KAP 5.1 p. 158 says that an "Ordinary" knight has 4 horses (charger, 2 rouncys, sumpter). He travels with his Personal Gear, Travel Gear, War Gear, and although it isn't called out, I assume there is some food here as well (more on that later). It is implied the "Ordinary" knight would also have a pony for his page. The Charger doesn't carry anything of course. When campaigning, the Knight's Lord provides an additional Sumpter for "gear."

Thus from the above we see a "typical" breakdown for a Knight, Squire, and Page trying to "travel light" for a campaign is as follows:

Charger: Doesn't carry anything
Rouncy #1: Carries the Knight and his Travel Gear
Rouncy #2: Carries the Squire and his Travel Gear
Pony: Carries the Page and his Travel Gear (does the page go adventuring?)
Sumpter #1: Carries the Knight's Personal Gear
Sumpter #2 (Lord's): Carries the Knight's War Gear

I assume that the "Travel" gear contains a little food, and that the "Personal" gear might also include some food. However, I don't really see it called out how much food a party of this size would be able to carry. This is 3 people (which need food), but more importantly, it is SIX horses, one of which is a Charger. These horses are going to need some serious food to keep going. Just how many days can they sustain themselves while they are on the road campaigning with this sort of setup? I can't imagine it is much, making me appreciate the value of hunting, or enjoying the hospitality of others all the more.

I'm working on some consolidate rules for overland travel and raiding. I'm trying to get a feel for how many days worth of food the Knights (and horses) would be able to go if they had a setup like the one listed above. I want to allow players to be able to get more horses (or carts) if they want to bring additional food, but in an ideal world, I'd love a "you need x number of rations for each person and horse, and a Sumpter can carry y number of rations" sort of thing.

Has anyone done the research on this? Is it listed somewhere and I'm missing it? Maybe an older forum post I can't find? Thanks all!

Conclusions in this post: http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2936.msg22457#msg22457

Good question!


KAP 5.1 p. 158 says that an "Ordinary" knight has 4 horses (charger, 2 rouncys, sumpter). He travels with his Personal Gear, Travel Gear, War Gear, and although it isn't called out, I assume there is some food here as well (more on that later). It is implied the "Ordinary" knight would also have a pony for his page. The Charger doesn't carry anything of course. When campaigning, the Knight's Lord provides an additional Sumpter for "gear."

Thus from the above we see a "typical" breakdown for a Knight, Squire, and Page trying to "travel light" for a campaign is as follows:

Charger: Doesn't carry anything

Historically, they often carried the knight's arms and armor


Rouncy #1: Carries the Knight and his Travel Gear
Rouncy #2: Carries the Squire and his Travel Gear

Travel Gear means riding clothes, cooking equipment, sleeping equipment and yes, a little food
probably cheese, cold sausage, some water and wine; stuff to eat during travel


Pony: Carries the Page and his Travel Gear (does the page go adventuring?)

Generally not


Sumpter #1: Carries the Knight's Personal Gear
Sumpter #2 (Lord's): Carries the Knight's War Gear
I assume that the "Travel" gear contains a little food, and that the "Personal" gear might also include some food. However, I don't really see it called out how much food a party of this size would be able to carry. This is 3 people (which need food), but more importantly, it is SIX horses, one of which is a Charger. These horses are going to need some serious food to keep going. Just how many days can they sustain themselves while they are on the road campaigning with this sort of setup? I can't imagine it is much, making me appreciate the value of hunting, or enjoying the hospitality of others all the more.

A horse can carry enough food for itself for a charger is, I think, 10 days
Same relationship that a human can carry for himself on his back, which is 30 pounds = 10 days
This means oats and legumes for the charger, plus some grazing (fodder)
all the others eat only grass
The need for grazing is probably the most important limit on the daily march for horses, which is actually about the same as for infantry: 20 miles max
It is possible to overwork or underfeed a horse--they are very compliant
however, the result would be to "break" it, and it never recovers
take the best charger and sell it as a nag


I'm working on some consolidate rules for overland travel and raiding. I'm trying to get a feel for how many days worth of food the Knights (and horses) would be able to go if they had a setup like the one listed above. I want to allow players to be able to get more horses (or carts) if they want to bring additional food, but in an ideal world, I'd love a "you need x number of rations for each person and horse, and a Sumpter can carry y number of rations" sort of thing.

You got 'em:
"you need 3 pounds of food a day per person and 10 for the charger"


Has anyone done the research on this? Is it listed somewhere and I'm missing it? Maybe an older forum post I can't find? Thanks all!

BTW, this doesn't include water
If water has to be carried it becomes impossible to go more than a few days

On a related subject

The normal overland pace of mounted men is walk, trot, walk, rest; repeat for 6-10 hours

KAP 5.1 p. 158 says


KAP 5.1 is wrong when it comes to pages. A normal household or even a vassal knight doesn't have any pages. This was extensively discussed during the BotE revision and the end result is as you see in BotE: you start seeing pages at the £50 estate holder level.



Has anyone done the research on this? Is it listed somewhere and I'm missing it? Maybe an older forum post I can't find? Thanks all!


Yep, Nick was looking into this and we were talking about this a lot to set the knightly households in BotE & defining a cart load in BotEntourage.

In the absence of Nick chiming up:
- A man eats about 3 lbs per day. A sumpter-load is 200 lbs. So a sumpter could carry enough food for about two months for one man.
- A cart-load is 1000 lbs or £0.5 value in food. It is enough to feed an eschille of 10 knights and squires with the horses for half a week. This means that one sumpter-load (1/5th of a cart-load) would be enough to feed a single knight + squire + warhorse + other horses (1/10th of the eschille) for 1 week.

However, you have other stuff on the sumpters, too. I think our consensus was that the travelling gear & the war gear of the knight are 1/2th of a sumpter-load each for simplicity, and the other half in 'normal use' is travel rations. Which means that a travelling knight would have enough oats and travel rations to feed himself, his squire and his horses for half a week in a pinch (the one missing sumpter doesn't really skew the numbers that much, since they are mainly grass-fed, especially during the summer), and one week (two sumpters each carrying half-a-load of food) on a campaign. (This also means that the BotE vassal knight's 2 sumpters + 1 cart-team that is part of the household will be enough to carry enough food for his party for about 6 weeks = 42 days -> rounded down to 40 days to include the infantry and carters. This is not a coincidence. ;) )

Of course, the travel rations are not NEARLY as good as freshly roasted venison or pig onna stick, so whenever possible, the travelling knight would probably avail himself to the hospitality of his peers.

Like Greg mentioned in the previous, carrying enough water for the horses is a huge effort (you really need wagons for that and even then, you'll need to replenish the barrels every few days). Thankfully, Britain tends to be well-endowed with fresh water, so that is not a problem. I'd imagine that the knight's provisions include some beer or wine, too, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has a water skin (somewhere between a quart and a gallon) of water to simply take sips from while riding. Or filled with wine, for those Indulgent 16+ knights. :)

Oh, just to make one more point... If an adventuring knight knows that he is going 'into the wilds' for an extended period, he could always leave the war gear home and take the second sumpter fully packed with food. This would give him a total of about 10 days' supply for his whole party (not counting the water).

Hey. Out diving last few days, so I wasn't checking the boards.

I did a LOT of reading re food on this topic both military logistics and social history. Most military stuff (articles and books) uses 1.3 kg or ~ 3 lbs per day as a minimum requirement. Some shipping contracts for the crusades suggest a little more (up to 4 lbs) but 3 lbs is reasonable.

Household accounts from monasteries and great households suggest a lot more food, but it was never clear to me that one individual ate that food. Some might have been intended for alms or personal servants. I don't remember exact numbers.

I chose 3 lbs because...

The upkeep for one foot soldier is £0.5 per year, most of which is food. So £1 feeds 2 foot soldiers for 1 year (104 weeks of food for one person) or 100 foot soldiers for 1 week (more or less).

One soldier eats 3 x 365 = 1095 lbs per year, times two men is 2190 lbs....rounded to 2000 lbs.

So £1 of food weighs 2000 lbs, which fits on 10 sumpters, 2 carts or 1 wagon. Too convenient to pass up.

Conveniently an eschille costs ~£50 per year to maintain, so £1 feeds on eschille for one week.

RE Horses. Horses got hard fodder (oats) and fodder (grass, hay). You probably wouldn't worry about carrying around the hay.

I looked up a lot of data here too. A lot of work uses 19th century values for how much horses and mules were fed based on the recommendations in General Woleseley's Soldiers Handbook (1888 or so, I think). If I remember correctly it recommends 12 lbs oats and 14 lbs hay per day for a mule. Some people use these numbers other use lower numbers.

I also looked at Roman and Crusader stuff in which the amount of oats (hard fodder) is much lower around 6 lbs per day for horses in general. The crusader numbers come from shipping contracts for moving men and horses from Europe to the middle east.

Household accounts from the late middle ages, some earlier stuff from monasteries, and Walter of Henley's 13th C estate management manual suggest that working horses would get different amounts of food depending on how much they were actually working. I think they could get a peck or two after heavy work but over the long term (annual Upkeep) the actual amount wouldn't necessarily be very high. I thin the monastery accounts showed something like 1-2 lbs of hard fodder

Byzantine records show that warhorses carried their saddle and several days food.

In the end for BoCastles, I fudged the horse numbers a bit to make £1 feed 100 men or 1 eschille for 1 week...convenient.

I can't remember what I decided for the rest. I can look it up later.

I appreciate the responses guys, this is great.

I am trying to summarize this to make it as easy for my players (and my own sanity!) as possible. Based on the above, trying to balance realism with playability, does this seem reasonable?

First, I'll show my work:

Assumptions:


Each horse consumes 12 lbs of oats per day (Scales well with the £0.5 = 1 soldier for a year system; each horse eats £2 per year = 4000 lbs, 20 Sumpters, 4 carts, or 2 wagons).
Each person consumes 3 lbs of food per day
Each Sumpter provides 200 lbs of capacity
The Charger will carry arms and armor, but no "load" from food and will not be tracked as providing any "capacity"
The Rouncy carries people and their associated personal gear so it will not normally carry "load" from food. I am listing it as providing 200 lbs of "capacity" but it is assumed to be used by the Knight and Squire and their personal gear.
The "Book of the Estate Vassal Knight's Traveling Party" will be 1 Knight, 1 Squire, 1 Charger, 2 Rouncies, 2 Sumpters
Travel and War gear are approximately 50 lbs each.


With these assumptions, this is the normal load and capacity for the "Book of the Estate Vassal Knights Traveling Party":

Load:

"Travel Gear" x2 (Knight and Squire): 100 lbs
"War Gear" x2 (Knight and Squire): 100 lbs
Knight plus "Personal" Gear: 200 lbs
Squire plus "Personal" Gear: 200 lbs

Total load (without food): 600 lbs

Food needs (in lbs) per day:

Horses x5: 60 lbs
Knight and Squire: 6 lbs

Total needed food per day: 66 lbs

Capacity:

Charger: None. The charger is not a beast of burden. It will carry the Knight's arms and armor only.
Rouncy x2: 400 lbs (assumed to be used by the Knight and Squire along with their personal gear, but can be used for food if the Squire walks)
Sumpter x2: 400 lbs


Total capacity: 800 lbs
Available capacity (Total capacity less load) = 200 lbs

So, I have 200 lbs available, and I need 66 lbs of food per day (most of which is for the horses). That's basically 3 days worth of food (3.03). If I were to make my Squire walk (and carry his own personal gear) and use my 2nd Rouncy for food, it adds another 3 days worth of food capacity (6.06). If I allow my Squire to ride and add another Sumpter, it adds 2 additional days of food (my total is now 5.13) because it eats some of what it is carrying.

If I'm back to my "normal" number of 5 horses (so I have 200 lbs of availale space for food) and happened to take my two infantry with me, that's only 2.7 days of available food capacity (I'd probably round up to 3 anyway).

Is this math right? Assuming so, it seems like food will be a very limiting factor to overland travel. If you want to go on an extended campaign or go raiding, it seems like you'll need to bring your cart! I'm OK with this, just want to make sure I'm not missing something.


Edit:

If we go with the "Roman" numbers for the Horses, 1 horse = 2 people, so you each horse eats £1 per year = 2000 lbs, 10 Sumpters, 2 carts, or 1 wagon; and your normal "Book of the Estate Traveling Party" will have 4.76 days of Rations per Sumpter (I'd round up to 5 days). This is still low, but a little more reasonable to me.

The mistake in your analysis is that you are feeding oats to the rouncies and the sumpters, too. They'd be mainly grass-fed, only the Charger would be grain-fed.

So instead of 66 lbs per day, you'll need around 20 lbs per day.

Also, the adventuring 'load' would not include the war gear and the second sumpter, so your 'limit' is 100 lbs on the one sumpter = 5 days of food. This is a bit more generous than my earlier estimate based on Nick's rough numbers.

However, we can tweak this by ruling that we will give SOME oats to the horses, too (since we are not allowing them to graze all day). Having 3 lbs of oats for each of the other three horses would result 27 lbs per day food load, ending up in 4 days' worth of food on that 100 lbs pack on the sumpter. Bringing another sumpter along would make it 300 / 30 = 10 days, and campaign 200 / 30 = 7 days, matching my numbers to a tee. ;)

Oh, just one more point... most of that travel & war gear would be the KNIGHT'S stuff. The squire's 'share' would be just a tiny fraction of that (maybe 10-20% = 10 - 20 lbs per pack, compared to knight's 80-90 lbs).

Sorry for my bad english.
A small historical note.
From "Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales; Comprising Laws Supposed to be Enacted by Howel the Good, ... with Indexes and Glossary" p. 839: "Quilibet equus in prebenda habebit IIII.garbas."
Translation:"all horses fed with rations will have four sheaves."
A garba is a sheaf of oat and it includes cereal and straw. It weighs about 5 lbs and its price is 1/4 denarius. The price of a daily ration of a horse is 1 denarius. Surely it is the ration when the horse is in the stable.Excuse me if I went out thread.

OK, so taking all of this into consideration and trying to balance gameplay and realism, what about something like the following:

EDIT: To avoid confusion in these tables, I'm linking to an edited version based on additional conversation:

http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2936.msg22440#msg22440

The mistake in your analysis is that you are feeding oats to the rouncies and the sumpters, too. They'd be mainly grass-fed, only the Charger would be grain-fed.



I think we can decide this for KAP but historically all European horses got grain as far as I can tell. There is some variation regionally within England with horses getting more grain or hay (in addition their regular hay dose) in some areas. Walter of Henley (13C) recommends a peck (or two? can't remember) for plow and cart horses after heavy work. Household accounts from later on show work horses receiving oats.

Nevertheless, on average the other horses shouldn't get as many oats as the charger.

Any yes, carrying food for land travel was historically a huge problem, especially without the use of carts and wagons.

NT

I tried making Vortiporio's suggestion for the 5 lbs per Rouncy/Sumpter work. We can actually make that work fine for the "Adventuring Party" as we just drop their food from 4 days to 3 days. The problem is with the "Campaigning Party." Using my table above, that comes out to only 34 days worth of food if they take the cart and extra Sumpter. IMHO, the 40 days required service should fit on the Lord Knight's cart, so I think we have to fudge on this history and go with the lower numbers for the sake of gameplay.

Taking the "Gameplay First" approach, here are the numbers I like:

We'll start with the Campaigning Knight because we know their equipment and 40 days of food are our benchmark.

Capacity:
-From Horses: 800 lbs
-From Cart: 1000 lbs
TOTAL CAPACITY: 1800 lbs

Load
-From Knight and Squire: 400 lbs
-From Equipment (including war and travel gear): 200 lbs
TOTAL LOAD: 600 lbs

This leaves us with 1200 lbs of capacity for food.

If we say that Chargers take 8 lbs per day, Sumpters/Rouncies use half that (4 lbs), and the Knight/Squire take 3 lbs each, and then we handwave the Infantry, Cart Teams, and Oxen, and say they are paid for from the values listed above, it comes out to exactly 1200 lbs for 40 days.

Thus, we say that the basic food breakdown is as follows:


Charger: 8 lbs per day
Rouncy or Sumpter: 4 lbs per day
Knight/Squire: 3 lbs per day
Any additional people (soldiers, entourage, etc): 3 lbs per day


This allows us to take 40 days of food on campaign, and 4 days of food while adventuring.

Does this work better? If so, I'll edit my tables and re-post. I don't want to go through all of that until I'm more sure on the numbers though. :)

Looks reasonable enough, although personally I'd prefer a 10/2 split between the charger and non-warhorses, simply because their upkeep numbers are £1.25 for the warhorse and £0.25 for each of the others (see BotE). That also would leave a bit more room for the foot soldiers and the carters whilst on a campaign, especially once you have the foot soldiers carrying some of their food, make the squire lighter (no armor, still a youth, 150 lbs would be very easy to justify) and finally you could have the warhorse carry a light load (50 - 100 lbs) of extra food, too. I mean, if you want to be that exact about it.

Me, I am happy with the 200 lbs food = 1 week for a knight & co that follows from 2000 lbs = 1 eschille for a week. :)

Thanks for those numbers Morien. I just realized I've been overthinking this whole thing. We already have all of the numbers figured out for us based on the upkeep costs.

If 1 Libra = 2000 lbs of food (based on Nick's numbers)

-Each person needs 3 lbs per day (0.5 of food = 1000 lbs of food per year / 365 = 2.74 rounded up to 3)
-Each charger needs 7 lbs per day (1.25 of food = 2500 lbs of food per year / 365 = 6.85 rounded up to 7)
-Each Sumpter/Rouncy needs 1 lbs per day (0.25 of food = 500 lbs of food per year / 365 = 1.37 rounded down to 1)

This comes out to 112 lbs per week for the "Adventuring Party" (which I'd allow on the 100 lbs "pack" on the Sumpter), and 140 lbs per week for the "Campainging Party" (which includes the Infantry, extra Sumpter, and Cart Team). This also means the "Campaining Party" would have 400 lbs of available space if they bring 40 days of food and take their cart and extra Sumpter.

I am VERY happy with this. It aligns nicely with the "New Economy" from BotEstate and BotWarlord.

Thus to make things scale easily, the breakdown is as follows:

"Adventuring" Party (1 Knight, 1 Squire, 1 Charger, 2 Rouncies, 1 Sumpter):

"Adventuring Party" Capacity


Item
Amount
Capacity
Ext. Capacity


Charger
1
0
0


Sumpter
1
200
200


Rouncy
2
200
400


Cart
0
1000
0


Wagon
0
2000
0




Total Capacity: 600

"Adventuring Party" Load



Item
Amount
Load
Ext. Load


Knight and Personal Gear
1
200
200


Squire and Personal Gear
1
200
200


Travel Gear
1
100
100


War Gear
0
100
0


Charger's Food
7
7
49


Sumpter's Food
7
1
7


Rouncy's Food
7
2
14


Knight and Squire's Food
7
6
42


Total Load: 600

Remaining Capacity (Capacity less Load): 0

Comment: This means that the "Adventuring Party" has enough capacity for 7 days of travel which feels very reasonable to me.

"Campaigning Party" Capacity (1 Knight, 1 Squire, 1 Charger, 2 Rouncies, 2 Sumpters, 1 Cart, 2 Infantry):


Item
Amount
Capacity
Ext. Capacity


Charger
1
0
0


Sumpter
2
200
400


Rouncy
2
200
400


Cart
1
1000
1000


Wagon
0
2000
0




Total Capacity: 1800

"Campaigning Party" Load



Item
Amount
Load
Ext. Load


Knight and Personal Gear
1
200
200


Squire and Personal Gear
1
200
200


Travel Gear
1
100
100


War Gear
1
100
100


Charger's Food
40
7
280


Sumpter's Food
40
2
80


Rouncy's Food
40
2
80


Knight and Squire's Food
40
6
240


Infantry's Food
40
6
240


Total Load: 1520

Remaining Capacity (Capacity less Load): 280

Comment: This means the "Campaigning Party" has enough capacity to support itself for its required days of service, plus there is around 250 lbs of "wiggle room" for things like equipment for the infantry, the carter's and oxen's food, and loot they plan to take back, etc.

This "feels" right to me. A PK can go out adventuring for a few days and support his party if he gets lost in the woods or has bad weather or something, but if he wants to take loot or something, he'll need to take the cart. It demonstrates that feeding those horses is a critical part of the struggles of using mounted forces, but also is not so punishing as to make it cost prohibitive.

Better?

My numbers for BoCastles are a bit different but the general conclusion isn't too far off. The BoCastles stuff is more focused on large numbers (armies) instead of the individual knight. It also makes the assumption that upkeep = food required mostly to simplify things.

£1 feeds and eschille for a week, so

£0.1 feeds a knight and his following at war for a week = 200 lbs. This fits on one sumpter. Adding an extra sumpter would increase the consumption, but who cares. We'll ignore that because everyone will probably carry a day's rations at least out of convenience.

£4 feeds a knight, squire and horses for a year, so £0.8 (4/50ish weeks) supports them for a week:2000 x 0.8 = 160 lbs. Alternatively, £4/52 = ~£0.75 per week for 150 lbs weekly.

That's more than a half horse load, but that's ok. The rouncies and war horse can each carry their rations for that day or slightly more. Byzantine army manuals from the crusader period show that the cavalry horses were expected to carry a couple of day's food. For an army, this actually makes sense if you think of the baggage train lagging behind the main army even just within one day. If you want to feed your warhorse at lunch, it is easier if you have a sack of oats with you instead of having to wait for the sumpters to catch up.


MT

Thanks for those numbers Morien. I just realized I've been overthinking this whole thing. We already have all of the numbers figured out for us based on the upkeep costs.

If 1 Libra = 2000 lbs of food (based on Nick's numbers)

-Each person needs 3 lbs per day (0.5 of food = 1000 lbs of food per year / 365 = 2.74 rounded up to 3)
-Each charger needs 7 lbs per day (1.25 of food = 2500 lbs of food per year / 365 = 6.85 rounded up to 7)
-Each Sumpter/Rouncy needs 1 lbs per day (0.25 of food = 500 lbs of food per year / 365 = 1.37 rounded down to 1)


Weeellll if you want to start really be nitpicky about it, Knight's rations would probably be more expensive per weight than ordinary foot soldier, and the horses' oats would be heavier per denarius than the rations that the people eat. So you have leeway of making it heavier if you wish. But like said, I don't really care to go into so much detail. :) For me, Nick's 2000 lbs of food = 100 men or 10 knights (eschille) for a week is good enough.



This "feels" right to me. A PK can go out adventuring for a few days and support his party if he gets lost in the woods or has bad weather or something, but if he wants to take loot or something, he'll need to take the cart.


*thwap* "No no no! You first loots the cart, and then you load the cart with the rest of the loot! Why bother taking a cart through all those forest paths when there are perfectly good carts and horses for transport at the place you are raiding!"
*grumble* "New recruits, need'em for arrowfodder, can't kill 'em..."
:P

Seriously, though, most of the places/people who have loot have means of transporting the said loot, too. Granted, there are some cases when you might wish to bring your baggage train along, but usually that is more like looting a granary or a whole town or something like that... An individual knight seldom needs to bother with that; after all, most valuable loot tends to warhorses of the defeated knights & the knights themselves (ransom).

But sure, I guess if you are going explicitly on a raid and want to bring back bulky stuff (like food), then you could bring the cart along just in case. But 'Just in case' while you are adventuring? Nah, not worth the hassle.

The main issue I'm running into with the "2000 lbs of food = 100 men or 10 knights for one week" approach is simple. The next step I'm trying to work through is hunting. If the players are traveling in a forest and hunt for food, per KAP 5.1 "Assume that a successful roll means the character has found enough food and potable water to keep himself fed for one day. A critical success sustains a character for 1d3 days, or else 1d6 characters for one day (since food spoils). A fumble might mean the character is poisoned by tainted food or water, at the Gamemaster’s discretion."

I'm trying to work out how much weight and food that would be, and also trying to figure out if the horses would qualify. So I'm really trying to marry up two separate systems that probably aren't meant to go together. :P I'm also trying to get it to scale if someone brings an additional Squire, or if they want to bring an extra Charger (perhaps they captured one) or something along those lines. That's why I am trying to break it down a little more than the 200lbs per Knight's Party per week system.

What I'm leaning towards right now is something like this:

-Each Charger requires 50lbs of food per week.
-Each Mounted Knight/Squire/Cavalryman with their associated Rouncy requires 50lbs of food per week.
-For Gameplay Purposes, Sumpters don't "cost" load, they are assumed to carry whatever they need, PLUS provide an additional 200 lbs of space. So I'm basically treating the Sumpter as "free" from a food load standpoint so that everything scales better.

Thus what we end up with is pretty simple.

The standard "Adventuring" party is:
Capacity:
-Charger: +0
-Rouncy x2: +400
-Sumpter: +200

Total Capacity = 600

Equipment Load:
-Knight, Squire, Personal Gear: (400 lbs)
-Travel Gear (50 lbs)

Total Load from Equipment: (450 lbs)

Food Load:
-Charger "Ration Pack"- 7 uses: (50 lbs)
-Knight/Squire/Cavalrymen "Ration Pack" x2 - 7 Uses: (25 lbs each, 50 lbs total)
-Rouncy "Ration Pack" x2- 7 Uses: (25 lbs each, 50 lbs total)
Total Load From Food: (150 lbs)

Remaining Capacity (Capacity Less Equipment Load and Food Load) = 0.

This matches up with Nick's latest numbers of £4/52 = ~£0.75 per week for 150 lbs weekly and allows the adventuring Knight to go for a week of travel and is at least somewhat in line with the upcoming Book of Castles. It also fits within the abstracted 200lbs = Knight's Party for 1 week system (although it isn't exact, but none of this really is anyway). IMHO what makes this work is making the Sumpters "Free" from a food load standpoint. That helps with the scalability a lot. I've massively abstracted things so that the food amounts are at 150 lbs, but it's broken down in such a way that if you wanted to bring additional horses or riders (let's say, you bring an extra squire), you are also going to need to add additional Sumpters to carry the provisions. So a Baron with 2 Squires will need to adventure with 2 Sumpters, but would have capacity for a 3rd Squire as well should he decide to bring all of them with him. So Sumpters = Space, Rouncies and People = Food, Chargers = Lots of Food! Pretty simple IMHO.

So with *this* version of the numbers, what I can say is when you hunt, you can refill your "people" ration packs with additional uses, up to their max load of 7. On a success, refill one ration use for yourself. On a critical success, refill 3 ration uses for one pack, or add 1 ration back for everyone's pack (up to a max of 6 packs). Based on this, I sure hope someone in the party can get critical hunting rolls a lot, or that they don't intend to have to hunt for their food for long!

On a related note, I assume it would not be possible to hunt for your horse's food. Would it be reasonable to say that if you traveled at the slowest pace, you could scavenge enough food and water to keep your horse from "breaking", or if they don't get their oats will they have a decline in quality and "break." Would this be the same for both the Rouncies and the Chargers or would the Chargers have different rules? Maybe if you plan to go into the forest for an extended period of time, you might choose to leave your Charger behind?

FYI, for some context, I'm preparing for the Forest Sauvage, so I'm trying to get all of this sorted out before my players start that portion of the campaign. I assume there will be periods where they are in the forest for an extended period of time and am trying to make sure I understand the mechanics here. Thanks again all.

The horses can certainly graze to get their food. I don't think the warhorse is going to suddenly founder if he doesn't get his oats. Perhaps something like a CON roll each week to avoid being reduced "a level" to rouncy etc.

NT

So after all that discussion, here's what I'm trying next week.

Capacity: Each horse or wagon (with the exception of the Charger who will be carrying the Knight's arms and armor) adds to the traveling party's capacity. To keep things simple, I've divided everything into 50 lbs increments I am calling "capacity" so that it's easier for people (myself included!) to track:

Wagon (2000 lbs): Capacity 40
Cart (1000 lbs): Capacity 20
Rouncy (200 lbs): Capacity 4
Sumpter (200 lbs): Capacity 4



Load: I've tried to group everything into abstract 50 lbs increments called "load." I'll tell my players to think of them as "packs" of sorts. Thus, if something weighs 200 lbs, it has a "load" of 4, if it is 100 lbs, it has a "load" of 2, and so on. Load subtracts from the available capacity for the traveling party.

Knight/Squire/Cavalryman: Load 4
Rations (50 lbs, 14 uses): Load 1
Oats (50 lbs, 14 uses): Load 1
Travel Gear (50 lbs): Load 1


Food: To make scaling easy, Sumpters and carts do not need food. They are considered to graze or carry whatever food they need. Everything else must eat either rations or oats. If you do not have enough rations to feed your party, you must seek out or hunt for more food. If you do not have enough oats, you must move at the slowest pace as your horses must spend most of their time grazing and getting water. Rations and Oats have 14 uses per "Load" or "Pack." When traveling at a normal or hurried pace, you will mark off the following amount of food each day from your packs until they are "used up" and then you reduce the number of available packs:

Chargers: Oats 2
Rouncies: Oats 1
People: Rations 1




The typical "Adventuring" party has the following values (and matches pretty closely with the KAP 5.1 core rules, and the Book of Castles values provided by Nick T and Morien):

Knight (with Personal Gear): 200 Load, Eats 1 Ration Per Day
Squire (with Personal Gear): 200 Load, Eats 1 Ration Per Day
Charger (carries Knight's Arms and Armor): 0 Capacity, Eats 2 Oats Per Day
Rouncy (carries Knight and Personal Gear): 400 Capacity, Eats 1 Oats Per Day
Rouncy (carries Squire and Personal Gear): 400 Capacity, Eats 1 Oats Per Day
Sumpter (carries Travel Gear, 1 Ration "Pack", and 2 "Oat" Packs): 400 Capacity, Eats 0 Oats Per Day


The above values make the "Adventuring Party" self sustaining for 7 days of travel (14 Rations/2 per day = 7 days, 28 Rations/4 per day = 7 days). If you add more People, Chargers, or Rouncies, you will also need more capacity for food, or will consume at a faster rate. If you make someone walk, you are able to carry more load. This way I can simulate a Knight rescuing a lady, capturing another mounted Knight and charger, taking loot, etc without having to go too deep into simulation world (as we've already calculated this out). It's all abstract (particularly the weight of the travel gear and the Knights/Squires), but it maintains true to the "spirit" of the core rules and "KAP Game Logic".

The remaining question for "load" is whether or not you should ever be able to use the Charger to carry load. Let's say you capture a Knight and have him ride his charger. Do you "break" the charger by using him as a riding horse? What if the PK loses a Rouncy somehow? Maybe make a Horsemanship roll to avoid breaking the Charger if you use that noble beast as a pack animal?

Next up, travel rates. Thanks again all.

OK, having established that the "Adventuring Party" will typically carry 7 days of food (50 lbs rations, 100 lbs oats), we know that without additional capacity, the party will be limited to 7 days of travel without having to replenish their food.

So next we need to establish the appropriate movement rates. I've seen a few places for this (KAP 5.1, KAP 4, GPC) and the numbers are similar but not quite consistent. Here's what I am thinking to consolidate the various rules. I'd love feedback on this:

Travel Rates (mi/day)

Cautious Pace: This pace is used when travelers are taking great care to avoid ambushes (possibly sending scouts ahead to keep a lookout), to look for tracks or other signs, to find their way when lost, or the like, or if your horses are out of Oats and have to graze for all of their food. If you are traveling through dangerous lands and choose to travel at this pace to avoid detection, check prudent.

-Royal Road: 10 miles
-Local Road: 5 miles
-Path: 2 miles
-Overland/Track: GM decides between 1-2 miles depending on the difficulty of the terrain. Default is 1 mile.

Slow Pace: This is the fastest pace that you can travel at if you are traveling with Ladies, wagons, siege trains, merchants, monks on donkeys, characters needing Chirurgery, etc. It is assumed that at this speed you will be starting and stopping frequently more than normal because you either have a long baggage train, or are traveling with those unaccustomed to (or unable to) traveling at a faster pace.

-Royal Road: 15 miles
-Local Road: 10 miles
-Path: 5 miles
-Overland/Trail: GM decides between 1-5 miles depending on the difficulty of the terrain. Default is 2 miles.

Normal Pace: This is the normal "walk, trot, walk, rest, repeat" pace for soldiers. It is the same for both mounted and infantry because the horses must spend some time grazing or getting water. Cart teams may move at this speed, but Wagons are too heavy and must move at the Leisurely pace.

-Royal Road: 20 miles
-Local Road: 15 miles
-Path: 10 miles
-Overland/Track: GM decides between 1-10 miles depending on the difficulty of the terrain. Default is 3 miles.


Hurried Pace: This is a very fast pace and may only be undertaken if the entire party is mounted and traveling light (usually no more than 1 Charger, 2 Rouncies, and 1 Sumpter per Knight as per the normal "Adventuring Party" makeup). The standard "walk, trot, walk, rest, repeat" pattern is still followed, but rest times are kept to a minimum, the "trot" pace is more frequent, and small mounted parties spend less time waiting on baggage trains and carts. Moving at this pace means that horses are not given as much time to graze, so each horse's food must be supplemented with oats, even if they normally do not require them. This means that when moving at this pace, Sumpters require 1 Oat ration a day like the Rouncies.

-Royal Road: 30 miles
-Local Road: 25 miles
-Path: 15 miles
-Overland/Track: GM decides between 1-15 miles depending on the difficulty of the terrain. Default is 4 miles.

Forced March: This is a deliberate effort to go farther and faster than normal, pushing the traveling party to their physical limits. A forced march means that horses are not given as much time to graze, so each horse's food must be supplemented with oats, even if they normally do not require them. This means that when moving at this pace, Sumpters require 1 Oat ration a day like the Rouncies. The party is also focused on moving and less on scouting, so you should check "Reckless" if forcing a march while traveling through dangerous lands. Select a pace to travel at as listed above, then make a CON roll for each member of the party who is on foot, and for each horse traveling at this pace to see how many additional miles you are able to travel in the forced march.

-If the roll is successful, add three times the slowest character’s or mount’s Movement Rate as a bonus in miles to the distance normally traveled for the party's selected pace. The GM may make further adjustments as he deems necessary. Party members may split up to enable some of them move at a faster pace. A critical success on this CON roll has no additional effect beyond that of the standard forced march.

-A failed CON roll indicates exhaustion: The character or mount stops after moving half the attempted distance and must rest for several hours, perhaps for the rest of the day (the Gamemaster must determine the exact time spent resting).

-A fumbled CON roll in a forced march indicates that a serious injury was taken during the day’s travel. Distance traveled and rest needed are the same as for failure, but if a horse fumbles the roll, it is lamed. A character fumbling the roll takes 2d6 damage from heat stroke, a sprained limb, or some other travel mishap. (See “Injury and Health” in Chapter 6.)

A few questions:

1. Am I correct in assuming that Wagons must move at the Leisurely pace due to their weight, but Carts can move at a "normal" pace? I want to make sure this aligns with whatever is in Book of Castles (which is actually true for all of the above!)

2. IMHO, the penalties for the forced march are pretty low. From what I am reading, it seems like if a horse was forced to march, it was often swapped out. It feels to me like there should be some sort of penalty to using a horse that has been forced to march in combat. That being said, I'm not trying to house rule here (besides the "oats" which I consider more of a clarification), I'm trying to consolidate existing rules in one place so if no one is aware of such a rule, I don't want to add it.

Thanks again all.

Edit: Updated based on feedback.

I think it all looks great, Bryan. Good work, sir. Just a few quick comments.

Not crazy about the "Breakneck" label. Don't have a better alternative handy. Also, I'm not sure that the penalties (every ten miles over 20) are frequent enough. I'd consider every five miles over 20.

Yeah, I think there needs to be a mechanic of laming your horse (a fumbled CON? — means they have to be put down or have to be retired, at least) and a way to ride your horse to death. Maybe a fumbled CON AND a fumbled Horsemanship? It should be rare—and require a conscious decision by the player to ride that hard—but possible, IMO. It is a classic trope for mounted adventurers, though not so much for this genre.

Anyhoo—I like it!


T.

KAP already has the Forced March rules, with a chance of laming a horse for good. Why not use that when pushing the horses past the Hurried pace?

Because I copied and pasted the standard movement rules into a separate document to compare with the rules from the GPC and KAP 4, and forgot to copy the Forced March rules so I overlooked them. :o

Forced March rules are perfect. I am not trying to create house rules here, just consolidate existing rules into a consistent framework. Thanks for the reminder, I will re-work the above later today and correct that section. ;D

I also need to add the reckless check for moving faster than normal in dangerous territory and prudent for traveling slowly in dangerous territory.

Edit: Updated post about movement based on feedback: http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=2936.msg22460#msg22460