So I am currently preparing to run the great pendragon campaign, however I have not purchases any supplements. What order would you prioritize the supplements for purchase?

I was all ready to answer, then froze up.

Book of Battle is good because the battle resolution is a lot more satisfying (imo) than the basic game, and particularly in the first half of the GPC, there's a lot of battles. Book of Armies supplies a lot more variety to foes for battles (that's my only hard and fast- Book of Armies after Book of Battle).

But, before Book of Battle, you might consider the Book of Knights- it gives a ton more options for starting characters in where they're from, what culture group, and such. Even if you're sticking with Cymric knights from Salisbury, it has a more interesting luck table as well as rules for Spear Expertise- a culture specific skill that replaces spear, lance, and great lance.

And if you're going with the default start of vassal knights, I like Book of Manor for more options to personalize and expand the holdings of the PKs, and a more in-depth look at the economics of holding a manor (which Greg is moving away from in Book of the Estate for good reasons, but I think it still works well for the single-manor vassal knight).

Book of Entourage can flesh out all the people living and working at the manor and following the knights around, but I think that can be held off on. And Book of Estate starts giving a look at how the rich live, but until the PKs start gaining land, it's not really needed.

So, my first three would be Book of Battle, Book of Manor, and Book of Knights, with Book of Armies sometime after Battle (Battle does have some armies in it, which would get you through the early years).

This is a though question because it depends entirely on what you want to do with your campaign. However, focusing only on the available print-on-demand stuff from Nocturnal, and taking into account that you're going to start in 485, I'd suggest something along the lines of what srhall79 suggested, but with some differences:

1) get Book of Battle 2nd edition. The first periods of the GPC are very battle-heavy and this book is the state-of-the-art for running Pendragon battles. Get also Book of Armies for enemy variety and color.

2) If your players want to play characters from outside Salisbury (or from Continental Europe), get Book of Knights & Ladies. It's not an important book to get ASAP if you're sticking to Salisbury PCs.

3) Book of the Manor is good stuff if you plan to stick with only one or two manors per knight for the rest of the campaign. It's not good for when you have bigger estates. It's also heavy on the accounting/micromanagement. Personally I'd skip it and go for Book of the Estate, because it allows you to also manage single manors, plus it's far less accounting heavy and scales well to estates of any size. Also notice that Book of the Estate also contains lots of customizations for your landholdings, similar to Book of the Manor. Imho you get the best of both worlds by going with Estate.

4) Book of the Entourage is not essential by any means. It's just to add color to the people in your retinue/household. Some of this stuff is in Book of the Estate too. You may or may not want to get this.


So, to summarize, you should definitely get Book of Battle 2nd edition and Book of Armies. For estates/landholding you have to decide what you prefer, but I'd go with Book of the Estate. The rest is not essential and depends on what you want from your campaign.

I am probably not the best person to answer this, given that I only own the Book of the Manor, but here goes anyway...

1) Are you playing the GPC for the first time? Then I would recommend sticking with Salisbury knights. There is plenty of variety in there already without introducing knights from all over the map. Personally, I as a GM would be more inclined to accept more varied background in AD 531 when Camelot is in full swing, attracting famous and not so famous knights from all over Europe. Also, having a common background tends to be a very good thing, especially for players less familiar with the setting. Foreign PCs tend to be more outsiders, which makes it harder for them to get into the politics of the scene, and also they have less at stake: most of their family is overseas (presumably). If that is not the case, the GM will have to go to an extra trouble to graft those immigrant families to the Salisbury tree and they will also miss out on the Salisbury family history, which may or may not be a big thing for the other PCs heritage. And this is without getting one of those players who wishes to come from the far distant lands in the east, using a single bladed sword that rhymes with banana, and who will wish to judo-chop people into submission, too...

2) Do your players like to tweak their Manors and to develop them during the game? Or is it more like 'sure, whatever, can we adventure now?'. If the latter, I think I would trust Gorgon's opinion on Book of the Estate, although if they are not at all interested in their manorial rolling you might even give that a miss... If your players wish to concentrate on their manorial improvements and all that, then I have been quite happy with the Book of the Manor. Also it depends a bit if you want the PCs in your campaign to become big landowners or not. Some Campaigns have PCs becoming Counts and such, while some others (mine included) they are still vassal knights, although in my campaign, they tend to have 2 - 4 manors instead of the one their families started out with. If you foresee them becoming big landowners relatively soon, and you can only afford one of these supplements, then you might wish to take the Book of the Estate.

3) I have heard good things about the Book of the Battle II. Again, it came out a bit too late for me, as our campaign was already past the heavy fighting stage, and besides, I was tinkering with a homebrew battle system anyway. One big question that is hard to answer at this stage of course is: how much do your players like playing a Battle? Taliesin posted a couple of links in the Book of the Estate thread. There are two examples there for you to peruse to get some idea how the Battle plays out. ... Here you go, just click here to take you to his post:



You might also take a look at this thread and my answer in it, as it was an old Pendragon GM coming back to the game and asking similar questions about what to buy:


I think my recommendations would be:
1) Book of the Estate or Book of the Manor (depending on the campaign needs)
2) Book of the Battle II
Maybe:
3) Book of Knights
Not really:
4) Book of Armies: You should be able to get started with BotBII.
5) Book of Entourage: You already have some rules in the BotE and BotM.

I would just like to add that Book of the Estate isn't just a management/economic system, but also a background sourcebook. It details how estates are organized, how many counties are there in Logres, their names, their main castles where Sheriffs live, duties of landholders, lots of examples of estates of different sizes and how they work, political/military organization of the lands of Logres, etc. This will be further expanded in Book of the Warlord, which will detail e.g. how many castles exist in Logres and where, the political relationship between Barons and the King, etc. This series of books of which Book of the Estate will be part (Book of the Estate, Book of the Warlord, Book of Barons, Book of Uther and Book of Arthur) will be essential imho for an in-depth look at the political and military organization of Logres. This isn't just about system mechanics for land management. I suspect that eventually people will end up with BotE and it's follow-up books anyway just for the background even if they don't use the system.

Otherwise, Morien's advice is pretty good, I think you have enough now to make an informed decision. And yes, Book of Battle is the state-of-the-art system for Battles in Pendrgon, but that's just if you actually want that level of detail. Otherwise, you'll have to either stick with the core book (it doesn't let you do much to affect battle outcome) or come up with your own system (I personaly don't own Battle).

This is my first time running Pendragon at all, and so I am not sure of what my players will want to do. I would love to steer them towards manorial management but I don't know yet. My fear is looking at the number of battles in the first few years as well. I haven't run it, but the consensus seems to be that the core battle rules alone are not very satisfying.In that sense Book of battle looks like a good bet. Whats the difference between book of battle and the book of battle II? I will be sticking with just salisbury knights for now. Is there any value to Knights and Ladies for just Salisbury Knights? Would I harm my campaign at all holding off on what essentially looks like expanded character creation?

Assuming I have it right Battle II is the second edition. Better layout, errata etc. I'd check the Battle II thread here too. As far as Knights, my understanding is that it mainly expands lands and cultures your knight is from. If you are sticking with Salisbury then it is not needed. Cymric chars get Spear Expertise already mentioned above but your campaign will be fine without.

Morien is right. Book of Battle II means just that it's the 2nd edition. Book of Knights & Ladies is not needed at all if you're just going to play Salisbury knights. It could be argued that you never actually needed it, since it's mostly for color.

EDIT: by the way, notice that you can use Manor and Estate together at the same time. You can use Estate to run all you manors/lands you get during gameplay but use Manor to run in detail the manor where you actually live, if you want extra detail for that one.

Just a point of clarification: Book of Knights is a supplement for 4E, while Book of Knights & Ladies gives 5E/5.1 rules for knights (and ladies) from outside of what I consider the UK.

In my campaign, BoB1 was quickly replaced by BoB2 (thanks for twisting my arm!), BoEstate and BoK&L were used after first knights.

I mirror the sentiment that BoBattle2 is a "must-have" if the GM is planning on running a battle-heavy campaign. I LOVE LOVE LOVE making characters with BoK&L. Both my players & I love "spreadsheets the Pendragon game" from BoEstate and the damn Apiary Arson Assemblage.

YPMV...

Just a point of clarification: Book of Knights is a supplement for 4E, while Book of Knights & Ladies gives 5E/5.1 rules for knights (and ladies) from outside of what I consider the UK.



Good clarification. I had in my head that Book of Knights & Ladies had been split up into Book of Knights and Book of Ladies after its initial publication. Not sure where that idea came from.

Ok, so as an update, we have played two sessions now and it has become clear that my players are most interested in going to court as well as managing their territories along with all the social drama between them. I think then, my best options are Book of the Manor or Book of the Estate. One player has mentioned an interest in working to increase the peasant population of his manor. Another was interested in throwing manorial parties while another wanted to become a hero to his manorial population. Which of these two books is more likely to fill that niche. I am also a bit afraid of the massive bookkeeping that seems to be involved in Manor, although having not seen it, I am unsure if I should be wary of that. I plan on buying a book in the next few days. Which would you recommend?

Sounds like they wish to go in depth to the workings of a manor, so Book of the Manor.

It has rules for the population increase and for fostering the love and the respect of the peasants towards their heroic, just overlord. Not so much on the parties, but tournaments are outside the scope of a single manor anyway... Easy enough to look at the feast prices in the rulebook and hire some entertainers (or have one as a retainer, if he intends to be throwing parties all the time).

Really, the book-keeping aspect of BotM has been a bit overstated. It is really not that bad and even acts as a 'mini-game' of sorts for those who like to SimCity their Manors. :) Also, a huge money sink, especially in the early part of the campaign, when all those expensive investment are just one well thrown Saxon torch away from a bonfire... Then again, that ought to give the heroic knight a chance to be heroic!

I agree with Morien; the things your players want will be better served by Book of the Manor than by Book of the Estate.