Hi all

I am not a newbie to Pendragon, having purchased the first edition back in the 80's, and have been DMing ever since. I own all the 1st edition and 3rd edition books, and a few of the Green Knight books. I have finally decided to start afresh, and embrace Pendragon 5

I own Pendragon 5 rule book and the Great Pendragon Campaign, plus Book of Battle 2 and Book of Armies. Could somebody summarize, maybe one sentence for each, what the current expansion products are and what they do, so that I can make informed buying decisions?

Hopefully, this would also be of use to others

Hi, Makofan, and welcome.

All of the products are summarized nicely on DriveThruRPG. That said:

BOOK OF THE ESTATE: Replaces the Book of the Manor and provides a new and revised landholding system, that is intended to replace MANOR. It is simpler, faster, and better aligned with the realities of the early medieval period. There are new rules for Fealty and Homage (which basically replace the old Loyalty passion), guidelines for what kind of deeds of arms can win an estate for Player-knights, ten ready-to-play estates if you don't want to go to the trouble of building your own, and lots more. That said, I'd wait awhile until we release the errata we're currently working on — especially if you're buying a POD edition. If you're getting the PDF, go ahead and buy now — you'l get the errated edition for free when it comes out. Purchasers of the POD will also get a free PDF of the errata.

BOOK OF THE WARLORD: Similar to ESTATE, but for players who have reached the level of Baron (the tenants-in-chief) or for GMs who want to know more about that class and how they operate in the realm. It has four baronial holdings that are ready for play, as well as detailed descriptions of three baronial holdings including Count Roderick, and Duke Ulfius.

BOOK OF THE ENTOURAGE: This books describes hirelings of every stripe (and the Skills they can lend your Player-knights), but also includes rules for "Doing More with Squires" and really great rules for generating an appropriate wife (for your knight) or husband (if you have a Lady as player-character in your campaign). It is meant to be used in conjunction with the above books.

Right now we're undergoing an intense review of all three of these books to perfectly align them and fix some scalability issues with the landholdings. Hopefully this will all be done within a month or so. We will release errata of them in very rapid succession. Then we're turning our attention to the Book of Uther, which will have some very cool new stuff in it. Hopefully we'll have that out by the end of the summer.

These books, along with BoB 2, comprise the new "canon" for the 5th Ed.

In other news, we are mulling a 6th Edition, and the idea is gaining momentum. Although we're not prepared to make any announcements at this time, suffice it to say we have a strong pipeline of products slated and we see ongoing support and expansion of the game for years to come. Never a better time to start a PENDRAGON campaign!


T.

Thank you. The campaign would not start until this summer, and I was confused by MANOR/ESTATE. I think I will wait for the new versions, then pick up Book of the Estate to start, and maybe Entourage as a good read/background

Personally, I rank them as follows, from most essential to least essential:


KAP 5.1 Core Rules
Great Pendragon Campaign
Book of the WARLORD: *Fantastic* background data such as maps, tables, Gamemaster Characters, castles, etc. in addition to some very detailed information about the life of a Baron which helps flesh out the likes of Count Roderick, Duke Ulfius, etc. Essential IMHO. Get it now! :)
Book of the ESTATE: If you like "Base Building" this gives you the rules you need for building an estate. I personally like it over Book of the Manor. I'd wait for the errata though. The only "downside" is that using these rules does make the "Winter Phase" a bit longer. It's not that bad once you get used to it but it does take some practice before it runs smoothly. If you are more interested in adventures than economics, you might want to lower the priority of this one a bit.
Book of the ENTOURAGE: Provides rules for a Player to hire "henchmen" so to speak that are really good at specific skills and can use those skills instead of the Player having to make his own rolls. For example, you can hire someone to act as your professional "healer" and make First Aid rolls for you. This book works without BotW or BotE, but it really fits into the system as a whole when you have the other two. I would also wait on the errata on this one as well.
Book of BATTLE 2nd Edition: If you enjoy mass combat, this might be supplement #1 for you. Personally, I find this system a little long for my personal tastes so I use it sparingly. Also be warned, these battles are quite deadly! That's the beauty of this model though. You can pick and choose what is interesting to you and layer that system in.


If you don't have them already, I also highly recommend the "Blood & Lust", "The Grey Knight", "The Tournament of Dreams", and "The Spectre King" adventures. Most of these won't apply until the "Boy King" era at the earliest so you have some time before you'd need to use them. If playing through the GPC, I'd start with "The Spectre King" as there are some details there that you can plant seeds for as early as the Uther era of the game.

Thanks for your post, luckythirteen.

I think that's a very good run down of the current product list. As a new GM for Pendragon myself, I'll be picking up the Book of Warlords due to your suggestion here. I can't believe I never heard of Pendragon until a few weeks ago. This RPG system is everything I ever wanted in a game and lacks everything that ever bothered me about DnD.

I have only been playing Pendragon for about 9 months now and am a new GM myself. Before this I played lots of Board/War/Miniatures games, a few computer RPGs, and a little D&D about 20 years ago. This is definitely the first RPG that has "sucked me in."

As a new GM I cannot recommend BotW enough. The maps and Gamemaster Character (GMC) lists alone have helped me make this feel like a "real place". it is also full of well researched content about the culture and history of this time period. Besides a love of King Arthur, I also have a love of British history. I love that when I learn about a place, in many cases it (or at least the legends) actually existed! The castles are based on real world locations. The members of the household are actually what would have been there in this time period. The economics, while not a 1:1 ratio with the actual libra to income ratio of that exact time period in history is still scaled to be "culturally accurate" so it has the right historical "feel." It helps you understand the differences between the Standard of Living of a Laundress vs. a Great Warlord and why things were that way.

Some of the material is a little dry and "educational" feeling, but it's so worth it to learn. Understanding this material has transformed my understanding of Medieval culture. When I read the likes of Game of Thrones (which has at least some basis in reality) I can now appreciate the difference in power between the fourth born son of a Great Baron vs. the lord of a minor house. It has also renewed my interest in historical books. Now I have a reference point that makes the history come alive.

I can't promise everyone will enjoy this as much as I did, but I obviously really enjoyed the book and feel it is a truly "essential" supplement, particularly for the new GM. Take your time, soak it in, it can transform your games from "D&D like" (which can be fun) to something more like good Hisorical (Alternate?) Fiction. It's amazing when you finally start bringing these legends to life.

Personally, I rank them as follows, from most essential to least essential:


KAP 5.1 Core Rules
Great Pendragon Campaign
Book of the WARLORD
Book of the ESTATE
Book of the ENTOURAGE
Book of BATTLE 2nd Edition



Just a bump on this thread now that Book of the Estate and Book of the Entourage have been updated. The updates to BotEstate and BotEntourage really help to unify the products. I don't think the errata changes the order I rank these products, but I think the choice between BotW and BotE becomes a much more difficult one. Previously BotW was so far superior to the other materials that I was of the opinion that you should only get BotEstate if you like the idea of "base building." Post errata I see two schools of thought now:

1. IMHO, BotWarlord is still an amazing product and has the most supplemental content to help a GM run the GPC. The maps, tables, and Gamemaster Characters *really* help. However, most of this material is GM focused, not player focused. It will take an extraordinary PK to ever reach the ranks of the Warlords, and without BotEstate you have no progression on how to get your players to reach this point in their careers. As a result, for many GMs BotW will basically be a "fluff/background" piece with little gameplay impact for their players. Instead it will just help to provide clarity for the GPC, provide some fantastic reference materials for the GM, and illustrate the lifestyle and motivations of the Warlord Gamemaster Characters. I think it is the go-to supplement if you are satisfied with the current level of detail in the core rules and the GPC, and aren't really trying to get your PKs to "climb the wealth ladder" so to speak.

2. BotEstate combined with BotEntourage will give more "player focused" content. If you want to add new material your players can actually use right away, getting both of these books first is probably best. Even a PK with a single manor will be able to immediately use content in both of these books and if your players want to become more wealthy or more powerful it provides the systems to accomplish this goal. You cannot easily reach the power levels in BotW without first having used the rules in BotEstate. It also contains some good "fluff/background" about medieval life, but is missing out on a lot of the GPC materials. There is no Warlord generator, no maps or tables with castles, no new Gamemaster Characters, etc. However, you do get some cool material on pre-made estates and how they fit into the GPC, rules for raiding, etc.

Thus, if you are satisfied with the materials in the core rule book + GPC and are looking to focus on the adventures as written, I'd probably suggest BotW first and using that book as a "fluff/background" supplement. If you are looking to add more content that your players will directly interact with (at the cost of some lightweight rules and a longer winter phase), BotEstate + BotEntourage is probably the better choice. I don't think I'd pick up BotEstate without BotEntourage though because the two sort of go hand-in-hand now.

They are all worth getting now. I'm still personally not as excited about Book of Battle (it is a little complex for my tastes) and only use it for very large battles at this point. However, I know of other members who consider this book a true must-have, so I assume whether or not you use it depends on how satisfied you are with the Battle rules in KAP 5.1 + GPC.

I hope this helps!

I've got the core rules, know that I need to get the GPC, but have been struggling to figure out what are the "current" supplements. It's especially confusing when you go onto sites like DTRPG.com, since they list all Pendragon products since the dawn of time.

Ok, so I can see that the heavy recommendations are the Books of the Warlord/Estate/Entourage/BattleEd2, plus the recent Book of Uther. So does that mean the Book of Knights & Ladies and the Book of Armies are out of date now? Thanks in advance.

Ok, so I can see that the heavy recommendations are the Books of the Warlord/Estate/Entourage/BattleEd2, plus the recent Book of Uther. So does that mean the Book of Knights & Ladies and the Book of Armies are out of date now? Thanks in advance.

They are not out of date (although they do have a couple of differences, such as BoK&L having cuirboilli armor at 8 pts, rather than 6pts that it is in KAP 5.1, and the nasal helm increasing the armor to 11, unlike the 10 that is the norm in KAP 5.1). They simply are generally considered to be of lesser value to a new campaign than the other books.

For instance, Book of Armies is pretty much useless without Battle2. Nor is it strictly necessary; you could do easily enough without, using just Battle2 enemy lists or coming up with your own.

Book of Knights & Ladies expands the character cultures to others outside of the default Cymric characters in KAP 5.1. But many people are just fine playing Cymric knights, and presumably, foreigners would be the minority anyway in a PK group, so it doesn't add as much to the game, unlike the ones you mentioned, which will be useful throughout the campaign (well, BoU will be a bit more limited value after Uther Period, obviously!).

I'd include Knights & Ladies for the updated skill lists (most notably, Spear Expertise) myself.

I'd include Knights & Ladies for the updated skill lists (most notably, Spear Expertise) myself.

In my mind, the true value of BoK&L is if you expect to run a more diverse PK group, with knights coming from all over, from different backgrounds. In Uther Period this is rarer (as evidenced by the starting homeland table), but once you get to 530, it is very easy to see knights coming from all over Europe to Camelot to try their luck questing and simply to be part of that shining chivalric constellation. You can even sorta-kinda continue in the same bloodline, if the foreigner marries your previous char's daughter, especially if he didn't have any sons of his own.

If you are doing the default GPC campaign with garden-variety Cymric knights, its utility pales, iMHO, in comparison to Book of the Entourage (which is 5 bucks cheaper) or Book of the Estate (which is 5 bucks more). You don't NEED Spear Expertise, and even if you did, it is just lumping Lance and different Spears under the same skill. Done.

Of course, if you have money to burn and are interested in what kinds of other cultures your knights (or the NPKs) might be coming from, sure, go ahead and get BoK&L, too. :)

Thanks all, for the very useful input.