Hi,

I'm running my first Pendragon campaign and I'm having a tough time resolving a combat scenario:
Two PCs have managed to knock down a fleeing spy (who may have just assassinated the lord of the castle they're staying in). One of the PCs wants to press his blade to the bandit's neck and intimidate him into surrendering. The player (as well as myself) is not really sure what to roll though.

Should I:
- Test his blade opposed vs. the spy's (considering the appropriate bonuses and penalties) to see if he can actually put the blade to his neck?
- Roll something for the intimidation itself, giving a bonus for the immediate threat of the 'blade on neck'?
- If yes then what should be rolled? Orate? Should I simply test the spy's coward/brave traits?

What are your thoughts on this?

I would go for something along the lines of option three, this is a test of character, rather than skill. Get the player to chose a Trait that they feel represents the side of their character they are trying to put over, or maybe as an alternative orate although I usually see this as a skill used when speaking to crowds. I would use valorous for the NPC. Apply modifiers as required - are there directed traits that might apply? Is there a passion the player might want to call upon. Maybe you could give a mod. for the blade against the neck. Later in the campaign you could also possibly add modifiers for Glory too - if faced against a particularly famous character, an NPC might respond according to their fame and reputation.

The big question for me, as the spy, would be: What will happen to me if I surrender? Is it worse that will happen to me if I do not?

In this particular case, getting caught after assassinating the Lord of the Castle, I would expect to be tortured for information about the person who hired me, and then publicly and painfully put to death over an extended period of time. So no, I would not surrender and would rather take that slit throat, thanks. On the other hand, if I am not particularly loyal to my employer, I might try to negotiate my own freedom in exchange for helping the knights catch the 'true villain'. However, it will be rather hard for me to play the 'just following orders, guv' henchman, if my hands are still red from a cowardly assassination. Things are not looking good for me, now are they?

Now, if I am innocent to the assassination, or if I think that there is no proof as to my guilt, I might try to surrender and hope for the best. I would certainly try to have something of value to ingrate myself to my captors, offering to sing about my employer (no torture necessary, really!), offers of ransom paid by my family (only if I am whole and unharmed!), offers to lead them to a treasure trove that I know about (more gold than you have ever seen!), a pretty sister I could hook them up with (the most beautiful woman in the land, save for the Queen!), anything really to avoid the red hot pokers and artfully dull spoons.

I wouldn't make the players roll anything. Heck, the situation is intimidating enough as it is! The big question would be Loyalty (employer) vs Cowardly of the Spy. And I would probably increase the cowardly by 5 once torture gets applied, and roll again to see if he spills the beans. But if the Spy knows that he will be better off with a quick, clean death, I would decrease Cowardly by 5 (or even 10) and have him trying to force the PKs to kill him quickly in a fight rather than to be taken alive, if he doesn't succeed in Cowardly. If he does succeed in Cowardly, then, against all hope, he hopes to be able to talk his way out of this without harm, or whimper and beg and squeal. Whatever it takes.

Thank you very much for the prompt replies!

I agree with Merlin as I really didn't want to go with Orate - having previously stated in the game that it really should only apply to crowds and speeches.
I'm gonna go with both your advices and resolve as following:
Have one last ditch effort by the spy to avoid being skewered on the floor by having a Sword (PC) v. Dagger (Spy) contest considering the applicable boni and penalties. Should the PC succeed (it most probably will) he'll deal no damage but instead have the blade on the buglar's neck.
Have the spy try to surrender should he succeed an unnoposed Coward test. He will have a +5 bonus to the trait due to being outnumbered and on the floor and an extra +5 should he have the blade to his neck. Being a former employee to the lord he'll plead that he walked into his chambers at night to deliver important information (on the impeding attack to the castle which the PCs will have to defend) and found the lord dead. He'll affirm that he only ever try to flee the PCs because they would never believe one as humble as he is.
I'll have the PCs roll their Merciful traits unnoposed then to ponder on the outcome of the scene.

Well, the spy should really make up his mind BEFORE resisting with a dagger. He is smart, right? He knows that if he draws his dagger to stab a knight, he is only making his guilt all the more obvious.

Now, not knowing what transpired before, it is hard to say what kind of a lie would work. Are the PKs strangers in the castle? It is night, the corridors are dark? They saw him leaving the lord's chamber and commanded him to stop, giving chase? Or just ran at him? He presumably ran away? What was his exit plan? Surely it was not taking on several trained knights with a dagger?

Because something like this might sound more reasonable:
He was coming to the lord's chambers to deliver the news. He found his lord dead. As he was leaving the room to sound an alarm, strange armed men came at him (poor lighting and/or lack of familiarity). The assassins, he thought! And ran for his life! When the assassins caught up with him, he was trying to do his dear lord one last service by trying to fight the assassins, before he realized that it was just the knights who were the guests.

Also, if he did still have a bloody dagger in hand... well, then he is screwed. But if he just had a bloody dagger in its sheath, then, if I were the spy, I'd make sure to cut my palm by 'accident' while drawing, and smear that blood around during the struggle. Thus, I could show that the blood on the dagger is simply from my palm, see? There are no CSI tests of blood type in the middle ages... Assuming the fell deed was done with a dagger, of course.

Granted, you might wish to roll Deceitful for the Spy to see if he would be able to come up with such a contingency plan (either on the fly or just in case he is caught).

Might not be enough to save his life, but it MIGHT give him a chance to angle for a reasonable doubt and point fingers elsewhere. Assuming, of course, that they don't have witnesses about him killing the lord.

EDIT: About the modifiers... Like I said earlier, it really does depend a lot if he has a chance of surviving the accusations of the lord's murder. If he is facing torture if he surrenders, that should definitely give him a big incentive to prefer the cleaner death with the sword!

Alright, I wasn't gonna bother you guys with details, but you've been so thoughtful I think I'll give you a better light.

I didn't say this before in order to avoid confusion, but this is a pre-arthurian historical campaign which I intend to run all the way through arthurian times. The PCs are actually roman officers on their way to their unit, sleeping in the Wall fort of Pons Aelius (Newcastle). The year is 367 and they've just been attacked in what will be known as the Great Conspiracy. So, instead of a lord in a castle we're actually talking about a roman commander in a fort.

So, the spy, a local pict emplyed by the romans, actually did murder the commander, he also happened to poison the barrack's grub which produced a fatigue penalty to the fort's soldiers (and some PCs who partook in a night meal). These 2 PCs, upon wakening to the sounds of battle found the spy leaving the commander's quarters. The spy bolted, they gave chase. They fumbled with their weapons in a dark hallway (oh, those pesky -10 penalties) and eventually caught up with him in a lighted section where the first managed to knock him down with a clean sword blow and the second is attemping the intimidation move.

As far as the spy's motivations: he does not believe victory is possible for the Romans - he did succeed in his mission to poison the soldiers, murder the commander and open the gates; he is also immoral and will not mind lying through his teeth (I will, however, roll his high Deceitful to evaluate how much he's INTO the lie). I'll play him as trying to forestall his demise as much as possible (since it no longer appears possible to escape in the night), by talking the PCs into arresting him so that he may be freed later on by his victorious pict companions.

I'll play him as trying to forestall his demise as much as possible (since it no longer appears possible to escape in the night), by talking the PCs into arresting him so that he may be freed later on by his victorious pict companions.


Thanks for the details. In this case, I would not even roll the Cowardly for the Pict: he can either die for sure, or, like you said, he has a high chance of being rescued before the Romans get their act together. So it makes perfect sense for him to surrender, although the 'strange assassins' excuse doesn't really work. I am not sure if he should try to use his dagger, though... Depends if he is thinking he has a chance for making a clean getaway if he manages to wound the Roman officers... on the other hand, he risks getting hacked to pieces. I might make a Valorous roll against that, to see if he is willing to risk fighting back in the first place, being outnumbered and having a knife in a sword fight.

That is great advice.

I think I'll have him use the dagger (bloody by the way) to defend himself (which keeps with his motivation of surviving as long as possible) while the PC tries to pin him with his sword making it, correct me if I'm mistaken, +5 for the PC and +5 (-5+10) for the Spy.

Maybe I should count it as a combined action for both though, since they are in fact trying to do two things in the same round (the PC is 'fighting' and intimidating the spy, while the spy is trying to get up and defending at the same time).

In this case, I'd negate both of their boni by giving a -5 penalty to each of their combat rolls.

If the spy manages to last the round, I can then roll his Cowardly giving the aforementioned boni to see if he surrenders (and he probably will, even if the PC fails to pin him with the sword).

As for the excuse the spy will stick to his shoddy "I found him like that" story (I always intended to play him as very efficient but not very bright), since there are no direct witnesses and he was a known face among the soldiery. Should all else fails he'll appeal to roman due process in his heavily accented latin (if it comes to that he'll have a sad surprise as the PC in question is now the senior officer in the fort).

Maybe I should count it as a combined action for both though, since they are in fact trying to do two things in the same round (the PC is 'fighting' and intimidating the spy, while the spy is trying to get up and defending at the same time).


I wouldn't count intimidating as a combined action, as he is trying to put his sword on the guy's throat and THEN intimidating. It is a consequence of the attack, not a combined action. However, I might give the player -5 as this is clearly a more difficult maneuver than 'I hack at any part which is in range'. Of course, if he does manage to land this kind of a 'hit', I would rule that at any point, if the situation doesn't change, he will get to do damage on the opponent: he is basically 'holding' onto his damage dice. I might even give him an extra damage die as a bonus, which might balance that -5 out a bit, but is clearly still a maneuver intended to take live prisoners rather than just kill them.

I do not give extra -5 for people trying to get up, as -10/+5 is murder pure and simple. I think there was a bit of a discussion on that way back when about this, and i think consensus was that -5/+5 was bad enough.

Ah, here we go, p. 115, edition 5.0 of the rulebook:
"When knocked down, an armored knight may struggle
back to his feet during the Movement Phase next round (i.e.,
not the one yet to come this round). If the character is attacked
before getting up, then he and his opponent(s) receive
–5/+5 reflexive modifiers to their weapon rolls. Unless
knocked down again, he regains his footing at the beginning
of the next Movement Phase, and may take a move
normally at that time."

That's a good call, I'll go with that!
Thanks a lot! Maybe I'll post the resolved scene later on in the appropriate forum.

Late to the race, but gonna run anyway


I'm running my first Pendragon campaign and I'm having a tough time resolving a combat scenario:
Two PCs have managed to knock down a fleeing spy (who may have just assassinated the lord of the castle they're staying in). One of the PCs wants to press his blade to the bandit's neck and intimidate him into surrendering. The player (as well as myself) is not really sure what to roll though.

Some excellent answers have been given
However, if I were GM I probably would not make any roll whatsoever for the thief
I would have him perform whatever action I wanted, in order to test the player knight, who is after all the preeminent character here
In fact, I would probably just have the PK attempt his Merciful Trait
He has no reason to spare the suspected murderer

No reason except to interrogate the knave and find out why the murder was done and if there are more traitors, etc. Plenty of reasons to want to take the traitor alive, and no, that would not count as Merciful to me if you are only sparing his life to torture the truth out of him.

I admit, I could accept a justification for the player to roll Merciful to see if he can put aside the impulse to simply run the suspected murderer through. Or even Forgiving, not to avenge his commander. Player's suggestion would carry weight here.

Late to the race, but gonna run anyway

Some say a wizard is never late...

From what I got though, neither PC actually wants to kill the spy, preferring to keep him for a later interrogation as Morien put (it's a play by forum, so the pace can be a little slow and sometimes it can be hard to read my players' future intentions).

The combat bit of the scene actually moved forward with the intimidating officer missing his sword roll. The other player decided to pin the spy though using the appropriate manouver. I'm waiting for his roll but it's pretty obvious that the situation is resolved and that the spy has no escape. As Mr. Stafford suggested I will concentrate on the characters' tests and skip rolling the spies traits altogether, treating it as a test of character for the young officers. (Who, by the way, have no real connection to the commander, they were only staying the winter night on the fort on their way to their unit)

Thank you once again for all the great advice!

Late to the race, but gonna run anyway

Some say a wizard is never late...

:D


From what I got though, neither PC actually wants to kill the spy, preferring to keep him for a later interrogation as Morien put (it's a play by forum, so the pace can be a little slow and sometimes it can be hard to read my players' future intentions).

I will push this forward: he was inspired by Hate--his choice is greatly diminished


The combat bit of the scene actually moved forward with the intimidating officer missing his sword roll.

Wotta klutz then! :)
Did he have the modifiers for a prone foe (+5)

Wotta klutz then! :)
Did he have the modifiers for a prone foe (+5)
Indeed he had it. He does, however, have a low skill (he chose to focus his starting points on social skills instead). But I guess he'll up his sword skill as soon as he can after missing a fairly easy dispute and dropping his weapon earlier in the dark corridor (which honestly wasn't his fault, just a simple fumble, but is demoralizing anyway).
He rolled an 8 for his skill of 7 (+5 for the prone foe, -5 for aiming at the neck).

Wotta klutz then! :)
Did he have the modifiers for a prone foe (+5)
Indeed he had it. He does, however, have a low skill (he chose to focus his starting points on social skills instead). But I guess he'll up his sword skill as soon as he can after missing a fairly easy dispute and dropping his weapon earlier in the dark corridor (which honestly wasn't his fault, just a simple fumble, but is demoralizing anyway).
He rolled an 8 for his skill of 7 (+5 for the prone foe, -5 for aiming at the neck).

I wouldn't have done the -5 for the aim
This isn't combat--the guy is lying on the ground with the aiming already done--it's on his neck!
Heck, I'd probably give him a +10

but don't worry
it'll get easier!

Greg, the sword wasn't yet on the villain's throat; the guy had been just knocked down, but he was still in the fight with his dagger, trying to get up. The PK stepped in and declared trying to pin the villain down by putting the sword on his throat. Since it was felt that controlling the sword finely enough against an active enemy as to place the sword on the neck and stopping there was harder than just chopping at whichever bodypart presented itself, -5 sounded the way to go for the aim.

Had the sword already been positioned against the villain's throat, I wouldn't have even asked for a roll to hit, making it automatic, unless the PK would have gotten distracted by something else. And even then, yeah, something like +10 would have been justified.

Ah
Good call then



Greg, the sword wasn't yet on the villain's throat; the guy had been just knocked down, but he was still in the fight with his dagger, trying to get up. The PK stepped in and declared trying to pin the villain down by putting the sword on his throat. Since it was felt that controlling the sword finely enough against an active enemy as to place the sword on the neck and stopping there was harder than just chopping at whichever bodypart presented itself, -5 sounded the way to go for the aim.

Had the sword already been positioned against the villain's throat, I wouldn't have even asked for a roll to hit, making it automatic, unless the PK would have gotten distracted by something else. And even then, yeah, something like +10 would have been justified.