Greetings,

I'm relatively new to Pendragon (though I was a reader when its very first ad ran in Dragon Magazine ;-)

I've been studying The Book of Knights and Ladies and I have a question. Forgive me if this has been asked and answered already but I couldn't find anything.

On page 58, the text explains that during skill choices, "No skill with a beginning value of 0 or “―” may be augmented, except for combat skills."

I've tried to find this rule in the 5.1 version of the rules but it doesn't seem to be there. At the same time, it is not listed under "New Rules & Clarifications" in Knights and Ladies.

I can understand how skills with a starting value of "—" are excluded from improvement during character creation, but I notice, for example, that some of the "0" skills for instance, can be improved by other modifiers during character creation such as the "Family Characteristic" table or "Father's Class Bonuses".

It seems odd to me that if a player wanted to push the envelope, they should be allowed, for instance, to develop a Cymric Knight who can read, a Pictish lady who can Play an instrument, or a Roman with any skill in "Boating" or "Compose" at the start of a campaign.

It wouldn't be a huge thing to stretch this rule, but at the same time, I'm designing a very automated character sheet application, and I want to make sure it doesn't raise eyebrows that I might include or exclude this "0" rule.

What are your thoughts on this?

I suspect that it was originally intended to do this (KAP 5.1, p. 29):
• No Non-Knightly skill may be augmented (see Chapter
4). Hence, for example, no player knight can have the
Chirurgery skill before starting play.

I have no problem with a Roman knight knowing boating; indeed, many of them might hail from Londinium, so barges and ferries and even ships might be familiar to them, more so than for someone living in, say, Salisbury. Same thing with knights learning how to read, even though the skill starts at 0 for beginning knights in KAP 5.1.

In other words, I see no reason to limit the players, as long as they are picking knightly skills and the ones which exist at the starting date. So for example, no Romance and Tourney in Uther's days. Heraldry, apparently, does exist, although still in a pretty simplified form and mostly for landed nobility rather than every household knight having his individual design.

Thanks for your response. I do feel the same way about this.