, the knights are part of the warrior elite. Their upbringing and instilled values would emphasize the importance of Valor, and hence they would merit a big trait bonus on Valor, or experience checks during their years as pages and then squires. Thus, I don't think Valorous 13+ is nearly as uncommon in knighted youngsters as you make it out to be.

Not to mention the fact that some 'wastage' of squires is expected! Not all, not perhaps even most, squires ever become knights, because they can't afford the equipment, or there are no positions available for them to support themselves in knightly style, or simply because they are, in the end, not considered worthy.



Once one has a skill at 20 it still takes 20 years on average to improve it to 21, essentially PK and NPC both have their skills capped at 20


They can raise their skill above 20 with Glory Points, which the older knights, those likeliest to have skills at 20, would be likelier to have. But I am happy with that 'cap', really. It tells me that to be exceptional in their sword skill, 21+ is enough. 16+ is really not, yet.



If we put ourselves in the place of the characters, it's obvious that those valor 13+ would train to have Horsemanship, Lance and Sword all at 15


Can I take this to mean that we agree that a good chunk if not the majority of the knights who are not total beginners anymore (25+ years) would have their core competency at 15+? :)

That is pretty much all I am arguing: Having a skill at 16+ is relatively common and hence, in my mind, should not be anything remarkable and worthy of passive glory. Whereas skill 21+ is clearly one of the best in the land, and would be famous for it.

But hey, this is one of the campaign dependent factors you can tweak. In your campaign, skill 15 is already top of the class and 16+ is remarkable. No problem with that. In my campaign 15 is considered competent and expected from all knights a few years past their knighting. A knight in his late 20s with Lance or Sword of 10 would be considered to be very poor in his skills, and likely a target of ridicule or challenges in the tournament for a quick, easy win.

If I were using very close to canonical rules it would look like this:

Knights starting as Valorous 10 = 50% of Knights would improve their Valor and skills like this. Valor and Skills both being capped at 13 except for Sword at which they excel. Skills Horsemanship 10; Lance; Sword 15; with Spear = lance -4 and Dagger = Sword -5 . Awareness capped at 5; Battle capped at 10

11 = age 23
12 = age 25
13 = age 28


Knights starting as Valorous 13 = 40% of Knights would improve Valor to 15 (where it would be capped). Horsemanship; Lance and Sword start at 15; Awareness 10 and Battle 10, both capped at 13 and improving as above. Horsemanship; Lance and Sword improving only by experience.
Skills:Horsemanship; Lance; Sword improve like this:
16 = age 24.
17 = age 29.
18 = age 36.
19 = age 46.
20 = age 66.

These Knights improve; STR or CON one point every 2 years (assumes energetic 10) average improvement at age 35 +9.5 points. These are assumed to have gained 1,000 glory at age 35, being the majority of the "Renowned Knights". They augmented Awareness as Squires and augmented STR and CON as Squires (3 point improvement)

Valor 16+ Knights (10%). Start with Horsemanship; Lance; Sword; Battle; Awareness;Hunting 15; Courtesy 10; Tourney 10. All four augmentations were used (one on Battle, one on Hunting/Tourney, two on Awareness). Their 10 free points and skill they excel at were used on: Horsemanship; Lance and Sword.

50% are Fencers and 50% Jousters. The Fencers augmented Hunting as Squires and train and Practice Sword every year until it's 20, After that they train Lance until twenty. The Jousters augmented Tourney as Squires and Train and practice Lance until it's 20 and then do the same for Sword. Fencers are assumed to have made an experience roll for Sword and Jousters for Lance, so both spend 8 years training. Both are assumed to have made an experience roll for the opposite skill while training the other.
Fencer (reverse Sword and Lance for Jousters)
Sword 16 = age 22
17 = age 23
19 = age 24
20 = age 25

Lance 16 = age 24
17 = age 25
18 = age 26
19 = age 27
20 = age 28

All Knights gain a random roll that may improve their Skills (based on Family Characteristics)

01-02 Good with horses (+5 Horsemanship)
03-06 Keen senses (+5 Awareness)
07 Nature-craft (+5 Hunting)
08 Natural healer (+5 first Aid)
09-20 No adjustment

Morien how far off is this from what you think should be?

Morien how far off is this from what you think should be?


Let me quote from my Knight Generator -thread, which while not intended to be an exact copy of how things go with PKs, gives about the levels of skill I am comfortable with:



10. Skills
10a. Starting skills
- Sword, 1d6: 1-3=1d6+10, 4-6=15
- Lance, 1d6: 1-3=10, 4-6=1d6+9
- Horsemanship, 1d6: 1-4=10, 5-6=1d6+9
- Battle, 1d6: 1-4=10, 5-6=1d6+9
10b. Yearly increase of skills: Go over the years since 21. (Hmm, I seem to have a typo in my code, starting from year 22)
- Bit complicated, but basically an experience check (1d20) on Lance and Sword each year, every other year on Horsemanship and every 3rd year on Battle.
- Increase skills with training if they are lower than 15 and slower if they are 15-19.
10c. Boosting skills with Glory. (Sword every 2000, Lance every 3000, others every 4000.)


To elaborate on 10b. a bit...
1) I roll 1d6 for the main skills that I keep track off. Sword and Lance always get a check (I suppose this could be changed to something like 1-5 = check, to give a chance of years without checks), Horsemanship gets a check on 4+ and Battle 5+.
2) After seeing if a skill gets a check, I roll for experience gain as normal, if 1d20 > skill or = 20, then skill gets +1.
3) After experience, I consider 'yearly training':
- if Sword is < 15, then I give +1 every 2 years. If Sword is 15-19, then it gets +1 every 4 years.
- If Lance is < 15, it gets +1 every 3 years. If Lance is 15-19, then it gets +1 every 8 years.
- Horsemanship < 15, +1 every 4 years. Horsemanship 15-19, +1 every 8 years.
- Battle < 15, no automatic increase (the idea is that such a knight would not get many chances to lead nor thus feel the pressure to become good at Battle). Battle 15-19, +1 every 6 years (such a knight would be in a command position and feel the need to improve his Battle, even if slowly).

As for 10c, I do know that I am actually giving out a bit more 'Glory Points' than they would actually get as PKs, and it is all going to their Skills. I probably should have scaled the Sword bonus back a bit more. However, since most NPKs do not get a lot of Glory to begin with and I do deduct the first 1000 Glory out, I am not too bothered by this. Especially since many of those 'Glory Points' might actually go to raising Battle from 10 to 11, which no player would ever do. So it evens out.

We seem to have a differing opinions on what the Average knight looks like. In my mind, the starting character is in effect an average starting knight

I disagree with this. IMG a starting character is a cut above the knightly norm - not only are they landed knights (or heirs), thus putting them into the top quartile of their peer group socially, they are also those who show the sort of promise which marks them out as the next generation's 'worthy men' within their county and with a shot at stepping up to the national stage if they are fortunate and inclined that way.

In terms of ability this places them ahead of the curve when they enter the game and the engine of active play will push them towards the 'Notable/Famous/Extraordinary' track of sample NPCs. The typical knights of the county are happy with a quiet life and so they start from a lower base and progress along the 'Young/Agerage/Old' NPC track.

Regards
Luke

We seem to have a differing opinions on what the Average knight looks like. In my mind, the starting character is in effect an average starting knight

I disagree with this. IMG a starting character is a cut above the knightly norm - not only are they landed knights (or heirs), thus putting them into the top quartile of their peer group socially, they are also those who show the sort of promise which marks them out as the next generation's 'worthy men' within their county and with a shot at stepping up to the national stage if they are fortunate and inclined that way.

In terms of ability this places them ahead of the curve when they enter the game and the engine of active play will push them towards the 'Notable/Famous/Extraordinary' track of sample NPCs. The typical knights of the county are happy with a quiet life and so they start from a lower base and progress along the 'Young/Agerage/Old' NPC track.

Regards
Luke


This is actually my point Luke. The PK Knights have two things that normal Knights don't have Valor and Talent. My Talent I mean they have the disposition to acquire Knowledge and Skill - thus they may become martial polymaths. Knights are exactly comparable to the professional craftsmens whom existed with them. Gildmen were usually divided into four ranks based on skill: Apprentices; Journeymen; Bachelors and Masters. Only a small percentage of Journeymen ever became Bachelors and only a small percentage of Bachelors became Masters. In Kap a skill of 20 is clearly the master level and a skill of 15 the bachelor level and 10 the ordinary professional level.

My close to canonical ranks were a compromise with KAP and reality. In any profession you're going to have around: 30% who are incompetent [read the Peter Principle ;)]; another 40% who are fairly competent; 20% who are competent and 10% who are very competent. In terms of our Knights they will continue to grow until they reach their level of incompetence at which point they will stagnate. For Knight that point will be determined by their innate Valor, though for skills by their innate Talent. The majority of Knights don't have either the innate Valor or Talent and will hit their levels of stagnation fairly quickly. PK on the other hand do have the innate Valor and Talent to be great Knights.

Characters like farmers don't have skills, so Greg giving them an 8 skill with a "mace" is bad. The starting ability with weapons should be 1 point per d6 damage one does or 4-5. Someone at the ten skill level should be worth about 4 unskilled fighters and have auto initiative over them rather than just gaining it if they roll higher.

I disagree with this. IMG a starting character is a cut above the knightly norm - not only are they landed knights (or heirs), thus putting them into the top quartile of their peer group socially, they are also those who show the sort of promise which marks them out as the next generation's 'worthy men' within their county and with a shot at stepping up to the national stage if they are fortunate and inclined that way.


Perhaps I put my point a bit too bluntly. What I meant to say that the starting character stats and skills are not totally exceptional. I do agree that socially, they are doing much better than the average knight, and I would even go as far as say that they are probably amongst the higher half of their age group training-wise. But it is really that constant adventuring and Glory collecting that pushes them towards the Round Table, while most of the NPKs stay in relative anonymity. Also, I am not so much interested in the stay-at-home, borderline-cowardly, skill 8 knight. The PKs will not meet him on the road challenges and unlikely to end up dueling him in a tournament, either, since he is not going to participate in such things.

In Our Campaign, the starting PK (as in, what kinds of characters the players have actually made) looks a lot like this:
- Damage 6d6
- Sword 15 (or 16, with the knighting Glory point)
- Lance 12+ (often 15)
- Horsemanship 10 - 15 (averaging around 12)
- Battle 10 - 15 (depending if the player is planning on being the leader in battle; often left at 10 and then increased with yearly training once they get some Glory to 'qualify' for the position)
- Chivalric Bonus
- Stats (on average): 17/9/16/13/10 = 65

In contrast, the starting NPK looks more like this:
- Damage 5d6
- Sword 11 - 16 (7/12 have 15, 1/12 have 16, 1/12 each at 11, 12, 13, 14, so one third have Sword skill less than 15)
- Lance 10 - 15 (mostly 10)
- Horsemanship 10 - 15 (mostly 10)
- Battle 10 - 15 (mostly 10)
- No Chivalric Bonus
- Stats (not tracked): 14/11/11/14/10 = 60 (which is actually a bit below what an average PK would get due to the culture bonus, even without using adjustments on stats)

Also, the NPKs tend to have poorer armor than the PKs (Reinforced Chain vs. Partial Plate). The higher damage, armor with Chivalric Bonus and larger SIZ make the PKs much tougher than the NPKs in a fight. So the PKs are well ahead on the curve, but still within the distribution, is what I am saying. To make the PKs truly exceptional, more akin to the RTK prodigies, I'd add like 10 points to stats and allow at least 5 yearly trainings to get the skills up.

In my game I have removed the automatic glory for a success in a skill (or trait/passion for that matter).
Glory is something earned and not for the fact that you go around singing each day or going on a hunt each week with your falcon. Glory is only gained when you achieve something special. In the case of skills this means you must be successful in it at a special occasion.

So a rousing song composed that is sung at the beginning of the battle to quell the fears of your men earns you glory. Flirting with a lady to win her trust. Successful dancing with Guinevere.
Some skills may seem to be able to generate glory as they come more into play, but that is just as Skarpskytten says more based on how you play the game.


That's not a bad idea, but I think it goes too far. There really should be a break between Glory and Popularity/Favor. Skills like: dancing; Gaming; Flirting; Romance; Compose; Singing; Tourney; Falconry; even Hunting and Courtesy should increase ones Favor, Popularity or Social Standing and not give one Glory at all. Passions like Hospitality should also give one popularity and not glory.

Glory should come only from prowess and martial exploits and passions which demonstrate warrior values, such: as Loyalty (Lord); Loyalty (Pendragons) and Hate (Saxons).

I think the division between glory and popularity is bit stretching and feels a bit artificial imo. My definition of glory is a measure of how much people speak of you in the stories and gossip. In essence it is popularity. Some knights have a high glory because they are good warriors, others because they managed to become part of the stories because of other things.

I guess we differ in our approach of glory and as such also the way you use skills like courtesy.

I think the division between glory and popularity is bit stretching and feels a bit artificial imo. My definition of glory is a measure of how much people speak of you in the stories and gossip. In essence it is popularity. Some knights have a high glory because they are good warriors, others because they managed to become part of the stories because of other things.

I guess we differ in our approach of glory and as such also the way you use skills like courtesy.


Glory comes in all shapes and sizes. You can gain renown and fame just by being the Earl of Salisbury, which the rules accurately reflect. I agree and definitely like that Glory is available in so many different ways. It also helps you to kinda keep a finger on their reputations... oh he's famous because of his station, he's famous because of his actions in battle etc.

I also really like that Glory can be used to boost non-combat skills. It's a tangible effect of being famous, rich, powerful, skilled or brave...