Hi! I´m a newcomer here, and I´m not sure if I´m posting this in the right subforum. Please move the thread to the right place if it´s wrong.

I´ve played MANY rpgs earlier, but for the last couple of years I´ve lead D&D. But I´m tired of it. I´m checking out various game systems, looking for something more "down to earth". I was mainly looking at Runequest, BRP and Elric/Magic World, but then I remember I had very fun playing Pendragon about 15 years ago. Not only was it a nice campaign, but I remember the system as really nice. Especially the Traits and Passions bit - it seem to be "convertable" for non-knights, for example various religions/alignments in a fantasy setting. I also remember some real epic, very exciting battles.

Some questions:
1) What would you say about the Pendragon system, would it work in a generic, low magic fantasy setting?
2) How does it differ from normal BRP? (For example in combat)
3) What do you think is the strenghts and weaknesses with the system as a whole?

Note: I´m not interested in running the real Pendragon campaign, it would require too much of me right now. I´m just looking for a system to run good fantasy in, one-shots or a small campaign.

Hi Necross,

In my humble opinion, Pendragon works very well for low-magic fantasy. I have often been tempted to play Lord of the Rings using Pendragon (and have run some scenarios with it, actually). However, there are some caveats, in my mind:

1. Being outnumbered is deadly. Unless you have the armor to become nigh invulnerable, you will get hit and you will get hurt. Forget about wading into a horde of orcs and emerging unscathed.

2. d20 is quite random. Yes, high skill will help a lot, but even if you have Skill 20, you might get hurt by someone with skill 10. Which makes things tense, I guess. It can be frustrating at times, though, and again, will cut down a bit of the heroics if you are looking for the heroes to one-shot the dastardly orcs left and right. Which means that armor is again the key.

3. Did I already mention armor? Forget about being a lightly armored hero, unless you have skills in the 30 or so. You'll get hurt otherwise.

4. Speaking of getting hurt, Pendragon damage is high. If the opponent is not armored, one hit will lay him low. Which is good as to keep things going, but bad if it is the hero who gets chopped in twain.

5. If you are introducing other 'classes' into the mix, you'll need to add some skills. I'd likely prune down the weapon skill list, too, while at it.

6. The advancement in pendragon is yearly, you probably wish to change that to something that will happen in your game more often, if it is a more traditional fantasy pacing one.

So to make the combat system more forgiving especially for people not moving around in steel plates, you might tweak the damage a bit (and reduce the protection given by the armor), allow high skill to act as a bit of armor (similarly as a shield currently but even without a shield, perhaps slightly lower points) and reduce the randomness of d20 and lower the penalties of being outnumbered (that you have to divide your skill).

For instance, I might do something like this:
1) Replace d20 with 3d6.
2) Skill/combat resolution is Skill + 3d6.
2a) If the result is 19 or less, it is a failure.
2b) If the result is 20 - 29, it is a partial success. You score a glancing blow for half damage if you defeated the other guy, or you manage to parry with a shield / sword for a bit of extra armor.
2c) If the result is 30 - 39, it is a full success. You score a full damage hit on the opponent if you win or you get some extra protection for shield/sword parry.
2d) If the result is 40 or more, it is a critical success. Double damage and all that good stuff.
2e) Rolls of 3-4 are always fumbles, and rolls of 17-18 are always critical. (That gives about 2% fumbles and criticals.)

That's just quickly off the top of my head. No playtesting done. :)

Pendragon works very well in the thing it was designed for: playing a knight fighting mainly against other knights in a generational story.

I have not played BRP, so can't help you there.

Obviously, I agree with what Moriens says about damage (http://www.rollspel.nu/forum/ubbthreads.php/posts/867048/Re:%20Pendragon%20utan%20riddare?.html#Post867048) . And about running a Middle-Earth campaign with Pendragon (http://www.rollspel.nu/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/862930/Re:%20Mer%20Tolkien%20på%20min%20blog.html#Post862 930).

I would add, that KAP has a rather slow heal-rate and that combat might leave knights bedridden and out of actions for months. A KAP combat with unarmored or lightly armored humans are likely to end in two or three rounds with most participants dead or bedridden for a long, long time.

1) Yes, I think it would.

2) The main difference is the dice mechanism, that you roll opposed rolls and that you want to roll as high as possible but under or equal to your skill.

BRP combat with high skills tend to last a long time; combat in KAP as quick and decisive, because you don't have attack and parry, but roll at the same time, and the winner hits the looser. Much more exciting, much quicker. Rarely does a KAP combat run for more than five rounds.

3) The strengths are 1) the dice mechanism (above), 2) the traits and passion-system, and 3) the yearly format/genealogical mechanism.

Point 1) would be useful to you, I guess, but would you use 2) and 3)?

I am playing in a game run by a friend atm and we have increased the heal rate from weekly to daily. This has increased the time needed to heal wounds. also we have some rather powerful magic users. I am one of them.

One of my powers is to take the damage from another character and heal it overnight. combined with the faster heal rate makes up for the slow healing from standard KAP.

Btw the magic system is using part of the 4th edition magic system. The system is a skill roll, then roll a number of d20 to see if there is enough energy. If there is not it will cost some hitpoints (this varies from 1d6 to several d6s).

My friends refused to play a "historical" game, but I LOVE the Pendragon Character Sheet. We comprimised: i created a fantasy world, they agreed to play knights in that world. I simply used Saxons as orcs, fay as elfs, and the rest was really just narrative nuance.

To make up for the lethal combat system, i increased their Size rather a lot (they were probably half-giants! but since they didn't understand the system, i didn't tell them about this!) i had them promoted quickly (to Captins under a Baron) so that they had a sizeable force of men-at-arms and a few vassal knights that could get killed on their behalf, leaving them to do with 'Boss' villains, politics, jousts and duels etc. I let them have the full effect of their wounds for two reasons (a) great time to do manorial improvements, arrange marriages, get dragged into gossips and nonesense (b) drove home the point that they are not in D&D any more! It made the players more considerate of their fights, and in the end, made them proud to be knights - after finally learning that they were honor-and-duty bound to undertake these lethal encounters agains their better judgement!

I created a lot of enchanted items. i treated their steeds as enchanted items as well.

I kept magic beyond the reach of PCs (i used 'hard' magic, based on the 4th Ed system plus my own crowley/ lovecraft knowledge - lots of Glamours, and after that it was REALLY bad!) - one knight did pick up a "spell book" (his assumption) after slaying a necromancer, but after 3 years of studying just to dechiper the script, he realized it wasn't just a foreign language, but encrypted! (as all magician's books would be). He had been dumping skill points, money and time into it... and losing SAN (adapted from Call of Chthullu RPG) and finally gave it up.

We had a lot of fun, but it was still a knightly campaign revolving around family, honor, land, and politics - in that order. Not your typical tolkenesque 'walks 50 ft... what happens?' trope.

I LOVE the Pendragon Character Sheet.

Then you should check this out. (https://www.dropbox.com/s/untlsmod8sjcrt3/Taliesins-Pendragon-Generic-sheet-v7.pdf)

Best,


T.

Ah, for that character sheet in a form fill version for online game use...

I wonder if a.. forgot what they call it, but a pool of minor characters with the Majors like Ars Magica.

That way there would be room for attrition in the less than armoured chaps.


For Advancement that isnt Year ala KAPD- Nephilim which is a d100 system related to BRPG uses the check system, but allows for rolls to advance after each Major event or quest. It also had rules for training based on hours free per week if you wanted to go there.

Converted to KAPD it would be 5 hours per skill level that you ever aiming for. So to go from 14 Sword to 15 would be (15x5) hours - 75 hours. So if a character has 2 hours a day to train outside there normal duties when not adventuring then that would take 6 weeks of solid training you then get a skill check as if you had during adventuring if you are self training or an automatic increase if you have a tutor of higher skill during that period.

Ah, for that character sheet in a form fill version for online game use...


Stand by, one is in the works! We provide the one above as a freebie. We'll be selling a form-fill version in the near future on DriveThru RPG. We actually have a prototype now that's mostly ready to go — we just want to see how far we can push it, so it still requires some development.


Best,


T.

Pendragon has been adapted to Glorantha via David Dunham's PenDragon Pass rules. Seemed to work well and was discussed quite a bit on the old Glorantha Digest.

http://www.pensee.com/dunham/pdp.html

SDLeary