To put it simply: Can it be used to manage one manor as opposed to estates or many manors? I have been using The Book of Manor but I want to use a system that is not quite so detailed but with some detail to it. More than on PK has one manor and only one has many manors.

Book of the estate is really for Knights who are to become "barons" by Greg's standards where they are background characters within the story. If your looking for something that has detail but isn't as easily bogged down like in book of the manor grab Lordly Domains its third edition but can be used just as easily for one manor and multiple manors but the economics of the lands are a little bit pricey but this was also when a household knights upkeep was 6 Libra a year.

Actually in Lordly Domain, the household knight is £4, same as now. It is using the £6 manors, though, like Book of the Manor.

You don't need Book of the Estate in order to run a single manor. It is a nice to have if you are curious about all the courtiers and stuff that the bannerets and such might have running around, but of course a single manor knight wouldn't have all that.

Have you taken a look at the narrative system that BotM offers? It is a much simpler one than the full manorial system.

Book of the Manor, in my opinion, is eminently modular if you want it to be:

1. Don't like random harvests? Fine, drop that, either altogether or replacing it with something simpler, like the system in the basic rulebook or the GPC. Or just estimate the harvest as the GM (Saxon tribute, raids, pestilence...), which is the Narrative (= GM tells me) System.

2. Don't like Manorial Luck rolls? Drop them. System works well enough without.

3. Don't like Care (My Commoners) roll? Drop it, no harm done, you are most likely to fail in the roll anyway!

4. Don't like the random Investment income? Just take the average (this is what Book of the Estate did): £1d2 income and -1£ maintenance = £0 or £1 / year = average £0.5 / year.

And hey presto, you have, in essence, the BotE land management system.

In my humble opinion, if all you are wanting is a simplified landholding system for a 1-manor knight, don't get Book of the Estate just for that. You can do it very easily using just Book of the Manor by stripping away the rolls, which, lets face it, is what BotE would offer you in the land management anyway. Now if you are interested also in all the other stuff BotE has in it, then it might be worth your while.

In my opinion Lordly Domains uses a very different system for economics and does not integrate well with the current system.

I have to agree that the POP, FOOD & GOODS system of Lordly Domains doesn't work well with BotE, nor even with BotM. Not to mention that raising POP is totally unbalanced in LD. Furthermore, if you were looking for a SIMPLER system than the one in BotM, I wouldn't recommend LD in that case, either. Instead just simplify/drop off some of the steps in BotM.

As I understand, from BoE, a bunch of manors do not make an estate. What about managing, say, 3 manors? By using BoM, it becomes a bit cumbersome if following all the steps.

As I understand, from BoE, a bunch of manors do not make an estate. What about managing, say, 3 manors? By using BoM, it becomes a bit cumbersome if following all the steps.


Totally up to you, as the GM. You don't like rolling three times, but you like the 1-manor knights getting the detail? Just wrap all those three manors into one 'super manor' for rolling purposes and use the averages of Stewardship and Hate/Like Landlord. Sure, on a good year, you will make a fortune, but a bad year is really, really bad.

Or, alternatively, follow the 'main manor' of the richest guy in detail, and all the other manors are producing at average level unless plot demands otherwise, no rolling needed.

You think the system is too slow as it is for everyone? Start dropping stuff off / simplify, as I suggested earlier.

As I understand, from BoE, a bunch of manors do not make an estate. What about managing, say, 3 manors? By using BoM, it becomes a bit cumbersome if following all the steps.


Yes, but the economics are the same.

The distinction is really legal. You can't split an estate (but you could subenfeoff it), but you could divide up the three manors. For example, in your will you could not give £10 to one son and £20 to another if it were an estate, but the three manors could be divided up.

NT

Don't overcomplicate an "Estate." It's a general term for a fief held directly from the King. For simplicity purposes, the BoE divvies that up mainly by control of a hundred and the settlements within it. But it can be 3 or 27 manors in different counties/hundreds etc. It basically is a difference in status/authority since it comes directly from the King. There is nothing in BoE that you can't use the same guidelines for holdings from a Count, a Baron or anyone else.

The economics system in BoE can be used for a single manor with no problem. It's very simple. Just draw it up as a 10L "estate" but the liege lord is whoever the GM determines it is. BoE changes the BoM baseline to 10L and lays it all out. You end up having about a 1L discretionary income but gain officers and followers etc. Damage is determined by "lots" which are basically 10% increments. Far less micro-management.

A major mechanic/difference in BoE is that you can only improve your caput major (chief manor). Since the other manors are held by stewards/bailiffs or governed remotely by yourself or a vassal knight, they do not have the day-to-day involvement that allows supervision of new projects and resources.

A few more questions.

Assuming I'm extrapolating BoE for single £10 manors:

A) Assized rent - this is whatever I want it to be right? If Sir Briant receives a manor, it can be a £8.90, a £12.1 or a £14.5 manor?
B) On page 30, Household Bonus Pay, after adding all the income, there's a surplus of £1. Where does this money go to?
C) I'm a bit confused about the household budgetary models on page 38. So, a £10 has expenses totaling £20? Can someone explain this model to me?
D) If a knight received 2% of discretionary cash, does this translate to, say for example, 48 d. out of a £10 manor?

A few more questions.


Not surprising, if you are tacking Book of the Estate... ;)

You might wish to read this thread:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2445.0



Assuming I'm extrapolating BoE for single £10 manors:

A) Assized rent - this is whatever I want it to be right? If Sir Briant receives a manor, it can be a £8.90, a £12.1 or a £14.5 manor?


In principle, yes. However, do note that a £8.9 manor will not look like a £14.5 manor in detail. First of all, the manors are clearly different sizes, have different amounts of personnel and produce different Discretionary Income. Hence, it is easier to simply take a 'typical' manor of £10 and not get bogged down to all of that detail, unless you really, really want to model the fact that the £9 manor might be missing a milkmaid and a spearman (but at the same time, isn't required to bring 3 foot soldiers but only two).



B) On page 30, Household Bonus Pay, after adding all the income, there's a surplus of £1. Where does this money go to?


Alas, I don't have the book and thus cannot open it and check the math. It could be just an addition error: there have been a few glaring ones in there. (See the Errata section of the Forum).



C) I'm a bit confused about the household budgetary models on page 38. So, a £10 has expenses totaling £20? Can someone explain this model to me?
D) If a knight received 2% of discretionary cash, does this translate to, say for example, 48 d. out of a £10 manor?


I think you might like the Book of the Warlord... As for now, to keep it simple... Your £10 manor actually produces additional £10 income from the work of the people living in the manor. Hence, your total income is £20, but so are your expenses, so it evens out. Charters only mention the Assized Rent (the worth of the land), which is why your £10 manor is more accurately '£10 in Assized Rent + the same again from the work people do'.

And yes, the discretionary income is 2% in the Book of the Estate, and it is calculated from the worth of the land (£10), not from the total budget (£20). You have calculated it correctly.

You might wish to read this thread:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2445.0


Oh, quick comment regarding the £10 manor, both in the Book of the Estate and in that thread... It is wrong. Oh so wrong. The Vassal Knight is supposed to be Ordinary in maintenance (£6). Not Rich. So the best way for you to deal with the thing is to say:
"Alright guys, I know the Book of the Estate says you have £20 income now. Nevermind that, the £14 is money you don't see. If you really, really wanna know what it does, we can talk about it. But as far your characters are concerned, they are getting their £6 upkeep still and nothing more... well, save for that 48d."

On page 2 it says an ordinary knight's manor supplies at least £10 for his maintenance.

On page 2 it says an ordinary knight's manor supplies at least £10 for his maintenance.


Like I said, it is wrong. The Book of the Estate math, unfortunately, was not subjected to the same rigorous checking that the Book of the Warlord will be. (That is my assumption, as there are mistakes like that in the BotE; however, I wasn't part of the BotE team, so I don't know first-hand what happened there.)

What it should have said on page 2 (and like said, since I don't have the book, so I can't check the wording) is that the ordinary knight's manor supplies about £10 for the maintenance of his household or something similar to that. Not only for the knight himself, but his family and some select members of his household, too (like spearmen and a chaplain).

Greg has stated before in this Forum that BotE does not trump the KAP grade of maintenance rules. I took that to mean that the 1-manor vassal knight was living as Rich, since I read that he was spending like £12 for his household and I couldn't get it to go below £9, the limit of Rich. However, Greg has since kindly corrected my mistake, and unequivocally stated that the £10 manor vassal knight is supposed to be an ordinary knight, at £6 yearly upkeep (with family). Hence, Book of the Estate's example £10 manor is simply wrong, and you will be doing your campaign a disservice if you switch now from £6 to £10 knightly upkeep. This mistake is being corrected.

So, the manor generates £10 but only £6 go to maintain the lord and his family standard of living as per the normal Grades of Wealth rules?

So, the manor generates £10 but only £6 go to maintain the lord and his family standard of living as per the normal Grades of Wealth rules?


The manor actually generates £20 (£10 from Assized Rent + £10 from production), but you are correct that only £6 go to maintain the Lord's and his family's standard of living, which means Ordinary maintenance. You got it.

Depending a bit how you have GMed the 3 manor owner so far... You could easily handwave this to apply to those two extra manors, too, so that:
1) Each of them provide some extra servants/courtiers (you can sort of estimate them by looking at £10 and £50 estates) and £6 'extra' that would normally go to support a knight and family.
2) This £6 needs to support a household knight (£4), so you are left with £2.
3) Depending how far the manors are from each other (same county or not), they might require separate stewards (£1 - £2, depending on skill).
4) Any income left over can be spent on increasing the knight's standard of living, or, with GM's permission, be used to hire more entourage members or for other stuff (as 'extra' discretionary income).

With two extra manors, the 3-manor knight might be able to live as a Rich Knight (£9 / year).

The above is a batch, trying to shoehorn BotE to be consistent with the previous £6 manor model, to minimize the disruption that it might otherwise cause. Also, if you have been playing so far so that the extra manors produce no extra income, just a household knight a piece, no reason for you to go and change that now...

I hope Taliesin & Greg don't mind me advertising that the Book of the Warlord will have a more unified economical system which will be internally consistent, scale-able and is compatible with KAP basic rulebook and Book of the Estates (after correcting some mistakes there, like the £10 manor knight discussed here).

As I said before, I don't mind handwaving anything that seems to irk the players and bogs the campaign down into needless details. Now, assuming the £10 manor fills the £6 manor role as we previously discussed, if a knight wants to pay for a higher Grade of Maintenance (such as Rich), he just needs to put up the difference. For instance, a knight with £10 would only have to pay an extra £3 to reach the minimum £9 for a Rich Knight? This could either come from plunder, investments on the manor, etc.

Exactly so.

A few more questions:

- Servitum debitum: does it apply to all manors or only to certain ranks of knights? Are the beginning vassal knights (with only one manor) subject to the servitum debitum? If so, each would have to provide 1 knight (the PK himself), 2 field footmen and 1 garrison footman?
- If a PK receives a manor as a gift with no vassal knight in it, the PK not forced to recruit a knight into it unless the terms of the charter say so correct? Or does he owe the lord a knight according to the servitum debitum?

A few more questions:
- Servitum debitum: does it apply to all manors or only to certain ranks of knights? Are the beginning vassal knights (with only one manor) subject to the servitum debitum? If so, each would have to provide 1 knight (the PK himself), 2 field footmen and 1 garrison footman?


(It is Servitium Debitum, although it might have been typoed in BotE.)
It applies to all manors. Deviations from it are extremely rare, almost unheard of. The 1-manor vassal knights (beginning PKs) have to provide 1 knight (themselves) and 3 footmen (included into the corrected £10 manor budget). I.e. nothing to sweat about.



- If a PK receives a manor as a gift with no vassal knight in it, the PK not forced to recruit a knight into it unless the terms of the charter say so correct? Or does he owe the lord a knight according to the servitum debitum?


Unless the circumstances are EXTREMELY favorable to the PK, the charter almost certainly specifies that the PK owes Servitium Debitum also for the gifted manor. However, the gifted manor probably doesn't have a knight already in it, which means the PK can get a household knight instead of a vassal one. Thus, the PK does gain some nice advantages from the gifted manor (more servants, a household knight, etc), but he doesn't get £6 (let alone £10) free cash per year!

Look at it from the Lord's point of view:
1) The King has given the Lord X number of manors, which are supposed to provide Y number of knights (where usually Y = X, but might be slightly lower if the King is feeling especially generous towards the Lord).
2) Now, if Lord gives Z number of manors to vassal knights, and doesn't get Z knights in return (servitium debitum), he will have to make up the lack of knights from his own funds when the King summons his army to war. This is very bad business for the Lord, hence why it is extremely rare.

(It is Servitium Debitum, although it might have been typoed in BotE.)

Yes, my typo. :)


It applies to all manors. Deviations from it are extremely rare, almost unheard of. The 1-manor vassal knights (beginning PKs) have to provide 1 knight (themselves) and 3 footmen (included into the corrected £10 manor budget). I.e. nothing to sweat about.

I assumed as much although the £10 manor budget in BoE doesn't include those values. Where is the corrected manor budget?


Thus, the PK does gain some nice advantages from the gifted manor (more servants, a household knight, etc), but he doesn't get £6 (let alone £10) free cash per year!

He also doesn't receive any Glory for this income lost to a household or vassal knight right? That's what I'm reading in BoE. If so, why is Lady Adwenn, in http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2364.0, receiving 43 Glory per year if only one of the manors is providing income? Unless she's receiving Glory from other source or it's an error.

I assumed as much although the £10 manor budget in BoE doesn't include those values. Where is the corrected manor budget?


It is not publicly available yet. I am hoping that it will be in an appendix of the Book of the Warlord and after that book is out, on Greg's website. And maybe when the next version of the Book of the Estate comes out, we can fix it there, too.

In any case, the important bits at the moment are:
- £10manor knight gets £6 to spend on his standard of living.
- £10 manor includes 3 footmen.
- Servitium Debitum for £10 manor is 1 knight (PK) and 3 footmen.



He also doesn't receive any Glory for this income lost to a household or vassal knight right? That's what I'm reading in BoE. If so, why is Lady Adwenn, in http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2364.0, receiving 43 Glory per year if only one of the manors is providing income? Unless she's receiving Glory from other source or it's an error.


Actually, he does. The liege gains 'landholding glory' for all the lands, including the enfeoffed ones. Let me give you a quick example:
A Baron's holding is £300. He gives £60 to his vassal (6 knights, each with £10 manor), and supports 23 household knights, too, to cover the 30 knight servitium debitum.
- The Baron gets 100 Glory for landholding (his total holding of £300, capped to 100).
- Each vassal knight gets 10 Glory (£10 manor)
- Household knights get no landholding glory, since they don't hold any land: they are just getting paid.

Lady Adwen's total holdings are £43.8 (demesne and enfeoffed). It doesn't matter at all for her landholding Glory that three of her four manors are held by vassal knights. Hence:
Lady Adwen: 44 Glory (I'd round it up, personally. £10.6 manor held personally.)
Sir James: 11 Glory (£11.1 manor)
Sir Dylan: 8 Glory (£8 manor)
Sir Baldwin: 14 Glory (£14.1 manor)

A point of clarification, then, about landholding. I am working solely with the concepts from the rulebook and BoE. In BoE, under the heading Glory, on page 14, it says a maximum of 100 Glory can be gained from landholding income each year (emphasis mine). Doesn't this mean that Glory is only from the income a knight receives? If one of his manors his enfeoffed to another does he get Glory from this manor even though he doesn't receive any income?

In BoE, under the heading Glory, on page 14, it says a maximum of 100 Glory can be gained from landholding income each year (emphasis mine). Doesn't this mean that Glory is only from the income a knight receives? If one of his manors his enfeoffed to another does he get Glory from this manor even though he doesn't receive any income?


The Book of the Estate doesn't make any distinction between demesne (held by the lord directly) and enfeoffed (held by vassals) manors. (This is one of my beefs with BotE, because it actually does matter.) Hence, when BotE is talking about the landholding income, BotE is looking at the VALUE of the land that the Lord holds, not how much it actually produces into his coffers. A Lord that holds 10 manors (at £10 each) and has given 5 of them to vassal knights, still gets 100 Glory since those 5 manors are still his in a deeper meaning: he is their liege lord. Greg's example of Lady Adwen bears this out.

Regarding manors/holdings and SD, a knight can receive land (manor/town/village/forest etc) that provides an income without SD attached (no knight service). As noted, it is not very common in these days since times are dark and everyone needs more swords. But it does happen where someone gains an office or has a responsibility attached to it. For example, some manors/holdings are attached to a castle to provide a garrison and knights. They are not enfeoffed with vassal knights but provide additional income to the holder to hire those swords. Also, sometimes property is given simply to keep someone in the style necessary for their rank. For example, the Count's Marshal gets a manor or two as payment for his services and to allow him the freedom to spend more time on his lord's needs.

Also, you could get it for doing something really incredible. Those grants would likely come only from the King who has land to spare... the other nobles (Counts/Barons) are miserly in such situations as they only have so much land.