Thanks to Greg Stafford for such a fantastic game and everyone here for running a community for it.

I have a question for experienced players and GMs about survivability in Pendragon. I want to know how to play a character, especially a new knight, in a proper way to survive and build something meaningful. I'm playing a campaign right now with some friends, and our GM is very into challenge and a dark, dire atmosphere. I fully get his approach and respect it, but I worry about some of the harshness this brings to our attempts to progress and build a narrative for our characters.

I've survived much longer with my current character than anyone else, largely due to luck, but also to a high passion score. Recently, our GM introduced some nerfs to passions in the form of a house ruleset. While I understand this from a standpoint of having made it to a decent age (40) and accomplished a great deal, there are four new knights playing who could be severely hobbled in the Boy King era.

Sorry to be so long winded about it, but what can you guys tell me that I might bring to the game to help?

Thanks for any replies!

KAP is a very deadly game, but the survival rate here sounds worse than usual.
A couple of pointers in general:
1. Learn to run away. Certain things in KAP are unkillable, or too tough for an ordinary knight to deal with.
2. Go down when you go unconscious. The unconsciousness level is there for survival. Trying to overcome that and continue to fight is almost always sure death.

I'm not sure what nerfs have been introduced, but the huge Passion bonus is also intentional. I rarely use it for the GM characters when I am GM, expecially in the early periods.

I am sure some more good clues will be posted here.

Passion -nerf can actually be beneficial to survival, if the GM has been using passions also for the NPCs. In our Campaign, Passion only gives +5 (+10 on a critical) to prevent it from being an instant win button, but the same applies also to the NPCs. This means that high skills are rarer, which leads to less critical hits, and those are the ones that kill PKs rather than simply render them unconscious.

Your character making it to 40 would, in our campaign, mark you as one of the oldest PKs, too. Of course, that is partially because our characters tend to get to try to get to the Round Table by the time they reach 35 or so, or have actually managed to do that. And that tends to lead to quests against more dangerous creatures than regular knights. Monsters are the other killers in the game, like the high damage giants. If they land a hit with 15d6, it doesn't take much to leave a wet smear of the knight in question.

If you are worried about your old character's survival, perhaps it would be a time to start playing it safe with him? Let the younger men charge ahead for Glory. You might even talk with the GM about 'retiring' your old character and use him mainly for political adventures and the like, and start playing a son or a younger brother or a cousin or a nephew.

The other thing, really, would be to talk with the GM. It really sounds that this is more of a GM's choice to have a dark, deadly atmosphere rather than anything to do with the rules. If it is hampering everyone's enjoyment of the game, might be time to air those feelings out with the GM. For instance, is he having his Saxons murder the unconscious/surrendered knights on the field? How about not doing that, but instead letting the Saxons capture and ransom the knights? That makes a big difference to how common death is. Using more human opponents with lower damage (4d6 - 5d6, even 6d6) who like to ransom knights rather than high damage monsters (8d6+) who'd like to eat the knights makes obviously a huge difference, as well.

The PKs might consider hiring and bringing along a 'group healer'. Having a First Aid 20 hireling around is a huge life saver compared to First Aid 5-10 squires.

I have talked more about lethality in Pendragon in this thread:
http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2653.0

In my games Passions are used rarely. This is because I feel that it should be special.

As for survivability. I am probably a softy as it comes to being a GM, but I like the story more than the rules. As said by Morien it seems your GM is more to do with how the game is played than with rules. The options he gives are, as usual, very good.

As for what your PK can do is how you approach an encounter. If you are in a bad situation do not stay there, but try to swing it around. Get some tactical advances (for instance get to higher ground or as Greg suggested, run away if the odds are against you).

Although glory is gained as an individual, and most fights are 1 on 1. You do not need to fight monsters as individuals. If you are fighting stronger non knight opponents use tactics as defensive stances to keep them occupied and wait until friends come along. This will not always be possible, but in some cases may save lives.

If you are fighting stronger non knight opponents use tactics as defensive stances to keep them occupied and wait until friends come along. This will not always be possible, but in some cases may save lives.


That too. I can think of four characters in our current campaign who'd still be alive had they not tried to solo an opponent on their own or had given up at overwhelming odds.

1. Riding into Camille's castle, gates closed behind them, and Saxons swarming them in great numbers. Seems hopeless, right? Still, most of the knights fought until unconscious, and alas, one of them got critically hit whilst already totering near the unconscious limit. (In hindsight, everyone admitted that it was stupid to try and fight, since there was no hope in hell of taking down the whole garrison.)

2. Whilst already badly wounded, coming up from the ground with a normal attack rather than defensive, to try and take out a Pictish chieftain with a big axe. Help was coming, he would have needed to survive just one round more, and Defensive would have probably done it.

3. The opposite situation to the one above, the PK wishing to claim the credit of the kill of an enemy who was down, whilst a friend was coming to help him. End result, the opponent got lucky and got the PK in mid-swing.

4. Trying to solo a dragon, which had just bitten a knight (NPC) in twain, rather than wait for two other PKs to get there, running a couple of rounds behind. End result, the dragon won.


Sometimes it works, though. Just recently, one PK managed to get critically impassioned, and proceeded to demolish 4 enemy knights, starting from 6:1 odds (the final two ran). His advantage was that he managed to keep maneuvering on a horse and thus usually managed to take them one at a time. And with +10 to Sword skill, one hit was usually enough.

Thanks so much for the replies. Feels great to get a response from Mr. Stafford himself.

Specifically, the house ruleset makes it so that you can only increase passions by one point per year, and rolling them more than twice gives a stacking nerf of -1 to the passion each time.

For my character with a passion of 23, this is somewhat understandable, but I can't shake the feeling that the potential for enemies to overwhelm the new knights is extremely high. A berserker group with 35 skill in a battle where we're outnumbered 2:1 is impossible to beat if your passions don't work out. Is this a poor line of reasoning on my part?

I'm thinking I should have a chat with the new knights about their options for other combat actions, such as fighting defensively and attacking wildly. Are characters able to stack these bonuses with things like height advantage?

For my character with a passion of 23, this is somewhat understandable, but I can't shake the feeling that the potential for enemies to overwhelm the new knights is extremely high. A berserker group with 35 skill in a battle where we're outnumbered 2:1 is impossible to beat if your passions don't work out. Is this a poor line of reasoning on my part?

Berserker group at 2:1! withdraw while fighting defensively


I'm thinking I should have a chat with the new knights about their options for other combat actions, such as fighting defensively and attacking wildly. Are characters able to stack these bonuses with things like height advantage?

Yes, they stack with hieght advantages, although you cannot use Fight Defensively and Wild Attack at the same time

Specifically, the house ruleset makes it so that you can only increase passions by one point per year, and rolling them more than twice gives a stacking nerf of -1 to the passion each time.


Personally, those don't sound so much as nerfs as badly needed fixing of the Critical Passion Roll automatic increase rule. How many sessions do you play per game year? If TWO rolls of passion per year is not enough, I do wonder how often your GM allows you to bring your passion to play? In our campaign, I see maybe one or two rolls of different passions per knight, and we tend to play 4 sessions per game year.



For my character with a passion of 23, this is somewhat understandable, but I can't shake the feeling that the potential for enemies to overwhelm the new knights is extremely high. A berserker group with 35 skill in a battle where we're outnumbered 2:1 is impossible to beat if your passions don't work out. Is this a poor line of reasoning on my part?


If you are facing Skill 35(!!!) Berserkers at 2:1 odds, like Greg said, you should run ASAP, while fighting defensively. They are supposed to be impossible to beat! (Personally again, I find some of the enemies in BoBII and BoA to be way overpowered and I wouldn't use them in my game. But I am one of the resident low-powered campaign enthusiasts, so Your Pendragon May Vary.)

(If those skill 35 Bersekers are: Skill 15 + 10 Passion roll + 10 Berserk Tactics,
then Fighting Defensively cancels the +10 and makes them more survivable at Skill 25 (also, they should get -5 for being on foot vs. horsemen, so skill 20, yay). Alternatively, if you are dividing your skill and making a normal attack while they are Berserk Attacking, then you will get to hit first and potentially kill them before they can land a blow, but that can be very risky. Still, you should get outta there ASAP.)



I'm thinking I should have a chat with the new knights about their options for other combat actions, such as fighting defensively and attacking wildly. Are characters able to stack these bonuses with things like height advantage?


Like Greg said, you get to stack:
Height advantage (+5/-5)
Weapon advantage (Lance vs. Non-Lance, +5/0)
Tactics (Fighting Defensively (+10 no damage on Success) vs. Berserk Option / Wild Attack (+10 Skill, attack last); there is some debate if you can stack these with Lance in particular, though)

So in principle, you could have Sword 15 + 5 height + 10 defensive = skill 30 without passion.

Yup, it is as Morien puts it.

I do have one house rule regarding fighting defensively and that is if you still critical, you do normal damage. But, teaming up against 2 opponents, you are hoping one misses. Against beserkers, that is not good odds.

I appreciate all the input, and I see there are ways to gain some advantages.

What would you guys recommend when fighting other knights? Typically, there are very few advantages to be gained over them, so it makes things a bit hairier for those purposes.

Knights should be bound by the same rules of honor and chivalry as the PKs, so they should:

A) Insist on one-on-one fights (and woe to anyone who interrupts)
B) Fight for love instead of to the death
C) If they win, nurse their opponent back to health and ransom them.

They expect the same treatment, but unless its a war things shouldn't get ... ugly.

Of course, there are "false" knights who have the training but not the honor, but even the most vicious in Arthuriana tended to capture their opponents rather than kill them, if only for some warped sense of amusement until Lancelot kills them.

Knights should be bound by the same rules of honor and chivalry as the PKs, so they should:

A) Insist on one-on-one fights (and woe to anyone who interrupts)
B) Fight for love instead of to the death
C) If they win, nurse their opponent back to health and ransom them.

They expect the same treatment, but unless its a war things shouldn't get ... ugly.

Of course, there are "false" knights who have the training but not the honor, but even the most vicious in Arthuriana tended to capture their opponents rather than kill them, if only for some warped sense of amusement until Lancelot kills them.


The ganging up seems to be allowed when it is a war-like situation: for instance, you are patrolling the border and a group of strange knights refuse to stop when challenged. Formal duels are different. Gawaine and Gaheris were ganged up in one of their early adventures, after Gawaine killed the knights' Lord in a roadside duel, if I remember correctly. The knights were portrayed as acting out of loyalty to their lord, rather than as evil. But yeah, especially later, the implication seems to be that if the knights are ganging up on a lone knight, they are not 'playing by the rules', even if it is outside a formal duel.

Also, I think there is an evolution of the expectations during the GPC. Lets take this kind of an example:
A group of knights is guarding a bridge to their Lord's land. You (a PK knight) approach, explain that you are on an urgent quest, and going through this land is the fastest route. You have no time to go to the knight's Lord to ask for permission.
Uther Period: Tough, you are not crossing, and if you try by force, they will gang up on you.
Anarchy: They might attack you anyway, or try to lure you across to an ambush. Alternatively, the bridge might be abandoned, since the knights are fighting elsewhere or the castle has fallen, etc.
Boy King: Back to Uther.
Conquest: Questing starts to become more usual & Pax Arthuriana makes the Lords more relaxed about security inside Logres. Duel one of the guards and they will let you pass, if you win. Otherwise, you get hauled to the Lord.
Romance: The duel becomes for Love with rebatted weapons.
Tournament: Jousting with tournament lances becomes the norm.
Grail: The bridge is potentially abandoned again, or occupied by challenge knights.
Twilight: Back to Uther style we go.

Ransoming should be the norm even in War. That is one of the main sources of loot, after all.

As to the question: What to do with enemy knights?

The Answer: Be better (damage, armor, skills, passions) and/or luckier.

In our campaign, the PKs are usually sporting the latest armor they can get their grubby little mittens on, tend to be hulking brutes in SIZ and STR (for that 6d6 goodness), and tend to have Armor of Honor from Chivalric Bonus (using the old 80+ rules). The average knight tends to not afford the best of the best, is 5d6 and lacks Chivalric Bonus. So even with the skills the same, the PKs usually have 1d6 more damage and 5 points more in armor (almost 2d6) and thanks to high SIZ they are not knocked down so easily either, so they tend to have a significant edge against normal knights with numerical parity. Being outnumbered in Pendragon is very bad, though.

Just one comment about the frequency of passion rolls. I'd describe my group's campaign as fairly "cinemagraphic". Not surprisingly, we have a fair number of passion rolls, and we sometimes roll passions on what some might consider atypical skills.

Re: Frequency, we would typically have a 1-2 rolls per player on a non-battle evening. In battle, that may double.

Re: Non-battle, I allow players to try and tie their passion to their character's lives outside of battle. For example, it's not uncommon for me to allow a player to roll a passion in a diplomatic or political discussion if it will impact the position that they're taking in the discussion. An example might be a meeting of the Regency Council where they're advising the Countess on tribute to Saxons or new appointments as officer. Two weekends ago (Year 503), while Prince Cynric was at Court in Salisbury, the Saxon prince was engaging in aggressive diplomacy. One of our PKs, as a result of a successful passion roll and a failed Prudence roll, "lost it" in open court and insulted the prince. The more composed members of the court intervened, but the end result was a call for a duel and the acceptance of that challenge. This last weekend, the duel took place, and that PK died at the point of Cynric's lance (critical success for the Saxon prince and a good damage roll), but I gave the PK 1000 post-humous Glory for dying well! That alone will drive new plot hooks through the Anarchy Period and beyond.

Side note on passions.

I am starting to believe that a legitimate "archetype" or "build" for a PK is to dump a lot of training/glory points into Passions. This player will have weaker overall skills, but because he is "passionate" he increases his odds of getting a crit. I think he can also "glory point farm" a bit by getting a lot of 16+ passions. IMHO, this "archetype" is no less legitimate than the PK who trains his stats or dumps points into SIZ and STR. It's just a different way of playing the game. Obviously these "passionate" Knights are going to use passions more frequently than the PKs who do not choose to build their characters that way.

I like the idea of the "passionate archetype" because it is a high risk/reward sort of build. You get the potential for wild swings in mood that directly impact ones skill in combat, which feels very appropriate to the literature IMHO.

There is a lot of good advice here It Sounds like to me your dm is a bit harsh but like Greg says it is a deadly game we play! However here is an Idea to use talk the new knights into becoming berserkers them selves take the fighter pregen and add the combat option berserk attack option every time, you take on saxon berserkers this gives a +10 to hit in combat and if he has a good con he can survive.

Now during the Uther period many of my players wanted cymri counter parts to the saxon berserkers so I allowed them two wield two handed hacking swords as a fighter Knight and use the berserk combat option + their passion score of love family or loyalty lord while defending ether their county or their home which ever seemed appropriate to do so! with this a cymri knight could survive against a saxon berserker with a greataxe! but that's in my games I don't know if your gm would allow it in his as a gm i can do what I want with retrospective to what my players are wanting to do and accomplish!

Also remember tactics wins fights! 8)

Like Greg said, you get to stack:
Height advantage (+5/-5)
Weapon advantage (Lance vs. Non-Lance, +5/0)
Tactics (Fighting Defensively (+10 no damage on Success) vs. Berserk Option / Wild Attack (+10 Skill, attack last); there is some debate if you can stack these with Lance in particular, though)

So in principle, you could have Sword 15 + 5 height + 10 defensive = skill 30 without passion.


Since we're talking about surviving sticky situations, it's worth noting that the rules say specifically that the height advantage is added to each opponent you fight, if you're splitting your attack across multiple opponents. So, in principle, you could divide 25 amongst three footmen assaulting you on your horse, for 8,8,9 and add 5 to each of these attacks for 13, 13, 14 effective Sword attacks (which do no damage, since you're defensive, but do give you better chances of getting your shield in the way; if it was a Passion rather than defensive fighting that got you that extra 10, you could be doing damage back).

Since we're talking about surviving sticky situations, it's worth noting that the rules say specifically that the height advantage is added to each opponent you fight, if you're splitting your attack across multiple opponents. So, in principle, you could divide 25 amongst three footmen assaulting you on your horse, for 8,8,9 and add 5 to each of these attacks for 13, 13, 14 effective Sword attacks (which do no damage, since you're defensive, but do give you better chances of getting your shield in the way; if it was a Passion rather than defensive fighting that got you that extra 10, you could be doing damage back).


Yes, good of you to point that out, womble. :)

The height advantage adds against each enemy. The Defensive Tactic adds only once.

So in your above example, Skill 15 (base) + 10 defensive = 25. Divided vs. three opponents (who each get -5 to their own skill, too) and then add +5 to each of the divided skill (see womble's example in above).

I have to confess that our little (mostly novice at KAP, especially v5, though grizzled veterans at other games and other passtimes that hark to the medieval) group have successfully extricated themselves from a sticky situation or two by the GM mistakenly letting us have the +10 for defensive as an add post-split, rather than pre-split... I suspect that's not going to occur any more, as I'm honour bound to point out our group misapprehension... :(

I have to confess that our little (mostly novice at KAP, especially v5, though grizzled veterans at other games and other passtimes that hark to the medieval) group have successfully extricated themselves from a sticky situation or two by the GM mistakenly letting us have the +10 for defensive as an add post-split, rather than pre-split... I suspect that's not going to occur any more, as I'm honour bound to point out our group misapprehension... :(


"And that children, is how the valiant Sir Womble became the least popular knight in Christendom."

"And that children, is how the valiant Sir Womble became the least popular knight in Christendom."

and the most popular in Gamemasterdom